My Weekly Checkup (#8)

A Collection of Some Things I Found, Some Thoughts I Had This Week

Today's Weekly Checkup continues the theme of sharing videos with you. And that's the only theme that there is today. Really. If you can discover some sort of thread that runs through these three videos (beyond the fact that all three amuse me to no end), I will be impressed. (Figuring out the right order took almost as long as writing everything up, and linking to the videos--in the end, I picked the order that I found them originally.)

As always, consider reading through each section and watching each video (they are short): besides the benefits of discovering a new topic or subject, you will gain more insights into my own personal thoughts and inspirations.

Vegetable Gardening and Me (#4)

As I mentioned in my first post on gardening, I want to make this a weekly post. I am not an expert gardener, and I have made plenty of mistakes, but my adventures may help others have more fun and success. 

Today I provide a quick update on my garden, and bemoan my lack of planning. Again.

The Prologue Part 6: These Three Dreams of Inspiration & Hope

Life is full of singular moments whose roots are like rocky springs, seeping out from hidden places. Like mountain streams, these events tumble downhill, building momentum. Along the way, they collect insights and epiphanies, gathering solutions to various problems. Saturated with wisdom, and bursting with energy, they flow forward, seeking open, flat land where the soil thirsts for resolution and relief. 

No matter how parched you are, if you have prepared yourself well, and stand at the ready, the oncoming flood can be channeled together and diverted into pools. The experiences that coalesced into rivers and creeks can be collected, harvested into reservoirs of memories, to be used against future droughts.  

My Weekly Checkup (#7)

A Collection of Some Things I Found, Some Thoughts I Had This Week

Today's Weekly Checkup includes several videos that I like to watch from time to time. Most of them are snippets of movies, documentaries, or television shows. Each one continues to evoke an emotion in me, even after repeated viewings.

As always, consider reading through each section and watching each video (they are short): besides the benefits of discovering a new topic or subject, you will gain more insights into my own personal thoughts and inspirations.

Vegetable Gardening and Me (#3)

As I mentioned in my first post on gardening, I want to make this a weekly post. I am not an expert gardener, and I have made plenty of mistakes, but my adventures may help others have more fun and success. 

Today I discuss the importance of planning, my new raised bed, and a solution for the rabbit problem.

The Prologue (Part 5): Embracing Dreams and the Opportunities they May Bring...

“No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the
Continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by
The sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory
Were.
As well as if a manor of they
Friend’s 
Or of thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes
Me,
Because I am involved in
Mankind;
And therefore never send to
Know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.”
~John Donne, excerpt from “Meditation 17”

In last week’s post, I talked about embarrassment and humiliation. For most of my life, whenever I had made a mistake, my mind automatically treated it as an humiliating event. From that mental glitch arose my social anxiety. That struggle undermined my actions, reinforced my inaction, and sabotaged a lot of of my relationships. How this all developed is a discussion for another day. Instead, I want to focus on something positive: a series of decisions I made that inspired me to transition from a life of always feeling humiliated whenever I had made a mistake, to one of feeling embarrassed first. 

(Then doing the mature thing and negotiating with the other person on where to go from there.)

My Weekly Checkup (#6)

A Collection of Some Things I Found, Some Thoughts I Had This Week

Today's Weekly Checkup is about three books that helped me understand things I thought I already did, and an emerging field of psychology that I have found very useful and insightful.

As always, consider reading through each section: besides the benefits of discovering a new topic or subject, you will gain more insights into my own personal thoughts and developments.

Vegetable Gardening and Me (#2)

As I mentioned in my first post on gardening, I want to make this a weekly post. I am not an expert gardener, and I have made plenty of mistakes, but my adventures may help others have more fun and success. 

Today I discuss my setup: last year I switched from a raised bed to a no-till system.

A Brief Interlude (#2)

This post started out as an elaboration of what I meant by "dreams", in The Prologue (Part 2): Of Lighthouses, Maps, and Dreams. After two hours of writing, I thought I had exactly what I wanted. Then I decided to put it aside, and returned to it after dinner, intent on polishing it up. Nearly three hours have passed. In that time, I realized I needed to work through a few ideas before I could fully explain my "dreams". And that has required me to work through my thoughts on “embarrassment” and “humiliation”.

That is why I am doing all this, to unravel truths, even the uncomfortable ones. While this may all seem meandering and long, please remember, it took me forty-two years to get here.

My Weekly Checkup (#5)

A Collection of Some Things I Found, Some Thoughts I Had This Week

Today's Weekly Checkup is about inspiration. I find the internet a fascinating place (yes, sometimes, disturbing). It's full of creative people expressing themselves. I admire their courage, respect their knowledge, and enjoy their enthusiasm. Here are a few links to people I have discovered in recent months.

(Although I have categorized the links, please read through each one carefully. The material I cover, and the sources I link to have more to do with creativity in general, than the categories that I put them under.)

Vegetable Gardening and Me (#1)

My hope is to expand this part of my blog, and produce a weekly update of my progress with growing vegetables. I’ll provide more practical information as time goes by, and plenty of pictures. Maybe even a video or two. I am not an expert, but I do a lot of research and experimenting, and have had some success, despite my failures. So, please join me for future gardening adventures! 

The Prologue (Part 4): About a Map that Inspired a Dream...

“I am sorry. I am sorry because I have failed to give you what you have the right to demand of me as your teacher: sympathy, encouragement, and humanity… by so doing I have degraded the noblest calling that man can follow—the care and molding of the young.”

          ~ Andrew Crocker-Harris' final speech, The Browning Version (1951)

This is not a post about the school I taught at.

Nor a post about how I became a teacher.

      (There will be time for those things.)

It is instead a post about two forces

     That kept me from giving up on being one again.