I skipped a week again, unfortunately. I’m not giving up and I still think weekly is the right cadence. I think setting up this whole site has been a lot more time-consuming than I gave it credit for. I did manage to get going on some of the book reviews and the first tarot deep dive. I am so excited about the tarot stuff because I definitely started to go down a rabbit hole with the first one. Maybe I’ll add more to The Fool down the line but I didn’t have enough time to add more before publishing it yesterday morning.
Something amazing has been happening, though. It seems so obvious that it would happen after I started reading again. I was worried that even though I wanted to get into writing essays, that I would have nothing to say or nothing that would strike me as interesting enough to write about. However, I have found about 3 topics I would like to explore. There is one that I think is going to be more than a simple short essay. This one, in my opinion, has the potential to expand into a university-level thesis paper. I truly attribute this to reading so much lately as well as stepping away some from scrolling social media. My screentime used to be somewhere around 6-8 hours a day and I knew that had to change. I started using the app Opal to block apps during certain times of the day and have cut that time down to around 3 – 3.5 hours. I’m slowly reclaiming my time and attention span and it feels good.
In the past two weeks, I have dived deep into the world of fermented foods. I watched a TikTok video a while ago now where a chef was learning to make things like soy sauce and miso at home. I finally took the time to see what that process looked like and that led me even further. Shoyu (or Japanese soy sauce) is made using something called Koji which is a specific type of culinary mold that can be grown on rice or beans. Then, I started looking at kombucha, mead, cheeses, sake, etc. I also learned how tofu can be made. While it’s going to be a long process, I’m excited to try these now that the process has been demystified for me.
My garden is another thing that has been at the top of my list. I’ve revamped my plan for the design and I am very happy with it. It’s going to be a U-shape with raised beds, a water fountain in the middle, and a small bistro table. I’m going to put some sort of pavers throughout and fill the cracks with lemon frost thyme. I contacted my HOA and I don’t think they’re going to let me have a greenhouse, but it’s ok because I had a backup design just in case. I may seek feedback from them because they specifically said that it wasn’t going to blend with the existing structure. I’m uncertain if that’s the greenhouse or if there’s something more I can do to make it acceptable. In the meantime, I’ll use the extra space for additional raised beds. We’re both excited because the pop-up plant nursery should be coming back at the beginning of April.
I’m still working toward getting a laptop that is capable of handling not only my writing, but any 3D modeling and digital art I might want to do. I was going to go for a low to midrange MacBook Air, but I think I may need to spend the extra money to invest in memory and processing. More for the longevity of the investment so I don’t find myself needing something more powerful down the line. I’ve struggled with this a bit because there is a lot I want to do with the garden. There’s also wedding expenses and plans to think about. So, what I think I’ve landed on for this year is to use the raised beds that I have already in the garden and purchase the laptop. I’ll be able to grow what I want to grow in the garden and maintain my sanity while trying to plan a wedding. I would really love to do the overhaul, but I might be pushing myself to do far too much. Maybe I can start accumulating what I’ll need for it next year without trying to do it all in a month.
For the week ahead, I want to dedicate some time to figuring out what my 0.1% is that I mentioned last time. It is high time I get focused on truly defining that for my health and wellness goals. It’s not enough to think about it, I need to define it and write it down. I have a ton of goals but the truth is they don’t need to all be accomplished this year. Progress of any sort is the most important thing and I’ve started having a more realistic view of how to handle that. I also want to complete the next installment of the tarot deep dive with The Magician. Finally, I need to write more book reviews, which seems to be a daunting task. I think what I’m going to do is write reviews of books as I finish reading them while they’re still fresh in my memory, and then slowly finish filling out the backlog from 2025. I worry that trying to catch up is going to cause me to start forgetting insights into the books I’m finishing in 2026 before I can get to them. I just finished Wild Dark Shore today and that’s I think where I’ll start. Once that is done, I’ll work on past reads.
I have a few things I need to get done in the next hour as far as ordering our Save the Dates, so I’ll keep this one more brief than the others. Progress is being made, even if it has been more slowly than I intended. That is the reality of the situation and the fact that I’m still going is a great sign. A lot of people quit altogether if it is not fitting exactly as planned. I’m seeing small benefits of my progress and that is enough to spur me forward.
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