daily life – Page 94 – The Hermits' Rest

Changing My Patterns

This is the Blue Fish brand I still wear from the 1990s.

Everyone has some patterns in their life that could be tweaked, changed, or eliminated. For me, one I’ve been thinking about a lot is clothing. The number of times I have had to clean out my closet recently tells me that a) I often buy trendy things that actually don’t work out for my body type, and b) I keep gaining and losing weight, so I can’t wear half of what is in my closet at any one time. Then, things change, and I wish I hadn’t given all the previous stuff away. Now that I am just enjoying who I am and not stressing over my size, I do hope I’m stable.

I do try to buy clothing that will last a long time. I have been reading a lot about the “fast clothing” concept, and while it does provide some jobs for people overseas, I’d just rather conserve resources by buying things that will last me a long time, or can be re-used by someone else. That’s what I do with things that are way too small or way too large (depending on my current size).

Overcommitted? Me? Maybe Not!

I read a lovely article today about a woman who was overwhelmed and realized the work she was doing had nothing to do with her actual talents or things she enjoyed doing. She got therapy, pondered a while, and POOF, she’s now living on a goat farm in a yurt, perfectly happy to enjoy a quiet life.

Yurt, sweet yurt. Image by *@sojourneynicole via Twenty20*

I’m happy for her. As she pointed out, it’s not a character flaw to be someone who shudders at the idea of trying to “make it” and cramming as much as possible to achieve some new goal every few months or climbing the corporate ladder until you “win.” Knowing full well that most people aren’t going to “make it” or “win,” it’s probably a good idea to take comfort in more modest goals and aspirations that allow you to live a full but not overfull life.

Looking at the list of things I’m involved with lately, you’d think I am among the over-achieving group and that I am trying to “win” at something. Most organizations volunteered for? Most confusing schedule? I sure don’t look like a very good hermit.

Hair Color Hmm

I wrote last week about how extremely red my latest Overtone color was. It definitely was fire hair. I’ve now washed it twice, with interesting results, to say the least.

The hair itself has become more orange with each wash. And, as usual, my gray fades fast (more on that later). And oddly enough, my scalp was dyed quite red and continues to be that way. I guess it’s like that stuff for thinning hair you put on to make it LOOK like more is there. Thanks, hair color.

I am glad I had a spare old pillowcase for my bed and the hotel last weekend, because after dyeing it, it got all over the place. I also dried my hair with an old beach towel.

It looks better in better light. Note I have different glasses on in each picture. Hmm.

I’ve used the conditioner in the red for dark hair each time I’ve washed it. I guess it helps. However, my hands turn quite red, a bluish red, as you can see. It usually takes me multiple washes to get my hands back to normal. The other Overtone conditioners do not color my hands.

This hand has been washed three times. Hmm.

My advice?

I’d suggest that if you want to use the Overtone for dark hair colors, you also invest in a box of gloves to use, even when you wash and condition your hair. And don’t expect it to stay true to color.

On the other hand, the current color is nice, and will do until I re-up the red again. I’m probably going to do it Friday morning so it will last through my trip next week. And I will take the old pillowcase in my luggage!

The War Between Exercise and Nature

Some days I get quite annoyed with the exercise tracker on my Apple Watch. There are days when I KNOW I have gotten a lot of exercise but the watch stubbornly displays the “fact” that I just got a few minutes. Take last weekend as an example. On Friday I went on a long hike and my legs could feel it. Then I walked all over the Hilton. The watch did not agree.

Yep, looks like on Friday I got about 8 minutes.

Every morning, it gleefully informs me that I get two minutes walking the dog. And it does believe I’m exercising when I walk up and down the parking garage. But, when I walk around the pasture? When I take the dogs on a longer walk? Not so much.

How come?

It’s because of Nature, that’s why. These days I am completely incapable of going on a nice brisk walk, arms swinging merrily (because that’s how the watch knows I’m moving, as I’ve probably mentioned before), for numerous consecutive minutes. I was proud to do it yesterday for enough minutes to reach my goal, but that’s because we didn’t let ourselves or the dogs be distracted.

Usually, though, something distracts me, and not just the dog needing to sniff or do his business. I just see things or hear things that I have to investigate. There seems to be a bird, a bug, or a flower every few feet, and this nature gal just has to check them out, and most likely take a picture. I mean, heck, iNaturalist is always there, wanting me to add stuff and make my number larger.

Fire Hair

Most of you know that I’ve been playing with hair color for the past few years. It has been blue, maroon, pink, purple, and white. Why?

Who knows? It was fun. Especially since I started using this Overtime stuff. It doesn’t hurt my hair and fades fast enough that I don’t get sick of any color. And they are also excellent conditioners with ingredients you recognize. They smell like mint and rosemary, too. Nice.

Today I tried one of their intense colors made for dark hair. These have a lot of pigment. I bought the intense rose gold and red. I let Anita decide which one to try, and she picked the red.

I’m glad I had gloves. My hands turned really red when I rinsed, too. I had an old towel and plan to sleep on an old pillowcase.

I’m happy, though, that even my brown hair shows the color. It will be fun to see how it fades!

One day I’ll let my hair be normal. It looks fine that way, too. I just like having fun with impermanent color. I’m scared of permanent things like tattoos or piercings.

How about you? How do you express your wild side?

Doing Nothing Strenuous

I said I wouldn’t do anything strenuous today. I think I succeeded. We just had a nice family day followed by an equally nice Sunday dinner for 7.

The weather was so nice that we started outside a lot. I put up some fall decorations I’d found, walked with various dogs, and tried to catch up with writing. That’s why this is so late. Lots to write.

We even had a visit from Mandi, who brought her son by to talk to Chris about welding. Chris got to show him all the stuff on his truck, which is interesting to welders.

Walks are fun. Kathleen found a snakeskin. Nature.

Dinners

Our Sunday night dinners have taken on a life of their own. Whoever is in town and not sick shows up. Actually a sick lesson even sent their food. That was sweet.

I had to get this beautiful sky. It seems so big out here.

Tonight Kathleen wanted me to take pictures of her with Martha and Mike, while we were out walking, since we are all dinner buddies. Then we sat on the porch. My sister made lovely home-made lasagna, Kathleen made dessert, and we all laughed as usual.

Oh yes. We spent much time looking at the moon. Group activities for the nature living set!

The moon behind clouds. The two white dots are Mandi’s house.

Doing Good at Feeling Fine

This whole thing where I work really hard to live in the moment (ruining my previous hobbies of “pre-worrying” and “dwelling on how things could have gone) has really been working out. Little things keep happening and I just look at them as bumps in the road as I sail down my merry path. And, hey, look, today’s tarot card even shows my merry path!

It is always fun to me when I’m subconsciously thinking of something, and my reading literally draws a picture of it. Archetypes amuse me.

My quest to enjoy the moment led to me just sitting at last night’s high school football game and listening to the drama and pageantry, without worrying about winning or losing. It was just pleasant to be around nice people doing small-town things.

In fact, the current plan is to go with the lady who sits next to me at the games and watch the Away game next Friday. She is a whiz at football, so almost as fun to watch a high school game with as my kids’ friend Wes, who analyzed the games from his trombone spot. He’s now a high-school football coach, so his dream came true, even if his parents didn’t want him playing the game. I’m so glad to make new friends.

Football action. Note how many people the other team had in the stands. They were from a LONG way (Katy, Texas). They won State last year, and we were the only team that beat them. I hope it’s that way for them this year, too.

On my way home I got to see a huge owl eating a kill, then flying off when my car approached [hn hn – Vlassic typed that by laying his head on the keyboard]. Then I found a big spider in the garage, but Vlassic scared it off before I could get a picture.

What? Capitalization Rules Don’t Fascinate You?

My friends, my colleagues, and I have a rousing good time whenever one of us is stumped by a spelling, grammar, or punctuation rule. (Have I mentioned before that I am an editor/tech writer by day?) The amount of gusto with which we throw ourselves into figuring out the right answer has got to look funny to passersby at work (luckily at home no one can see us).

Recently, there have been a few capitalization questions that have come up, mostly because we are revising some old content and adding new headings. Every once in a while something looks “funny” to one of us.

Luckily, we solved most of the first mysteries by going to our preferred style guides. Microsoft disagreed with Chicago Manual of Style on hyphenated words in sentence case, but since we are a software company, Microsoft won.

Thus, Hyphenated-Word Capitalization Looks Like This

Mabon Floral Abundance

A prelude

Honestly: Today I felt like I finally turned the corner that was supposed to come ten days ago. It may or may not be true that it has something to do with the autumnal equinox, when we celebrate harvesting what we’ve sown.

I had some wonderful conversations in real life and messaging today. All were with people I’ve listened to and supported in the past, but now they are supporting me. That’s a great harvest of kindness!

Still, I drew a tarot card today, and it was the same one I’ve been doodling lately: the three of swords.

Dogs Are Weird But Good

We have not had any dog issues since night before last. In fact, last night I sat on the back porch and watched the three younger dogs running and playing with toys for nearly an hour. Vlassic was happy as he’s ever been.

But then, last night, he was sleeping directly in front of my face, still reeking of dead mouse, so I got up and took care of some needs. When I came back, he was gone, and he never came back to bed. I found him outside in the morning. This is the first time in the over a year that I’ve had him when he didn’t sleep on me (or Lee or Anita).

That made me sad. But this morning, he was so glad to see me that he kept jumping into my hand as I tried to pet him. So, I bent down to give him some loving. Suddenly, I was off the ground. Alfred had ALSO wanted some loving, so he came between my legs. I laughed and laughed, all by myself.

There’s still at least some water. No floods here.

Penney, Carlton, and Harvey have been swimming in the pond lately. It’s quite low, but still over Penney’s head, as she discovered yesterday. Vlassic still prefers his pool. At least it got rid of some of the mouse smell.

We’ve been having a bit of trouble with Carlton running off to visit the calves, still. He just loves them. The cows don’t mind much, so, we’ll just keep working on him coming when called from far away.

We sure enjoy these guys, even when they are challenging. Life it better with all their antics!