Gardening at last!

I found a decent greenhouse at Sam's Club for only a hundred dollars.  I consider that a bargain for its size at 6' x 8' (1.8m x 2.4m) footprint with height enough to stand.  The really nice thing about the greenhouse was that it came in a nice little package that I could fit in my car.  I don't have a proper hauling vehicle, although my car gets the terrible gas mileage of one.  The greenhouse installed like a tent, including spikes to hold it down when the wind gets strong.

I repurposed the cardboard packaging into a raised garden bed inside the greenhouse.  The plot I am using is filled with rocks.  I dug down about a half foot for the base of the raised garden bad and sifted all the rocks out.  The first day I sifted dirt, I used my bare hands.  I found a lot of vibrant earthworms, but my hands were horribly dried out.  I left the greenhouse alone for about a week while I regained energy and cuticles.  The next time I sifted dirt, I used a shallow tub filled with water and a cheap colander.  I filled the colander with dry dirt, and dunked the colander in the tub.  After soaking it and swishing it around a while, I would be left with rocks and roots.  These I dumped outside the greenhouse.  Then I scooped up the dirt that sank to the bottom of the tub and put it in a container where I kept the sorted dirt.  I repeated this colander sifting process until I was thoroughly tired.  I still have dirt left to sift, but I had enough to mix in with my store-bought dirt.

I used the lasagna method to fill the garden bed once I set up the cardboard box.  I layered the bottom of the space with newspapers.  Then I put in a layer of really wet leaves that I composted over the winter.  Then I put in some store-bought garden dirt.  Then I put in some store-bought peat moss.  I put my hand sifted native dirt on top and repeated the layering with leaves, dirt, and peat moss.

Once I finished the garden bed, I planted seeds of baby carrots, beets, zucchini, and green onions.  I had about a 2' x 2' (0.6m x 0.6m) sized plot.  I had cut the greenhouse package in half, so I still have the other half to make another garden bed.  If the cardboard starts falling apart, I will shore it up with decorative stones.

I'm really glad I finally did this.  It took a lot of hard manual labor when I really didn't have much energy or willpower to go outside and do it.  Now at the very least, I can maintain this one garden bed and do what it takes to keep the plants alive and growing.  I realize that setting up a greenhouse at the dawn of a hot summer is not the best plan, but if I have to I can leave both doors open and hang a tarp over it to shade during the hottest part of the day.  I am really interested in finding either a solar fan or setting up a ridiculously overdone solar power grid to power a fan and misters.

After working with the greenhouse, I can see the real downer is that it has no screens.  It's either closed up and boiling hot, or open and filled with flying insects.  I have a roll of screen for fixing house window screens.  I'm thinking of McGyvering a removable screen door by combining the power of velcro and a hot glue gun.

My purpose is to stomp procrastination

I excel at one thing over all other talents: procrastination. If I got a nickel for every moment that I procrastinate, I would build a tower to the moon with my nickels...if I ever got around to it. Perfectionism hounds me at every turn. No matter what I am doing, there is always something else looking more fun, rewarding, or necessary. I have often received compliments on my work in the past, but rather than encourage me to continue practicing my talent, I have felt oppressed by the need to work harder until my life is completely drained of fun. That's the roadmap to Stressville.

Do I want to live my life in Stressville? Do I want to build a family there? Do I want to retire there? Of course not!

My heart breaks a little each time I want to take action and hold myself back, each time I want to speak up with the truth and stay silent. Heart ache is all procrastination will ever bring. Sometimes, procrastination can be disguised as a more noble cause such as sacrifice, fairness, and humility. Those can be useful qualities to possess, but in excess, they become oppression, injustice, and shame. Essentially, each time I procrastinate, I am voluntarily giving up a piece of my soul.

What can I do to counteract the negative force of procrastination? Increase my self discipline. If I concentrate on improving my self control, I will build resistance to the demoralizing effect of procrastination. I can build up one area of my life at a time: finance, wellness, intellectual pursuits, spiritual growth. The list goes on and on. Each area improved brings new strength to those areas I've already worked on. If I practice self discipline, eventually time will give me what I need and want from life.

Procrastination comes from impatiently demanding that time pay all the fruits of labor in advance and continually failing to contribute. Procrastinators are time moochers. My goal is to contribute my fair share for what I have already received and go even farther to exceed my own expectations of myself.  My purpose in life is to find the way around unjustified hesitation and take action towards being happy.

Dieting is a Gimmick

There comes a point when increasing self discipline when will can easily be broken. Ideally, willpower should only be used to set the stage for a successful change. My attempt to maintain an all raw food diet is not working out so well. The simple reason is that I ordered girl scout cookies about a month before deciding to embark on this fitness trial, and they arrived right after I started.

Eating fruit all the time is a wonderful treat. I really enjoy banana spinach smoothies. I love my amateur homemade guacamole. I feel like I have to pressure myself to keep eating fruit sometimes. I've grown accustomed to getting sweet healthy raw food at regular intervals. My kitchen is overloaded with an abundance of fruits, nuts, and vegetables. So when the cookies are just laying around, somehow my willpower completely overlooks the fact that they are not on my list. If I have one thin mint, then I have at least half a box if not the whole box. At that point, it's very difficult to want to keep preparing healthy meals. Cookies are ready to eat and pack many calories into an easy to devour package. Vegetables take time to wash, cut, and mix, and the will to keep up with all that can go out at any point if there are more convenient calories nearby.

I don't think the raw food diet is bad. I experienced heightened consciousness when I was making the transition to the eating style, and my digestion worked better than ever. The difficult part is saying no to social eating and long lasting energy. I love the smoothies, but they don't make a meal all themselves because doing so causes a major sugar crash. I miss the ability to go for four straight hours without getting hungry. The advantage of the raw food diet is you get to eat all the time. The disadvantage of the raw food diet is you HAVE TO eat all the time.

Instead of trying yet another restrictive diet, I will follow my gut and use the logic of how I will feel after I eat something to determine what and when I will eat. I'm calling this my "Brenda diet" because I find the excuse of being on a diet convenient when turning down donuts and cake at work. On the other hand, it's a diet specifically tailored to my physical needs developed by my own mind. I am the guru of my own eating plan so I don't have to fear being too far away from the source of information.

So yes, dieting is a gimmick, but if the purpose of a gimmick is to get you through the door, then dieting at least gets you through the first step toward consciously choosing health over lethargy.

The Future is a harsh mistress

Living for the future is a good way to be let down.  I once paid for a used car in five months.  I worked two jobs simultaneously for a month to save up for the down payment and averaged four hours of sleep per night that whole month.  One job was pizza delivery, and the other was a waitress on the graveyard shift at a Denny's.  I enjoyed my day job, but my car was falling apart.  I took the waitress job thinking I would be working a couple nights a week.  The manager started scheduling me full time as soon as I was trained.  That job really sucked the life out of me.  There was one night about three weeks in where I wanted to walk out, but I was too tired to walk home and I didn't have my car that night.  As soon as I bought a replacement car, I quit that job.  After I finished paying for my car, I took a promotion to assistant manager at the pizza joint.  This promotion involved a huge pay cut since I wasn't getting tips anymore from delivery.  I went from laying down lots of money on a new lemon and still having extra cash to spend to having no car payment and no extra money.

I hurried to pay for that car because I wanted my budget clear to go back to college.  I didn't want any debt to weigh down my conscience when I needed all my will to finish school.  Eventually I got enough from loans and scholarships to quit working and just focus on school.  Then I got hit by a truck...so I'm told.  When making a left turn, I was rear ended by a truck whose driver fell asleep.  I hit my head, lost a lot of blood, and lost all memory of the incident.  All I got as proof were a few pictures of a car with a body half the length of the one I bought and the frame sticking out from the bottom.  My plan to take care of my future was dashed in an instant.  My so-called friends would not give me rides to get a new job or to go to the university in the next town over.  I realized that I had placed the bulk of my faith in material investments and shallow people.  I was sorely depressed for a long time.  I finally moved away for a long while just to get a clean break from loser friends and unemployment.

The point of my story is that the future cannot be reliably planned.  I often find myself easily convinced that if I work really hard, I can get ahead of my debt and be free.  When I fall into this mentality, I find that I'm far more easily stressed because every tiny thing that clashes with my well laid plans causes my dream future to get further and further away.  I'm tired of chasing carrots dangling from sticks.  Am I going to curl up in the fetal position until the big mean future goes away?  No, I've tried that a few times and can honestly tell you that it doesn't work.  Instead I'm going to use what I actually have: now.  I have now, and the future is just a shadow being cast by the past as the present shines through it.  Though the past is unchanging, it is not written in stone.  The past is the amalgamation of memories that we choose to keep alive.  These memories feed on energy that we give it in the now.  All energy lives in the now.  Now is the only time you have to change your life or even to take action to keep it the same.

I calculated how long it would take to pay back my student loans at what I would consider a minimum payment.  The answer is eight years.  That's not as bad as I thought it would be last year when I was breaking my brain trying to get the loans paid off in three years.  The truth is, I would be making a far better investment by keeping some of those funds for investment in my now than my later.  If it takes me three years to pay off my debt, but during that time I have to be bored out of my skull because I can't afford to have fun, then I will have freedom from debt but no will to use it wisely.  I would have only earned laziness in that time because that's all that boredom has to offer me.  Instead I will pay off my loans slowly but surely, and use the extra cash to try new things and keep learning and growing.  I believe more than anything that personal development is by far the most valuable investment anyone can make.

Already, I have lost 10 pounds without damaging my metabolism or my health.  I used to think that I would only ever have time or money but not both at once.  However, if I can reshape my own body for the better without breaking myself, then it seems to me that fixing my finances is not such a far fetched goal, either.  If I sacrifice all that I have to pay off debt, I might find freedom in a few years, but that doesn't mean that it won't be immediately replaced with another burden or misfortune.  I realize that this is a pessimistic way of looking at the future, but if my ultimate goal is happiness, then I should focus on learning to be happy instead of learning to be free of debt.  The debt will go away no matter what I do because I will still pay the bill.  What I really need to invest in is my creativity.  I have a feeling if my creative side is well nourished, the rest of me will be fine no matter what happens.

Improving my eyesight

My latest project is improving my nearsighted vision naturally.  Near-point stress--caused by overpowered glasses for the distance--is giving me headaches.  I came across a link about a kit that improves vision enough that glasses are no longer needed.  The kit was a total ripoff at $200, but there was enough teaser information to get the gist.  Some of it I knew already.  After some more Googling, I found the source of this trend: The Bates Method for Better Eyesight without Glasses.  This book was written in the 1920's, and its validity is questionable at best.  I would buy this book only because it may have some long, lost practical tips, and it comes with an eye chart for self tests.

The first tip was to do eye stretches everyday.  My Sivandanda Yoga book explains how to do those exercises.  Look up.  Look down.  Repeat several times.  Look left. Look right.  Repeat.  Look up and left.  Look down and right.  Repeat.  Look up and right.  Look down and left.  Repeat.  Then do several rounds of eye rolls as though you are watching someone on a Ferris wheel at the edge of your vision.  Repeat going the other way.  Don't forget to blink!  Finish off the stretching exercises by rubbing your palms together to warm up and cup them over your eyes for half a minute.  While your eyes are closed, pretend you are looking really far away on a really dark night.  This is a good exercise to break up the monotony of long hours of reading.

The other important piece of advice was to stop wearing my glasses when I don't need them.  I am near-sighted, and I have always worn my glasses at my computer.  If I don't wear my glasses, I have to hunch and get my face really close to the screen.  It finally occurred to me to zoom in on the programs I use.  I use Google Chrome browser and with that all I have to do is press Ctrl-+ a few times to be able to read from a comfortable position.  Ctrl-0 (that's 'zero;, not 'oh') returns the browser to normal if I need to use my glasses again.  I have to intentionally sit back far enough to keep the text right at fuzzy so that my eyes have to work a little at reading.  At first, blurred reading hurt my eyes, but with the font a little bigger, I don't have to squint and crouch as much, so I don't give up so easily and put my glasses back on.  I find now that I am less distracted when I read because I have to focus on such a narrow area to read.  My attention doesn't get stolen by every attractive keyword on the page.  I used my computer all day today with no headache because I did not use my glasses when reading the screen.  Usually I go home from work with a headache caused by prolonged near-point stress.

I have no idea if these exercises will do any good in the long run, but it has been nice relearning to use what natural vision I have left.  I don't believe that trying to read slightly blurry pages all day is any worse than wearing overpowered lenses at the computer for several hours straight.  If I can prevent my eyesight from getting any worse, then I will consider this experiment a success.  If my vision actually improves, I will be pleasantly surprised.  I might even spend ten dollars on the Bate's Method book.

Raw and Loving It

I took the plunge into a raw food diet last weekend.  I feel amazing!  I have so much energy and mental clarity.  I still had some chicken left over so while I started in on a bounty of raw fruits and veggies, I finished off the chicken I had left.  By Monday, I was all raw. I love this food!  Bananas, apples, clementines, blueberries, strawberries, spinach, spring mix lettuce, celery, carrots, lemons, avocados, sunflower seeds, and nuts make for a very energizing food supply.  I am also eating almonds which I've read are not technically raw, but I'm not focused so heavily on technicalities right now so much as answering the important question: is this a sustainable nutrition plan?

It does take a lot of time to prepare some of this food, but I get to snack on fruit while I chop and blend smoothies and salad dressing so it's not all bad.  I have no problems with exercise.  I'm fully energetic before, during, and after exercising.  Anytime I get hungry, I can eat as much fruit as I want.  I'm really enjoying my homemade guacamole.  It's also fun to show off my green smoothies at work because they look really gross yet taste delicious.

I already have to go back to Sam's Club (there's no Costco in Little Rock or I would shop there) for more bananas.  When I was there last time, I saw a very affordable greenhouse that would fit well in my garden and blackberry and raspberry bushes.  I want to get those soon, but I have to wait for March.  I have had to rearrange my budget to save up for a new hybrid car.  My Grand Am gets 18 miles to the gallon.  I almost cry every time I buy gas.  My car is the action car--I use it to haul bikes and dog across town to the park more than once a week.  My first car was a hatchback from the late 80's, and it went forever on a tank of gas.  I currently drive a big car because my last one was hit by a truck (with me in it!), and I developed a phobia of small cars.  I am over my fears because any car has the potential to be a death trap, but only smaller ones will save gas in the meantime.

For the last time - NO PIE!

I'm finally getting through to people that I don't like to eat the random sweet desserts at work.  Today there was a lot of pie left over from a big meeting.  Word made it into my hallway, but I did not even flinch (well I winced a little just because I'm so sick of the overabundance of empty calories).  Someone came into my office to tell me and stopped himself because he remembered that I can't/won't/don't eat that stuff.  Alas! I have discovered a benefit to dieting: no matter what diet you're on, if it's weird enough, people will stop trying to offer you anything.  If the diet is based only on calorie restriction, no one understands when you pass up dessert since it's not something offered every day.  But if you're one of those people with a taboo, everyone will be more afraid of offending you than trying to peer pressure you into eating junk food.

I once had a friend who loved saying, "Free food tastes better and is better for you."  I used to agree with him because I was in my senior year of high school at the time so I had many starving college years to ponder this phrase.  It's an alright mentality for someone who is scraping by and doesn't know if or when their next meal is coming.  I have outgrown this phase now.  I could continue to spend all my money on games, music, and electronics like I used to (fashion was never first pick on my spree list).  I could survive on rice and frozen pizza until my student loans are paid off.  That is how I survived paying down credit cards.  Instead, I chose to enlighten myself with the experiment of finding the best fit for my health.  I've discovered that being healthy is a lot more fun and relaxing than eating junk and always having indigestion or low energy.  Time will pass, bills will get paid, things will be bought, and good health can be gained along the way if I can find a way to make it enjoyable while keeping it affordable.  For me, dieting is far more about the self discipline gained in the process than about actual body image.  The feeling of true health is the reward.