I’d like to blog more often and that’ll only happen by starting somewhere, so here we are… starting. Simply going to dwell just some reflections on the year past and the year to come. Easy, right? Eh, maybe not but I still feel compelled to throw some actual human-made content out on in an increasingly AI-poisoned world.
I think the highlight of my year has been participating in the local Volunteer Master Gardener courses with my local extension offices. Gained a lot of new knowledge and skills to apply to next year’s garden. It’s helped me feel a bit more confident with what we’re planning to do as we expand the garden over the next few years.
We had the fortune of seeing both a comet and the aurora this Fall. I’m especially happy to bag the aurora, however faint it was. It’s something I always wanted to see, so I’ll take what I got, but here’s hoping to see a stronger one sometime down the line. If I didn’t feel guilt about flying I’d be up to head to Iceland for it, but it’s nice to know I can tick it off my list of things to see without needing to do that.
We went back to Scotland which was absolutely wonderful. It was so good to get back in touch with some of the sites that made a big impression on me while living there. Special sites like Dunino Den and the various souterrains around Angus really speak to me in some weird way. Plus we added some new special sites like the Hermitage and Glamis Castle’s steadily expanding renewed walled garden. Add in reconnecting with family and it was a winning trip.
I suppose my last key, but dull, point worth sharing from this last year was that after many false starts I’m managed the full transition over to Linux. I’ve also got myself fully self-hosted for everything but picture sync via iCloud. Go me?
And now we shall slog forward to what I’m hoping to accomplish in the dreaded year 2025.
Other than continuing to grow as a Master Gardener via volunteer opportunities and expanding our garden once again, I’m just wanting to establish a few simple habits. Some small things I feel will make a big difference in my mood and quality of life.
The habits aren’t much, but I’ve been having trouble solidifying them in my life. I’d like to foster a meditation habit for instance. I manage for a while then just completely stop, so more focus required there for success. I need to focus on my physical therapy exercises to help my sciatica plus more stretching.
I’m hoping to focus more on my snacking and trying to avoid as much junk snacks has possible. Less chips, more veggies.
Finally I have a little personal edict to “be more druid”. Beyond gardening I need more time with nature. This insides more walking around my neighborhood for exercise and mental health to getting back out into Red River Gorge and other areas of natural beauty nearby.
Other than habits I hope to finish the second part of my Johnny Appleseed quest, this time visiting his gravesite and a dedicated museum. And if I’m lucky I might get to meet up with a Mastodon buddy on the way too!
And, finally, I hope to blog more. I find it difficult to get started and usually end up deciding not to bother because who wants to hear my thoughts on anything? Yet once I post I feel a little accomplishment and I’m happy just to try to rebuild some of the web of old before everything was partitioned off behind different walls. I may try a simple weekly update plus I want to track our garden this year. Hoping to eventually have a little historic database of records I can refer to in the future about how things worked out each year.
#personal