elainegrey

The nearly-invisible potential asymmetry of journal relationships hits me this [Sunday] morning as i carry a concern about someone who probably doesn't know who i am. But i carry it on.

I met a ZZ plant at Lowes on Saturday: i'd heard of them from oracne but hadn't met one before. I was visiting with my nibling who is addicted to plants. She'd rescued an orchid from a drug store, and i volunteered to help her go get proper potting media for it. I love listening to Nibling E rant about the sad presentation of house plants (ornaments glued to cacti, glued down pebbles, Venus fly traps in dry soil, etc). She gets a rooting hormone gel for her Yule gift. I'll be using my rooting gel to propagate my stevia plant (and blueberries and figs and...).

I *have* had an insight about my "i used to get so much done, what's happened" feeling: i may be comparing myself to a time when i was under incredible stress. Being more present probably takes more time: i'm more thoughtful, and so on.

So, I'm trying to find a way to get away from this computer in the morning and do what i need to do to transition to work. Lately i've been trying to "get through" everything -- which i can't seem to manage -- and i run late. I'd like a better reminder: i've had my phone make a chime but that's not been enough. I wanted a mac app that would steal focus from what i was doing, which the app "coffe break" and "Time out" do, but i wanted the forced break at a scheduled time. So far, IM!Clock seems best. I get a little irritated recognizing that if i knew enough about the mac scripting language i could probably write this myself, but life is too short.

Candidates considered:

* coffee break, flaky
* time out, no set time (used to use this, very close!!)
* timer rh timer, flaky
* IM!Clock

I've also written down a schedule of my not-at-computer time to help me get to the desk on time. It doesn't answer the challenge of journaling and getting email and readin other's journals and managing todos all in the time between waking and getting ready to work, but it's a start.

I've gotten some raking done this long weekend (i took Monday off) -- i'm putting cardboard down around the edges of the garden and covering with (mostly) pine straw. Last season, the few places i did that did stay free of stilt grass, but the cardboard is now long gone. This is a action that is not compatible with the flame weeder, but as we go into drought the flame weeder seems more problematic.

But in other ways it doesn't feel like much. I suppose the very stimulating Saturday out with my nephew then my niece did take an outsized chunk of my energy.