New Hanover Medical Center has a garden out back.

Thank you, Carolina Coast, for giving heater weather and mosquitoes at the same time.

Tai chi. Zumba. 12 steps. Prayer. Meditation. Low-fi hip hop. WUNC. Windalert. Flintstones chewables. Vitamin D gummies. Walk the dogs. Walk the dogs. Walk the dogs. (Sophie has NEEDS.) Zomm. God, the Mother. Cat kisses. Big lights, small lights, twinkle lights, steady. Awning up? Awning down? Breeze, breeze, breeze, WIND. Study, study, study, study, study …

Honestly, the last thing I needed right now was something else to confuse and frustrate me.

Sophie finds tai chi most confusing. What the heck am I holding and where am I putting it?

I downgraded micro.blog from premium to standard and now my cross-posting to WordPress doesn’t work. I coulda sworn it was part of the basic plan too.

I might have unconsciously made new year’s resolutions. Didn’t mean to. Specifically didn’t consciously do it. But, oddly, I find myself doing new things.

For instance, my workplace offers a fitness reimbursement every year and usually I don’t use it. That’s kind of dumb; it’s free money. So, with the new year, I started looking at ways I could spend it. Martial arts classes are covered, and I happened to find an online course on tai chi for people with arthritis. So I’m trying that.

I hit a low in December and found myself dissatisfied with my 12-step practice. It’s a recurring theme for me that I have trouble staying connected to my Higher Power when not in crisis. Someone recommended Insight Timer to help with meditation, and I’ve been trying that out. I’ve also decided to start over at Step One.

My workplace has a wellness hub that rewards members for completing “journeys” - any of several series of tiny daily lessons or insights to help get more wellness. They focus on getting better sleep, walking for fitness, saving money - all sorts of topics. I am taking one about rediscovering play, and one of the steps in the journey was to rediscover the play I like best, which for me is dancing. That involves a commitment to dance at least 15 minutes per day. Well that same journey actually included dancing at a later step. I’ve been grazing YouTube for dance adventures around 15 minutes or less that I can do whenever.

I am making a breakfast of navy beans and brown rice with strawberry jam and pumpkin pie spice. I put instant coffee into my goat’s milk.

It’s madness around here!

House smells fantastic. Pressure cooking boneless country style pork ribs in an apple cider vinegar solution with pumpkin pie spice and chili powder.

One thing I like about VMs is that when I screw up something complicated, I can just destroy the whole machine and start again. I’m into like my 5th iteration of this Oracle box now.

Yay! My Oracle install download just finished ten minutes before end of shift. That’s what I call service.

Later, I will not remember who I sent cards to. So I just now took pictures of the outgoing envelopes now. How different life is now with wee computer camera thingers. Er, “phones”.

I’m renewing my commitment to stay home. I have a curbside pickup to make at Lowe’s, but otherwise it’s about Instacart and similar. I only need to leave the house to get building supplies out of storage. No humans.

Grrrr, I hate that I only think of micro.blog when I’m mad at FB. RN it’s that I have over 600 friends and belong to at least 100 groups but it shows the same few posts over and over. Also lagged by days.

The dogs are so confused that I’m eating acorns. It’s almost as funny as when the cat watches me eat sugar snap peas.

These live oak acorns are so mild, I can snack on them all day.

I wonder if my ex thinks of me whenever Stacey Abrams gets a mention. I used to be Stacy Abrams.

Pro tip: make a ditty bag out of a thrift store tablecloth so that your laundry makes your surroundings “bohemian” instead of “slovenly”.

Is it wrong to do Zumba in yoga pants? Is there a fine involved?

My local acorns are tasty. I did not taste any grubs today. Not sure I’m ready for that.

Most acorns are bitter, because tannins. Must soak several times over several days to unyuck them. Some are low tannin, eat them right there. These local are the second kind.

Today, I learned things about acorns. Turns out these are live oak trees all over this RV park. Sometimes acorns contain edible meat. Sometimes edible grubs. Sometimes inedible mold.

Tremendously enjoying my new desk. So sturdy! So many drawers. Lots of things are finally stored away now. The plastic bins will go back under the bed once the sewing is complete.

I guess everybody else is trying to recover from quarantine hair too. The soonest I could get an appointment was for the 30th. How am I going to endure this hair until then?!?!

1:37 PM Eastern time, Sneads Ferry, North Carolina, USA

I keep tweaking up my home. Got the metal quail long before there ever was a house. The t-shirt pillow covers and curtains are the most recent.

Online community, for me, means I’m always in the neighborhood. Love that.

Ooooh the next door neighbors are grilling BBQ chicken. Gonna show up with my plate. Y/N?