“Kindness and good intentions can be an insidious path to destruction. Sometimes doing what seems right is wrong, and can cause harm.” – Terry Goodkind 🕊️

GOALS THIS WEEK: Exercise B25 at 6AM, spend time outside 10-11, draw 3PM, music 11, clean the house 5PM? garden 8-9 AM, finish the paperwork when the new desk comes, be a good person 2-3 PM, and get organized. 6-7 PM.

Last Week: Was reflecting on priorities, goals, life, wishes, and productivity.

This Week: Want to get on track.

HEALTH OVERVIEW:

Mental Health: Reflected a bit, organized and got more grounded, it feels good.

Physical Health: Well again.

Social Health: Out of hiding.

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Creatively Use and Respond to Change

LIFE JOURNAL:

“Without forgiveness life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.”

– Roberto Assagioli

“There is no small act of kindness. Every compassionate act makes large the world.”

–Mary Anne Radmacher

Saturday: Last week I was wondering how life will flow between gardening and dancing and school for the kids. I hoped I could find a way to do gardening and all the errands. I went to the South, West and North side of the island, it was my first “Kona Sunset” I see what people are talking about with that now. On our side the sun sets over the mountains, it’s fine, but on the other side it drops into the ocean and it’s pretty stunning. It was a really fun day, I felt young again and alive. Part of it was at the beach, the beach is such a safe place for me, it’s almost always nice. I think the consistency that it’s always there and that it’s been there from my childhood to now is the only consistency I’ve ever had.

Reflection – Designer: I’m happy that my desk is coming soon, moving all the toys to one room has been helpful, when I got that tip from a friend I didn’t know how to do it, but now that I have the toys all in one room instead of the bedrooms and living room, it helped me move all my kid’s belongings into their bedroom rather than split between the bathroom and bedroom, it helped me put all my stuff and the camping stuff in the “office/bedroom”.

Sunday: Last week I went out in the rain and worked on fixing the pond I felt like Jack Johnson because it was raining and I wore a blue raincoat… This week I found out we have a watermelon growing under our pumpkin, the local wild rooster dug up the watermelon bed, but this one watermelon survived, I’m so excited. Very irrationally excited, I feel abundant and successful and ingenious. I cut the lawn by hand with edge trimmers, I really like feeling the soil, seeing the land, feeling the grass, I wouldn’t get that experience with the weed whacker. I want to feel the land and hold the plants and listen to the garden, I don’t like to hear the noise of the weed whacker over the voice of the birds and the plants, no not at all. I didn’t realize how well chickens fly I walked up to these three and one flew over my head about 20′ and landed on the tarp… guess a 6′ fence won’t help…

Reflection – Builder: Our main asset and main problem in my area are both the same, water, it’s beautiful during the wet season and it’s wet during the dry season, but the wet season is pretty intense. Also the volcanos never stop shaking the land so remembering to make everything flexible for shaking which isn’t really earthquakes but the volcano caldera dropping, so it’s a hard horizontal motion more than a rolling motion… so far, so good with the rock walls I’ve built, but remembering to take into account that shaking. Also the abundant pests from chickens, pheasants, rare birds, song birds, slugs, flea beetles, white flies, caterpillars ext. Rain makes working slower because some days I do feel like working in the rain, but other days I don’t, yet it gives me a chance at a garden that is rain watered, which is awesome, and it has the spiritual sense that God tends the garden. That’s the old regional stigma of the mountain, people tend the lower farm land, but the mountains belong to the spirits, because the plants there don’t need tending to grow. There is also a strong sense of forest up here, even though the houses are spaced closely, there are enough trees and birds to make it feel like a forest anyways. So I’ve had some luck fixing the electrical and plumbing, but did notice that protecting the electrical from rain is a priority thus I’m adding special connectors and boxes that have rubber valves and channels to keep some rain out.

Monday: Last week I was sick. This week I feel a lot better, slight sore throat, but thankful for mullein tea that helps so much. Just did banana exercise for the first time in a long time.

6AM Exercise B25, 8 AM garden, 10AM spend time outside, 11 AM music, 2PM be a good person, 3PM draw, 5PM clean the house, finish the paperwork when the new desk comes, and 6PM get organized. It felt weird to give be a good person an hour, but since I did it for my other goals I just went with it.

I feel so good, I just exercised for the first time in over a month and I’m not ill and I’m not having any allergy or GI issues and wow I feel so good. I picked up a new used bunk bed, brought it home and put it together. It was a dream come true, I wanted to build a cute bunkbed for a long time. My son has the bottom and my daughter the top we are going to decorate the bottom as a fire station and the top as a forest hide away, looking forward to using the space in a more creative way, it felt like we didn’t settle in when we moved here because we weren’t sure how long we would be here. After moving a lot as a kid I often don’t settle into a place and I felt bad realizing I didn’t give my kids that feeling of unpacking and being “home” somewhere, but that’s in the past now, now we are settling in well to Hawaii and I’m happy.

Reflections – Gardener: Going to put up some vertical plant pockets and see how that goes, don’t want to do under the eaves because I don’t want to water I want the rain water, so somewhere that faces South probably or even wrapped around a tree maybe… I have a lot of cherry tomato seedlings so maybe a mostly tomato bed.

Tuesday: Last week I started doing more exercise, art and music I was tired out with all the changes to our routine, this week I feel better than last week. This week we are all sick and I feel brain dead. The winter reminds me of being a child, the winter makes me wonder if I’ve done enough, I don’t know? I’ve done more than ever before, I could be more organized, more productive and more responsible, but I don’t think I’ve ever done better so I hope it was enough and that some of the work I did this year will make next year easier. Like when we made the light brackets for our seasonal lights and bought them, the next year switching them was much easier than that first year and the first season was hardest then the others that year. Things did get easier over time when infrastructure went into place and decisions were done being made.

Reflections – Habit Engineer: I really felt good when I worked out I should try to do it more, I had more strength and energy and felt more happy and optimistic about the future than I had since the cold seasons started. Usually I try to exercise 3 times or 5 times a week, but this time I’m going to try to match or exceed my last week by 1, so whatever I get done this week I’ll be okay as long as I match it next week.

Wednesday: Last week I had fun at the beach. This week we stayed home, I thought we were going to go, but my daughter was too sick and then my son and I weren’t well either so we ended up staying in. The kids are making their way through English, I like to cover English extra in the winter. I miss my friends when I don’t see them, but I like that they will survive without me, I would feel so trapped and smothered if they “needed me”. I really enjoy the conversations and smiles of my friends now, we are a diverse group so there are lots of different topics and many like building, gardening, art I enjoy and even deep breathing and prioritization of tasks I find really helpful and it’s just nice to see my friends doing well and hear about their gardens and see them still surviving this island that can be isolating and difficult to stay on financially.

Thursday: Last week I moved the arch way for the berries. This week I put down the first round of cinder blocks but didn’t bring them to the strawberry bed, instead I put them by the front walkway. I’m hoping it will be easier to keep the front tidy and I actually like that style a lot. We took the trash out, got the mail, made a meal plan, got groceries and toys since the toy store is the grocery store too. The mundane stuff doesn’t feel good still, but laying the cinder blocks does. I feel guilty I don’t enjoy doing the responsible stuff even if I do get it done, I don’t want to feel guilty about it, but I usually do. I am really excited about building with more cinder blocks because they will stand up to this extreme rain much better than wood did and I feel like they are within my capacity budget wise and strength wise and skill wise. I don’t know much about wood working, but I can place blocks and even pour concreate or mortar with rebar, I learned those things from my dad and I did them myself and I feel so good about working with stone in general from natural lava rock to cinder block to poured concreate or mortar (my favorite) I really enjoy working with stone more than wood which feels like it takes forever to finish (first tying it down to drive it is annoying, then cutting it is stressful, then painting it is tedious, then painting it more after the primer, only then building with it, yuck) and is really expensive where I live.

Friday: Last week I got to spend some time painting and I had a great time. When I saw the chickens they were so cute, I wasn’t mad, but I should put a net down over the plants I want to protect I guess, there tear into potatoes and watermelon but leave other plants like morning glories and sun flowers alone. We have some beautiful sunflowers now, but I remember when we just had dandelions my daughter loved them and she would go to her “secret place” right by the road very public and sit with the dandelions which were her “beautiful flowers”. I guess a flower only needs to be yellow to be beautiful. Our Mexican sunflowers are growing up well, the hedge isn’t finished but it’s good to see them growing in they will give us privacy but also will give beautiful flowers that don’t need much maintenance as well as leaves that are super nutrient dense for fertilizer tea. I can’t wait for that day when our whole house is surrounded by a wall of sunflowers. I thought it would be bamboo, but bamboo harbors a lot of mosquitos so perhaps I will have some bamboo, but less than the sun flowers. The mammoth sunflowers are nice too, where I don’t want a permanent hedge they are easier to manage.

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Gratitude

Something new this week: Our first sunflower bloomed.

Something good this week: I started working with cinder blocks and realized it wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be due to the heaviness.

Something unexpected: Our first sunflower bloomed, it was beautiful the kids and I all loved seeing it together, our garden is a hot mess, but it has these little beautiful aspects to it now, I have hope for the future of it producing healthy food and beautiful areas to revitalize our souls.

🌻