I have been particularly negative for the last few weeks. My best friend has had a serious health scare, and it has done nothing positive for me to see her going through it. I have spent a lot of time on the keyboard writing for this very blog and found myself just completely unable to post what I had keyed up because there was nothing nice to say about anything. It was me feeling low. Very low. But I remembered what my mom used to say about saying nice things, and instead of posting them, I saved them to draft or deleted them altogether. Negativity is easy to come by in this world. Especially in written media. There is high profit in it.
I decide to print beneficial rather than profitable. Trying to find something good in such an event in one’s life sometimes is more like the dog startled by the rabbit running out of a hiding hole in front of it, than it sniffing its trail out in the woods. Yesterday was a pretty good day. She seemed fairly good on pain management, keeping it down with just over the counter painkillers. She had more energy, and I saw more of her awake and doing things. We have the promise of her appointment this week putting her into a better condition with the removal of excess fluid that is built up inside her. So hopefully next week will be even better for her. Also, she was able to get through without having to ask much help from me, assuring me that should I be travelling off from home each day for some kind of work, she will be able to get through her day okay. It’s like hearing all of those calls, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up,” back in the ’90’s made me nervous now. I don’t want her left in a state. But you know how it is when someone means as much as air does to you.
I got a couple of pieces made for a project I am started on yesterday, which is a clear sign that the depression that has come to me with this event is being managed. I am building a wooden chandelier with beeswax candles as the light source. I want one that will easily hang and cast off a lot of light as compared to one of my candle lanterns or a single candle stick. It will hold four candles when it is done and could be easily modified for eight. That would just be twice as much work! Nothing to it! I’d like to see about putting a few of these together once the prototype is done and selling them from the shop. Maybe even the online shop, too! But either way, I am happy to have done this as an accomplishment for myself, proving once again, anything I want, I can make most of it myself now. That’s what is of personal value to me. And that is certainly one for the positivity books!
The whole homestead has been about drawing the line between self-reliance and reliance. There are some things that are just impractical to try to be able to make for yourself. I think a horse would be able to manage a lot of my transportation, for example, but to get to everywhere we would ever need to go in the month, and to do it in a practical amount of time, that is nigh on impossible. So a car comes into it. I can neither build that, nor maintain it without parts, nor be able to fuel it up without the help of the local gas station. So, there is just one of many examples of what has still got to be outsourced. Even if some amazing car company came along and made it possible for parts to be printed on a home 3D printer, one would still require buying filament. I can’t make a mechanical washer or dryer, either. I could do it all by hand! And if the machines we have got break, it may come to that. But there is a job for outsourcing, just like the building of the stand mixer, the stove, and so on. A person has to decide where they can drop these kinds of items, and where he cannot, and then commit to the time required to run without them. We dropped forced air heating a long time ago now, and the whole job now requires me to go get firewood and bring it back to the house, then cut it all up and split it and make it fit into the woodstove every summer. I have to provide enough to last all winter and ideally would be producing more than we require. Mistakes have been made, and I should have bought a high-speed log splitter so that could be easily accomplished. Instead, the machine I have currently is slow and steady, and it is difficult to get through even a cord, which a few machines can do in an hour. I mean seriously! That would make the winter’s wood something I could do in a day, rather than taking me weeks now. The profitability would work out somewhere in the $2500 to $3500 in wood I could split each day. I could not keep myself in logs at that rate. And if a person could sell that kind of wood, at a rate of, say, $3500 a week, that would certainly be enough to call oneself self-reliant, even if they were buying washers and dryers every month. That’s what I should be doing, isn’t it?
Wood really is the simplest route to self-reliance for me, isn’t it? I could get things sorted out for that fairly easily if I get this family on its feet and working just enough to cover the bills for the New Year. I have applied to drive bus for the local school district. I think it would pay enough to keep us fed and the lights on but would also give me enough time in the day to keep working on getting the businesses off the ground. My quickest route to that this year would be to process firewood, and trees as planned all this last year. I have even got the means to put lights up over my workspace now should I need to work after dark. There is enough to start, and with my stupid joints feeling so much better, there is no excuse. To that end, the joints still get sore from being up and about too much. But their default is not pain, like it has been for so many years. I have been free of the pain long enough now to feel confident in that. Oh, and on one last note about this, I would really do to get some gravel down where I work, so I can work in the “mud seasons” too. The winter being as warm as it is right now, this is a very limiting factor.
I tried to start the log splitter the other day. It would not go. I did not give it one of those mechanical efforts, to be honest. It was just a few pulls on the cord with the choke on, and the choke off and the choke on again. I probably could have opened the air filter and shot in some starter fluid and got it going. But I was not making a sincere effort to do it and just gave it a try. I’ll need it running soon. There is nowhere near enough wood to get through the winter split up and on the pile. No, instead, I will have to cut up the tree I dropped in the back yard a few weeks ago. It was dead-standing and is plenty dry for burning already. I have a good deal more wood than that tree, too. I could cut up more as needed, but I should start with that tree, and the wood that is lay ready to be finished in the Service Yard. That would be enough, I am sure. There is a cold spell coming. If I can work till tomorrow evening though, I would be doing really well. I won’t be able to, as all of that time is already committed, so I think I will miss that chance and have to work in the cold, instead. That’s my own fault for putting off too long what I should have got at already.
I think one thing that could help me is to put in a daily exercise routine that I could follow, at least, and maybe even get my daughters involved. The need to witness the benefit. Right now, they have no idea how much better it feels to get moving each day. I have an old video that does just enough in a mere ten minutes to make a person feel like moving and tackling the day from the onset if it is done first thing in the morning. It’ll never take more than that. I don’t think a regular heavy workout is my style, but a daily quick one is enough to get me moving all day, and that is a far cry better than sedentariness. It is what would keep a person fit just by getting them doing more everyday activities after. So, Happy New Year?
Okay, so here we are, eight paragraphs into a bit of writing. And they are not little sissy paragraphs, either. These are a few righteous ones. It’s been a good writing exercise, and I have kept positive throughout. That is absolutely remarkable. I need to talk to that lady that lives with me, that I am crazy about. She really does affect my wellbeing a little. She goes to crap and so does my whole attitude. But I have hope that she is going to see improvement after tomorrow’s medical appointment. If they can reduce her pain and make her more capable of getting up and moving around, and ease her breathing, then that’s huge progress. I know from my own body problems of the past that being limited in what one can do compared to what one’s mind can think up wanting to do is very depressing. I hate seeing her going through that. But she really does seem to be on the mend, so that is something positive, at least. I know there is still possibility for relapse, but I think we are going to be able to spot it before it gets so bad this time. She knows what to look out for. I don’t want to get my hopes up too soon. That’s my natural disposition, but we are trying to actively manage the situation, and who knows? Maybe we will get lucky?
And on that note, I am off to sleep the last of my sleep now, before the day comes along and requires me. Just one more hour would do it. Then We will be helping Missus sort her shop back together for operation and readying her to open up again. Maybe it will draw someone in who has made it their New Year’s resolution to come by and actually stop in. In all the year last year, only one person has stopped in and shopped. We hope to beat that this month.
