15 March 2010
Mon Mar 15, 2010
So I feel like I’m making little baby steps at getting back to my normal self. Taking anti-depressants for a year really set me back. I know that sounds weird, but if you missed my previous post, ADD was what caused my depression so I was totally taking the exact wrong thing for quite awhile.
Anyhow, now that things are feeling normal again, I am trying to get my life back. To that end, I finally started swimming again today. I haven’t for more than a year – I’d started last year when Elliott was training for a triathlon, but when he had an injury and dropped out, I dropped out along with him. Don’t know why, really, as swimming is a pretty solitary endeavor even if you DO go with someone else. Hard to chat with your face in the water, right? So today was hard. Swimming is one of those things that feels awful when you’re just getting started. Your body feels sluggish and slow, and it’s thoroughly exhausting. I had to force myself to get through a mile. My normal workouts when I do this regularly are 3-4 miles, to give an idea of how far I’ve let things lapse.
Next up is figuring out what hobby I want to take up. I have started and discarded so many things over the years, most of them creative. Now I understand more of the whys of that, so I’m trying to pick my next focus carefully. I want to learn how to garden, which surprised the heck out of Elliott. I’ve never really lifted a finger outside, it’s never been my thing. But I started reading about permaculture landscaping and it sounds really cool! Elliott is really into saltwater aquariums, and he turned his former bleach tank into a self-sustaining ecosystem a couple of years ago. Permaculture is sort of the parallel of that, but in landscaping, not water. The idea is to work with nature, instead of against it, and plant the right things so that you can grow food, ornamentals and other things all together, in an earth-friendly way that won’t need extra care and resources like fertilizers, etc. I’m sure it’s going to be a big learning curve for someone who previously hasn’t done much more than plant some tomatoes. :)
March 15th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Good luck with the gardening! It could turn out to be really fun… or you could end up hating it, but either way it will be interesting to see. Taking up new and unknown hobbies is always exciting.
March 16th, 2010 at 12:06 am
Good luck with your gardening. I started doing it a couple of years ago with a small greenhouse and a tiny veg plot. This year it’s still a small greenhouse but a huge veg plot compared to previous years.
It’s very satisfying to see the fruits of your labours growing naturally, and also annoying to see all your cabbages get eaten by the creepy crawlies.
There’s loads of natural bug stoppers out there but the best I’ve found for the slugs that destroy everything is a pot of beer, they love it but can’t escape it.
I highly reccommend growing potatoes in an old bin (trash can), it’s amazing how well they do.
Happy planting.
March 16th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Aww yes ADD they started that here about 3-4 years ago as the diagnosis of the week. I gave my friends such grief over that … no dear we can’t all have it at the same time … remember that 400 metric tons of weed we smoked in college had nothing to do with our short term .. no wait what were we taling about again? So what will grow where you live besides cows sheep and hay? Gardening for you sounds like an extreme challenge, maybe more of a greenhouse thing? Keep us informed on what you decide to try.