Project update

The fairy lantern turned out pretty good, but it didn't take very long to make so that left me needing another new project. 

And here's a plant update. Remember the tiny little palm tree?

It's all grown up now...

I guess it was happy in its little home, but it outgrew the space so now it's free to take over the windowsill. 

Another miniature world

I just bought some items to make another miniature hideaway. This lantern and patio table and chair and some cute little milk pots for plants is going to become a fairy gazebo to enchant the corner of my desk. 

My handwriting journal is working well as a form of zen practice, and it's helping me to slow down during the day as well and enjoy every chance I get to hand write something. In a digital world, I'd forgotten how enjoyable it can be to write something by hand and not have to be in a rush to get it done. 

I'm also reading the book Don't Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson - which was a birthday present from a friend. Like most self-help books, it oversimplifies some problems that plague us with the usual 'just do this!' rhetoric, but one thing it mentioned stuck with me, and that's how we tend to make life into a series of emergencies - which causes stress because really very little in life is actually a real emergency. 

The book suggests ways to not take life too seriously and create the stressful feeling that every occurrence is somehow a problem that needs to be solved - but in thinking about my own stress load, I can see that my 'emergencies' tend to come more from other people thinking things are an emergency than from me thinking they are. 

My general state is really one of laid back laziness. I hate to jump into flight mode over little things and I prefer to take time to put things in perspective, but I have a lot of people in my life for whom life is a problem and everything is an emergency. 

A friend whom I see little of these days was fond of the phrase "What are you going to do?!" exclaimed over many problems, and I recall always feeling like someone lost in a storm when I heard that sentence. It would mold my thinking - What AM I going to do? How AM I going to fix this problem? Am I not taking it seriously enough?

I spend less time with that person now and find I'm much calmer for not hearing that plaintive exclamation all the time. I still deal with a lot of people who make mountains out of molehills and unfortunately my go-to response is to question whether I'm actually under-reacting to something rather than to assume they are over-reacting. It's been my experience that most things that seem like terrible problems tend to un-knot themselves over time and so many things that looked like impossible hurdles turned out to be no more than minorly inconvenient speed bumps when I look back on them. 

I regularly deal with people who are hypersensitive and become morose and pouty over the slightest perceived insult, as well as people who turn every sniffle into a medical disaster and people who exaggerate small issues into World War III whether for effect, or for their own entertainment. It makes it very difficult to look at life as basically calm and uneventful and easy to navigate when, in addition to the media preaching that the sky is falling every chance they get, the surrounding populace is always in a state of bereavement over something - for instance the person who called my office the other day in a tizzy because the street cleaners had created a bit of a traffic backup that had resulted in her children ALMOST being late to school. ALMOST. I mean a close call like that can really ruin someone's day - and of course we all laughed about it, but that's exactly the type of thing that happens on a more personal level to cause stress. 

When a random person has a melt down over something inconsequential it's a source of amusement, but when it's a friend or a family member having the melt down or urging me to have one with phrases like "Are you going to put up with that?" or "Why didn't you..." or "You should have..." or "What are you going to do?" or "You have to..." it becomes a lot harder to laugh.

So my goal is to figure out how to nip these emergency responses in the bud and not allow someone else's perception of life as a problem to make me question my perspective that it's not a problem. 

I'm not sure how I'm going to do that. Perhaps writing in my zen journal will help. 

Bonsai again!

Finally!

I've mentioned before that I'm obsessed with bonsai and I've tried a million ways to get one that have been unsuccessful because bonsai take time and I'm impatient, the ones they sell for indoor use are outdoor trees that are destined to die for $40, and growing a tiny tree from seed produces a sapling, not a bonsai.

The other week I was looking at some dead shrubbery that needs to be removed from the front yard and I came across two small boxwood shrubs that were half dead hiding in the shadow of a taller bush. I noticed the nebari [root system] on them and I was impressed. I decided pulling them out and repotting them wouldn't be a loss - they weren't going to make it anyway, so I had nothing to lose. 

This is the second tree which turned out just exactly like the mature bonsai tree I've always wanted. I bought a shallow pot at Lowes and replanted it. Hopefully it will survive the shock and become a flourishing outdoor bonsai with a little hit of fairyland thrown in. It needs time and some work, but I think I've finally got the tree I've always wanted. 

Only if it's purple...

As promised, the desk accessories:

 

The washi tape accent really makes it.

 

 

I also redid some of my gardens:

 

Here are two red maple saplings I rescued from the front yard. I'm hoping to turn them into bonsai - my new obsession. The sweet little pot is from today's garage sale excursion.

I bought a sedum mat at Lowe's today and used pieces of it everywhere. A nice sized piece of it makes a fantastic ready made fairy garden in a glass ivy bowl.

The ivy terrarium was doing really well on my desk, but I just wasn't happy with it, so I replanted the ivy into an open jar and turned it into a proper fairy garden using some pink fencing I found at an estate sale and that cute little terra cotta pitcher I've had floating around in my junk box for years.

 

AND...

 

I've also discovered the Japanese art of Suiseki - or the contemplation of rocks. Of course real suiseki is one amazing rock, usually that looks like a landscape set in a custom made wooden tray. This is a set of rocks in a heart shaped wooden bowl, but you get the idea. I plan to contemplate them.

 

Over dinner we did a lot of talking about a major paint job for the basement...so it looks like in the next couple of weeks I'll be working on the faux rock wall along the basement steps.

 

I have to say that my guilty confession is I have let go of writing. I do still have to complete a novella, but I'm in no hurry. For the first time in about 10 years, I don't feel the need to write, or the guilt of not writing. I'm just living my life - and as much as writing has been who am for the last 38 years, I feel a tremendous sense of freedom in NOT having to do it. I'm sure I will go back to it. There are still things I want to write, but for now, I feel incredibly liberated and I'm enjoying so many more things now that I don't feel like every moment not spent writing is a moment wasted. Is that wrong?



Bonsai!

No, this has nothing to do with Buckaroo Bonzai being my favorite movie.

I love bonsai trees. Who doesn't? But they're expensive and easy to kill, so I decided to make my own invincible bonsai tree.

 

 

I used the small pot I had originally put my baby Groot in - since the clay Groot did not really turn out so well or last long because the air dry clay cracked. The pot was actually a perfect Bonsai pot and was probably the one my original bonsai came in years ago.

 

I took a cutting from the unkillable bush that grows next to the deck. I've been hacking away at that thing for years and it just keeps growing. I've cut branches from it that have started growing on their own a day later, so I realized, hey, this thing won't die. Cutting it down and sticking it in a tiny little pot won't hurt it. A short branch that already looked tree-trunky made for a nice bonsai starter.

 

I added some moss dug up from beneath the back step - also probably unkillable. I added some stones and put it all in a nice potting mix.

 

I figure I can trim this thing all I want, and it will just keep going like the Energizer bunny of Bonsai - unlike those frail but pretty little juniper bonsais that wither after a few weeks outside of the care of a seasoned professional gardener.

 

Just for good measure, I popped another cutting into the fairy garden behind it where I'm growing one of my mini-lawns. I figure I'll do the same with that one.

 

Stay tuned for pictures of my sproutlings. The lettuce, spinach, radishes, potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes and beans are all in their permanent homes and starting to green up.



Time to get dirty!

With my room within my room project done, I turned my attention to the garden. I set up my critter-protection and I'm preparing for a bumper crop of organic produce:

 

I decided our yard is useless. The kids are too old to 'play' outside anymore, no more dog - so we have a postage stamp of land that does nothing. It's high time I took it over and made it do something, so my enclosed garden begins.

 

I also prepped a new fairy garden and cleaned up some of the old ones:

 

 

I added a little bit more to this one today - changed out the bench for a white one and transplanted the moss from my indoor moss gardens to fluff it out a bit.

 

Can't wait for the lawn I planted in this one to start growing.

The door to another world

I'm obsessed. This time it's with fairy doors. The one I bought kept me happy for a while, but it wasn't enough. I had to make my own.

 

That bag of popsicle sticks I got at a garage sale finally came in handy. This little gem made its way around the house and finally settled next to the staircase for a photo shoot.

 

After many plain years, my little wooden box finally found a purpose. It now hosts a purple fairy door, based on a craft project I saw on line.

 

Here's the same project in more natural light.

 

I know have a nearly irresistible need to make lots more of these.