Overall things feel to be really improving for me. Albeit slowly, but improving none the less. With the improving weather, the national COVID situation, and a slight return to normalcy, life is feeling a bit more optimistic.
Work
- Seemingly all at once, several things have developed in the past two weeks such that I’m getting more duties or promises of more duties on the side of the house I want most to work for. This has improved my mood a bit at work as I’m excited to try and excel at some new duties and transition into something less stressful.
- I’m heading to Sequim this week to do a couple of days work there. I haven’t been to Sequim in over a year so I’m looking forward to the slightly slower pace and the beautiful surroundings. Rhonda is going to go with me on this trip so it will be nice to have a couple days to do something “different”.
Home
- Rhonda and I are enjoying our new fish hobby. Here’s a status and some pictures of our three tanks:
- The main saltwater tank was taking a long time to establish it’s “cycle” so we went to a fish store to get some advice and now have a new “one shot” cycle starter in the tank. So no fish, but we’re hopeful the tank will be cycled in a week. If you’re not familiar with the term it’s basically adding Ammonia and Bacteria to the tank and getting to the point that the bacteria start eating the Ammonia and start a natural cycle of chemistry the fish need. We have to frequently monitor Ammonia levels, Nitrite levels and Nitrate levels as well as PH.
- Unfortunately this image of the main tank doesn’t show the lights on. Apparently the lights are on a timer and controlled with an app that only Rhonda knows how to use right now and she’s sleeping so I just took a shot of the unlit tank. The rock is from a tank Rhonda had running like 10 years ago and we are trying to turn this into a reef tank eventually with living organisms living on the rock.
- Under the tank is some interesting stuff too (see below). On the left side of the cabinet is a pretty large sump pump system that cycles water through the tank and filters water through various filters before returning clean water to the tank. The big blue and white box to the right of the stand is a big “skimmer” that will go in the largest section of the sump tank to skim off biological material as well and keep the water clean. Currently we don’t have a need for the skimmer so it’s not set up. That skimmer is freaking expensive too and basically looks like a giant coffee maker. In the right open cabinet door is a freshwater “top off” jug. As water evaporates (and it evaporates like a mothersticker) the water becomes more salty so the tank has to top off the evaporated water with fresh water to keep the salinity down in the tank.
- The quarantine tank for saltwater also has been really slow to cycle. The hope is that we can get the quarantine tank cycled soon so our first saltwater fish can come home and spend time in the quarantine tank before going into the main tank. This I think is vital once you actually have fish in the main tank (i.e. quarantining new fish before they join and kill the rest of your tank) but not sure that our first fish has to go in quarantine or if it can go straight to the main tank since there are no other fish to kill. It’s pretty small and really only designed for one or two fish at most. This is where new fish quarantine or where sick fish quarantine alone and recover if something gets sick in the main tank.
- The Freshwater tank is beautiful (see below) and we’ve added a big castle (left side of tank), lots of fake plants, and six starter fish. Again, these early fish are supposed to start stabilizing a cycle there in that tank too. Unfortunately we already lost two of the six fish. The remaining four seem to be doing great and I’m not sure why we lost the two. Rhonda reminds me “fish just die” sometimes. Still, it bothers me we lost two fish on the same day. We’re missing something I’m sure but we are working on stabilizing this tank. I think we’re basically stable.
- Rhonda is building her ColorStreet customer base. She’s not really doing it to make money so it’s not really about that but she is excited to have a hobby to share with friends and she gets a little discount being a distributor or salesperson.
- Last night Rhonda and I had a couple of friends over for game night and enjoyed having a mask free game of Phase 10. So nice to start getting some normalcy going again.
Spiritual or Philosophical
- I found myself reading a book in my chair yesterday and being blown away by the things I was reading. As I sat there just reveling in how cool this book was I stopped and asked myself, “How did this book even get into my life?” The story of that “how” is extremely interesting to me on a spiritual level.
- Basically I’ve been doing more meditation and consistently getting a strange sensation under my feet as if the entire house is vibrating. One night a thought popped into my head that I was supposed to DO something with this energy/vibration. Reading online I found all sorts of people have opinions about what causes that sensation but most meditators advise me to ignore it and move on. It’s not important they say…just focus on letting it go and don’t think about it. But for me, I intuitive KNEW something was important about.
- Next thing I know I’m sitting outside in my yard with my shoes off and feet on the ground meditating and feeling the earth beneath my feet rumble a little. I start focusing on letting the sensation move through me.
- Suddenly I feel compelled to spend more time with my bare feet on the ground and to try and “ground” myself whenever possible and then the next moment I’m on Amazon and I’m buying a “grounding pad” for the bed that hooks up to your house ground and keeps you grounded while you sleep.
- The pad came with a book titled “Earthing: The most important health discovery ever!”. Next thing I know, I’m obsessed about reading this book and as I’m reading I feel my whole body sort of vibrate in response. THIS was what the rumbling message was!
- My mind started going back to strange dreams I’ve had over the years about energy and how consciousness works and while I’m reading the book it’s starting to scientifically align things I’d been dabbling in for years like our body’s electrical system, the mysterious electrical pulse in our body that tells our heart to beat, the movement of energy though the bodies chakras, the way planets and stars impact the energy on earth, how “mother nature” or “mother earth” heals us and why modern man is getting more out of touch with the healing power of the planet because we insist on wearing insulated shoes, living in insulated homes, and raising out beds off the floor so we have no contact with the earth. Everything started to click in my head as intuitively TRUE and a big thing I’ve been missing. Mind blown!
- Last night I found myself laying on the cold damp grass in our back yard, a blanket on top of me to keep me warm and had an extremely relaxing and enjoyable meditation. This is something I’m going to practice more often.