blaugust 8.6
my lotus continues to bloom
I picked up this pretty for my container pond at a nursery a couple weeks ago. It's the most I've ever paid for a plant - I'm cheap and I love to propagate and trade - but it takes four years to get to the blooming stage and that makes the price make sense. Now I'll collect the seeds and propagate some in the spring in my medaka ponds.
I have a really old iPhone that can't handle taking photos if there's any kind of reflection nearby. Or rather, it can't handle taking photos without an aura. Soon we'll have old-iPhone photo filters, but for now you get to see the real thing.
lil quilt square
I am still working on the wall hanging - nothing earthshattering since the last post, just sashing around the 3D blocks. I had fun making the tiniest, most unhinged little star I could as a proof of concept for something - and mostly it proved the concept that it's really hard to have any amount of precision on something so tiny. And, scale-wise, it was too small anyways. I love it and I'm going to find a way to sew it onto something.
life admin
I reached inbox zero!! And unsubscribed from so, so many things! I've only had my tutamail account for a year and despite what I feel is careful guarding of my email address, so many things slip through the cracks. And I did my budget, caught some discrepancies, sent some emails, and gave a small amount of business to the new (very cute) coffee shop a couple blocks away.
reaching out to people
Inbox zero had me finding some emails I had missed from professional contacts in my past, southern life. I used to teach and advise in higher ed, and one of my favorite students was rejected from a competitive program but is keeping his chin up. A stockist for some of my art wanted more and wants to know if I'm making art again and can I send them some (answers are "maybe? do quilts count?" and "no").
I read a blog post about something complex and sometimes contentious and reached out to the writer because I appreciate someone else seeing the popular narratives around this thing as incomplete. It made me think about how sobriety and pretty much cutting out social media has increased my capacity for appreciating things I don't agree with wholesale. I no longer scan people or posts for wrongdoing or to see if they are good/bad like I used to, but I am more genuinely excited about ideas and reviewing my own stances on things.
I love that the blogosphere in its current iteration is pretty much grifter-free, which allows me to read people's words in good faith. I think the quality of internet interactions (including just reading a blog) are often determined by format, and the format of forums and blogs without monetization allow me to let my guard down enough to engage with ideas without scanning for an angle or metrics. I cringe at how broken my brain was from Facebook and Instagram in 2019-2021.
I made plans for a toddler half birthday, invited some colleagues to get together before the school year starts at my place, made loose plans to try a new board game (Root), and sent a few "hey I'm thinking of you for x reason" texts. I recently learned about the Foy Information Desk at Auburn, where you can call and ask any question and receive an answer to the best of the student's search ability. I passed it on to my sibling, whose kid is old enough for their own landline and keeps calling everyone all the time. She has a lot of questions.
links:
That's it! I do feel like knowing I would write this up at the end of the day had me more focused on spending my time well. See you tomorrow.