Starting what I never finished

Lately I have been doing some things I have planned to do in years.

One of those things is the print out a selection of my digital photos to put them in albums from 2004 until today. I planned to do this about 3 years ago when a bunch of photos got deleted from my computer, which I was lucky to have on CD at the time. The CD was slightly scratched and it took awhile for the computer to read it. I thought, "that was a close one, but one day that CD is going to fail."

Three years later (and many computer upgrades) I have started what I failed to start (and therefore finish). So far I have managed to print photos from 2004-2006. It turned out to be 385 photos and $74. Six more years to go... And counting.

I can only expect there to be way more photos in the coming years. Back in 2004-2006 my SD card was 512Mb big and I didn't have as much freedom to insanely point and shoot. I then acquired a 2gb card at around 2007. This is where things are going to get interesting (or extremely annoying considering I have to go through them all and select the best ones.)

It is also quite awkward. During 2004-2010 I was with my ex. There are a lot of photos that he is in. I have been cutting him out of a few, but he will always end up in some. I have to accept that he was a part of my past and I can't erase him completely.

It is also quite noticeable how big my boobs have grown since then.  

Holidays, plants and heatwaves don't mix

The past two and a half weeks I have been overseas.

This means that no one was around to water my plants for that entire time. Furthermore, during one of those weeks there was a heatwave of temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius.

Before I left I had been battling with caterpillars. They were taking over and that was my main concern. Now I don't have to worry about caterpillars because most of the plants are dead.

Dried and brittle. It was a sad sight. My lush lettuce has turned stiff. My tomato seedlings crisp.
Everything brown.

A year ago I learned that water is vital for plants to stay alive. This time round I learned that you should have a watering plan when leaving for holidays, due to the fact of lesson number one. They absolutely do not survive without water.

All has not failed yet. My basil plant from a year ago is still alive and well. I think I have trained it to handle extreme conditions, because it cannot bet on ideal ones.

My lemon tree is still living, just a little bit sad...

I think I can salvage my chocolate mint as there is a little bit of green on one of the areas. However it is going to take a long time to repair.

My Youngberry still has a bit of green, so may survive also.

May need to do a bit of replacement shopping...

Water. Very important for plant survival!

The video game/ hula hoop exercise routine

I have been meaning to get more exercise in my life.

Ever since I got myself an office job and stopped partner dancing I have been easily putting on weight. Even though I am only 63kgs with a height of 169cms, I still feel like I could be more fit.

Problem is that most exercise routines are boring.

So I thought about what would motivate me. Firstly, I would like to get better at Starcraft 2. Secondly, I have a hula hoop I have hardly used.

My thought it that if I use hula hooping as punishment for every Starcraft 2 game I lose, then it will motivate me to get better and also have me hula hooping.

The routine below:

1. Play Starcraft 2.

2. Each game lost is 1 minute of hula hooping.

3. If losing games in a row, double amount of hula hooping each time (e.g., lost 2 games in a row, 4 minutes of hula hooping [1 + 1 = 2; 2x2 = 4]; lost 3 games in a row, 10 minutes of hula hooping [ 2 lost games = 4 mins; 4 + 1 = 5; 5 x 2 = 10].

4. Hula hoop non-stop until all time completed.

I was losing a lot of games recently so thought that I would get a lot of hula hooping done because of this. The moment I decided to do this I have been winning my games. I guess this is a win win situation.

Tomato plant transfer 1

About 4 days ago I transferred my sprouting tomato seeds into their own little tub. I was a bit hesitant doing this because I was afraid that I would kill them all.

I didn't, as per below. A photo taken today.

They have started to grow their true leaves. Last year this is the point where I failed. I hardly got any true leaves and the plants just died. This time they seem quite strong.

It seems like I have no room to fail.
As I transferred one of the sprouts, the root completely snapped off. I thought there would be no hope for that sprout, however I still placed it in its own tub out of respect. After awhile it shrivelled up a little bit while the others kept upright. I was sure it was dead. I left it be and visited it the next day to mourn my loss. To my surprise it was no longer shrivelled, but completely upright. The little guy is not doing excellent and looks no different from the rest.

Even with no root, I was able to successfully transfer a sprout. This really boosts my confidence in gardening.

I made sure there was enough feed in their new placement too.
In each tub I added premium soil and soil for seeds and cuttings. In between the two different soils I added a tomato feed, so that when I created the holes to place the sprouts, the roots would have full access to the feed. I am unsure if doing that really helped with the survival or the fact that I have been watering them everyday.

When my other plants died last year I asked for some advice from a person I know. She told me that a wise person once told her that the key to the survival of a plant is:

1. Water it
2. Give it sunshine

At the time I though that it could not be that simple, but really, it is... who knew?

Ending relationships

For my previous post, I had to look through folders of old photos. A lot of these photos featured my ex and I felt a bit awkward going through them.

I have six years worth of photos with my ex. That is a lot of photos. And it also shows signs of the relationship slowly fading, which made me think about it a bit.

It was not obvious back then, but now I can clearly see my disinterest in the photos. I was not happy.

In the first couple of years I can see happiness in the relationship. It was new, it was my first and I was glad I was in it. It was something I thought I needed at the time.

Then, things were not so new any more. We started living together. So many things irritated me about him, but I thought it was just my hormones. In photos I looked glum and even sometimes grumpy. This was during last three years of the relationship.

Why wasn't it obvious during those three years that the relationship just had to end? Why weren't the signs obvious?

Image source here

Now I would think it would be obvious if I did it all again. But as a reminder, I have created the following list.

When you can be sure the relationship has to end:

1. You feel unhappy with your partner at all times.
2. Your partner has a way of irritating you like no other person.
3. You no longer feel physically or mentally attracted to them. In other words, you feel no attraction to them at all.
4. You do not feel any joy seeing them after not seeing them for a period of time.
5. You rather be somewhere else or with someone else when with your partner.
6. You cannot imagine a happy future together.
7. When you do not want to take any time or energy fixing the relationship because you feel like it is unfixable.
8. When you are constantly thinking whether or not it should end. If you are thinking about it, there has to be a reason why.
9. You cannot find any positives or qualities in your partner that are worth tolerating any negative.
10. When you both do not want the same type of live. 

Image source here

Even though all of the above was true, I still kept at it. I knew I wanted out, but didn't know how to do it. I felt insecure about myself. I felt like no one else would want to be with me. I felt like we had gone through too many years to give it all up.

I felt responsible for his happiness. I did not want to crush him. I did not want to make him feel like I took away a lot of his time. I did not want the blame.

In hindsight, the quicker I would end it, the best it would have been for the both of us. Ending it allowed him to get on with his life, and it allowed me to see what I truly wanted. It was like being freed from a ball and chain.

Ending it allowed me to be free to find someone else. Someone who I never thought would enter my life. Someone who I am with now.

Hopefully the same will happen to him, if it hasn't already.

Check out the bathroom

Ever since social media website became popular, I have noticed the different ways people display themselves.

I remember the days when everyone had the self shot from above. It somehow made people look slightly better than head on shots, so I can see why it was done. Below was the best example I could find from my own collection. Surprisingly, I personally do not have many of these kind of shots.

Eighteen... so young... and naive

Then I noticed the self taken photo through a mirror shots. I never went through this phase because I never understood why people do it. Most cameras (and phones) have an option for timer shots. This is what I would use.

The first time I saw the mirror shots I thought people were showing off their cameras. I then realised that that was not the case. They were showing themselves off. As soon as I realised this I created the following photo and posted it on my page.

Thanks for taking the photo Camera Dude!

I had my camera show me off instead by taking the picture. This was only possible because I knew how to use the timer shot function of the camera.

Today, I still see the mirror shot photos. I often think about commenting on the photos complementing the bathroom tiles or the like, but not many people appreciate my sense of humour.

Personally I think bathrooms are an odd place to take a photo. Especially when it is your parent's bathroom, which is something I see a lot. Although you do occasionally find humorous ones on the Internet.

However, I find it even more funny when people are trying to be cool in the bathroom. They do this by showing off abs, holding an alcoholic beverage when they just turned the legal age, or even pouting like a fish. No matter how cool they try to look, it loses the effect because they are standing in a bathroom taking a photo of themselves. 

I respect a bit of creativity. It would be cool if people tried to be a little more creative with their self shots.

One week on - Still alive

Last year I failed miserably at keeping plants alive. I had the idea that I could easily grow edibles from seed or seedling. My experiences showed me that my idea was false.

This year, I want to make that idea true. So I have started anew with a new batch of seeds/seedlings.

I am so determined to keep this bunch alive that I think I am getting paranoid. I have to check the plants at least twice a day. I keep checking if the soil is moist enough. I check every small section to make sure there are no bugs, slugs or other critters wanting to sabotage me. I think about the plants during most of the day at work. If I really think about it, my plants are now my number one thought every day. Unsure how healthy this is mentally, but it seems to be keeping them alive.

My tomato seeds have sprouted.

These little ones are a week old. They already look much healthier than the ones I had last year. Last year I had them indoors without much light so their stems grew way more than they could handle. These ones were outside at half shade with a plastic covering. So far, so good.

I removed the plastic covering yesterday and the little ones seem to be enjoying the sun. It won't be long until I will need to transfer them into separate containers. Hopefully that process won't be the death of them.

My basil seeds are also sprouting.

I honestly did not think anything would sprout from these seeds, mostly because I was unsure if the seeds were ready to be cultivated. Interesting enough, I have found more of these sprouts in my pot where I have my old parsley. Even though I did not plant any seeds in the pot, I am not surprised that the sprouts are there. I had a basil plant in the pot that died, but flowered in its last living months. I guess it left behind some seeds that are now activated from my watering and feeding. Maybe growing basil is not as hard as I thought it would be.

My basil cuttings are still not developing roots. It has only been a week, so it is still early days. If this time next week I still see nothing, then I will accept defeat.

One of the cuttings was losing some of its leaf. I later discovered a small green caterpillar munching on it. Unfortunately I had to execute it. Nothing messes with my plants!  

Below are my garlic after a week of inserting them into the soil.

They are doing extremely well, considering they were left overs from the pantry.

My lettuce is pretty much the same. It has grow a little bit, but nothing too obvious. However I am glad that no snails have managed to munch on them. Sprinkling snail bait around the pots really does work wonders.

Both my chocolate mint and youngberry are doing great. They have both grown a little bit. I am considering transferring the youngberry to a hanging basket, because it seems like the kind of plant that would want to take over everything. It looks quite strong.

My old parsley seems quite sad. It has not grown at all and starting to brown. I think after a year of neglect it got stunted and seems irreversible. Might have to buy more seedlings. Lesson learned though. Do not neglect plants for a whole year. Noted.