It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

I love how I can actually feel the shift in the momentum of the everyday mundane. Days become shorter, nights become cooler and the grass doesn’t have to be mowed once a week. There is something about fall that makes everything feel like it is exhaling.

I turned 50 this month.

Fifty feels weird. Fifty feels like the halfway point, but in reality, it’s probably closer to the three-quarter point.

Point of what?

Fifty feels like coughing and peeing at the same time. Blown gasket?

Fifty feels like zero fucks given about the opinions of others.

Fifty feels like closed doors and wide-open spaces.

Fifty feels like a new beginning.

Birthday Shenanigans

For my birthday, Dennis took me out to see Coyote vs. Acme. Coyote sues ACME for creating crappy products that only got him hurt instead of helping him catch the Road Runner. It was pretty good. I recommend it if you grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons that didn’t suck.

We had lunch at a place called KPot Korean BBQ in Knoxville. You may be as disappointed as I was to learn that the “pot” part is for a soup pot.

The tables have hot plates with a BBQ grill in the center. You get a tablet with tons of things you can order. All kinds of meats, vegetables, fruits and fish. Everyone picks what soup base they want and then they start bringing out the table’s picks from the tablet. Everyone kind of shares and either cooks the food in their pot of soup or on the BBQ grill.

There are tons of sauces, spices and kimchi to add to the creations.

We both had a great time and will likely do it again. I think it would be really fun with at least four people.

What the Hell Does Dennis Do?

Speaking of Dennis, he took a giant leap and switched jobs.

He is working at Type One Energy in Oak Ridge.

What does he do?

Hellifiknow.

This is like Big Bang Theory super-nerd type stuff. I know that it’s a new type of energy that is renewable and better for the environment and, once it takes off, it could mean the end of all of us taking it without lube from the electric companies every month and maybe give Mother Nature a break while we are at it.

Basically, Type One Energy is working on fusion power. Their approach uses something called a stellarator, which is a giant, ridiculously complicated magnetic machine designed to contain super-hot plasma long enough for fusion to happen. Fusion is the same basic process that powers the sun.

That is about as far as I can go before the nerd fog rolls in.

What I do understand is that if they can make fusion power work on a commercial scale, it could eventually provide a whole lot of electricity without burning fossil fuels and without the same kind of long-lived radioactive waste associated with traditional nuclear fission.

So apparently Dennis is helping build the sun.

No pressure.

He can work a couple of days a week from home, so that makes the drive suck less too. He likes the challenge of something new and the work environment is much calmer than where he was.

If you see him and understand nerd speak, please ask him about what it is they are doing.

Then translate it to me and send it via pigeon.

Enquiring minds want to know.

The Garden Is Giving Up

The garden has slowly started dying back.

The big winner was the basil plant, which turned into a basil bush. I didn’t get a photo of it, but it got so big it finally fell over.

I made pesto and more pesto until pine nuts went up to eleven dollars for a cup of them. I froze a bunch and now I have some drying. There is still quite a bit in the garden, but I won’t mess with it until the first freeze. Come get some damn Basil!

I will be surprised if that plant does not come back next year. It grew a thick trunk like a mini tree. It could take over the world.

We shall see.

The hot peppers came in a close second for overproduction. I have picked, pickled, dried and strung peppers all summer. I’ve had pepper juices in places that pepper juices should never go and you know what?

I still have peppers in the garden.

Red chili peppers are great for worming chickens…if you can get them to eat them. I grind it up pretty fine and add it to their feed. Just don’t inhale or your nose holes will never be the same.

So I will keep picking them, but they won’t be planted for next year.

I hear peppers pair well with basil. Come pick a peck of peppers!

The luffa is looking good and I think I will have enough to use at the house and share. If you want one, holler and I will hook you up.

I was not impressed with the beans, squash, zucchini or tomatoes, but to be fair, they drowned in all the rain we had.

Next year I am going to focus more on herbs.

More herbs, beans and burdock.

Less tomatoes and peppers.

Pedro and His Dangly Bits

Most of the possums have skedaddled for the season. There are a few that hang out in the soft-release pen. This is rigged up on the inside for them to have a safe place to crash and eat and drink while they figure out how to navigate in the forest without getting eaten.

I have one in my bathtub that I found after a super loud thunderstorm.

He wasn’t one of mine but needed help, so naturally I set him up in the Bathtub Villa.

His name is Pedro and he likes to eat super worms, chicken gizzards, blueberries and vanilla yogurt.

He is getting stronger by the day, so I don’t think he will be with me too much longer.

I would like to take this time to let you know that possum testicles are hilarious.

They hang super low, dangle to and fro, the whole nine yards.

Sharing is caring.

Well, Since We’re Sharing…

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in July.

I had genetic testing done, and I do not have any of the breast cancer gene mutations they were looking for. I was told, however, that I have a 47% lifetime risk of developing breast cancer again or another type of cancer.

Before I had the genetic testing, I told myself that if I had one of the mutations, I would have a bilateral mastectomy and be done with it.

I don’t have the mutation, so now I’m stuck in one of those flip-a-coin moments.

The spot they found is apparently like “grains of sand,” and it was caught early. The plan is to remove the area around it and hope they got all of it.

Sounds promising, right?

So on October 9th, they are going to scoop it out.

If they find more cancer after that, both of the girls are getting dismissed from duty.

I have a hard time with doctors, big pharma and trusting people in general. The less I have to deal with them, the better.

For now, I’m trying to take it one appointment at a time and not borrow trouble from the future.

The Part I Didn’t Want to Write

The last post I wrote was intended for Kailey to read, but I saw that she unsubscribed from my blog a week or so before leaving the country and ghosting me straight out of her life.

She is 24.

Coincidentally, my oldest daughter was 24 when she did the same thing six years ago.

In your spare time, Google “What is no contact.”

The results may shock you.

There is a growing amount of research and discussion around people cutting off contact with family and friends. A recent survey found that 38% of U.S. adults said they had gone no-contact with a friend or family member in the previous year, with higher reported rates among younger generations.

All of the signs were there for both of them. I just didn’t see them and honestly, I couldn’t have stopped them.

I find it ironic that while trying to assert their individuality and independence, they are following the crowd.

This is a hurt that doesn’t go away.

But I know the pain will fade and I will get through it.

Thank you to those who reached out to me, dragged me out for a hike, to the river for a swim or just listened to me as my fractured brain sorted through what is now my new reality.

I felt your prayers and positive vibes kicking me out of bed each morning whether I liked it or not.

Many doors have closed, but many more have opened. The future looks different from the one I had planned out in my heart, but it is still a future that I am very much looking forward to.

Keeping My Hands Busy

When my brain won’t stop playing out scenes on auto loop, I like to give my hands something to do.

If not playing video games or gardening, I like to do crafty shit.

Embroidery. Whittling.

Or my new jam…

Wet felting.

This sounds kind of perverted, doesn’t it?

Honestly, it stinks a bit like wet dog.

You are basically taking wool fibers, adding soap, water and friction, which causes the fibers to blend together and create a solid piece. When a resist is used, the piece can be cut into a 3D shape like a hat, slippers or a bag.

I have made a hat and part of a bag.

I am not very good yet, as I leave holes where my fibers didn’t felt together properly. I think this gives the hat character, but it doesn’t do much for the bag.

I have learned that I can wet felt wool fibers onto store-bought pieces of felt, which makes things easier and quite a bit straighter. I think I can patch holes with the store-bought pieces, but I am still working on that theory too.

I have seen people create framed art with wool fibers and felting, making all kinds of amazing scenes.

I don’t think I have that kind of patience.

I like that I get to roll this stuff and punch this stuff. Working it is a workout.

It’s like therapy that just so happens to smell like a wet lamb.

You should try it.

Yoga, Apparently

I have been keeping up with my yoga practice and that has been a big help.

I had a few days where I said, “If I just get the damn yoga done, it’s enough.”

And it was.

Meditating is another story, but that is getting better too.

Sometimes it’s just hard to sit with the thoughts in our heads.

Getting Off the Internet

I deleted all of my social media accounts.

I have always had a hard time with the fakeness of it all but can’t deny how handy it is for keeping in touch with others. I also liked Marketplace.

I found myself scanning through those stupid short videos, watching kids eat their boogers or spouses getting caught cheating instead of actually living my life.

Now instead of scrolling, I am reading a book, playing solo card games, learning chess or writing some sort of ridiculousness.

Does that make me better?

No.

But being present makes me feel better.

More whole.

More connected to what actually is.

I feel like we are being distracted. Distracted and divided.

You are either Democratic or Republican, Black or white, Christian or pagan, and if you feel differently then we can’t be friends.

When the hell did this happen?

What happened to agree to disagree?

We used to work together as communities and now we tear communities apart.

Maybe I am just getting older, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being told who I am supposed to hate, what I am supposed to be angry about or what I am supposed to think.

There is too much actual life happening to spend it staring at a screen.

So I am going to keep growing things, making things, learning things and probably making a mess of most of it along the way.

Until Next Time

And that brings us to the end of another installment of whatever the hell this is.

Thank you for continuing to read my ramblings, especially through the heavier stuff. I know this one wandered all over the damn place, but honestly, so has my life lately.

For those of you who have stuck around, I appreciate you more than you probably realize.

Now it’s your turn.

What have you been up to?

What are you growing, making, learning, cooking, reading, rescuing or generally getting yourself into these days?

Hit reply and tell me. I really do want to know.

Until next time, take care of yourselves, go outside, get your hands dirty and remember that you don’t have to have your whole life figured out.

Apparently, I’m 50 and still winging it.