Post-Twitter and other ideas

Since Twitter has been an interesting, sometimes vital,  part of my online life for several years, and you, dear blogistas, have benefited here and there, too, now that it may be ready to go I've been looking at the whole thing.

The first idea is to run to alternatives and I've signed up for a couple of potential new platforms, and the newsletters of people I particularly like to hear from.  But I've also been thinking about habit and needs.

I quit a heavy smoking habit many years ago and got a lot of questions about what I would replace it with. Answer: nothing. 

Briefly I clenched a paperclip in my teeth at work, but quit that too. I found that I didn't actually need to replace smoking, which had been satisfying and time consuming and urgent, very much like social media. Hmm.

I just let my days reshape as they would, though the need didn't abate for a long time. So I'm considering that, and wondering if it applies. 

Only a long time smoker really gets the difficulty of quitting and staying quit of a habit that wasn't healthy and it strikes me that there may be parallels. Not sure, but I'm doing a bit of what religious professed people call discernment.

Meanwhile, I thought it would be good to resume my daily art making for your interest, before I get too rusty to draw. I last did a drawing in late July, so maybe that will happen again.

Here's today,  the little art making book and trusty box of tools out. 

A five minute drawing with a carpenter's pencil

I did what I rarely do, draw from an online image, of Elizabeth Fraser, Scottish musician, couldn't find a photo credit,  just to get started and because I was attracted by the face and hair shape.  

I didn't time it, just drew till I was done then noticed the time elapsed. This book is all about brief art making, that being the nature of how I do it. I can see how faulty this drawing is, showing rust, but best I can do today 

I usually draw from life, more energy that way.  Anyway I think I'll resume doing this exercise again, from life, daily if it works out that way. 

Happy day everyone, enjoy your day with the materials at hand. A clue for the word puzzle: it's a visible body part!

Photo AC 

Fenced in, fish, powerhouse soup and mystery wildflowers

Today contractor friend Mike comes to see what's what with the fence. The uprights were put in exactly where the old posts had been, but they're bigger and take up more surface. He'll have to cut the walkway a bit to fit it in again. And cut and move the supports under the deck to secure the walkway, because the gate's a good 18" over from the old gate.  He designed the deck so I expect he'll know how to proceed.

Not that I'm anxious to sit out yet, temps in the fifties and a brisk wind. 

Yesterday I made stock and a powerhouse green soup with macaroni. Broccoli, spinach and scallions. You've seen this before, so no pix. Very welcome on cold spring days.  

And I broke out the salmon, and proved again that good ingredients need very little help from the cook. 

Just salt, pepper, fresh thyme, baked, that's it. With a green salad, very cheering spring lunch. With enough left for today, too.

The jaw pain is easing up a bit, after I've been trying not to clench. Bet dollars to donuts it will be resolved before I see the doctor.  

She gets this patient, unintended pun,  look when I tell her about awful symptoms that have all gone away now! I'm betting she's seeing a lot of anxiety symptoms of all kinds these days. 

Before I leave Twitter to sort itself out, after my morning rounds of storytellers, historians, artists and other cheering people, let me tell you a recent dialogue with an older lady on another website.

She brags about having no smartphone, though she's on the computer daily checking in to interactive websites. On  the subject of Twitter she claimed "I can't tweet, I don't have a smartphone".  

Someone else tried to explain tweeting was exactly like what she was currently doing, only with fewer characters. But she insisted. 

We finally realized she had it confused with texting. Evidently thought the whole site was about texting. Oh. Can't imagine how that could work.  But I wonder how often people form positions based on a faulty grasp of the facts. I expect I do too.

Speaking of which, is this a bed of henbit?

It has different colored leaves from the henbit growing at my door.  But I'm open to suggestions.

Putin has now cut off Russian natural gas supplies to a couple of neighboring countries, further uniting Europe and strengthening support for Ukraine.  I wouldn't say he's much of a tactician. More like a human blunt instrument.

Happy day everyone, at least as happy as you can manage. Some of us are struggling, I know.

Of Twitter and tension and textiles

So the proposed buy-out of Twitter by Musk has caused a flutter in the Twittercote. It's not all done, far from it. 

There's a shareholder vote to come, then due diligence must be followed and the legal entities satisfied before any change of ownership can happen. 

It won't happen yesterday, despite the panic in the Twitter sphere. He already balked at the due diligence required to be on the board, and this will be much more thorough, given that he has to satisfy them of his sources for payment. 

My own account is tiny, but I've developed a nice timeline with people in fields such as botany, medieval history, textiles, writing, art, miniatures, farming, politics and pets. It's an excellent news source from journos before their work gets onto their official outlets.

My avatar is a piece of my gold work, as good as a portrait, really.  I'm hoping that if it changes dramatically, goes feebased, I don't get shut out. It's a good place for me, and mitigates the loneliness of being old and alone. I can sign up for newsletters, but they don't have the back and forth that makes the site friendly.

So there we are. We'll see. 

The tension in the title is in my jaw, pain for a few days, I'm guessing from anxious clenching. I've tried various remedies from cursing to massage to pain pills, nothing works for long. I see my doctor next week anyway so we'll see what she suggests. It's not good for happy moods, definitely.

Meanwhile socks continue

I'm getting down in the yarn supply, so narrow stripes may happen,  to use it up with some design still going. 

And the fence saga is not quite done. The section of deck I had to remove will not fit back into the new space. Also the deck now has to allow for a whole different gate placement. 

This will involve getting Contractor  Mike to recut and redesign the edge of the deck, to put back the vital walkway. 

I already moved some planting that was now right across the gate. The good news is that the gate opens outward, so there's no concern about clearing the deck, which it wouldn't, being set lower than the old gate.

Never a dull moment. Again. 

Happy day everyone!  Later today Textiles and Tea, with a weaver of yardage, I'll see how that grips me and, if it does, let you know tomorrow.

Sometimes social media works

Monday, Monday, and here's what greeted me in my early morning Twitter timeline.

Just a gentle reminder that Twitter is about choosing your company, taking care of your friends, responding to good thoughts with good thoughts. And learning how to curate your timeline to be a daily source of peace and hope. 

Meanwhile back at the ranch, the ginger plant was showing signs of aging.

Yellowing foliage, looking tired.

So I tipped out the plant

See the exhausted root top left, and the harvest in the foreground. The root explains why the foliage was waning, no more nutrition.

And here's the harvest ready to be peeled, diced and frozen to go with the ginger already in the freezer.

Later I'll start another root. For now I have enough ginger to be going on with.

Now praying for the Russian people, as well as the Ukrainian besieged population. The ordinary people are intermarried with Ukrainians, are being lied to, their access to media totally censored. 

Many don't believe what their Ukrainian relatives are telling them, no idea of the magnitude of the attack. And now they're suffering hardship, food shortages,  cash access curtailed. They never asked for this.

One man, with the assistance of corrupt foreign leaders, has got us here. I'm profoundly grateful that he failed to get TFG into a second term, so there's that.