6 Comments
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Maurice Klimek's avatar

Love your newsletter. Still, it would benefit with one story at a time, I think ;-)

J.D. Forrest's avatar

Thanks, Maurice, and I appreciate the input!

Litchfield Hills Press's avatar

Been married a master gardener for the past 26 years. She's awesome. Few observations from the garden this year:

* Peppers: Found them to be a PITA to grow. No luck this year. Maybe next year.

* Tomatoes: Was still getting them last month from the vines we container started this spring.

* Cilantro: You either have the gene where it tastes like soap, or you don't.

* Basil: The absolute *best* Pesto comes from Basil you grow yourself. Pesto is a good substitute to tomato-based sauces in many Italian-style dishes.

* The cheap Harbor Freight greenhouse was one of the best investments I ever made.

Christine Whitmarsh's avatar

So much awesome stuff here Joe!

Of course I was drawn to the Jung section. Interesting how we "know" this - that other people's stuff is their stuff, not ours. "Four Agreements" being the pop cultur-ish version of this, plus all the social media memes. Yet in the moment, tamping down the evolutionary brain chemicals, social programming, and firing synapses can feel like a Herculean task.

Not taking things personally is the most important lesson I've found to living in (relative) mental peace. Huge timesaver too, the hours spent analyzing "what he/she really meant by that" and all the rest of the fictional noise. I remember the struggle of letting it go though, letting the theater of other people's stuff go up in smoke, can be like - "okay but now what do I do with all this time I spent building the theater??".

J.D. Forrest's avatar

It's definitely not an easy thing to do, and I still struggle with it myself on bad days. The thing that honestly helped me the most was controlling my road raging. I was so bad at that. Now I'm calm as a cucumber. That translated over in a lot of areas in my life.

But yeah, the moment you realize and understand that other people's shit is other people's shit life gets much better.

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Dec 21
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J.D. Forrest's avatar

It really is a good way to ground yourself, and the added benefit of saving a little money is always nice. I like how it makes the apartment feel more alive.