A tiny bit of our garden's history

Ever since hubby and I moved into our current house we have been struggling with our garden.

At first glance, the garden looked ideal. With a surface of no more than 5 by 10 meters (16.4 by 32.9 ft) including garden shed and bicycle parking, it has a pretty good size for someone who doesn't want to spend their entire day gardening, but there's still plenty of room to create something nice. Another plus is that the garden faces Southwest, which meant it should get a lot of sunshine.

Strangely enough, most of our neighbors had their backyards (almost) completely tiled, with tiny strips of green at the borders. How dull, we thought, blissfully ignorant of the implied warning of our neighbors' decisions. We didn't want a garden like that. We'd have a garden that looked lush and green, a place where birds, insects and other animals would feel welcome. It would have a terrace/p...

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This is a personal perception and it is frequently evolving and developing. It is not declaring law or rule of any form, but rather a philosophy. There are generalizations, as this is not meant to be specialized for any specific subjects in these situations. This is a rough draft, so I am open to suggestion on either it's legibility or the philosophy itself.

Also, if Staff feels like this could serve better in another area of the site... feel free to run it by me and I will likely be happy to go with it.

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It is important to discuss any facts that pertain to the issue. The integrity of this information is even more important. Opinions have their place, but it is important to use tangible information to support a position that serves as the base of our opinions.

Propose any solutions to the table believed to be viable. Verify the correlation and validity of what is being presented. Contend with flawed solutions by identifying them, pre...

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This is a blog all about dealing with stress, intense situations, and strong emotions. A few things before I get into the more enjoyable content of the blog, as a disclaimer:

* My blog won't be a substitute for RL therapy/counseling, of course, nor for appropriate RL help of any kind. I myself attend counseling, and it's given me some wonderful tools to deal with stress.
* This is not a place to just vent about one's life. Sharing an anecdote or two is fine, but persistent negativity will be directed to the Bad and the Ugly forum or an Apologies & Absences thread.
* Not everything in here will work for everyone! People are all different. I welcome discussion of healthy methods to cope with stress, even when they aren't methods that work for me personally. They might still work for someone else reading along! The methods I tend to g...

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Oh my…

I’m looking at this blank page, wondering where to start.  I suppose ‘at the beginning’ is the traditional way of doing these things, but much of what’s occupied my thoughts comes at the ending of so much in my life to this point, I might be forgiven for upending custom.  If not?  I probably won’t lose any sleep over it anyway…

The curtains are falling on many long-standing circumstances, great swaths of my life that are coming to a close, and imminently.  My youngest child is graduating high school come summer, and heading off to college.  And when she leaves, her father and I – after almost twenty years of marriage – will be divorcing.  For the moment we stay together, more-or-less roommates and mostly friendly in our house, so our daughter doesn’t have to find a new high school in her senior year.  He lives his life though, and I live mine, quite separately – the way we really should have been years ago.*  We pursue our separate interests, and that is...

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Hello everyone, it's been awhile. As some of you may know, I often blog through poetry. I have a lot of reasons for doing this, but mostly poetry allows me to get to the heart of what I'm trying to express which is something that I find challenging in any other medium. Now before I get to the point, I'm going to provide a little background. Last February my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal cancer. What that means, is that she has the worst stage of the second worst cancer a person can have. Prior to her diagnoses, I had been in nursing school. I didn't leave school just to take care of her, honestly there were a lot of reasons I left. Reasons that I still haven't fully come to terms with. Since then, however, I have had the honor and privilege of taking care of her. Of taking her to her appointments, of sitting with her through chemotherapy, of managing her medications and the plethora of other things that a caretaker does. As hard as it has been, I wouldn't trade these la...

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The United States territory of Puerto Rico is home to:

- Three and a half million American Citizens - nearly all without electricity or access to communication.
- Over one hundred thousand veterans
- Dozens of our own website's members.

When Maria's eyewall passed over the island, over 60,000 Puerto Ricans were still without power from Irma.



Media attention to hurricane Maria has been comparatively tepid, as has the destruction it wrought on Puerto Rico. More attention is given to the island by British media than American. Now, the mayor of San Juan has said that the situation is approaching a genocide.

Complicating this situation is the financial situation Puerto Rico has been suffering for years. Through corruption in its own government and inability to obtain or ...

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To give you some history on me, I wasn't always disabled, I didn't always have uncontrollable pain, I didn't always wake up in the middle of the night just to take more medicine to sleep. I didn't always have a hard time climbing my stairs and I didn't always have a hard time just walking a few feet. All of that changed for me on May 18, 2016. What happened to me you may ask that would change my life so drastically? I finished a set of shots in my back for 3 bulging discs and that very night, I felt so bad I was in bed by six pm. I woke up just two hours later with my hands completely asleep in the same position I have slept in all my life and never once had they ever fallen asleep. Since then, my legs have become so sensitive nothing can touch them but hot water. If cold water touches them, it sends my nerves ablaze, if the wind touches them, I hurt so much I want to cry and if the sun touches them, it burns like insanely more than normal. If my cat rubs up against them, I start to m...

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[floatright][img width=640 padding=5]https://elliquiy.com/pics/eclipsehorizon.png[/img][/floatright] This was 11:34 AM.

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Like every annular and significant partial eclipse, the world noticeably fades and cools beforehand. It gets eerily dark even though one cannot tell the Sun itself has dimmed. The only clue is in the shadows made by dense leaves - the sun's reflection off of water and metal does not appear to change.

Then, in seconds, the day collapses into twilight. The Sun winks out, revoking the last of its warmth. Birds make their final, confused chirps before going silent. The wind changes, and every horizon glows like sunset.

I do not know if there is a word to describe the alien emotion that accompanies this moment. A sense that reality has transformed.

Above the twilight is a sort of not-quite night, illuminated by the ring of white flames surrounding the hole in the sky. The Morning Star proudly shows herself just ...

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I have decided to write this for myself (and perhaps others if they might need a reminder or second opinion as to what it means). I also understand that people might think of political happenings/figures and other 'leadership' issues our countries might face. One may be tempted to make a snarky comment about such happenings here in my blog.

Don't. Do not shift or distract the intended focus of my work here. This is not a PROC thread. This is my work and largely spoken from my own mouth. If you cannot respect my work space, I will politely ask you to leave.

This is also unfinished, gradually forming over the past year and a half. I have ten basic principles in my head but not fully developed for consistency, yet. You are welcome to make suggestions. This is meant to translate my take on what it means to lead in somewhat to all forms of leadership (World Leaders to even those such as that run and maintain forums on the internet;  Leadership is ...

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If you are in the United States, today (the twelfth) you will likely be hearing about Network Neutrality from many places on the web.

I wrote about this before, but I would be remiss not to speak on it again.

If you are looking for the facts about Network Neutrality, please read that post. Again, it is important to understand even if you are not American.

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It has been fascinating watching this come together.

My hope is that people will understand and accept that this day is a sincere effort, by understanding individuals who wish to secure a better future for this country. There are companies participating today that have far more to lose than to gain from doing so, except perhaps being able to look their most talented employees in the eye.

A tiny non-profit picked a day most of us could agree on, and this fell together in a month....

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