Nine's Bootcamp Experience (BRK)

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:That vine growing through a fir, could it be Honeysuckle?

Ooh, you're probably right!

#83

More battery maintenance. Had a kitten helper. Continued to have an issue at the Love Shack. Seems there's a short in the load. My gut tells me someone hit a wire with a brad nail. I really don't want to tear the wall apart to find out if it's right. :-/

#84

Gardening this morning. I spent most of my time slicing through grass. But I started listening to a podcast, and got through two episodes before my old BT headphones died. Today it was "Black and White Thinking" from Unf*ck Your Brain that got my brain going. Her episode on Phobias, Circumstances, and Taking Ownership of What You Want was already really poignant. It was a good reminder about how "Circumstances are neutral... Because until a human has a thought about it, it’s not good or bad. It just exists." She goes on to talk about how some people try to make a situation neutral but forget that the situation is already neutral - it's their thought about that situation that isn't neutral.

Your job is to perceive its neutrality. When you’re struggling, it’s because what is much more accurate to say is there’s a circumstance that I have so many thoughts about that those thoughts are preventing me from seeing its true neutrality. Or those thoughts are preventing me from seeing the way it is actually neutral. Don’t tell yourself that you’re neutralizing a bad circumstance. You want to practice believing that the circumstance is neutral because it is, and when you aren’t able to see it that way, it’s because your thoughts are clouding the lenses. Your thoughts are getting in the way.

Our thoughts are getting in the way. It's so true. Sometimes it's a real struggle to get out of our own way. I've spent the last week or so working to neutralize my own thoughts and actions. It's an every day process, but I work to see things from outside my own point of view so I can understand what's happening with those around me and work to make things better for all of us.

After gardening, I finished up the battery maintenances and began the struggle with the Love Shack. Long story short, I made a mistake and now, with Fred's help, the Love Shack electrical is fully functional. Tomorrow I'll zip it up and it'll be good to go. I'm looking forward to having someone rent it out. It's so quiet in there. You shut the door behind you and the world disappears. You can look out the window up into the forest and feel like you're in a far off place. It's lovely.

#85

Worked on the design for the Cooper Cabin bathroom this morning. It's coming along. Can probably start rounding up materials to build the wall + toilet/sink cabinets next week. I think I'll be helping out with the Dock lighting in the Library first as well as the lighting in the classroom.

If ya'll see anything crazy with the design, lemme know. The missing walls already exist, which is why I don't have them in the design. The bathroom door opens out. The toilet enclosure (the big box) opens toward you when you're coming into the room. I think I'm gonna build removable steps to get up to the toilet seat. Seems like the easiest way to handle so many constraints in here. The little box is the sink cabinet, which will have a foot pump and 5 gallon bucket for water. There's an existing gray water pipe in the floor under it to let that go outside. The pipe under the window in the toilet enclosure is for the urine diverter; the pipe exists already.

#87