Reset

 Of the variant hobbies I've cycled through over the years, gaming is the oldest and most constant of them all. I've been gaming since...well, since I was pretty young. Nearly 30 years if I can make an estimate. I don't remember exactly when my father bought it, but we had a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) for some time. That was my portal into the world of video games. The system came packaged with a single cartridge, which was Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt. I don't remember what childlike awe I had for games, but I'm sure I was to some level blown away. Here was something I could see on my TV, but I could control it. I made Mario walk (or run) across the level. I made him jump. I made him swim. I made him smash goombas and koopas. I made him shoot freaking fire. What is cooler than that?

Later on my dad bought more games for the system. Batman, based on the 1989 blockbuster superhero movie of the same name, was really cool. At the time I was really getting into Batman, mostly because of the movie. In Batman I could play as the Dark Knight himself. I had the ability to punch enemies into dust. I could jump between walls. And of course, there were three different Bat-gadgets at my disposal. I watched my dad play it a lot because he was way better than me at the time. I feel like I kinda learned how to navigate and play an old NES game because I watched him do it. He died a lot, and watching as a kid, you learn a lot. 

As time went on, more systems came out with better graphics. I had the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), I had the GameBoy, I had the Nintendo 64. Later I moved away from just Nintendo and played Playstation and Xbox. The systems may have changed but my love for games remained the same. 

As I grew older, I wasn't sure if I continued to play video games because it was a nostalgic, comfort thing. Yes, that is certainly part of it. Is it that I could be Batman, or Superman, or Mario, or Sonic, or James Bond or that I could fight dragons, command armies, swing swords, shoot guns, drive fast cars, fly a ship, or save the world? Well, yes, that was part of it, too. Video games are immersive. Unlike books and other art mediums, I had the control. I controlled how the hero won, how the story played out. Games allowed me to sink into the world and escape for...many, many hours. And my "hard work" always paid off. The world was saved. The people were happy. I was thanked for doing the task laid out in the game. I was appreciated and recognized. 

The most overlooked, underrated feature to video games, however, is the "Reset" button. Stuck? Reset. Things not going your way? Reset. Need to change the game from "Medium" or "Hard" to "Easy"? Reset. On older consoles, there was an actual reset button. At any point, you could hit that bad boy. Didn't need to pause and navigate a menu, you could just hit "reset" and in seconds you were back at the title screen and you could start things fresh. 

I bring all this up because, probably like most anyone else, I wish life had a reset button. Reset and change the difficulty level. Reset and start over at your last save right before that boss battle. Reset and change the stats and attributes of your character. Reset just to play the easy first levels of the game just before it became unforgivingly difficult. It's been said, "Be careful what you wish for", but I almost wish I could hit reset on this year. Hit reset because, although it's been grueling and taxing on numerous levels, I still believe there were so many opportunities for me personally to be better. I did not take that time or effort in hindsight. I may have "learned" some things, but I didn't benefit myself or anyone else. This year could have been more of a victory than it has been.

So, what do we do? Try to do better. Try to apply what we've learned, which, as I grow up and grow older, have only realized I do a very poor job of applying. I also do a very poor job of remembering. This gets me into trouble, and then I wind up on a site like this and ramble for a few paragraphs about video games and how reset buttons are great but also metaphorical. 

2021 is in 3 weeks, and that'll be as close as I'll get to a reset button. Hopefully I can start applying and remembering, because I certainly can't reset and change my character at this point. 

Gardening, My New Hobby: Cultivating Peace and Fond Memories During a Time of Global Unrest

 At the start of this year I decided to try my hand at gardening. There were a few reasons for this decision. For one, there are two garden beds beside our house which remained untamed over the first couple years we lived here. I did little to maintain it, so for the summer seasons of 2018 and 2019 they were both overgrown with weeds of all kinds. It was almost like one of those vacant lots you see while driving, or the "Prairie Restorations/Preserves". So last winter I decided to clear out both beds and make use of them, as they were intended. My other reason was I had an urge to grow and make my own things. I had this fleeting thought years ago of raising an herb garden. My thought was to plant herbs which I would later use in herbal teas, so lavender, mint, lemon grass, chamomile, etc. This never came to fruition. Another reason was, I felt like I needed a hobby, but one that's productive. What's more productive than having a garden? It also seemed fairly simple. I could learn a new language, yes, but I could also just dig around in dirt, place seeds or plants into the ground, and watch'em go. I also watched my dad grow peppers and herbs years ago to use in cooking and to make his own salsa, which I guess also falls under the "grow and make my own things" reasoning. Lastly, of the plants I wanted to grow, I wanted to grow tomatoes. I felt like they were easy enough to handle, but I have a memory of my Uncle Rex going on about how tomatoes grown in Missouri soil were the best he ever tasted. Personally, I have never really cared too much for tomatoes, but wanted to make my mild skepticism into belief. 

First thing I did, back in February, was I borrowed some books from the library. They were helpful to get an idea of what I would need, provided the difficulty of each kind of plant, and helped me craft a rough plan for the project. My plan was simple as far as "what to grow". I was going to grow herbs like cilantro, basil, thyme, dill and oregano in one bed; my other bed would have tomatoes and peppers. With that in mind, I was ready to clear things out and till the earth. I bought simple tools at first such as a shovel and a spade. I went to work clearing out the beds. One had this deep rooted tree-like weed which took a majority of my time and effort. A gnarly thing that I had to dig in deep to uproot. With some hacking and snipping I was able to get it with a hand saw and hand trimmers. Once the beds were cleared, it was time to get the garden in shape, but since it wasn't spring yet and we still had a while before the anticipated last frost of the season, I decided to wait. 

And wait I did. Time went on. COVID came and made it's home. I was furloughed from my job during this time in April. I spent time looking at some YouTube videos so I could plan my work (Gary Pilarchik - The Rusted Garden was probably the most helpful with his video on starting your beginner garden, in case you decide to do the same). I made a list of supplies and headed over to Home Depot. I bought a couple bags of garden soil and fertilizer. I bought some seeds for my herbs, but planned to get transplants for tomatoes and peppers. None to be found, so I headed over to a nursery I knew of near our house. Near as I could tell, not a lot of what I was looking for, unless I was looking for more landscaping items. I went to another nursery, also very near our house, and they had a wonderful selection of plants. I bought two grape tomato plants, one regular run-of-the-mill tomato plant, green pepper, jalapeno pepper, chili pepper, cayenne pepper and a lavender plant (for the herb garden). I bought a few stakes and then took everything back to the house to get started. 

I remember it was a great day - sunny, blue skies, warm. I started breaking up the dirt in the beds with the shovel then poured a bag of garden soil in each and mixed it in. For the seeds, I put them just under the soil and mixed around some fertilizer. For the plants, I dug a small hole, mixed in fertilizer and set the little guys in. I set up the stakes next to them some support as they grew. Gave them all a good shower of water and...well, let them go. 

When I did all of that it was around April 18th or so. It was slow going for a long time. Every morning, during the time my daughter took her nap, I would go out through our walk-out in our basement and go to the side of the house to take a look. This morning visit would occur nearly every day until roughly a month ago. Honestly, the pepper plants looked worse for wear at first. The poor cayenne pepper plant I planted at the very end of the bed looked ragged for a while. He would get the first and last bit of sun every day, but it didn't look like it helped much for a long time. I also snipped the tops of the pepper plants when they were still small, a tip I learned online to help pepper plants grow bushier and with more peppers (which worked over time). Time went on. April became May which soon brought us all to June. My plants were getting bigger (the grape tomato plants shooting up like a weed). The plants were finally starting to flower. Then, one morning in early June, I stepped outside to do my morning check and found something which made me involuntarily and audibly gasp: a single, tiny, green tomato. Yellow flowers had been budding and blooming for a couple weeks, but this, THIS was a sign that I was doing things right. It still took a while for that little tomato to grow and ripen, but seeing it for the first time was exciting. From then on, the plants went crazy, both in growth and production. My first venture in gardening was turning into a success. 

The summer went on. I had loads of grape tomatoes. I had numerous regular tomatoes. And the amount of cayenne peppers my little cayenne plant was producing! Everybody was doing pretty well...except my herbs on the other side of the AC unit. The cilantro slowly but surely sprang up. The lavender I planted from a transplant was doing well. As for the dill, oregano, basil and thyme seeds I planted...no shows. Nothing at all. To make up for it, a cherry tomato plant sprouted right out of the ground beside the lavender. Over time it became overwhelming, growing faster than the other tomato plants which I purposely planted. It too produced loads of cherry tomatoes. 

Over the summer I harvested and used a lot. The fresh cilantro was used for a pork chop marinade and a batch of salsa I made. The lavender buds I used for hot tea. The grape and cherry tomatoes were used mostly as a snack (and mostly for my daughter, who luckily enjoyed them a lot). I gave many plastic bags fit to burst to family and friends. The regular tomatoes were used for burgers, BLTs, salsa and, well, just plain eating. The jalapenos I threw into salsa and some omelets. The chili pepper plant...was interesting. It grew large and bushy, but its problem was the flowers. For most of the season, the white flowers would die and fall off. Only a couple produced chili peppers. It wasn't until I trimmed it down considerably that it came back and produced numerous peppers, but by then the season was nearing the end (which was about September/October). The cayenne, however, became a wild bush filled with peppers. They would ripen to a bright red and I would harvest them a few at a time (only a handful seemed to ripen on the vine at once). With those, I tried my hand at producing hot sauce. It was a bit of trial and error at first, and I required the collective knowledge of YouTube yet again. After a couple tries I got it down. I probably made 5 or so batches of hot sauce over the last 4 or 5 months. It was used for hot wings a couple times, but mostly to put on eggs an mexican food. My last batch of peppers I harvested before the plant died I actually smoked on my grill, along with several chili peppers. That sauce has probably been the best. 

Overall, the attempt at gardening was a success. Sure, a few herbs didn't grow, but I wasn't broken up about it. I still got a lot of produce from my plants, and nothing beats the feeling of picking something fresh and bringing it into your kitchen. Some of my favorite memories though, are going out each morning and examining the plants. There were mornings I spent twenty to thirty minutes pruning and taking care of the plants which brought a sort of Zen peace I guess. Through everything that's going on, I needed that. I needed that quiet, that focus on nature. Then there were the mornings after it had rained. The crickets chirped and the air felt cool. I would grasp a grape tomato covered in rain water and pluck it off the vine. I put it in my mouth and it seemed sweeter and juicier than any store bought grape tomato I had eaten. 

Another memory I enjoyed was sharing the garden with my wife and daughter. With my daughter, we would go out in the backyard and play. She would trot over to the side and look at the plants, wanting to tug and pull at them. She always managed to pull off unripe grape and cherry tomatoes. I tried to teach her only take the red ones. I would pull off some that she couldn't reach and hand to her. She would munch on as many as she could get, or at least as many as I would allow. Her mouth and the top of her shirt covered in tomato juice. 

The garden is of course gone for this year. A night that dipped below freezing earlier in the month killed off pretty much everything. The lavender is hanging in there though. I anticipate building raised beds and possibly making it a little larger next year. Would love to grow cayenne peppers again and make hot sauce. I'm a little bummed the sauce I have now is the last batch.  Just need to make it last.

And to answer your thought - Yes, this skeptic, who once didn't even care for tomatoes, now believes that Missouri soil can produce some of the juiciest and sweetest tomatoes.

For those interested, I did post some garden photos earlier in the summer on my Instagram @AllTheMadOnes. I have others which I still have on my phone and I may post later as a sort of recap. 

Thanks

 Once again, been a while. For my dear followers, if any, my plan is to write more on here. It'll be a lot like going back to the gym, or jogging around the block. Slow, embarrassing, and some fat rolls may poke out from under the tattered "work out shirt", but all in an effort to get in shape. I always respect people who look very out of shape, yet jog through the park or neighborhood. I'm always inclined to shout a word of encouragement, but don't want to come off as sarcastic or condescending. Maybe I should look past that fear.

The last time I was on here I ranted and raved about the, at the time, new Star Wars movie. Since then, there's been more movies and now a streaming TV series. However, I will not rant, rave or critique today. Today's objective is pursuing the thought of gratitude. We'll see how that goes. 

I may be very late in the game to be the first to say, "2020 has been a tumultuous year". Actually, I'm sick and tired of hearing about how it's been one bummer of a year. Yes, it has. There's no doubt. Like many others, I started this year never hearing the word "Coronavirus". Those were the days. Then it started picking up buzz, but it was one of those things that was far away. Then it came to the U.S., then to our fair state of Missouri. I went from never hearing "COVID-19" and "Coronavirus" to hearing them more in the past year than words like "The" in my entire life. And of course once it took up a comfortable residence in our vernacular, things really started to shake up. Lockdowns, work from home, furloughs, lay offs, to which I myself had to experience. Then phrases such as "Practice safe social distancing", "Unprecedented times", and "(Insert holiday/event) is going to look a little different this year" were uttered ad nauseum. For a time I saw very few people, and even now don't see my friends very often. Concerts and public fairs and festivals cancelled. Not to mention all the ill and dying from the outbreak. The political discord that sprang up. And that was just the pandemic. Let us not forget the fires in Australia, bombing in Beirut, injustice happening on American streets, riots, and of course, one of, if not THE, zaniest presidential elections in U.S. history. Yes, folks, what a year it has been.

With all of that, it's hard to look past and hope, or try to seek out what was actually "good" during all of it. That's what I've been trying to get to as this year carries on. Some of the good.

Thanksgiving was two days ago. As with every year, it's a time to spend with family, friends, and look back on all the blessings. This Thanksgiving, more than ever, has probably compelled us to look at what we're grateful for. I'll start with myself. Devoted readers, you can think about what has moved you toward a heart of gratitude as well. In fact, I encourage it.

This past year I was laid off due to COVID-19 ravaging the American economy, specifically for the travel and hospitality industries. I was laid off pretty early on, so I remained at home with our one-year-old daughter while my wife continued to go into work, her specific position necessitating it while almost everyone else at her office went to WFH. As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time with my daughter. A LOT. At times, exhausting, what with everything going on. I tried to remember, however, all the time I was spending with her was time I would never get back. It was a time, and still is, to build a foundation, a connection to my daughter.  I got to take her to the park during the summer and fall. I got to watch her grow into a little toddler. I learned, too, that she lives only for the moment. What a lesson to learn right now. She would be on the swing, smiling, maybe laughing, and that was it. She was in a kind of Zen bliss. I would still check my phone, or think (ha, who are we kidding - "worry") about other things. But she wouldn't. There was no past. There wasn't any future. Just that singular moment of pure, child-like joy. God bless her. She'll never realize it, but she helped me to stay grounded through this. Sure, I had my bouts of emotion and depression, but I don't think I would have gone through all this near as easily without her. 

Aside from her, there's family. I am truly grateful to our little family. I've spoken of my daughter, but my wife as well. She has struggled hard through this, and at times we were kind of suffering simultaneously. Money was tight and still is. We're trying to raise a toddler during a pandemic. Still, she works hard for us, and has spent a lot of time over the last several months to help me search for jobs and hunt down connections while I spend a lot of time taking care of our little girl. I think we've both been a rock to one another at different times, and our sanity has wavered to and fro, but I'm thankful to have a strong woman like her alongside me, even if sometimes she herself drives me to the edge of insanity. Comes with the territory of these strange times.

Then there's our respective families. Her parents live very close, and so have relieved me from caring for our daughter to either search for jobs, interview, get things done around the house, or just to give me a moment to sit and catch my breath. My parents, who live slightly further, have also made time to spend with our daughter, which offers a bit of a break. 

There's also been a lot of time to reflect, whether that be personal values, flaws that are now highlighted by a stressful and exhausting situation, or where my true friendships and relationships lie. Old friends have shown up to talk again and reform old bonds. Lots of good long talks with some of those people.

If I've learned anything this year, be grateful and don't complain. Or at least, complain less. I started this year tired and rather discontented, and quite honestly I don't really remember any reason why. Then COVID-19 happened, a situation that required what little was left of my being over the course of  8 months and counting. I wish I had valued 2019 and where my life was at a little more. Hindsight is 20/20 (haha - little joke there). There's been a lot of moaning and complaining, but I'm trying real hard to get to that place of consistent gratitude. Peace. That's another. Be at peace, at all times, because it can change for better or worse at any given moment. Find the peace in the moment, in the situation. "Embrace the chaos" is another phrase I've heard through this, yet that has a little bit more meaning and use than the others.

A scripture I've been thinking about through this year harbors these very revelations. Philippians 4:4-8:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace off God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable -- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about such things.

Rejoice. Rejoice always. What a tall order. Sulking is easier, or at least seemingly easier. Turn on your streaming service of choice and mindlessly scroll through social media while sitting on the couch until all the noise of the world becomes a dull hum. That'll get us through it. That'll make it easier. I haven't come down from the mountain enlightened or anything, trust me. I've just been there and know what doesn't work (for me). Right now, I have a notion that having a mind of peace and gratitude will get me through. However, putting that into practice is a different beast to battle altogether. That part I'm still working out, and some days are worse than others. 

Hoping that everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I hope that you took time to realize the things you need to be grateful for, in spite of everything. And if not, you have the chance to do so tomorrow, and throughout the days to come. 

All the best.