Have me stand up in front of my computer.
No worries i have learned meditation, so i am sure with that i will manage. But lucky for me nobody is suggesting to me to stand in front of my screen.
And many people might like it, i have always observed when I am with people, standing, talking, i will squat or find a stump to sit on, most people it seems to me remain standing. I do not know why i always find that hard.
But that is not my point here today. I was doing a few google searches on how much activity our body ideally needs.
And as with google these days, the first some 30.000 searches are what 'they' (whoever they are) want us to hear. Still i was surprised that nobody seemingly touches the 8 hour day in the office. Well i did read that one should alternate sitting with standing up. To me that is a cruel joke. For older people and children activity is preferred, but adults can be healthy and certainly wealthy behind the computer 10 hours a day. I read limit your free time use to 2 hours behind the screen. (after the 8 hours that is)
Sorry, i do not buy it.
And yes i have fallen for computer too. ( i don't have a cellphone, but to me that is included, same same)
When we raised our son i do believe that the skype call with my parents once a month made him love his grandparents and all the relatives that came with it. But i realize now he also loves his English relatives ( my husband's side) Once in his young life i took him to his English relatives, and he loves these lovely people equally so. He even visited the relatives in Darlington, something I never did. ( my husband does not travel that far, period) So out the door goes that bonding happened through skype.
And then there is my story with my wildflowers. OMG i learned soooo much through this computer. It all axellerated big time when inaturalist.ca started working for me.(2018, i tried back in 2015 but no one looked at the Yukon yet) thank thank you inaturalist people i am forever grateful)
But even that i do wonder now. I have been studying widflowers for a long time, before, in summers in the hills in winters in books . I did feel probably in 2017 i had come to a plateau. So i invited my big hero Bruce Bennett to come on a hike with me, so i could point my finger and he would know the name. It was a big deal for me, Bruce is way up there, a professional, i just a hobbyist. But it worked. and still does, although now we both also have a big presence on inaturalist. In person we see each other still maybe twice a year.
But really if from my first hike with Bruce, if no computer had taken it's place in my learning. I might have started an herbarium. Bruce's is B.A.B.Y. if you are interested.
I did a little bit of flower pressing before 2015, but it was more for art. Now i do not want to start a herbarium, but i do want develop my skills as an artist drawing plants, the way the Jepson University in California still does.
And i could start today, i doubt if i find a wildflower but i will find a lichen, or a moss. I think i will pick a lichen, lichens tend to show their one authentic self all the time summer and winter, mosses more like plants having multiply personalities.
7 comments:
I had to laugh when I read this because I usually work standing upright. In both of my offices, at work and at home, I have desks that can be moved up and down and they are mostly up. I started this after I had spinal surgery a couple of years ago and also to work on my balance. So, not only do I work standing upright, I also often stand on one leg only.
I love how you got into wildflowers. I learned what I know, probably very limited compared to you, from my mother and my grandfather (who taught her). My mother would walk through the forest with us when we were kids and teach us the Latin names of plants and trees and mushrooms. Not that I remember much. She also had a vast selection of dried herbs and a tea for every ailment. Never herb tea for fun, only ever for medicinal purposes, she despised people who drank herb teas without any reason, called them stupid. She was like that.
ha Sabine that is great, so yes you love standing up right, awesome.
Sometimes i see a flower, and know that my father pointed it out, then sitting with that, the dutch name comes back to me, then i google that and voila! sure enough i find the Latin genus name. haha thank goodness for google.
At the moment i am drinking herbal tea for medicinal purposes, but most of the time i just drink herbal tea...not so much because i like it, but because i am trying to kick the coffee habit.
Do you drink herbal tea, which herbs do you still pick?
We grow lots of different herbs in the garden, most we use in cooking, some also as pollinators, to attract bees and butterflies and also as pest repellents in the vegetable garden. For tea as well as rinses, I mainly grow and use sage (gums), mint (digestion), chamomile (whatever ails you) and thyme (bronchi, throat infections). I grew and tried milk thistle when I had autoimmune hepatitis but it's so difficult to get the correct dosage and too much is not a good thing, while too little is a waste. I also tried and failed with evening primrose because it's really not working as a tea and should be used as oil and I don't have the equipment for that.
I cannot abide herb tea unless I need to take it for health reasons. This is because of the relationship I had with my mother (not a good one) and the way she made us drink it.
I have one cup of coffee at lunch time and drink gallons of black tea (from an organic grower's co-op in India imported by a local initiative) throughout the day. Both coffee and black tea have actually been found to be quite beneficial for many health issues and many of the bad press of yesterday doesn't stand up to scrutiny any longer.
My daughter wants me to switch to green tea but it's not my thing. Whereas black tea, my religion.
A neighbour made a wonderful black tea last year, from fermented fireweed leaves. i will try to make it coming summer, and let you know. https://www.latifasherbs.com/oxidized-fireweed-tea/
I am like you in that I like to sit! My spine hurts when I stand for long periods of time and I get tired.
I enjoy trying to identify wild flowers. There are so many online resources that help with identifying plants, flowers, etc.
Karen was one of the 14 artists who illustrated the Jepson Manual.
right on! you say 'was, but could it be that she still is?
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