The title is meant to be received as sarcasm.
Been officially in lockdown since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Recapping in case I stumble across this in a few years and wonder what I am talking about.) A majority of my friends have been working from home although some in the food and medical industry are still going into work. One of my closest friends had to get stomach surgery to reduce the risk of developing genetic stomach cancer that her brother died from earlier this year. Lastly, I've gotten into gardening this month!
My sister bought a basil plant last month from Trader Joe's. It started wilting pretty quickly but we are not sure if it is due to too much water, too little water, too much sun, or not enough sun. Can we get a basil plant doctor over here please? Anyway...I started looking up a lot of videos on what to do and learned that it is (supposedly) very easy to propagate basil. You simply cut stems underneath where leaves have grown out - called the leaf node - pluck off the leaves so they don't rot in the water, and stick the stems into the water. Roots should start sprouting in about a week or two. Ours have not grown any roots. I regret not writing down when we put them in water so I could keep track of it. The leaves looked greener and stronger than the ones still in the original pot but other than that there have been no developments. After chatting with some friends who have also gotten into gardening, we removed some of the larger leaves and the stems from both the plant and the water have perked up. So much so that in two successive days one stem went from 18 degrees to about 75 degrees (angles are fun) and on the second day two of the stems were standing almost 90 degrees straight up! First day I had removed the large leaves from the plant and the second day I removed the medium-sized leaves. It was so satisfying because these changes happened within two hours of the leaf removals. I was in the kitchen with my mom the entire time and when we looked over the plant was basically a different being. It was exciting for us!
Photos:
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| May 18 Progress |
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| May 21 Medium leaves removed plant perked up even more than previously |
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| May 20 Larger leaves removed and the plant started perking up |
I also did more work with the compost bin. November 2019 our city had hosted a gardening seminar and that one was focused on composting. My mom wanted me to go to pick up a bin so we could start one - she had heard from her friends how great it is. (Most interesting thing about it is that I won a shovel in the raffle for attending! I wanted a free bin though) We built the bin but didn't have much to put in. I had to forage on the trail by our house for dried leaves as our whole backyard is just pine needles. It was a slow start for months. I tried to dig up the top layer of dirt where our grass used to be but our soil is so hard and dry that it was impossible to get anything more than just a few specks of sand. Eventually we figured out that it would be pretty smart if I took the gopher mounds from our front yard and dumped that into the compost bin. Up to that point it was just a plastic box with a bunch of rotting food. The gopher mounds were loose, moist, and soft dirt. Completely different from anything else I could have dug by myself. Fast forward to this week when I was going through the compost and found some worms in there. I finally figured out where the worms came from! I originally forgot and only remembered trying to dig the dry grass dirt. There were at least 10 tiny, baby, white worms squirming around. And I spotted two nice, pink worms while digging. I did my best to go around them when I saw them as to not injure them and covered them back up so they weren't exposed to too much sun. Granted it has been 80 degrees and sunny this week and I haven't been putting on sunscreen as I was hoping to spend most of my time in the shade. I will eventually take some huge buckets and turn the entire compost heap upside down by literally scooping out everything in there. Wish me luck as that could take half a day. Unless I dismantle the thing so I don't have barriers to dig around * thinking face emoji *
Lastly, things I have been enjoying/watching. Might become a daily/weekly thing on here:
-Minecraft videos. More specifically, a multi-player server called Hermitcraft. I don't know if it is the biggest one on youtube but it is the one I found and the one I watch. They have a lot of members and have a dedicated website that tracks when each member uploads. Link HERE. My favorite members have been Grian, Mumbo Jumbo, Xisumavoid, ImpulseSV, and Keralis. They all have their own unique personalities and playstyles and are extremely entertaining in my opinion. Impulse and Xisuma both have second channels where they currently upload their twitch live streams and I currently use them to fall asleep to. I highly recommend Xisuma's streams as he is very articulate and talks about topics with a lot of understanding of both sides backed up on research and an open mind as well as giving plenty of health tips. The most mind-blowing thing that he likes to reiterate that I never considered is: it doesn't matter if you are not motivated to do stuff (i.e. exercise, eat healthy, do work). You just need self-discipline! --- Isn't that the most obvious thing in the world once it has been said out loud?
-SebastianSB aka Keith playing Phoenix Wright. He is the gaming Youtuber that I have subscribed to the longest and puts out 4 to 6 gaming videos per day. I'm usually watching at least one of the six games he is playing.
-Taskmaster. A game show of sorts from the land of the Britain. It is hosted by two comedians and they have five comedian contestants do a bunch of tasks (previously filmed) and they react to it on stage with one live task each show. As of right this second they have uploaded 5 whole seasons and one episode of the 6th season. I binge-watched all of these and have many late nights.
-All The King of Random videos. They upload many days of the week and I feel like intelligent people might enjoy this type of entertainment.
-Chateau videos! There are two chateau channels that have recently popped up in my recommended. The Chateau Diaries and Doing It Ourselves. Doing It Ourselves was launched March 20, 2020 and it popped up on the home page for a lot of people. The editing and the content was what drew me to stay and subscribe. The channel is run by Michael Petherick who has moved into a chateau that his brother and wife bought in France. They do much of the renovations and restorations themselves. The channel uploads once a week and currently has 11 videos up. The Chateau Diaries is run by Stephanie Jarvis who purchased the chateau in France15 years ago (I could be wrong) with a friend [genius! I should do this with my friends!]. And has been running the channel for about 2 years with hundreds of videos already uploaded. She currently uploads around 4 videos a week due to having more time during lockdown and I have enjoyed seeing the videos in my subscription box every day. The videos are uplifting and so calming. One of the recent videos has Stephanie showing us the vegetable garden that her mom and residents have been growing, some canapes that she has whipped together, and a simple dinner with her and the residents. Yet I was so interested and felt even happier after I had finished the video.
-Lastly, art restoration videos by Baumgartner Restoration. He is a professional art restorer who films some of the art that he has worked on and narrates on the process that is being done. The before and after really allows you to appreciate art in a new way.
Enjoy checking out some of the stuff I have mentioned. I want to post daily of the videos that I watched from that day which I enjoyed. But it might all be minecraft videos. It is something I have been considering. It will probably just be a post titled with that day's date, and a small description saying who the video is by and the title of video at time of upload with an embed of the video.
Interested or not, a digital diary is for me to look back on and see what I was into at a certain age of my life.
