From Brown Belt to Red Belt

I found the following in my Drafts folder from this past January:


I’ve been a student of Krav Maga since July 2019, six months after my son started karate. I’ve attended class consistently for a year and a half, even signing on to Zoom classes during the pandemic.

I’m much more flexible than I was at the beginning, especially in the hips — I’m this close to doing the side splits, and the last time I could do the splits was in ballet class when I was seven. From a self-defense perspective, I feel like I’m more likely to react appropriately to a physical threat than I was, considering that my fight-flight-freeze instinct used to be entirely to freeze.

I’ve been showing up, putting in the work a couple times a week, and paying for me and my son’s class memberships and gear purchases and belt testing fees. I’ve been having fun and learning stuff and getting tired and sweaty. I feel like this is all worthwhile.

But I don’t feel like I should be a brown belt.

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May 2021 in the Garden

I finally figured out why I haven’t been blogging like I used to: I journal longhand instead, pasting photos of my garden into my gardening journal, creating pages for plants I’d like to research, noting which seeds germinated successfully and which didn’t (I’m looking at you, larkspur), etc.

However, I do like the convenience of being able to just search my blog and compare year to year for particular events or milestones, gardening or otherwise. So, here I am, back-blogging Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day for May 2021.


Early Spring Border / Japanese Garden

The highlights of this border are the dwarf Japanese maple and the tree peony, but it really shines in early spring, when all the bulbs come up and remind me that things will get warmer and greener.

After all these alliums finished blooming and their foliage browned, I dug them up (and LABELED THEM) in preparation for converting this border into something more minimalist that the chipmunks might not find as inviting.

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