## Overview First half of week in mountains for spring planting and summer prep. Weather in Cashiers sublime, dry low 70s with cooler nights, making it a difficult transition to the urban heat island of Raleigh, which boasted temperatures into the low 90s before being cooled off by some much needed rain. Spent some time tidying areas of home and washing truck, generally getting organized for coming weeks in Raleigh. ## Projects #### CV Update Spent an hour with `cursor` updating CV layout and styling, then removing the Jekyll dependencies and publishing directly as a static file. Now noticing responsiveness issues with several different viewports. Will see about addressing this week. Next step will be to add it as it’s own domain and publish from codeberg, or attach it to the business website somehow. #### Happy Chance Prepped and planted front beds in driveway. Left in existing prostrate juniper and Jon Creech sedum, filled in remaining area with an 'All Gold' *[J. conferta](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/juniperus-conferta/)*, several *J. squamata* 'Blue Star,' some varieties of [Scotch Heather](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/calluna-vulgaris/), and [bearberry](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/arctostaphylos-uva-ursi/). Many of these varieties new to me, so excited to see how they will grow into the space. Spent next morning in lower half of property clearing existing trails and building new ones. Explored lower half of creek for feasibility of moving into bottom of property. Encountered numerous sandbags and landscape cloth from washout of dam many years ago. Continuing to brainstorm best and most cost-effective approach to improve that structure. Pond is developing a flow form, depositing mud in the center where water rushes down the fall and hits the dam in a storm. #### Ya's Chance Down clearing existing trails in the afternoon. Less brush here than up the hill. Fresh survey tape along south property line. #### Personal Portfolio Playing some more with cursor. Cloned repo for portfolio page and began to organize files for creating separate gallery pages. Have made a number of best practice mistakes regarding version control that need to be addressed next work session. Populated first gallery of work and attempted to implement a lightbox feature for viewing. Worked through a series of issues until asked to upgrade. Unclear as to how to regulate use of this tool so it remains free. Possilbly worthwhile to subscribe while a project is active then set aside when unnecessary. Good start, and clearly valuable to accelerate [[digital literacy]]. #### Parkside Dr Refining sheets for better communication with contractors and neighbors. Revisions from previous session lost in hang. Autosave not enabled for this drawing. Starting over. Good reminder to save and back up often. Refined site model and laid out fence improvements. Some tweaking to documents and plant schedule next week before sending to printer. ## Topics #### Dolores Obsidian `git` has stopped backing up to Github. Might be a good opportunity to review file organization and version control practices. Possibly an issue with slow service here in mountains. #### Marketing Publishing various project photos to instagram. Discovering a [[freedom]] in not giving too much of a shit about quality. Perhaps a silver lining of [[enshittification]]? Or a comment on how I feel about my work? #### Swimming Discussed breathing strategy with Friday AM yoga teacher this morning. Checking the new [[Habits|habit]] of increasing the stroke count between breaths. Currently experimenting with 5 strokes/breath. She advised maintaining whatever count occurs naturally for me prior to open water event, to keep the [[body]] attuned to a predictable set of physical conditions. But added that increasing the stroke count would improve VO₂ max, which might improve endurance performance over the long term. ## Reflections #### 2025-05-04 Brought down from the high induced by pace of work and weekly [[routine]] on Saturday afternoon as I returned from a bike ride to an empty house, a cat, TV, and my [[Thoughts on Loneliness|loneliness]]. I’ve done my best to transform this feeling into solitude, and genuinely enjoy the company I keep with myself, but I’m also over it. There’s no sense of purpose to a life that isn’t shared with others. Just a constant feeling of falling toward the abyss. ## Astrology - **2025-04-27:** New [[The Moon|Moon]] [[Taurus]], [[Uranus]] sextile [[nVenus]] - **2025-04-28:** [[Mars]] square [[nMars]] - **2025-04-30:** [[Venus]]→[[Aries]] - **2025-05-02:** Venus conjunct [[Neptune]]