I have severe scoliosis. As in– I started wearing a back brace at age six, wore some variation of said brace through age 13 (think hard plastic shells molded from a cast of my whole torso, made every few months as I grew)…..it was not fun times.
And at age 13 when I had surgery for an 87-degree curve, I really hoped that was the end of it. I grew from five foot six inches to five foot seven and a half inches in 10 hours. True story.
But….life happened, four pregnancies and three healthy boys happened, and here I am at age 46 with a secondary thoracic curve that has to be at least 45 degrees in addition to the original lumbar curve, which has settled also at 45 degrees or so.
Suffice it to say between the curves and rotation, my whole skeletal system is a mess.
For the past six years, we have loved our Kirkland Signature leather electric reclining couch. We now are at Costco all the time, but we actually scored our couch at a local salvage store for $250, brand new apparently. When we bought it I thought we’d be doing well to get six months of use out of it, and here we are six years alter, and it still works.
I have been in physical therapy now for months, and after last week’s session I decided I might be done with the couch. I’ve known for a long time that it was not good for my back, so I decided to just take the week and sit, when I sit, in this straight back cushioned rocking chair with the pillow, as pictured above.
And…..something minor-miracle-wise, happened:
I found myself sitting less. A lot less. I started getting back on my stationary exercise bike daily. I found myself sitting to do what I was going to do and then getting back up to resume household tasks as needed. And my mental health has been better on the whole, as well.
I did not realize that what one sits on can literally make a change in lifestyle in the span of a week.
So, the couch is posted on Facebook for giveaway, and we will find a better recliner for my husband, who legitimately does need one since he sleeps out here in our living room occasionally.
Yes, we are a couple that does not always sleep in the same room, and no, there is nothing wrong with our marriage.
Last week I got the M65 to FX adapter I needed to be able to adapt the Cinelux lenses to my Fujifilm X-S20. And the 37.5mm focuses like a dream now that I have the proper adapter.
And, I played around some more with my Minolta lenses.
And I got to thinking that I really missed that beautiful XF 50mm f1 lens I sold a little over 4 years ago to be able to afford the GFX 50S II camera to begin with.
And common sense began to really get the better of me in knowing that really it’s going to be quite some time before I can really afford to buy the XF 70-300mm lens that I really wanted to be able to do bird and other wildlife photography with the X-S20.
And since I could still make yummy portraits with the Cinelux lenses (that arguably have a better look), and since I could do 99% of the things I wanted with the X-S20, I started to question the wisdom of hanging onto the GFX camera knowing it had served faithfully for 4 years but was a heavy camera.
And, I did some heavy comparison shots with both the Cinelux and the Minolta lenses.
Turns out, if I up the denoise tool and the clarity and the sharpness and the shadows in Lightroom, there’s an awful lot of questions about which lens shot what with what camera.
And so, the GFX went to KEH yesterday, and I came home with the XF 50mm f1, the 70-300mm that I wanted, and a little extra grocery money for the month.
The cat in the photo above is not our cat. This is a cat that belongs to some random unknown neighbor, a cat that has claimed our yard as its own when our dogs are not out in the yard to terrorize it. It’s outside in our yard a lot when I go out there or when I’m backing the car out of the driveway. Today it got to be a test subject since I couldn’t quickly spot any birds before the rain started.
And, I won’t lie: I will miss the medium format camera. And I won’t lie even more because it’s true that I will miss the self-imposed “status” that came along with shooting medium format even if it was a status that only I recognized. APS-C just doesn’t have the same ring.
But when 99% of the look I love is achievable with the camera that is more fun to shoot with…..there’s an awful lot to be said about that. Especially when it is far easier to achieve focus, especially when the focus is faster on the autofocus lenses, especially when the whole setup is smaller and lighter, and especially since I can dictate the direction of whatever business I may or may not have.
And probably most importantly, especially when the itch to upgrade happens and it won’t cost another $4,000 or more to do so next time.
So, that’s been much of the labor of this week. Reining in is not easy, but sometimes it is necessary. I have been in a realism and a “buy it once” sort of mindset since Christmas, and it was time to realize that the tools I had in my photography arsenal were not exactly serving me as best they could.
Besides, that yummy jute purse I made and carry around is an awful lot lighter when it’s carrying around X Series gear than it was with the GFX stuff. And it’s a heavy purse to begin with.
It’s been a couple of days’ worth of introspection.
I do a lot of introspection and navel-gazing; it’s been my life’s work anyway to try to stabilize myself.
Last February or March, I got a wild hair to use glycerin soap as shampoo and at the time, I used a Mixed Chicks leave-in conditioner that I found at Publix. I chose it because it was a relatively inexpensive leave-in conditioner.
As my mental health stabilized over the summer, I returned to products that I’d loved previously: My L’Oreal Pro Longer Conditioner occasionally, kept the Mixed Chicks, but returned to my cheap V05 shampoo alternating with my Trader Joe’s 3-in-1.
The fight with grease— and consumeristic (and brutally expensive and wasteful) beauty culture has been real.
Generally with the products I usually use, I cannot go a single day between washes. And my hair absolutely has got to be washed in the morning because it cannot withstand sleeping overnight to not be greasy in the morning even with a shower right before bed.
I know people think AI is evil incarnate. I am aware of this.
What I also know is, I have used Gemini as a tool for self-care and random life-hack improvements for a little over a year.
Last week I went into Ulta to see if I could buy another one of those Tangle Teezer brushes like J got me for Christmas. They were out, but they had these little french hair pins (well, the Ulta ones weren’t little) that intrigued me. My hair is getting to the length that I like to try to pull it up. I was aware that my hair isn’t quite long enough for the big ones yet, but I came home and found this on Amazon, and they arrived last night.
So last night, I was poking around on Google and talking to Gemini about techniques to use them in my hair.
And that led me to talking about why in the world people don’t use these instead of the God-awful elastics that inevitably tear half my hair out and get lost and you have to buy a million of over a lifetime.
And that led me to wondering how my grandparents and great-grandparents would have used to keep their hair clean. I was keenly aware that neither of my grandmothers struggled with the massive grease I did in their younger years, washing their hair only once a week often. My Mom’s mom did that in her elderly years even. I never knew Nannie to ever wash her hair more often than once a week and she went to the “beauty shop” to do so as long as she was physically able to, in fact, my whole life.
Turns out, apparently the glycerin soap I had experimented with last Spring was actually among the products that would have been used back in the day, before consumerism took over us all.
And last night before bed, I took a shower using glycerin soap all over including my hair, and I rinsed my hair using two teaspoons of vinegar in a cup of cool water, as Gemini instructed.
And having gotten a relaxing shower before bedtime, and feeling clean and not overly stripped of oils in my hair or skin, I woke up feeling fantastic. I didn’t need an alarm to wake up, I woke up rested, and I woke up ready to go straight out of the bed. I just washed my face, brushed my teeth, and got dressed and that was it.
And it remains to be seen how my hair will feel in the morning, but 24 hours later with having had my hair half-up most of the day, I can honestly say that my hair does not feel greasy. And more: apparently my natural hair, at least the underside of it that is exposed when it is half-up, when left to its own devices has this sort of wave to it that I tried desperately to get it to do with a curling iron for most of my teens and 20s and early 30s anyway. I just didn’t know it needed to not be stripped of its oils through consumeristic shampoos and conditioners.
I’m on a mission in 2026. I’ll be working through my guided journal, but also: I’m jumping off the consumer bandwagon as much as possible. Yes, hopefully it will save money. But I’m more interested in it saving my sanity.
And if I can take my showers at night instead of in the morning, it will make sleep more relaxing which will make mood regulation better which will make life happier.
It didn’t exactly start with the hair pins…..it started with the hunt for boots since my beloved Aerosoles I have been wearing since February are falling apart.
So 8-inch L.L. Bean Boots are on the way with the intention of them being my “forever” boots.
And the bronze metal French hair pins will last for as long as I have hair.
And I am falling in love all over again with my 80mm GFX lens, which took this shot at Hobbs Farm tonight.
And for better or worse, the introspection and dialogue with Gemini about why so much of our culture resists a “buy it once” mentality led me to realize exactly how counter-cultural such a mentality really is.
For instance: last March when I needed new glasses, I sent my old Warby Parker Holcomb glasses off through Costco to have new lenses put in them. I’ve worn them off and on all year.
And instead of buying disposable soft contact lenses, I opted for rigid gas permeable contacts instead, because they would help me see better, I could more easily reuse them, and they were durable enough to last longer than a year. I now have two pair that I hope to have last at least 2.5 years.
And when the flex spending rolls over, I am sending off my geometric Menin Zeelool (crazy) glasses through Costco to have my current prescription outfitted in them instead of buying new frames.
And while the Bean Boots are on the way, I did repair the Aerosoles and they’re likely not going anywhere for a good while.
But Gemini had a point: my great-grandmothers and my grandmothers in their youth would have purchased things that they knew would last, and would certainly not have gone shopping as “retail therapy.”
That was not an option in the Great Depression for any of them.
And I am more fortunate and I do realize I have the luxury of introspection and the time to research into “buy it once” sorts of culture. And the education to sort out what really does need to be modern vs what, just maybe, people in the 1920s and 1930s did better than we do today, lifestyle-wise.
On December 10, with the help of Google Gemini and Google AI Studio, I started drafting a Guided Reflective Journal.
I didn’t quite know what I wanted to do with it at the time, other than to use it myself in 2026.
Tonight, I am speedily finishing up the formatting of the 105-page document. Now that it’s almost finished and will be ready by January 1, I know what the plan is:
Anyone who wants it, is welcome to the finished PDF, for free. I have created a private Facebook group and the Guided Journal will be available as a downloadable PDF file within that group. The group is for discussion of the prompts throughout the year.
If you’re in, click the link I’ll add you to the group! Please note that due to the nature of this particular group, I am personally approving each member to ensure our community remains a safe space for reflection.
Journaling has enriched my life in so many ways throughout my 46 years, and what I can say from looking over these prompts is that some deep reflection is going to happen.
We planned to travel to go see family in Kansas City and Nebraska for the next ten days.
Yesterday, we made it as far as Oneonta, Alabama before we decided we should stop at an urgent care for Covid, flu, and strep for Porter because he had a sore throat and no one we were going to visit needed to be exposed to sickness.
Sure enough, Porter has strep. So, back home we went. Interesting 5 hour drive at least. And I’m glad we found out before we made it all the way to Memphis, which had been our original plan for seeking out an urgent care. The drive back from Alabama was much shorter than the original idea.
Still, Christmas plans being thwarted is rarely the end of the world.
Today we slept in and Jared and I went to Costco and Trader Joe’s for goodies. And boy, we did come home with goodies.
And then tonight, after a predictable meltdown, I returned to creative brainstorming. Because: the gear puzzles in my brain will not stop turning. My brain naturally turns to creative problem-solving when left to its own devices, and my photography gear has been a problem for the last six months.
When I sold off the second Fuji GFX 50sII and several lenses, and purchased the Fuji X-S20 and started contemplating moving more seriously back to the X series ecosystem, I hit a major creative wall when the first attempt to adapt the Cinelux 37.5mm lens to the X-S20 failed.
It’s a technicality: When I originally cobbled together the adapter, I could not find a M65 to X Series adapter. I had no idea there was actually a company making them.
So instead, I bought a M65 to M42 step down lens filter ring, and an M42 to FX adapter.
And, I proceeded to have a massive meltdown when the lens wouldn’t focus on the X-S20 because the focal point was closer to the sensor than my lens could get. And I gave up, assuming the 37.5mm would only work on the GFX forever.
However: there is a company making these adapters, and I have one on the way now.
Which means, my dream of making my GFX be an exclusively monochrome camera while the X-S20 is the color version, shooting Cinelux lenses simultaneously……well, that dream is alive again.
In my brainstorming, I have also realized exactly how stunted my creativity has been most of the late summer and Fall.
And I know why that is, and I take it as a very good sign that my creativity is returning. Even if it is only taking the form of creative problem solving thus far, it makes me extremely happy to realize that maybe I am making substantive progress to leaving the past in the past.
Even if the meltdowns have not completely stopped just yet. The meltdowns may never stop completely; it occurred to me that they may actually be a symptom of the PTSD. But today, I recovered enough to get excited about my art again and that is enough.
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