Today’s Daily Stoic writing prompt:  Where am I doing the opposite of what I should?  

The associated meditation talks about the need to practice good habits every day just as an athlete trains, which rings a little more true to me than identifying where I do “the opposite” of what I should.  Because I rarely do the actual opposite–I just don’t do enough.   That’s one of the reasons why I’m continuing to write these things, and to spend at least a few minutes a day thinking about things from a philosophical standpoint. 

The thing is, I don’t see living life as “practice.”  As the Tragically Hip song says, “No dress rehearsal.”  I don’t tend to spend much time thinking about things theoretically–I’m all about how things actually apply in daily life.  Applying these thoughts to the smaller–but very real–situations in daily life can help prepare you for the Big Questions.

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For several months now, we’ve seen moths flitting about, and killed quite a few of them in sticky traps.  Today, I finally think I’ve identified where they came from–it seems they had infested a piece of sheepskin shoe liner that was tossed underneath one of the tables in my bedroom, along with my shearling slippers.  I saw actual evidence of said moths in the form of at least one larva, along with other signs of their presence.  As a result, I’ve thrown out the slippers and shoe liner and completely washed down the area where they were.  I’m also going to spend some time going through the closets this weekend, just airing them out and making sure I don’t find any other infestation sites.  Some hanging moth killer thingies arrived today, so hopefully this, along with the cedar we’ve put in, will work together to stop things.  I’d considered replacing the slippers, but a new pair would be $145.  It’s not slipper weather now, and I didn’t wear them much last year, so I think I’ll hold off until winter to decide if I want to reacquire a pair.

I also discovered that the local Sobey’s had some really nice looking perennials out front, and this evening I returned and purchased eight of them–six hostas and a couple of other plants.  That should be enough hostas for the planting we want to do in the front once we redo our tiny front yard to be mostly stone.  I believe about all I should need now is the small tree or shrub I’d like to add, along with additional dirt, the river stone, landscape barrier, and the bricks to line the side of the driveway.  The grass is going to be removed when the driveway is paved, hopefully in early-mid June.  The other two plants will go in the containers in the back yard.   On that front, I’m wondering whether the next door neighbours on the other side have moved out.  Their backyard looks horrible and overgrown, very different than how it looked last summer, and they left a lot of garbage and recycling out front on Monday, several days ahead of pickup day. 

Another day with COVID cases well below 2000 — in fact, just under 1600–and this time with a decent amount of testing done, which sent the positivity rate down significantly today.  People are now starting to make noises about plans for reopening, although it looks not until the stay-at-home order expires in two weeks.  We’ll still be cautious no matter what happens, but it would be nice to get back to the mini-golf again and back into the Museum, both of which are places I expect risk to be low.  If the foot can be kept on the pedal for these next two weeks with vaccination–which seems as if it will be the case–I’m cautiously optimistic so long as things happen slowly.  

And here’s today’s discovery:  Map Men!  These are incredibly bingeable for anyone that likes maps, geography, geology, placenames, and the like.  Here are just two.