funki_sock_munki

is trying to figure out life, the universe & everything



I'm doing 23 things
 

How I did it
How to make marshmallows
It took me
2 days
It made me
sweet and chewy!


How to try knitting a cable pattern
It took me
10 days
It made me
warm


How to bake more cookies
It took me
120 days
It made me
happy


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Recent entries
Watch all of Lars von Trier's work
So far…

Dogville
Manderlay
Antichrist
Melancholia
The Five Obstructions
Epidemic
Medea



reduce my base pack weight
Research & attitude change

Just like with downsizing our house, downsizing our gear was inevitable. It’s not so much about reducing the weight as about realizing that there is a bunch of gear you just don’t need. Lots of little things added to the pack for minor comforts add up quickly. Many of those items don’t even get used, or are redundant items. It’s so much nicer to go with fewer items and spend more time adapting what you take to a variety of uses. I’ve been taking notes after each trip to think about what didn’t get used and also what was incredibly useful to have along. We also upgraded a few key items of gear – mainly the tent and my sleeping pad – to decrease weight and increase comfort. The smaller tent means we are closer together with less dead space, so we are warmer at night. It’s definitely worth paring down your gear to get a lighter load on your back, and also less crap to deal with packing and then cleaning up after. When you don’t bring every little comfort, you end up adapting your surroundings to fit your needs. Maybe you don’t have a table cloth, but instead you explore your area more and find a big flat rock to set up your stove on. It’s more fulfilling and fun to explore your environment and invent comforts than to bring them with you. :-)



volunteer more
Lots of volunteering this year

I’ve found quite a few organizations to contribute to on a regular basis. Centerstone, down the street uses me once in awhile for data entry and preparing mailings (“stuffing envelopes”) and I’m still doing a lot of design work as a volunteer for City Fruit, Master Gardeners, and PlantAmnesty. The work has been very fulfilling and helps keep up my skills in areas of graphic design that I don’t get much paid work in.



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