TerrieMiller.com

Thought it was time to check in on what I’m actually up to.

I started Permie.net, a blog about permaculture resources. It’s still finding it’s own voice and direction, but I’m focusing on a lot of the wonderful local resources we have here in West Sonoma county. I really want it to show of some of the great work being done by permies (or permaculturalists) out there. And I’m getting more involved with the local community; the Sonoma County Permaculture Guild and Transition Sebastopol are becoming more active and I’m interested in helping those efforts grow. I’m also getting involved with the Santa Rosa Tool Library. These are all related to the work I really want to do, and I’m hoping to help create an environment where I and others like me can do that work together.

Our own home and yard is a constant source of projects to be done. I spend what time I can doing that, but am starting to see how I really need to apply some permaculture design principles and DESIGN instead of just wandering from one project to the next. We’re getting beautiful eggs from our newest chickens now, garlic is sprouting up, and we’ve gotten permission from the landlord to plant fruit trees.

I spent a lot of fall and winter trying to find paying work…not the easiest thing to do in this economy. Rather than waiting for my permaculture dream job (or any job!) to appear, I decided to sign up for classes at the JC to complement that work and fill in gaps in my knowledge and skills. I’m enrolled in three horticulture classes:

• HORT 80: Landscape Practices
  “This course prepares students to evaluate and improve the function and aesthetic value of public and private landscapes by applying appropriate maintenance techniques. Topics include planting, pruning, watering, soil fertility, pest management, weed control, proper use and care of hand tools, and landscape maintenance business practices.”

• HORT 50.1: Introduction to Horticultural Science
  “Introduction to horticulture with an emphasis on the basics of plant growth and development, plant descriptions and classification, plant propagation, soils, fertilizers, and water management.”

• HORT 93: Landscape Drafting and Design
  “Introduction to basic landscape drafting and design techniques for producing plan view scale drawings, construction details, elevation views, and landscape plans. Includes steps and sequence in the design process; design themes, principles, and elements; historical influences; plant selection and usage; and client-designer relations. Drafting equipment required.”

The classes are challenging and interesting. HORT 80 is almost all practical info with lots of hands-on; so far, we’ve done tool maintenance and pruning. It’s great to learn the proper names and uses of tools, how to pick a good one, and anything about pruning. (Pruning is amazing…it’s like trying to time-travel with a plant.) HORT 50.1 is basic stuff that I should have paid more attention to in high school biology, where it wasn’t being applied to anything. HORT 93 is my favorite and the most challenging…and I have serious work to do there to catch up after missing just one class.

Those classes are all required for the JC’s Garden Design Certificate, which I may or may not pursue. I have a fantasy about working with them to design a real permie certificate, and mix in some ag, animal science, ecology, native studies, and other classes.

But I still need to paying work to make things happen. My savings ran out last fall, and Steve’s been supporting us via contract work that has a lot of uncertainty. Over the past months, I’ve done a lot of interviewing and followed a lot of dead ends (looking for a job is my least favorite job of all!) On Monday I had a second interview for an entry-level customer service job…any port in a storm, right? It was with a nice company and I was ready to jump at it, but the offer came in even lower than I expected, plus I would have had to drop two of my classes. Everything rational in me said to take the job anyway. I twittered about my dilemma. A couple of smart friends weighed in on Facebook. I noticed that thinking about the job made me cry. (Hey, that might be good to pay attention too, eh?) Steve articulated some good reasons for not taking the job (an aside: I highly recommend marrying someone who’s smart, who you respect, and who loves you). I was able to turn the job down. I felt really good about that decision, but still worried. There was a big gap in my Maslow pyramid.

I had some discussions with my friend, Tony, who happens to be the founder and CEO of CrowdVine Social Networks. It seemed that CrowdVine had their own gap. And, in short, now I’m doing work for CrowdVine, as an account manager, helping them do some great work for some fantastic clients. I’ll be working part-time for CrowdVine over the next couple of months, while continuing my coursework at the JC. We’ll see what happens from there; right now, having that open-endedness is a huge win for me.

I like the work with CrowdVine. The best part, of course, is working with Tony and Jay. They move fast…the few hours I’ve spent working with them have been among the most intense I’ve worked in a job in a long, long time. I think a lot of that has to do with Campfire. I’m learning some new Basecamp chops, too…it’s clear to me how a small company can leverage these kind of tools to get really productive. I find that I enjoy working a job intensely, then logging off from it and really logging off from it.

I’m going to have to get really serious about time management, in a way I never have been before. Oh, I know people think I’m really up on all of that, but I don’t very disciplined about it on a practical level. And over the past couple years, I’ve felt increasingly sarcastic about the whole GTD thing. (I had an idea to do a cover spoof with my ratty self in half-built chicken coop in place of David Allen and call it, “Not Getting Things Done: The Art of Getting a Life”). But I need to revisit how I go about things…I had a plan to walk the dog at 6am this morning; it’s now 6:45 and I’m writing a blog post, and in about twenty minutes I’m going to feel all stressed out because it’s getting so late and I haven’t walked the dog yet. [Note: wrong, it's forty minutes.] I might try some of Tony’s Secrets of Productivity…though I’m working a “computer job”, I’ll probably be trying to cut down the number of hours I spend in front of a computer. I’m incredibly fortunate to really want to do all the things I have to do…so I’m pretty motivated to make it all happen. I’ve got no time to sit around wanking off on the latest index card to-do system or application setup that require just a few little tweaks to how Mac OS X works.

Anyhow, that’s what I’ve been doing. While I have a couple of things in mind that I want to write about, that’s why you might not see a lot of updates here.

Right now, there’s a dog and her person who need a walk.