The NEW NORMAL...Anyone out there? How are all in this Brave New World!
Well, it's been 2 months since my last post and how the world has changed!
I also find Steemit greatly changed as well and haven't a clue what "communities" are or if I meant to join one or many? And if I am NOT joined, does my post just go out into the great void of the dark unreadable expanse of the interwebs? Who can say? If YOU can , please say in the comments!
I'm almost uncertain really what even to post. I've done almost NO art in 2 months. I'll share the last sketch and the first "underpainting" of that sketch (base colours decided but really just the ground for future colour build up)
Here is the sketch, of course in my animal series:
And here the first layer of colour:
I'm not even certain where to begin? I suppose the vast changes to our world has certainly affected us all somehow. Luckily, living in a rather rural spot, though connected to more built up towns and only an hour from a major city is an odd precipice to view this Brave New Word.
The New Normal
is the phrase one hear's or reads often, at least in my area of the world. Though I should say "reads" as we are meant to be self quarantined.
I found more sociability in the beginning of this than in normal times
and when we were first just 'advised' to self quantine I found when I did go to the shops, I'd have conversations with more strangers than was normal. Of course we'd be about 4 feet apart (not the Appropriate distance come to find out) yet none the less, standing in line in a busy shop (though not as busy as in cities) in the early days was rather a social affair, espcially for a dyed in the wool introverted hermit like myself.
Now, with LOCKDOWN in place, the sociability seems to have stopped
and as our state is in the 'lockdown' which means most shops are shut and we are only 'Allowed' out to do food shopping or doctor visits or other 'essential' (which for me has meant getting lumber and concrete and more garden soil) This new phase, however, has people looking askance a bit more at one another.
Red taped lines or X tell us where to stand in line,
how far apart, and taped "boxes" inform us where to stand at registers, and behind the perspect/plexiglass quickly fastened windows in front of these hard front line workers at registers. Their lives have certainly taken an odd turn.
Prior to this New Normal, this Brave New World
I was already greatly self reflecting on the coming year. Having rather found 2019 to be a bit of a "write off" and a dud, I looked Hopefully to 2020. I even endevoured to start doing video and Youtube, which I did, though not being able to decide if I wanted to share garden, art, or simply ethereal vibe videos. Honestly, in the end, it hardly mattered as the world sort of came to a halt one day and here we are:
The NEW NORMAL
It is odd and hard to make plans.
Being someone who already 'self quarantines' and does 'work from home' it's an odd mix of normalcy and bizarre. THOUGH I must admit, that my Summer income is much supplamented by holiday rentals and that market is GONE. My lovely little antique house sits empty on the Cape, after just investing in new windows finally, for a busy coming season that was meant to start in April. I had even been saying, "My how busy and early our season has become for rentals" and then...Yeah New Normal and all cancellations and well, MUCH less money.
I feel greatly for all the young people who live paycheck to paycheck
with heavy student loan debt (If you're not from American this might sound odd, but believe me, 19 year olds with 100,000 debt is our OLD and NEW normal I'm afraid) How will they live? If they can go home to parents that's something, but what of young parents with children who also live paycheck to paycheck, with mortgages and credit card bills, utilities, fuel...
And the small business owner.
I know I've been that and there is only a THIN margin of reserve, if I had to pay employees for months I'd fold immediately, as many small business are doing. Even my rental business, as I'm not technically an 'employee' of airbnb (which has always been unfair as we house owners foot ALL the taxes yet get NONE of the safety net of unemployement) and well, there IS no rental market, especially when people are forbidden to leave their homes and soon, possibly their states/towns...
Yet, we must go on, musn't we?
We still have to rise each day and face it. It's there waiting for us to fill it, these days. And if we are lucky enough to have more days ahead, it's our business and hope to find ways to do so productively and with any possibility with Some joy or Calm.
Thus, in the New Normal, I am trying to find my way back to a New Schedule
and a way to structure my days to better meet the current needs and also to face the reality that the OLD means of income might not be there at the other end of this. That means trying to use this time to ramp up and find out HOW one can MORE and more work ONLINE and from Home. That is my uppermost goal at present...that and
MY garden and poultry
I've always been a bit of a dabbler in the Homesteading ways. Never really considering myself A Homesteader, but always gardening, keeping chickens, quail, making things myself when I can like butter, or bread (though I no longer eat bread, that was a happy accident of dietary choice Pre-Event) Yet, I find myself wishing to amp that up, so I've greatly enlarged my area for veg and currently have a half finished bit of construction of new posts and fencing and concrete and such. Thus the necessity to visit the big box lumber stores (as the small ones are sadly NOT open)
My window sills are full of newly sprouting seedlings
My growing quail are awaiting their larger outdoor home and my chickens are still happily laying and just faffing about for them the Normal has stayed the same.
I suppose my NEED to return to Steemit now is 2 fold
one for the sanity of feeling a bit of the Old Normal and also to find out how to make up this New schedule of what is needed in the new world of do ALL work from home. Surely a few fractions of digital coin from votes might not seem like a lot, but
in this Brave New World, all pennies, rather physical or digital , are surely being carefully counted and considered.
and so I'll count and consider and plan and plant and grow and build and above all, I'll HOPE.
And I HOPE all of you out there can find your New Normal and I HOPE that you will share it with me in comments and guide me in the New Normal of Steemit as well, because Boy oh boy,
Do I need the safe virtual Village of Steemit now more than ever! Social Distancing is the norm here.
Well, until I post again, hopefully tomorrow I look forward to seeing some of you in the comments.
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My Previous Post: Hatching quail eggs in my Seaside Home
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Good to see you checking in! We can dive into the communities stuff eventually... the much bigger news is the Steem/Hive schism!
As of Friday, March 20th, the blockchain was “forked” and there are now 2 different versions. This occurred due to a huge political and economic clash between some of the community and Justin Sun, the new owner of Steemit Inc.
Some folks are staying on Steem, some have moved to Hive, and some are utilizing both. I’m all Hive myself, just lurking here and couldn’t resist trying to lure you over! The short of it is Steem is fully controlled by Justin Sun, Hive more resembles “Steem classic” with most of the old witnesses, developers, & apps switched over.
You were granted a matching balance of the new Hive tokens, so if you plan on focusing on one platform or another you can sell one for the other at least.
Log in utilizes your existing Steem keys, so it’s easy to get up & running! Hope to see you on Hive!
https://hive.blog/@donnadavisart
Oh wow @bryan-imhoff how quickly the world (either digital or physical) changes, eh?
I followed the link you posted, does this mean I am now ON Hive? Can I simply write from that link, which seems to be the same interface as old Steemit? If so, thanks, that was easy.
I'm not one for 'sides' normally, at least not outwardly so, I'm more of a 'let's all get along' type, I know boring stuff, but I suppose I'll show up to both parties and see what feels most like 'home'.
What I always loved about Steemit was it felt like the 'old' blogging days of the internet, for a short while anyway. And I often likened it to a small digital village in the vast digital world of such digital cities as Facebook and their ilk.
If this Hive feels more 'home' then perhaps I shall move in and set up digs and simply use Steemit as my holiday home, popping in a few months a year and on odd weekends to 'putter in the garden' as it were.
Thanks for the help!
You’re very welcome! I do hope to see you there as I consider it my new “stomping grounds.” And yes, your account carried over to this offshoot so all you’d have to do is log in as normal. SteemPeak also has a Hive based interface.
https://peakd.com/@donnadavisart
For anyone still utilizing Steem I’d highly recommend at least using SteemPeak instead of Steemit. One of the onerous things that finalized my move to Hive was Justin Sun started blocking users and posts he didn’t like from appearing on Steemit, but you can still see them on SteemPeak.
To be honnest I'm new here and looking at steemit it's just crazy how much all of you have tine to write so much. I draw thats my passion, and that takes a huge part of my time and as a new member i feel i can't compete with this amount of writing you all are doing.
Don't mind me, I'm just back on and trying to post more regularly so I've just set myself a strict schedule for 'Draw/paint' 'write' 'garden', but it's not for everyone. I say write what you can when you can and just enjoy the community :) @kesityu
Yay welcome back :D Yep times are a bit bizarre at the moment XD (and I'm having way too much fun with conspiracy theories) That dumbarse virus ay.
As @bryan-imhoff already explained a bunch of us have traipsed on over to hive and there are some people using one or the other or both (either posting different things or cross-posting). At least you kind of came back at a good time where the toddler tantrums (aka angry namecalling/trolling posts from everyone because everyone firmly believes that they're 100% right and everyone who disagrees is 100% wrong and that's all there is to it) have slowed down/stopped. I'm only posting on the other side and just popping back in here to see how my powerdowns are going and so I can maintain contact with the people who decide to stay here :)
On the communities front everything that doesn't go to a community just goes to your blog. I don't know what it's like on the steemit frontend (because I bailed on that thing years ago well before any of these shenanigans happened) but on steempeak (and its hive equivalent peakd) there's now two tabs in your profile, one shows everything on your blog and the other shows "all posts" which includes stuff that you've posted to communities.
Oof sorry to hear about the income loss from the holiday homes D: sounds like you're doing all right though? And at least the garden is flourishing? XD
Oh hiya @ryivhnn how goes things on your side of the world? I watch some Australian news amongst the other Youtube news and it seems as if you are in a similar boat to us, of course you get better compensation for your population than our country...
Oh the drama, and how funny all the Steemit drama should happen with everything else, perhaps 2020 is just the 'drama year'?
I'm going to start posting today on hive, if I understand how to sign in that is, and hope to find all the 'old crew' steemians there. I miss this place and if it has to be a 'new place' but with all the 'good ole' people' I'm fine. I'm HOPING it's going to be like Steem was originally before all the changes that slowly kept happening.
See you round!
As I was saying to the artbees (what steemartists have changed our name to), think 2020 was like "challenge accepted" after hearing people banging on about how crap poor 2019 was XD
Love the sketch. Welcome back again 😊