Bytore's Journal of Musings

[Bytore]

Haha, yes, looking back I certainly feel silly for the 20th time I started a diet My values allow for eating meat. If I were to become a vegetarian, a messenger would go to a farm, and next year there would be a cow less in the field.

If I had fewer choices, I would eat whatever I was able to; including hunting animals/raising and slaughtering/trading/purchasing. I am sorta blessed with a vast number of food consumption choices and it is, at times, overwhelming... Since I have so many choices and since I love beans, I am gonna dig in!

In other news, been a little while since I updated this journal...

Got inspiration from the thread on recommended reading and picked myself up some more books. They mostly were not available at my library.

Just finished: "Move Your DNA".
-- Switched from sleeping on a Japanese style roll-up futon and am now sleeping on a blanket and yoga mat on the floor. Started that about 14 days ago. Two of those days I rolled out my futon as I was sore. Incidentally, my right knee is no longer bothering me! Hope that sticks. More generally, I feel stronger and more energetic... Walking with all of my tools at work is far easier than it used to be.

About 3/4 of the way through "Nature and the Human Soul" by Bill Plotkin.
-- Mind blowing book, in many ways. I am curious if anyone here on the forums has done any of the Animis Institute's programs.

Next up will be probably "Wild Mind" by Bill Plotkin or "Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

In other news, I have started listening to the "Great Simplification" podcast. Riveting stuff. I hestitate to buy in 100% with everything that's talked about, but that is how I roll more generally anyhow.

Finance-wise, I am doing pretty well. Paid off one credit card and one remaining. I should have that zeroed out by the end of this month. Then I will start stacking dollar bills.

January my savings rate was .03%, this is due to my spreadsheet not accounting properly for savings for different expenses that I save for that are irregular, like car insurance. The value should really be 0% until I pay off my debts; excluding the student loan. I am paying the student loan but holding off on paying it totally off as I am currently eligible for forgiveness in ~18 months.

I suppose it might be a good idea to modify the formula to account for the irregular expenses. I am very much a novice with all of this financial stuff. I am slowly learning!

It is a goal of mine to downsize my possessions and I am currently working on that. With that said, I do have some books folks may be interested in. I will probably find a post or make a new post in another area of the forum with a list.

[AxelHeyst]

We've got a thread for that.

Right on with the no-mattress sleeping. I slept on sheepskins for a few months, but then 'upgraded' to a 2" latex foam topper over plywood for... reasons.

Nice work with the CCs.

[Bytore]

Ha, yeah I get the reasons. Please tell me more about these sheepskins...

My adult sleep system progression:

At 21: floor with foam pad
At 22: futon
At 25: regular western bed
At 29: Cedar planks
At 31: plywood with wool blanket ontop
At 32: Tatami mat w/ wool blanket
At 33: queen size firm mattress
At 38: tatami mat
At 40: thin roll up futon mattress
At 42: yoga mat on floor


I find a common thread in my floor/hard surface sleeping has been that I sometimes wake up and turng around frequently. Some sort of body mechanics/positioning thing related to the curve in my lower back, shoulders and neck. I recently have tried putting a narrow rolled up towel under my knees and another under the lower curve in my back. I have a posture where my butt pushes back, belly pops out, and shoulders hunch inwards.

For decades I have held in my belly and kept a very straight posture. Since I read "Move Your DNA" I have begun actively trying to let out my belly and relax my posture. This seems to help. I am still experimenting with how best to lay my head when I sleep. Side sleeping I seem to need some sort of more hefty cushion. Back sleeping I can get away with a rolled up blanket, but there seems to be some more tweaking that I need to do. I suspect my sleeping setup might just require some hourly and daily modifications.

[AxelHeyst]

I'm pretty sure I got the idea from a Katy Bowman blog post about her evolving sleeping system but I can't find a reference for you. There's something about them that is very 'healthy' for skin contact - bedridden people develop bedsores at a far lesser rate if they're on sheepskins, for example. You can find sheepskin "seconds" (flawed) for relatively cheap, which is what I did. I just put two of my three sheepskins down on my sleeping platform with a cotton sheet on top. It worked fine, although your experiences with getting used to it sound familiar.

I don't sleep on them anymore but I use one on the back of my office chair, sometimes use them as cushions for my outdoor seating, I stuffed one in a pillowcase and use it as a pillow, and I plan on using another as a seat cover for my moto (long tradition of sheepskin seat covers to prevent buttsores for long-distance moto riders).

[Bytore]

Thank you for the idea about using sheepskin seconds, AH! I may get some of those eventually.

I do have a rather nice roll-up futon. Over the last few weeks I have slept on it a few times rather than straight on the floor.

Do you still have a pickemup truck or solely traveling in the moto? I think about switching to a moto, but I dunno. Either with a moto or a bike I would need a good trailer to carry my 5' crosscut saw. Moto's easier to work on than a big rig, I imagine. How does it do on wet roads, ice, and the like?

[Bytore]

Update 4/12/25

High Interest Debts: $0
Student Loans: Still Got 'Em, paying off and hoping for Public Student Loan Forgiveness in ~18 months.
Savings: March Savings Rate was 28%. Up from 0% in February.
Books Read:
-- Fiction:
--- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
--- Entropia
-- Non-Fiction
--- Nature And the Human Soul
--- Micromastery
--- A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

Books Reading:
-- How To Be A Stoic
-- Flow
-- Thinking In Systems
-- The Red Badge of Courage

Books on Hold at Library:
-- The Dispossessed by Ursula K Leguin
-- Zero Waste Home

Currently in the very beginning stages of doing community networking around cooperative businesses/housing. Hosting an 'Intro to Coops' class next Saturday. Unsure of the turn-out, but it should be at least 3.

Working on projects for the home:
-- clothesline
-- garden
-- misc repairs, organization, etc

Todo list includes:
-- repair my bike/sell it/buy a surly ogre

Upcoming fun things include:
-- bikepacking trip to the coast
-- trail maintenance on some BLM lands
-- Intro to Co-Ops class

Was laid up for about a week with an illness beginning of April. Much improved now.

[Bytore]

I have gotten off-track, not unusual for me. Having tracked my expenses for a few years this is a typical pattern. No excuses. I am immersed in consumerism, but can I break free?


Food expenses increased with my increased hours volunteering on trail crews. I get tempted to buy some food/drink on the return journey. The hard physical labor activated the memory of desire for cold beer. Haven't consumed a lot but the price of craft beer is quite high. $10-20 for a six pack ($20 at a mountain lake convenience store).

Purchased a bicycle and traded my old bike for a pair of pants.

Lots of little purchases varying from things for home, paying for my parent's cat vet bill, books, ktape, secure mailbox for the home, tools (rogue hoe), backpacking gear (bought a replacement sleep pad and a ultralight pillow).

I am going to be over budget for June, too. Paid 6 months of auto insurance (~$200), 12 months of phone (~$200). I need to modify my charts a bit as I use a credit card to make payments; as it is currently I do track the expense as a subcategory but my chart shows things as the category. I pay the credit card balance off monthly. On my chart the expense currently shows up as "paying myself" (category) rather than "auto insurance" (subcategory).

I pay bills online/over the phone with the idea that this keeps my bank accounts more secure from fraud. Question: Do ya'll think that is necessary? I pay off my balance each month, but it does give me the false sense of having spent less than I have and might be part of the reason I am overspending. Other than not fully embracing post-consumerism. I need to remind myself to solve problems with skill and relationships first rather than purchases.

Good news regarding trail work, I was offered a paid gig as a trail crew lead. Going to work 8/1-8/3 up in the Rogue Umpqua Divide Wilderness. If anyone wants to go up there it is an open event. Check out their website for details: https://sourceoneserenity.org/sos-trails/

I also have the opportunity for more paid trail work gigs coming up this summer. Two four day hitches in the Mt Thieseln Wilderness, Kelsay Valley.

One win today:
I need to redo the blade edge of my rogue hoe so it works better as a trail tool. A friend suggested using an angle grinder. I don't have one of those and was contemplating purchasing one. I did not want to buy one.

So, I asked chatgpt for advice today. It suggested using a couple different files. I believe I have both of those files already. I will clamp the hoe to a work bench and spend an hour or so filing that blade. Hope that works. I could also leverage relationships and ask a guy whom runs one of the trail organizations I volunteer for to modify the blade edge, if my home filing doesn't work.

I will post again in July with another update.

[delay]

Thanks for sharing your journey! Since you ask for what other people think I'll weigh in.

Lots of little purchases varying from things for home, paying for my parent's cat vet bill, books, ktape, secure mailbox for the home, tools (rogue hoe), backpacking gear (bought a replacement sleep pad and a ultralight pillow).

It's useful to categorize payments and separate out what you'd like to do more of and what you'd like to do less of. You can zoom in on what you'd like to reduce. This visualizes that paying for something you regret comes at the cost of not being able to pay for something else.

Priorization is the key to financial sanity. Imagine a scale with the item you want to buy on one side, and the amount of work to pay for the debt on the other. Nobody would be in consumer debt if they prioritized.

I am going to be over budget for June, too. Paid 6 months of auto insurance (~$200), 12 months of phone (~$200).

Perhaps you pay auto insurance only once every six months, but it is better thought of as a $34 monthly expense. Having your car means you agree to pay $34 car insurance, those dollars are spoken for. One way to track this is to see that $34 as monthly spending. Another way to do this is looking at 12 months trailing expenses, which would include most periodical payments.

I need to modify my charts a bit as I use a credit card to make payments; as it is currently I do track the expense as a subcategory but my chart shows things as the category.

If you don't do anything else, getting rid of a credit card alone is sufficient to greatly improve finances. Financial life without a credit card is so much simpler.

I pay bills online/over the phone with the idea that this keeps my bank accounts more secure from fraud. Question: Do ya'll think that is necessary?

We live in a time with lots of payment options and innovations. I've explored many kinds of banks and type of payments and there's surprisingly little fraud. If you freely enter your credit card it may be charged more than you like, but that is easily resolved with a call to the bank. I can recommend trying other ways to pay.

[Stasher]

A good rogue hoe is a pure joy of a trail tool, the amount of work one can accomplish with one is impressive. It is always my go to when I'm doing trail work (other than a leaf rake at the end to get the pure heavenly buffed out finished look). Here is a photo I took from one of our trail work days in the past. As to what to use for keeping the edges in good condition, I would recommend just cleaning up the edges with a 10-14" bastard file.



I don't have an image handy like I did above when I was using the Top Dog, but my favourite Roque Hoe is the Travis Tool
https://roguehoe.com/product/70ar-travis-tool/

Love doing trail work, congrats on getting some work for projects near you. You get paid to be outdoors, be in nature and to get a good workout