Saturday, April 6
Apr. 7th, 2024 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Decent weather. About right for this time of year.
I didn't get much sleep, so it was really tough to get psyched up for our "fun day" in the city today. I either choose to go anyhow, or it's at least a week, maybe more before I get another chance to go anywhere other than the riding barn or pottery for variety. Sigh. I don't drive in the city, so unfortunately it ends up being something I do when my husband is home.
It has also been three weeks since I went anywhere other than the barn or pottery, so I really wanted to go, even though I was just a wreck from no sleep.
That doesn't set me up for success either, as going to the city then feels like "gritting my teeth so I can try to have fun today", which almost never works.
And it didn't.
Part of the problem is that I really want to do something NEW once in a while, but for lack of time and planning, we always just end up doing the same things, over and over and over again, which then doesn't always translate into feeling like we're doing something to break up our routine.
I'm not saying we didn't do nice things; we went to the art gallery and saw a display of local artists that was good, I got two tubes of watercolor paint to try, and we went to a thrift store.
We ate at a different restaurant today, so that was at least a bit different. There are starting to be more "healthy/vegetarian/vegan" places to eat at than there were ten years ago, which is nice.
I do sometimes feel like I'm lacking a feeling of "growth" or "having new experiences" in my life, and not sure how to address it. I don't want a new hobby to work on, because I don't want to give up riding or pottery to do so, and there's only so much "deep effort" I want to put into something else. I really just want something fun and a bit surprising once in a while so that I don't feel so stagnant.
Life can sometimes take on that "Groundhog Day" feeling of repetition, and it doesn't feel like growth, just cycling through the same things day after day, week after week.
Anyhow, we had our day. It was still okay.
We came home and watched more "Boardwalk Empire", and are now finished Season one.
San Marino is another tiny country of about 34,000 people, that is land locked, but is very close to the coast of the Adriatic Sea.
"The country derives its name from Saint Marinus, a stonemason from the then-Roman island of Rab in present-day Croatia. According to legendary accounts, he was born in 275 AD, participated in the rebuilding of Rimini's city walls after their destruction by Liburnian pirates, and later founded an independent monastic community on Monte Titano in 301 AD; thus, San Marino lays claim to being the oldest extant sovereign state, as well as the oldest constitutional republic.[12] (Mount Titano in San Marino)
Uniquely, San Marino's constitution dictates that its democratically elected legislature, the Grand and General Council, must elect two heads of state every six months. Known as the Captains Regent, they serve concurrently and with equal powers."
It is another tiny country that mainly thrives due to finance (banking and investing etc. but not the full-on tax haven that some micro countries offer), service industry, retail, and tourism. So, a lot of the service industry and retail would be BECAUSE of the tourism.
For a while, the state was pretty much only the monastery, then several other small city states joined together, and that is now the same area to this day.
It was briefly occupied by Victor Borgia (son of Pope Alexander VI)in 1503, then returned to autonomy by the new pope, Pope Julius II.
It was part of a Papal state for a while, then also occupied by another governor associated with another pope. Napoleon MIGHT have tried to take it over, but instead befriended one of the regents and made a pact to protect it's independence instead.
San Marino was neutral in WW I, though Italy made some lies up to try to get a foothold there (they wanted to have a police detachment there to "look for spies"), and at one point tried to isolate the country by cutting off it's telephone lines.
Economic strain after the war led to the poorer people in San Marino leaning towards the Fascists of Italy, and a fascist party formed there, the Sammarinese Fascist Party (Partito Fascista Sammarinese, PFS), which ruled from 1923 to 1943.
In WWII, it was neutral again, but the New York Times falsely reported that San Marino declared war on the United Kingdom (that seems like a rather large mistake on their part), so San Marino personally had to "undeclare war" directly to clear things up.
"On 28 July 1943, three days after the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, PFS rule collapsed and the new government declared neutrality in the conflict. The PFS regained power on 1 April 1944, but kept neutrality intact. Despite that, on 26 June 1944, San Marino was bombed by the Royal Air Force, in the belief that San Marino had been overrun by German forces and was being used to amass stores and ammunition. The Sammarinese government declared on the same day that no military installations or equipment were located on its territory, and that no belligerent forces had been allowed to enter.[33] San Marino accepted thousands of civilian refugees when Allied forces went over the Gothic Line.[34] In September 1944, it was briefly occupied by German forces, who were defeated by Allied forces in the Battle of San Marino.[35]"
So, back to current events: in spite of being a fairly wealthy little place, it has a CRAP human development record ( among the last European countries to legalize abortion), and an absolute travesty of a medical system.
It had the highest rate of deaths per capita in the world from COVID because it used some crazy Russian vaccine instead of one of the approved vaccines.
It does have three Olympic medals from the 2020 Olympics, one of the smallest countries to have won anything.
It is completely surrounded by Italy, so in terms of climate and such, think Italy. It has mountains and forests, and not much else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marino
https://youtu.be/SU4W_tIFbTc?si=CB1s6qoo8wmwKO8j
Decent weather. About right for this time of year.
I didn't get much sleep, so it was really tough to get psyched up for our "fun day" in the city today. I either choose to go anyhow, or it's at least a week, maybe more before I get another chance to go anywhere other than the riding barn or pottery for variety. Sigh. I don't drive in the city, so unfortunately it ends up being something I do when my husband is home.
It has also been three weeks since I went anywhere other than the barn or pottery, so I really wanted to go, even though I was just a wreck from no sleep.
That doesn't set me up for success either, as going to the city then feels like "gritting my teeth so I can try to have fun today", which almost never works.
And it didn't.
Part of the problem is that I really want to do something NEW once in a while, but for lack of time and planning, we always just end up doing the same things, over and over and over again, which then doesn't always translate into feeling like we're doing something to break up our routine.
I'm not saying we didn't do nice things; we went to the art gallery and saw a display of local artists that was good, I got two tubes of watercolor paint to try, and we went to a thrift store.
We ate at a different restaurant today, so that was at least a bit different. There are starting to be more "healthy/vegetarian/vegan" places to eat at than there were ten years ago, which is nice.
I do sometimes feel like I'm lacking a feeling of "growth" or "having new experiences" in my life, and not sure how to address it. I don't want a new hobby to work on, because I don't want to give up riding or pottery to do so, and there's only so much "deep effort" I want to put into something else. I really just want something fun and a bit surprising once in a while so that I don't feel so stagnant.
Life can sometimes take on that "Groundhog Day" feeling of repetition, and it doesn't feel like growth, just cycling through the same things day after day, week after week.
Anyhow, we had our day. It was still okay.
We came home and watched more "Boardwalk Empire", and are now finished Season one.
San Marino is another tiny country of about 34,000 people, that is land locked, but is very close to the coast of the Adriatic Sea.
"The country derives its name from Saint Marinus, a stonemason from the then-Roman island of Rab in present-day Croatia. According to legendary accounts, he was born in 275 AD, participated in the rebuilding of Rimini's city walls after their destruction by Liburnian pirates, and later founded an independent monastic community on Monte Titano in 301 AD; thus, San Marino lays claim to being the oldest extant sovereign state, as well as the oldest constitutional republic.[12] (Mount Titano in San Marino)
Uniquely, San Marino's constitution dictates that its democratically elected legislature, the Grand and General Council, must elect two heads of state every six months. Known as the Captains Regent, they serve concurrently and with equal powers."
It is another tiny country that mainly thrives due to finance (banking and investing etc. but not the full-on tax haven that some micro countries offer), service industry, retail, and tourism. So, a lot of the service industry and retail would be BECAUSE of the tourism.
For a while, the state was pretty much only the monastery, then several other small city states joined together, and that is now the same area to this day.
It was briefly occupied by Victor Borgia (son of Pope Alexander VI)in 1503, then returned to autonomy by the new pope, Pope Julius II.
It was part of a Papal state for a while, then also occupied by another governor associated with another pope. Napoleon MIGHT have tried to take it over, but instead befriended one of the regents and made a pact to protect it's independence instead.
San Marino was neutral in WW I, though Italy made some lies up to try to get a foothold there (they wanted to have a police detachment there to "look for spies"), and at one point tried to isolate the country by cutting off it's telephone lines.
Economic strain after the war led to the poorer people in San Marino leaning towards the Fascists of Italy, and a fascist party formed there, the Sammarinese Fascist Party (Partito Fascista Sammarinese, PFS), which ruled from 1923 to 1943.
In WWII, it was neutral again, but the New York Times falsely reported that San Marino declared war on the United Kingdom (that seems like a rather large mistake on their part), so San Marino personally had to "undeclare war" directly to clear things up.
"On 28 July 1943, three days after the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, PFS rule collapsed and the new government declared neutrality in the conflict. The PFS regained power on 1 April 1944, but kept neutrality intact. Despite that, on 26 June 1944, San Marino was bombed by the Royal Air Force, in the belief that San Marino had been overrun by German forces and was being used to amass stores and ammunition. The Sammarinese government declared on the same day that no military installations or equipment were located on its territory, and that no belligerent forces had been allowed to enter.[33] San Marino accepted thousands of civilian refugees when Allied forces went over the Gothic Line.[34] In September 1944, it was briefly occupied by German forces, who were defeated by Allied forces in the Battle of San Marino.[35]"
So, back to current events: in spite of being a fairly wealthy little place, it has a CRAP human development record ( among the last European countries to legalize abortion), and an absolute travesty of a medical system.
It had the highest rate of deaths per capita in the world from COVID because it used some crazy Russian vaccine instead of one of the approved vaccines.
It does have three Olympic medals from the 2020 Olympics, one of the smallest countries to have won anything.
It is completely surrounded by Italy, so in terms of climate and such, think Italy. It has mountains and forests, and not much else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marino
https://youtu.be/SU4W_tIFbTc?si=CB1s6qoo8wmwKO8j
