You know what surprises me about crochet? The way it works muscles I forgot I had.

It’s improved my grip strength enormously (I think it’s better than when I was heavy lifting—I needed help from straps—and I wasn’t good at rock climbing) and that’s the obvious benefit. I’ve never seen my hands like this. The muscles coming up around my thumbs are so cool!

But also, crochet works my deltoids a ton. Probably more than any of the standard compound lifts, too. I had to add accessory lifts to get this feeling in my deltoids as a bodybuilder.

Deltoids are kind of like the muscle caps on the top of your arms, partially controlling the rotation of that complex shoulder joint. Sawing my arms through tight stitches with stiff fabric is *difficult,* and I will do it for *hours* when I’m working on something bulky (a purse, a blanket).

Even though nothing I’m handling is heavy, I’m watching my arm muscles go crazy and laughing in disbelief like “what??”

But it also works my chest muscles! I’ve had zero chest development since I quit bodybuilding in early 2020. For me, nothing works like a good chest press, and I just don’t have the stuff around to do that as easily as weighted squats. (Pick something up, squat. You’re done.) So there is only one place that I can be getting aching pectorals from.

Again, it’s a different kind of development than bodybuilding. It’s less mass, less swelling. I feel like I’m developing *cables* under the skin.

I am crocheting with a hook, creating fabrics in my hands, and somehow this is also making my body crochet muscle in this whole new fascinating functional way. I have never had a functional hobby in my life. It’s weird learning my body is meant to DO THINGS.

Most of my core maintenance is actually using a standing desk and picking things up, which also helps my legs a bit. I’m often hauling 40lbs bags of cat litter around, which is nearly the weight of an unweighted Olympic barbell. I pick up and move a lot of plants and heavy water containers.

Like I’m the chubbiest I’ve ever been, the most body fat no doubt, biggest dress size, but I’m kind of turning into lowkey homesteader farmb0tch strongk? Just DOING THINGS instead of sitting at a computer writing all day? WILD.

Behold my MIGHTY LEMON TREE! In summer ‘22, I was gifted a gigundo lemon that I didn’t remember to eat. When I cut it open, I found a seed already germinating. Zut alors! I took that seed and a couple others and put them into tiny cups. I don’t know which survived, but only one survived, and I moved it into a cup in mossy organic substrate. It *exploded* this summer.

I’ve been trying to prune it in a tree shape (obv the lower leaves need trimming) so it looks like a proper little tree in my kitchen windowsill. Did you know lemon trees wanna stab you? They bite! It’s made me bleed several times from those majestic, citrusy thorns. I think I’m going to turn into citrus at this point, like the werewolf curse, but lemons.

There is some common street moss in there (like pulled off the side of the road, that’s not actually what it’s called) and a couple little succulent florets so it also looks like a forest in the cup. The grass grows out of the sphagnum moss. I keep trying to pull it out but that shit is ROOTED so now I just mow it with kitchen scissors.

Yesterday I moved my tree from the McDonald’s cup to a bigger maverick gas station cup. The roots had wrapped all around the bottom of the cup and much of the inside, too. It didn’t stay damp long. Do you know where the soil goes when you’ve had a plant for a while? THE PLANT EATS IT AND TURNS IT INTO MORE PLANT. All these big bushy leaves are like 90% substrate probably. Anyway, they’ve got more substrate now.

I get to visit with this bad boy in my kitchen every day and it makes me happy, even if I do get bitten a lot.