So I have a spot in my backyard that I use for my water displays. And I will change this display around after I get it done and get pictures plus video. This gives me the opportunity to keep on getting better at making these displays. I guess I can’t stand keeping anything the same. Because as soon as I get something done around my place, I am off and running on changing something else. I love to learn new things.

I get bored with things easily. Therefore it is like I cannot stick with anything. I am constantly changing something about myself, my home, or the way that I do things. Since I got paralyzed 6 years ago I have now learned a whole lot about construction, laying tile, working on cars, sewing, clothing alterations, tattooing, drawing, and I learned how to play guitar. I guess this was what I needed in order to keep myself moving forward and not letting myself slide back into my old lifestyle as a junky.

It is very true for me as the old saying goes “Idle time is the devil’s playground”. If I keep myself busy all of the time, then I do not have time to try and get myself into trouble. And I feel a sense of accomplishment after every new thing that I do, or learn. When I was a drug addict/junky before I got paralyzed I never had anything. I was never learning anything new. Except possibly a new drug dealer to get my drugs from.

I don’t even think that my daughter’s understood the extremes that the drugs ruled and took up every waking minute of my days. When I went back to school, once I got my first apartment after becoming paralyzed, I would call up my oldest daughter all of the time asking her questions about my homework, how to do word, and many other things. Finally she gets exasperated with me one day and was like ” why don’t you just google it?”. It is so much easier she said. I was like, if I knew how to google, then I would have been doing it all along clearly, rather than calling your bitchy little ass!

I then proceeded to tell her my opinion of her as a teacher. And how I could not believe that she taught high school students with how little bit of patience that she has. So needless to say we got to fighting on the phone and ended up hanging up on each other. Which is nothing new in the life of me and my family. We fight all of the time. But the great thing about being a family is that you make up with each other. Once everyone calms down that is. But this shows the extent that drugs ruled my life back then. I knew nothing about google, or word, or computers, nor anything else for that matter. I only knew how to wake up each day and start chasing that drug.

Or chasing the money to get the drug. Or looking to find someone who had the drug I needed. After I finally got the money for it. Then by the time you would actually get your drug, the day would be about over. So then you usually get high. Maybe nod off in your plate of spaghetti, and then go to sleep. Just to have it all start over the next day when you woke up.

And there was no changing it. The withdrawals and sickness you would feel when you did not have your drug of choice (mine being heroin, oxycodone, and in the beginning lortabs) was so terrible that you wouldn’t have to be out of drugs to be dreading it. All that would have to happen was to start running a little bit low on your supply. And your brain would start thinking about how you had better start figuring out how to get more. Before you would run out.

So as you can see my life was literally ran by my opiate addiction. I was not in control of the ride, the heroin was. Or the needle, or whichever opiate I happened to be on at the time. And of course I tried to get off of these terrible things many times in my life. Just to find myself failing miserably. Because every time that I would be off of them for a while I would still feel that depression creeping into my soul. And that yearning for the way that they used to make me feel.

I felt weak, and I just wished to die most of the time. Feeling as though everyone would be better off without an idiot like me in their life. For all that I did was mess up time after time. Promising every time that it would never happen again. And lying to everyone around me, including myself. Saying how I had control this time. Stretching the truth with how much I was doing. Trying to appear as if I were doing better than what I was actually doing.

Now after being paralyzed because of my use of needles 6 years ago, something has happened to me, and it has all been taken away. That old yearning for the way that it made me feel. The old struggles with being anywhere around an opiate. I couldn’t be within a mile of someone that I knew might have a pain pill without going into full throttle piece of shit mode. Trying to come up with some type of plan to steal a few, without them noticing. Well borrow was always the way I would look at it. Sign Up

You tried to convince yourself that you would replace them before they would ever notice that they were gone. And had an armored truck wrecked in front of your house, throwing every single oxycodone they were carrying right into your living room, then yes you probably would have replaced them like you kept telling yourself in your mind. But in the real world, you were usually struggling from day to day just to keep yourself from being sick. And struggling to keep yourself off of the streets. So you were never going to be able to take care of yourself and your addiction, plus be able to get the extra’s to get someone back. That other person that you ended up owing is always put to the back burner.

So for me to be able to go to my mother’s house nowadays and never even think about getting into her pain pills is a miracle in itself. She can now leave them in her purse, or her nightstand, without fear that I will be swiping a few every time that I came around. It has taken a while to get to this point for both of us. It takes a long time to build trust back up with someone that you have harmed over and over again in life. And it took some time for me to get better and to change my ways of thinking.

It did not happen overnight. And you don’t just suddenly become a perfect upstanding citizen, after being a piece of shit one all of your life. But if you work at it, and stay focused, it can happen. And through all of my projects I have become a better person. So while I may not ever be like a martha stewart in the way that I do crafts, or remodeling. But my crafts have helped me to become a better person. On the inside, and on the outside as well.

For they have helped me keep my mind busy at times when I felt lonely, with not many people coming to visit. Times I could have easily teetered towards drugs again for comfort. They have given me a sense of achievement, and something to go forward for in my life. And they have kept me in shape, contributing to helping me get stronger in my walking capabilities, with all the running around the yard, and the trailer. Always trying to finish something, or clean something, or organize something. Not to mention the fact that I am always getting better at the projects that I do.

So maybe one day I will be able to make a living from the affiliate marketing I am trying to do. Or maybe I will get good enough to be able to sell some of my crafts. You never know. I just know that it is working for me and it is making me happy in life. And that is all that you can do is to try and be as happy as possible with whatever you have going on in your life. And if you cannot manage to pull any bit of happiness out of your life, with what you are doing or you have going on. Then it might be time to try and change your life.

So I will get back to my project and how it was that I did it. I actually dug a pretty big area so I could put my reservoir down in it and have the water display on top of it. This has proven to be a big problem for me when it comes to water displays. I do not know how I seem to screw them up every time, but I do! So I try and keep it very simple. Basically the water in the reservoir is plenty deep enough for my water pump.

I will then get my hose that I need to run from my water pump up to my display. After you get your hose long enough to reach then you should make sure that it is secure onto your pump, and anywhere else. In case you have to use more than one hose or you might end up using an adapter so that you can run straight up and then to the left or right.

So once you have everything secure to your pump then you will want to make sure that everything is working properly. You definitely want to make sure that your water is coming back into your reservoir without any leaks or major splash. Because if you have even a little tiny leak then you will be bone dry before you know it. And then it will burn your water pump up quickly. So you will want to be sure that you have laid down your plastic liners properly where your water is going right back into your reservoir.

That was always where I would have some major problems. If I don’t point my water to going almost straight back into my reservoir then I will end up losing water somewhere every single time.

So in the video that I have on this post I have my water display as a small gurgle of water coming out of the ground. In that water display I did not have any hoses going at all from my water pump. I had a sump pump that I got on the streets for dirt cheap going. And I was just letting it go without the hoses attached. And it just put the water straight up into a small gurgle that of course came right back down on itself. So you did not have to worry about any loss of water. But it was definitely nice when you walked up to it.

Once you have your pump working properly you will want to put something strong over your reservoir. Something like chicken wire would work to cover your reservoir. This will also help to keep all of the crap from getting down in your water display. I then added a bunch of little rocks all over the top. Covering up my chicken wire completely. I got all of my small rocks from a local gravel company called IMI. And when I called and asked them about getting some small rocks for my projects I was working on they told me on the phone that I could fill up my buckets as much as I could hold for $5. So I was immediately there with several of my totes.

So I have also been collecting large rocks for my water displays for the last couple of years. I have got all of my rocks for completely free. I have gotten them from my family who lives in the country and had lots of big boulders they had cleared out of the woods, and from friends who would go to the river and bring me back rocks every time they would go.Sign Up

So I also have been getting pallets from different places locally. I found one guy who lives right down the road from me who sells all kinds of different types of pallets. And he sells them for dirt cheap. Like $2 a piece. So I also found the old vintage looking ladder at his place. It was not in the greatest shape when I saw it there. And so he told me that I could have it. And so I put it in as part of my water display layout. I wanted it to look very country, and very old fashioned. I love antiques and vintage things. So I wanted my water display to look like these 2 things combined.

I then brought a bunch of my plants outside and sat them around my water display area. Making it look much better I thought. I have always loved plants. And I seem to do well with most plants. All except for ferns. I definitely do not have a green thumb for ferns!

So I know that this is definitely not the best tutorial for doing your own water displays, but I at least will put it out there how I have done mine, and give any kinds of pointers on how to do it cheaply and the easiest way that you can do one. So if you happen to try your own water display at home then let me know how it works out for you. Good Luck & Happy Crafting!