Finished reading: The Familiar: A Novel by Leigh Bardugo 📚
I listened to this as an audiobook. I enjoyed both the story and the narration.
Happy New Year!
2025! Is January 8th too late to wish someone a Happy New Year? I say no. Happy New Year!
The holidays were lovely. Both kids were in town for Christmas and there’s always a lot of laughter when they are around. We watched some good movies (The Holdovers and Klaus stand out most) and some not so good movies (Red One, eek!). We also watched the series Nobody Wants This which I turned on looking for something non-serious to watch while stitching and it turned out to be so good, I restarted it and watched it all the way through more than once. Apparently my son had told us to watch it before, but I hadn’t. I’d rewatch it again today if I could, honestly.
To get out of the house, we went downtown to see the big Christmas tree in Pioneer Square and to see the Gingerbread House display at the Benson hotel. I’m planning to do this again next year, it was a good way to get into the spirit of the season.
As has become tradition, we rang in the New Year with the neighbors. I highly recommend becoming friends with the people that live all around you.
We’re in the part of the year that reminds me that I live in THE NORTH. (Relative to my own past.) While the sun is out it’s generally flooding all rooms with southern facing windows, regardless of time of day. And yet, the nightlight I finally put in the upstairs hallway hasn’t turned off once!
We purchased an older, low-mileage Subaru for the daughter. She’s graduating this year and will likely move out of the small walkable town she’s living in so it was time. She drove it up to Whidbey Island for New Years and then drove it down to her place in time for school. It should be a great car for her. The son borrowed my vehicle to head back to school early (he wanted some time without the roommates in his apartment) so I’m getting to experience life with only one vehicle between my husband and I. It turns out that it is really easy if you work from home, eat leftovers for lunch every day and the neighbors are the people you spend most of your time with. On the other hand, after 5 years of working almost exclusively from home I’m usually anxious to get out of here. Perhaps having the need to have 2 vehicles is more aspirational than current reality.
January 1, 2025 marked 3 years that I have been sewing or stitching something daily. Most days I spend just 20 minutes or so, but I’ve learned a lot and it’s often a nice way to work through any of life’s frustrations. I have fabric picked out for a few bags I’m really exciting to get started on.
I’m continuing to volunteer for the woodworking guild this year. Figuring out how to organize several classes each month with instructors and assistants through some mechanism other than email is a goal for 2025. If you have suggestions, please send them my way.
Finally, I started learning Svelte and SvelteKit over the break. Matt and I have a couple projects we’d like to collaborate on this year and I don’t know the tools he’d like to use! I’m impressed so far with Svelte and I’m really looking forward to building something with Matt.
Currently reading: Tiamat’s Wrath by James S. A. Corey I’m anxious to see how the series is wrapped up. 📚
Announcing Surf
Some exciting professional news. We’ve been working on a new product at work and while there’s still lots of work to do, today we publicly announced the waitlist.
Seeing posts like this make it all worth it. Ha!
My son got home today (end of first term of sophomore year at college is this week), immediately announced he was starving and then fell asleep as soon as he had food. Some things never change, it seems. 🥰
Matt set up some fun LED lights on the house that can be controlled with the WLED app. Our Sunday evening gathering enjoyed the different settings, but the littlest ones were most excited.
If you’re in PDX over the next few months, definitely visit the Exquisite Creatures event at OMSI! We went a couple weeks ago and I’m planning to go back with the kids soon.
Not the best photo, but it represents pure joy. The blanket on the left covering kid #1, the blanket on the right covering kid #2 and the two kitties on my legs making me extra, extra warm.
Happy Thanksgiving! Both kids are home so I’m happy as can be. The daughter brought her cats who have been helping us cook all day. :) They’re adorable as you can see.
The Onion continues to bring me joy.
Steam Bending
This evening Yuri Kobayashi presented at the monthly Guild of Oregon Woodworkers meeting as part of a series of educational opportunities on steam bending that she’s put together for the Guild.
Her presentation was a piece of art itself, with poetry woven throughout. She wrapped up the evening with three simple demonstrations that made steam bending look so fun and easy.
Yet another item for the list of things I haven’t tried, but would like to, it seems.
Some sights around the neighborhood on a recent walk. This is my favorite time of year in Oregon.
My son and a friend of his took a short roadtrip (his first as an adult) to go see redwoods in Crescent City this weekend. Of the photos he shared, this is my favorite. Ha!
Currently reading: Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7) by James S.A. Corey 📚
Looking forward to reading books that are not part of a series when I get through these next 3 books.
Finished reading: Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey 📚
The only thing I’ve written this week that wasn’t work related was a pretty bad haiku composed at 4 a.m. that ended with ‘crime in fact does pay’.
This world we live in is currently still beautiful, however.
Well, this is new. The past two days I’ve had slugs INSIDE my (quite new) mailbox. I carefully removed both and put them in the grass, but HOW are they getting in there? The PNW has some drawbacks after all.
Currently reading: Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey 📚
I am SLOWLY make my way through this series. I keep pausing to read other books though.