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Jan. 4th, 2026 08:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spryngSo far this year I have:
- gone on a chilly, 28F New Year's run
- borrowed a friend's carpet cleaner and thoroughly cleaned 4/6 carpets/rugs; begone cat puke and old food stains!
- played Fur Elise and realized it's actually a really easy song
- played Auld Lang Syne almost flawlessly
- re-arranged 4yo's bedroom, to his delight
- attempted hamburger buns; they were edible, but much room for improvement
- fully switched to my new Linux laptop (goodbye Windows!)
- read the last few Animorphs books (only 25 years late, it's fine) and had to process the emotional fallout
- finally caught up on emails
- made travel arrangements for Sirens Conference in March
- started sorting through accumulated files/papers/documents
- finished putting together the miniature coffee shop my wife got me for Christmas
Not too bad. I'm particularly proud of the carpet cleaning, lol. Not that our carpets were never cleaned, but there's only so much scrubbing the various cat puke sites and stains will take. Our friend loaned us a carpet cleaner that has a steam setting that lifted all that shit (pun intended) right out. I went from thinking "wow, we should probably replace the carpet soon" to "oh wait I guess they just needed to be cleaned."
On the one hand, I like how much easier it is to keep the faux hardwood floors clean in the rest of the house, but on the other, it's hard to imagine anything but carpet in a bedroom. Someday maybe when the kids are grown we'll rip it all out, but for now I should probably, uh, deep clean more often.
I'm also pretty happy with my new laptop and switching to Linux. I'd been meaning to for a few years now but didn't want to spend a day (or more) installing a new OS. Since I needed a new laptop anyway (the screen was flickering/dying on the old one and I managed to narrow down the diagnosis to a hardware problem), I researched ones that came with Linux-preinstalled. I just really wanted to be able to keep working on my WIP out of the box.
There's a little bit of a learning curve -- I can't seem to get Dropbox to work, for example -- but the absence of bloatware and efficiency of the OS is so noticeable, it's like I'd been wearing a forty-pound weight vest for so long and finally got to slip out of it. Like, I knew Windows had gotten real bad in the last few years, but wow.
Also: good riddance OneDrive. Fucking hate how Microsoft wants to do away with native drives and force all your stuff to the cloud. And an added bonus, I don't have to worry about Copilot creeping into more and more of my programs.
Only downside is that now when I use my work computer, it feels even slower. Welp.
And last, after the series ended 25 years ago, I finally read the last few books in the Animorphs series. I don't remember exactly why I stopped reading them, although re-reading some of the latter books was a chore: that 3/4 mark was really rough, with cliched plots and clunky writing and some really head-scratching characterization.
But the last four books are a ride and a half and oof the feels with that ending. I wish I could've been reading it in real time with the fandom community back when it still existed. I'm glad ebooks exist now and I could finally finish reading it; KA Applegate certainly pulled no punches when it came to child warriors, huh. To think that series started as middle grade.
Today is the last day of the kids' winter break; they go back to school/childcare tomorrow. I have two more days off, having shifted my PTO to account for the fact that I, uh, didn't actually take time off over Christmas. Now that I've (somewhat) recovered from that hectictwo three four weeks, I really want to pore myself into finishing the edits on this WIP. Having kids home has made it hard to really sink in and focus, so hopefully a quiet house will help.
And then Wednesday I travel to Michigan for dayjob. Phew.
But first, today: a friend's wedding.
- gone on a chilly, 28F New Year's run
- borrowed a friend's carpet cleaner and thoroughly cleaned 4/6 carpets/rugs; begone cat puke and old food stains!
- played Fur Elise and realized it's actually a really easy song
- played Auld Lang Syne almost flawlessly
- re-arranged 4yo's bedroom, to his delight
- attempted hamburger buns; they were edible, but much room for improvement
- fully switched to my new Linux laptop (goodbye Windows!)
- read the last few Animorphs books (only 25 years late, it's fine) and had to process the emotional fallout
- finally caught up on emails
- made travel arrangements for Sirens Conference in March
- started sorting through accumulated files/papers/documents
- finished putting together the miniature coffee shop my wife got me for Christmas
Not too bad. I'm particularly proud of the carpet cleaning, lol. Not that our carpets were never cleaned, but there's only so much scrubbing the various cat puke sites and stains will take. Our friend loaned us a carpet cleaner that has a steam setting that lifted all that shit (pun intended) right out. I went from thinking "wow, we should probably replace the carpet soon" to "oh wait I guess they just needed to be cleaned."
On the one hand, I like how much easier it is to keep the faux hardwood floors clean in the rest of the house, but on the other, it's hard to imagine anything but carpet in a bedroom. Someday maybe when the kids are grown we'll rip it all out, but for now I should probably, uh, deep clean more often.
I'm also pretty happy with my new laptop and switching to Linux. I'd been meaning to for a few years now but didn't want to spend a day (or more) installing a new OS. Since I needed a new laptop anyway (the screen was flickering/dying on the old one and I managed to narrow down the diagnosis to a hardware problem), I researched ones that came with Linux-preinstalled. I just really wanted to be able to keep working on my WIP out of the box.
There's a little bit of a learning curve -- I can't seem to get Dropbox to work, for example -- but the absence of bloatware and efficiency of the OS is so noticeable, it's like I'd been wearing a forty-pound weight vest for so long and finally got to slip out of it. Like, I knew Windows had gotten real bad in the last few years, but wow.
Also: good riddance OneDrive. Fucking hate how Microsoft wants to do away with native drives and force all your stuff to the cloud. And an added bonus, I don't have to worry about Copilot creeping into more and more of my programs.
Only downside is that now when I use my work computer, it feels even slower. Welp.
And last, after the series ended 25 years ago, I finally read the last few books in the Animorphs series. I don't remember exactly why I stopped reading them, although re-reading some of the latter books was a chore: that 3/4 mark was really rough, with cliched plots and clunky writing and some really head-scratching characterization.
But the last four books are a ride and a half and oof the feels with that ending. I wish I could've been reading it in real time with the fandom community back when it still existed. I'm glad ebooks exist now and I could finally finish reading it; KA Applegate certainly pulled no punches when it came to child warriors, huh. To think that series started as middle grade.
Today is the last day of the kids' winter break; they go back to school/childcare tomorrow. I have two more days off, having shifted my PTO to account for the fact that I, uh, didn't actually take time off over Christmas. Now that I've (somewhat) recovered from that hectic
And then Wednesday I travel to Michigan for dayjob. Phew.
But first, today: a friend's wedding.
