The big event two weeks ago was a snow storm on Tuesday. We got 11″ of snow here in Peekskill, the most in the region. Daycare was closed, along with everything else, so Amanda and I switched off hanging out with Charlie while the other worked. No snow days is a downside of remote work! (You still won’t catch me going into an office any time soon, though.)

Charlie woke me up that morning by saying, “Daddy, it NO-ing!”

Charlie and I shoveled the driveway and sidewalk twice, and took the sled out in the woods. Otherwise we hunkered down and stayed warm.

Charlie woke me up the next morning by saying, “Daddy, it Valentine’s Day!” – We’d been hyping it up all week, making cards, etc. He had a blast.

My parents came to visit for the holiday weekend on Friday. Dad helped me a lot with the workshop upgrade project:

• Saturday we finished putting in the rest of the insulation and installed the diesel heater (my birthday present from my parents)
  • I’ll put together a post once I finish the rest of the upgrades, but the heater is great. At one point we had it up to 70F in the minimally-insulated shed and had to turn the power down.
• Sunday we went to pick up some items from an auction and some plywood from Home Depot with their truck, then framed in the workbench, routed out spots for the legs and vise, then biscuit joined and glued the three pieces of the top together.
• Monday we put in the legs and shelving for the workbench, put a couple pieces of plywood up on the walls, and put in some electrical outlets above the new bench.

It was great to have my parents here. Always nice to spend time with them. Charlie loves it, too.

Wednesday night I hung lights above the bench and installed my vises.

More on that auction: An old woodturner in Fishkill passed away and his family ran an estate sale. I ended up not winning any of the wood he had roughed out and stacked in his shop because the bids went higher than I was willing to pay, but when I went to pick up the ShopVac that I won, I asked if they had any wood that didn’t sell. I lucked out! They forgot to post some of it to the online auction, so I offered cash on the spot and took it off their hands. 🪵 🙌

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we did some clean up and gave away some stuff on Buy Nothing. For the unfamiliar, there are local Facebook groups where you can post things you want to give away and people claim them. We gave away a giant beanbag chair, our old couch, and some baby stuff. We also claimed and picked up a toy piano for Charlie.

Friday morning we had a family breakfast date at the coffee shop.

We did the clean up to make space for reconfiguring the finished half of the basement into a half work/half art space for Amanda. Her desk was already down there, but we put up some bookshelves and moved her workspace around a little bit. Today (Sunday) is organizing.

Saturday afternoon and early evening Charlie and I met up with Jeremy and Miles to take the train to Cold Spring and hang out for a while. We went to the bookstore, playground, and dinner. Lots of running around outside, too. Everyone had fun.

I finished The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler this week. Good, fun, easy read.

One other cool thing this week: One of my posts was featured in the Stack Overflow newsletter!

Okay, I’m off to do some more work in my warm workshop. I’m putting up more plywood today, which I’ll later hang French cleats on.