Happy new year! This posts spans the Christmas holiday through now, because I didn’t post an update while traveling. Unfortunately those two periods of time, though only a week apart, feel more like a month apart. Here’s the abridged version: Some photos: New Year’s, abridged: Post New Year’s, abridged: Things on my mind right now:

I worked in Manhattan on Monday to host a WordPress community event at our offices after work. I got in some last-minute shopping and had lunch at Hamburger America, and caught up with some coworkers I hadn’t seen in a while. The event itself was kind of a bust, but while waiting on the subway…

The big thing this week was that we unexpectedly replaced our washer and dryer. The washer started leaking on Monday, so I took the front off and laid on the floor watching it run a load. The leak was coming from where the shaft goes into the wash basin, and my Dad, who repaired appliances…

Christmas decorating is a process. We dehydrate grapefruits each year, put cloves in oranges, and string cranberries. We got that done this week. I really like that all of the wooden ornaments for the tree are ones I’ve turned over the last four years. We also got a train for around the tree and Charlie…

Thanksgiving itself is probably my third favorite holiday, but I always get a lot done on personal projects and a lot of quality family and friend time during the week, which bump it up in my overall admiration. Thanksgiving Day we hosted another couple who are NY transplants and also have a 3yo who gets…

The cold weather is here, and I am happy to have it. It snowed on Friday, but melted overnight. Given the weather, I’m in full hearty meal mode. Charlie was home sick on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. That made for a challenging work week. He was vomiting, but had full energy and was bouncing off…

I’ve been working on other people’s blogs at work all day, time to post on mine. Downtown Peekskill with Amanda and Charlie on Monday evening. We went to dinner at the Irish place, and we also checked on the Little Free Library and exchanged some books. We had another tough weekend with Charlie, so I’m…

Short post this week. I need to get some sleep. It has been a long week and I am tired. This work week was stressful and parenting was difficult. Optimistic that next week will be better. I made my own rosin and fly tying wax this week. I tied a few flies this week, too.…

Charlie worked with me in the shop on Monday night and I got down the hand drill and bit brace for him to check out. I was surprised by how quickly he grokked them. It was cool to see. He drilled decent holes by himself much safer than with a battery drill. I’ll have to…