Charlie and I visited the American Museum of Natural History today and went to a counter to change a dollar into some quarters for the smashed penny machine. The clerk asked, “Oh, do you want some blank pennies?” I didn’t know want to say and must have looked confused because he added, “Because they are…

I was curious why Fern last month wasn’t a blizzard and the one this week was. Apparently, the wind! From the National Weather Service: Blizzards are dangerous winter storms that are a combination of blowing snow and wind resulting in very low visibilities. While heavy snowfalls and severe cold often accompany blizzards, they are not…

Winter Storm Fern ended up dumping 16″ of snow on us in 24 hours. I’m spending much of today digging us and a neighbor out with the fourth round of shoveling. Thankfully we still have power and we didn’t get ice here. This is the most snow we’ve had at one time in our six…

It snowed here all weekend. It is hard to tell exactly how much we got because Saturday the snow was fluffy and the wet, heavy snow on Sunday compressed it. There’s six inches on the porch railing as I write this, and it is still snowing. Charlie and I spent a few hours playing out…

You’ve probably seen the Instagram trend of posting selfies from 2016. Here are some of mine. Visiting the Sol LeWitt Retrospective at MASSMoCA. I spent hours in this building taking notes on the wall drawings. LeWitt is my favorite artist and this retrospective is well worth your time if you like his work, too. Taking…

Happy New Year! I like to do a more narrative recap on my birthday, so at the end of the calendar year I make lists of top things in multiple categories. See also: 2024, 2023. Meals Shows Non-fiction Books Fiction Books New blog follows Places Purchases Memories Things I’ve made Accomplishments

The past couple years I’ve written this post at the end of December as kind of a year-end recap. This year I thought I’d change it up and do it on Thanksgiving instead. Here’s 100 things I’m thankful for this year. Happy Thanksgiving! Previous years: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2017

Last week Nick Parish did an interview with me at Current Flow State about fly fishing, tenkara, woodworking projects, and making your own tools. Check it out!

We all went outside to watch a storm roll in after dinner, then Charlie and I got caught in it while putting some stuff away in the yard, so we ran up to his swing set/play fort for cover. I really enjoyed the sound of the rain on the roof of his play fort, so…

One of the challenging things about being a parent who works full time is the very limited free time for hobbies. The exhaustion fog started lifting around the two year old mark, and we started feeling more rested and interested in our hobbies again, but the free time hasn’t changed much. Now at the three…

Last year I used this format instead of a long-form recap of the year, and I liked it, so I did it again this year. The categories changed slightly, and I have some notes as to why on the bottom. Happy New Year! What I left out:

In randomized order because the order I jotted them down clumped too many similar things together. What I noticed about this list is that I am happiest when I’m making things or doing things with the people I love. More of that in 2025. Other years: 2023, 2022, 2017

I used to be against making New Year’s resolutions (2009). I’ve eased up on that in the last decade and have tried some other methods, such as listing out 20 specific things I want to do for a yearly task list or setting a yearly theme. Both of those worked pretty well. This year I…

I started answering the 40 Questions this year, then realized about a quarter of the way through that I didn’t really want to answer them. Not my preferred format. Instead, I’m trying something else: Making a list of Top 3 things in various categories for the year.