Week of February 10, 2025

I make all of my chicken-based soups with ground chicken + stock now. It is much faster and doesn’t dry out. Tonight’s edition is chicken and wild rice, my take on the Panera one.

More snow! More sleet! More ice! We’ve had more precipitation this winter than the last five we’ve been in Peekskill. Ready for spring.

If this isn’t the most 3 year old parent thing:

“Charlie why does your hair smell like cinnamon toast?”

Giggle giggle giggle

Charlie has been really engaged with the Duplos and Magnatiles lately. He builds all kinds of different vehicles and buildings. He usually won’t let me take photos of them, but he did let me take photos of two this week.

The coolest one I’ve seen him build so far was two towers, each with a set of wheels on the bottom and a cab on top, connected about 3/4 of the way up with some long flat pieces. Imagine Tower Bridge on wheels. I loved it.

Amanda noticed Charlie singing a song to himself while playing with Duplos. He likes to make up short songs. This one got me, though:

Put your tears away, Daddy will fix it for you

Amanda made an art wall for Charlie’s art in the basement play area. Easy to swap out pieces as the makes them!

After years of battling crappy inkjet printers, I bought a wireless duplex color laser printer. I feel like I’ve finally made it.

Charlie, of course, liked the box.

We had another great swim class this weekend. Charlie was very brave and practiced jumping in, followed directions really well, and wore goggles for the first time.

Notion put out a fun face generator this week. Here is the one I made and the one Amanda made:

The only critique we had is that they need more face shape options. These are both too round for our actual faces.

Fly tying corner

What I tied this week:

Simi Seal leeches, size 14

Improved Montana Stonefly, size 10

Little Black soft hackles, sizes 12 and 16

Wednesday night I went to the local Trout Unlimited Croton Watershed chapter’s monthly fly tying night, which they started again after a couple year hiatus. There is where I tied the black soft hackles (using starling). I got a few tips from the old timers, one of whom knocked out 18 (!) emergers in just under two hours. Incredible. I’ll be back next month to learn more.

Amanda, Charlie, and I went to Retake Remake, a local art supply thift shop, to look for some project materials. Amanda picked up some felt and embroidery thread, Charlie was thrilled to fill a bag with crayons and get a tiny stapler, and I was surprised to find some old fly tying materials. It was split up into the different material bins, so I’ll have to go back and see what else I can find. I also picked up a $4 grab bag of wool yarn and blended a little bit of it into dubbing.

One thing I’m excited to try: I read about two methods for tying in large/oversized soft hackle feathers in a way that will fit them appropriately on a smaller hook. More on that soon.

No workshop time this week.

Work continued to be demanding and stressful this week. I’m working on it in earnest while simultaneously very much looking forward to my upcoming sabbatical.