Good week! Monday I put the roof on Charlie’s slide play fort and finished it: That night I made a leather net holster for my fishing belt. It turned out okay for my first leather working project, but I need to make a new one out of thicker, sturdier leather because this one flops around…

Cool photo I found this week: One of our neighbors put their house up for sale, and the listing included an aerial photo of our street. You can see our house and a great view of the town and the river. We feel very grateful to live here. Three big projects occupied my time this…

This week was spring break for most of NY, so this week was all about hanging with Charlie. Monday we traveled back from Georgia. Charlie was a great traveler, and to our surprise he slept for the whole plane ride. Tuesday Charlie and I puttered around the yard doing lots of small tasks. We repotted…

At the beginning of this week, I helped with another trout release and macroinvertebrate sampling, which I wrote about here: I also finished an oak bowl on the lathe, which I wrote about here: Puttered around in the backyard and the workshop in the rain with Charlie. He checked on the radishes, organized his workbench,…

On the first week of my sabbatical: The fishing was a bit slow. The water temp is still pretty cold in most places around here (mid 40s), so the trout are fairly sluggish. I did get to check out some new locations, and I landed three, hooked but lost four more, and had more strikes…

This was my week at work to wrap up and hand things off before starting my sabbatical. I ended up getting a surprise project on Wednesday. It was fun but challenging, and I worked on it for three full days, and delivered what I had at the end of the day Friday. Now I’m winding…

I took it slow at work this week, focusing on handoffs since my sabbatical starts March 31. The brain fog got better as the week went on, but my energy levels still aren’t back to normal. I even took a nap on Saturday, which is very out of the norm for me. Follow up with…

The big thing this week: I was in the hospital Monday through Thursday. I woke up with severe pain in my left side around 3:30am Monday, which I thought might be a kidney stone given family history. The pain escalated to the point of making me vomit and writhe, so I went to the ER.…

My birthday was this week! I wrote a birthday post and later that night we went to Bridgeview Tavern in Tarrytown, one of our favorite places for a burger. They also are one of the few places around there that always has Hill Farmstead on tap, which I think is the best brewery in the…

I spent M-F this week in Southport, NC, at a team meetup for work. We stayed in the beautiful Cape Fear House on the Cape Fear River. Unfortunately, it was unseasonably cold and we canceled our planned outing of taking a ferry to explore a local island. We did check out two local museums and…

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…

Long week. Charlie was home 3/5 days of the work week (sick, then doctor, then snow storm), and work was very busy with a lot of people out sick or with kids home with school closed. I feel like all I’ve been doing at work this week is reacting and adapting to unplanned things. Multiple…

We have ice on the Hudson again, which is refreshing after having no ice last winter. Today the eagles were out hunting on the ice. I’ve enjoyed seeing photos of the Hudson River Ice Yachts. I’d love to try one some time! We are going through a phase where dinnertime has been a struggle most…

We woke up to a total of ~7 inches of snow on Monday and a couple hour school delay, so Charlie and I suited up and went out to shovel, clean off the car, and play. The past two weeks have been in the teens and single digits (fahrenheit). It finally broke freezing this afternoon.…

Snow is coming down heavily as I write this. We have about 4″ now, and it is supposed to continue until around 4am. We picked up a snow shovel that is “just my size” for Charlie, so after dinner he wanted to go out and shovel, even though it was still coming down. I’ll never…

Would these posts be better if I didn’t try to write them on Sunday nights, when I’m usually exhausted from the weekend? Probably, but I’m not sure there is a better time to write them. So it goes. Speaking of, I’m tired tonight. Long week with Charlie home sick half of it and a busy,…

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…