We have arrived at an exciting stage of new-house building: the crazy snake-pipes that will heat our future apartment are in! Now, I already thought that the concept of under-floor heating was pretty cool: we have it at the apartment we are renting now, and it makes going barefoot in winter very cozy, not to mention getting out of the shower. The bathmats are always toasty! How delightful is that?
Continue reading “Weekend house visit: crazy snake-pipes + vaccine!!!”So, the last time we visited the new house in progress, all the pipes were in their birthday suit, snaking around the floor and up the walls. Today, though, they have been safely tucked into some weird cement-looking stuff… they’re definitely looking very snug and cozy in there. Apparently the next step is to fill in around them, and then add another layer of very thin pipes on top that will be for the heating. Exciting!
Continue reading “Weekend house visit: cozy pipes”
Among the things I really love as a translator: when someone (who clearly has never required a translator before) informs me of how long they figure the project will probably take me and therefore how much I should charge for it.
Continue reading “Saturday morning annoyances”
There are already countless (and more eloquent) posts about what happened yesterday, but it also feels wrong not to acknowledge it in some way. Plus, what good is a blog if you can’t bang all your feelings out into the keyboard in a moment of national crisis?
I (naively, I guess) felt relief that Saturday after election day a few months ago. I knew inside that there was still so much work to do, that I could no longer feel right continuing to sit by and let the work of democracy happen (or not) around me while I went about my business and traipsed in to vote every two to four years. (I want to specifically own up to that because, until the past four years or so, that’s what I did. I thought that democracy just chugged along, and as a citizen, I just needed to make my contribution by voting. I think I see that that’s not true, now. I still don’t know exactly what form more active participation should take, but I do think that it is necessary. As evidenced by the deplorable actions we witnessed yesterday.)
Continue reading “January 6th, 2021”
HABITS TO CULTIVATE
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how to fit more good things into my daily life, and I think the most obvious way to do it is to make those things into habits. However, one problem I’ve been running into is lack of time: most of the things that I want to fit in require about 30 minutes each, the way I’ve envisioned them. So it seems like my options are either to settle for less time on each… or fewer habits to cultivate… or not to aim for daily habits, but rather a few times a week. I find the latter option pretty appealing, because there are some days where I just don’t feel like doing one thing or another. I suppose this might be a sign that I just need to force myself to do it anyway (maybe that’s how you actually make a habit? Force yourself to do it even when you don’t want to?) but I kind of want to try it anyway. (I’m a sucker for trying things that everyone says won’t work. And then they usually don’t and I keep trying them again anyway. Not sure what that says about me, but nothing particularly flattering, I guess.) Okay, so here are some of the things I’d like to fit in more often:
Continue reading “21 for 2021, part 3”
I am planner homeless! I should probably not make light of homelessness. I apologize.
To rephrase: My 2020 planner ended two days ago, having generously tacked on the first three days of 2021 to finish out the week. And I am now without a planner, because every year, I skid into the Christmas season with a million pending projects to ‘just wrap up before the holidays’ and push choosing next year’s planner until after the holidays. And so every year I am planner-less for the first couple of weeks of the year.
Continue reading “Planner-less-ness”
Invisible/imaginary internet friends, it’s snowing! Will I one day grow out of that flutter of excitement in response to snow? Only time will tell. Even better on this particular morning, though: as this lovely snow silently falls, it is currently 7 a.m. and no one else is up yet, so the house is silent, too. I have a delicious cup of iced coffee by my side, a lovely day ahead of me, and time specifically set aside to journal, and write here. I can’t think of anything that could possibly improve on this situation. Thank you, 2021, for this idyllic start to your third day!
Without further ado… continuing my 21 for 21 list from where I left off yesterday:
Continue reading “21 for 2021, continued”
Happy new year, world! I am full of energy for making plans to take on this new year on this fine, sunny January 2nd. An unexpected but now beloved side benefit of accumulating blogs and podcasts that I follow over the past few years: gaining untold inspiration and motivation from their lists of resolutions/dreams/goals, etc.
I’ve always loved making goals and lists for myself (I’m pretty sure I could find evidence of this dating back to elementary school, if I searched my parents’ house hard enough), but somehow, listening to other people talk about their lists (regardless of whether their life in any way resembles mine or not!) gives me an extra jolt of motivation to refine my lists and start working through them.
Continue reading “21 for 2021”
Forever Straniera 