And still busy

Making some progress, but still very time poor. I don't expect that to change any time soon.

So, so busy

New place, lots of space but so much work to do. Not enough hours in the day, or dollars in the bank. :(

Got my Vivillion

 Yay! Took a while and I was way behind most other people, but I finally collected from the last region. Turns out I had enough friends (other players, not actual friends) from around the world to get most of them. Savanah and Sandstorm I was able to get relatively easily but the last one - Tundra - proved quite elusive. I had needed just one more for ages!

Another box ticked, wheee!

Making an offer

We've found another property and have made an offer on it. Fingers crossed!

We had a nice big property we'd been chasing for a few years (long story), it finally went to auction a few weeks ago but we were outbid. And of course my pet peeve, the reserve was higher than it should have been. Seems like such a waste of time to me - just come out and say what the seller wants for the property rather than running through the charade of an auction just to wrap it up with "reserve not met".

If we don't get it, we'll keep looking. If we do get it, we'll have a few busy weekends... for the next year or three.

Everything everywhere all at once

We tried watching this movie the other day, it's meant to be some you-beut aweseomsauce movie ... but we just couldn't get into it. Very muddled, hard to follow - not for us. Loads of people liked it (I believe it won a bunch of awards as well), but not our thing.

In a similar vein, a few weeks prior we watched the Queen biopic. I can honestly say I never thought about Freddy Mercury's name. Now that I've spent three seconds thinking about it, it is kind of obvious that it was a stage name. I didn't realise his ethnicity either - again, probably because I don't spend a lot of time thinking about celebrities.

The way I normally work is I'll like a specific song (or songs) from a band but not be a fan of their other stuff. No idea why, but I know some other people love bands and all their works. I'm not a fan of country music, but there are some specific country songs that I like.

Protein Ball experiment #1

 So, I made the first batch. Basically used the ingredients that I had on available:

• Sultanas, chopped up small. About two tablespoons worth of bits. Would have done more, but started chopping and kept going until I got bored.
• Cup of oats (I used quick oats, which are pre-chopped relatively fine. Rolled oats would be too chunky)
• 2 & 1/2 cups protein powder (started with two, added a bit more)
• About 1/2 cup of peanut butter
• About 2 tablespoons of honey

I found the ingredients mix was a bit dry in the bowl while I was mixing so I also added a sprinkle of water to help to ingredients mix. I made them late last night, made the balls and popped them in the fridge to firm up.

In the morning I tried one to see how it came out and found it to be a bit dry. Tasted ok, nothing to brag about. Mostly tasted of peanut butter and protein powder, couldn't even detect the sultanas. Not much pointing eating them when standing around, so next part of the experiment was to go out for a run and take some with me.

I put two into separate mini ziplock bags as I honestly expected them to collapse into powder and crumbly bits and loaded them into my off-brand camelbak along with a 2L water bladder and my bluetooth speaker for some tunes.

I had the first one at the 5km mark, and the second at around the 7.5km mark. The first one was easier to eat as I had stopped to take a Pokemon Go gym. The second one had been slightly squished out of shape but both had kept their structural integrity. When I ate the second one, I put the whole thing in my mouth - that was a mistake! Very dry, couldn't drink, made it hard to breathe. May need to make them smaller or make sure to take bites. Not sure how much having them along with me made a difference but I was able to do my 10k run in 1h 11min. A bit slow off my personal best of 1h 1min, but I also hadn't done a long run in around a year.

Changes for next batch: I want to try and work out a way to make it more moist. Maybe add butter? Less protein powder? Egg would give it more protein and make a good binding agent but would probably need to bake them a bit which would make them firmer. If I can make the base mix sticky, I can then coat the individual balls with desiccated coconut to stop them sticking to each other. I also want to add sugar, for that raw energy. And possibly a pinch of salt, since I tend to carry water instead of electrolytes when jogging. Would help on the longer runs.

Trying new protein powder

Last night I bought myself some Musashi protein powder. Tried to find the stuff that's really basic with as few additives as possible. Not a fan of pre-workout and other "energy" things with a long list of unclear ingredients.

Tried the first lot today after a 6.4km jog on the treadmill, see how I feel in the morning.

Goal complete!

 And one more makes 28 - nice!

First time ever making a post every day on this blog. A bit annoying that I did resort to making a few "forced" making a post for the sake of making a post posts. I didn't really have anything to say, but I said stuff anyway - not my style.

Happy to have set a goal and completed it, would be happier if I'd actually posted meaningful stuff each time. But at least I have one up for each day of the month.

Am I going to do it again? No, I dont see any advantage in trying to force more posts for the sake of making posts. I will be trying to post more, but mainly when I have something to share.

Powerball ideas

 To aid in post workout recovery (and as a snack), there are a bunch of different recipes for power balls - also known as sports balls or protein balls. Loads of places sell them, but I'm always a bit wary about what stuff companies put in them. Home made is more likely to be better, though not cheaper.

Most of the recipes that I've found use peanut butter as a main ingredient which sounds good to me. Adding some type of protein powder is good and will help with muscle recovery but not all protein powders are created equal and tend to be expensive. Egg is a simple substitute though then storage becomes an issue. Not much point eating something healthy that makes me really sick!

A common binding agent is butter, which would have similar refrigeration and short shelf life issues as the eggs. A bunch use coconut shavings on the outside as a way to stop them sticking together.

I might have a go at making some, if I can. Hunting around for a good recipe with ingredients I can afford and tastes halfway decent is proving a challenge.

Hoenn tour

 Yay, another post about Pokemon Go!

This weekend was the global version of the Hoenn Tour. Caught a fair amount of Hoenn mons which helped, and it was brillinat that I was able to get a Relicanth (the reason this is important is because this one is normally only able to be caught in NZ, and was the only one I was missing from the complete Hoenn set).

Did a fair amount of walking, but we "cheated" and were walking around the air-conditioned shops. Much better over the alternative of walking in the rain on the muggy streets.

Appeal worked!

 I've been playing Pokemon Go for a while now, and I've been high enough level that I can nominate new places for the game. Some get accepted, some don't.

There is an option that if a submission is rejected, a player has an option to appeal and see if it can be checked by a staff member and see if it's meant to be accepted.

I made a submission in September last year, and it was rejected. The reason given didn't line up with why it would be, so I figured I'd give making an appeal a go. I already knew it would take a while, but I made the appeal and then promptly stopped worrying about it.

Sometime last night, the appeal was approved and my submission was added to the game - whee! Took five months to go through the system and get a result. Could be better, could be worse. I assume they have a lot of appeals coming through. And now I know the system works.

Flat tyre - again

 It was only this week that I rotated all the tyres on both cars, today had a flat on the one I was driving.

Though I strongly suspect it was less "flat" and more "losing air". The difference? The rim wasn't all the way down, so it was still holding some air. I did feel that the car was a bit "wobbly" on the drive to work this morning - one of the reasons I checked it this afternoon before leaving. It was pouring down with rain this morning, so I was more preoccupied with getting in to work, but glad I checked before driving home.

On the plus side, this is the tyre that had already been identified as needing to be swapped. It's over 20 years old, and tyres should be replaced when they get to about ten years. So we got a fair amount of use out of it! Though most of that was as spare wheel duty. It has a long-ish gash along an edge, so I suspect it may have been partially torn or weakened when we went off roading 20 days ago. Or just from driving around on it the last few days since the rotation.

Anyway, it was relatively fast to get the spare swapped over. This is the shaky one that had been on the front, but the vibration isn't as noticeable on the rear axle. Going to be a few dollars to get another new tyre, but can't go driving around too far without a spare!

Fitness test

 One of the fun joys of where I work is semi-regular fitness tests, to make sure we can still do what we need to do. Did one earlier today and I passed it. It wasn't as easy as I would have liked, may need to increase the amount of exercise that I do.

Still happy to pass and had a good margin, but can always be fitter!

Night shift

 Definitely not a fan of working overnight. Good news is that I don't have to do it very often, but it's still annoying.

Just need to remember to bring in the laptop, or a book or something to keep me entertained. A quiet shift is a boring shift - but a boring shift means no paperwork! If there are incidents, it can take weeks to get everything sorted. Not fun.

In this case, boring is good - just don't get bored! :D

Rains

 We had a wee spot of rain today. Nothing too drastic, but it was heavy for a few minutes.

It's nearing the end of wet season up here, won't be long until the monsoon rains are gone for another eight months or so and we have the long dry. I'd been really hoping we'd get a cyclone (or two) this season, help scare away the southerners that came up here post covid. We're still looking to buy property and with all the demand of the people that flocked up here when the borders lifted, prices have jumped up.

Fingers crossed they go down soon, we're itching to get onto our own land. Most properties that come up for sale are getting snapped up pretty quickly.

Tyre rotation worked

 Yay, driving the cat around it no longer has that vibration on the front end - so I'm declaring success. I suspect that the tyre that was repaired wasn't balanced, and the small amount of extra weight from the patch / plug / whatever was enough to put the wheel slightly off.

That one is now the spare, which kind of mucked up my rotation pattern. But the old spare (which was brand new) is now the front left which is the wheel that tends to wear out the fastest. Not ideal, but I might leave it there for the next rotation so that it wears down to match the others.

So far, looking good!

Tyre rotations

 Busy morning, today I rotated the tyres on both cars. Need to be done every three months or so, next rotation due around the end of May.

Might need to add a reminder to my calendar or something, I'm unlikely to remember it! Don't want to do the same thing as last time and leave it too long so we end up with one tyre super-worn and three only lightly worn.

Fogg Dam

 Had a nice day out at Fogg Dam today. The drive out wasn't too far, we did both walking trails and we drove across the dam.

Actually, we only did one and a half of the walking trails - the south one had a bit about 20 to 30 meters or so that was under water and we didn't want to cross. The north path had a few wet spots where our shoes got muddy but no ankle deep or deeper water across the path.

Good day out, got to see lots of nature and found two geocaches. And a stack of Pokemon - we dropped some into a gym out there, where the ones we kicked off had been there for up to 138 days. So it'll be interesting to see how long our ones sit there for.

Friday!

End of the week. About time, next week is going to double extra suck.

Cat is grumpy

 Poor little kitten, taking the longest to recover out of all the cats we've ever had. She's not happy about having to wear the cone of shame and she really isn't happy about being isolated. Problem is, every time we let her out to socialise and have a bit of time out in the rest of the house, she insists on play fighting with her older sister or trying to jump off things.

Neither of those are good for a little kitten with stitches!

Hopefully her wound will be healed enough that we can let her out soon, I worry about her being isolated too long.

Rode the bike yesterday

 Had taken a bit of a break over wet season due to the rains, but rode the bike to work yesterday - last time I rode to work was 12 December. A slump of 64 days, or just over two months. Admittedly the rains shouldn't be too much of an issue as it's always warm here, but I was slack and didn't want to be riding around soaking wet.

All things considered, didn't do too bad: 49 minutes to ride there, 59 minutes to ride home in the afternoon. Though I did do a few PoGo stops on the way back. Getting a sub-50 minute ride there in the morning was pretty good, for not having ridden in two months.

I had planned to ride tomorrow but I don't think I will. We had a semi-decent workout this morning which wouldn't have been an issue but I was stopped early and didn't get a chance to cool down and stretch. I know me - I'll be sore in the morning!

Valentines Day

 Yay! Tenth year together with my awesome wife. Would be eleven but we didn't start dating until later in the year. <3

The last time I made a post about Valentine's Day was 2015 - when I was away from home and couldn't even give my one and only a hug and a kiss. Not sure how many I didn't post about in previous years because I was too busy with work or because I was away. One more reason to make more posts - to remind me of what's happened before.

Youngest recovering well

The new kitten was speyed a few days ago. Currently confined to quarters (actually our bathroom) and she is being most vocal about her displeasure.

It's for her own good, stop her running around the house or jumping off things. Last thing we want is her popping stitches.

Dumb idea #2,874

 So in April last year I wrote about running a marathon (42km) on my 42nd birthday. Clearly that didn't happen as I was already over 42 years old when I wrote that.

Today I decided to look up training programs for marathon running. Clearly a lot of the work is the diet - and genetics play a part - but it's certainly achievable. It wouldn't be fun and would require a lot of discipline since I do a lot of other physical training for work anyway - but I was seriously considering giving a marathon a go.

First problem: there are no marathons planned in Darwin. Not on any calendar that I can see at any rate. There are a few running clubs that I've seen (some more organised than others) around the place but none of them have a 42km event listed so far for 2023. If I wanted to do an actual marathon with a group and have participant certificate or something, I'd have to travel interstate.

Potentially, it could be perfect if I had one lined up for when I was going to be in that city / state, but it would highly unlikely I could get that timing to work out. A good one to aim for could be the Perth Running Festival in October. There shouldn't be much on my work calendar then, so I could get over there and give it a go, it's a loop that starts and ends at Optus Stadium in the city and it's a proper organised event with support staff and drink stations (and medics!) Having a quick look at the 2021 results (didn't happen in 2022 - possibly due to covid?) more than half the entrants finished in under 4 hours, with the last recorded finisher at 6 hours, 15 min. Just over 700 recorded entrants.

There are a couple of other marathons in WA prior to October, I don't see any after that one. It would be nice if there was one around late December when I am more likely to be there, but that would land right in the summer heat - not ideal running conditions!

Second problem: shoes. I have a basic set of worn-in shoes I use for training and a nice set of shoes for going out that will eventually be my new training shoes when these wear out but I'd need new shoes. Probably two sets, maybe three. Running a marathon (and the training for it) would put a lot of stress on these old knees and ankles, and a halfway decent set of running shoes are a few hundred. Each.

Third "problem", I'd like something tangible afterwards to show off and remember. Many of the larger marathons include finishing medals as part of the entry fee. From what I've been able to gather, they tend to produce 100 or so medals (more for larger events) as a motivator for the head of the pack to try and get a good time. The ones that tend to be run in Australia (no pun intended) skip that and may give a digital certificate or something with your finishing time. Whee, much excite, so wow. Even if I was in one that did offer the metal discs mounted on a ribbon, it's unlikely I'd finish in the top 100 (and let's be real - probably not in the top 500!)

Other than those three - there's nothing really stopping me from doing something silly like running laps around the block. The last on isn't really a problem because it wouldn't be that expensive to get a little medal made for myself. Quite lame to make myself a medal to award me, but if I ran my own marathon for myself the only thing I'd have to show for it is a screenshot of the time / distance on my running app. Also whee much wow.

So in the end, running "in a marathon" and getting a little trinket to show for it isn't going to happen. Running 42.195km on my own for shits and giggles and then making myself my own participation trophy - entirely possible. But do I want to put in the effort?

Edit: turns out that there is a marathon planned for the NT in 2023. Only problem is that it is over 1,400km away - out near Ayers Rock. And it isn't just the race entry fee: because it's inside the park there it would also require a park entry fee plus accommodation fee in the park. Plus the not-insignificant cost of getting there. Off the top of my head, I'd guess around $1K minimum, assuming I was the only one going. That's off the table.

On my lonesome!

 Just got back from the airport from dropping off my awesome wife (and that kid that hangs around! :D ) as they fly out of town for the night. Means I'm all alone (except for Scarlet, Tori, CJ, Chica, Pablo, Archie, Pearl, Trixie, Willow, Bob, Harry, Hermoine, Bert, a few dozen frogs and three million guppies).

I have a list of things to get on with, starting with taking the doggos for their morning patrol before the sun comes out and it starts getting hot. Though it is Darwin, so it's pretty much always hot.

Speyed!

 Newest member of the family went in to the vet this morning to get sterilized. She's a bit groggy now and confined to our shower to stop her jumping around and potentially popping stitches.

Means our shower is out of action and we'll have to share, but it should only be for a few days.

Feels more like work...

 I'm still having to force myself to write these, just to maintain the momentum for the goal of writing every day in Feb.

Seems like it's less fun if I'm having to treat it like work and struggling to find something to put on here.

This is hard

 Turns out that I don't really have a lot to say.

I'm hoping that by forcing myself to write something every day I can get back into the old habit of doing creative writing. Bit hard at the moment with work being so mentally draining - report after stupid report to fill out. Spend more time filling out reports about what is being done than actually doing it! Doesn't help that we are under-staffed in all departments.

Oh well, pretty sure I'm not the only one in this boat.

Quiz night tonight with the family and the "in-laws" (for lack of a better term!) We'll see how it goes.

Orange cascade

 Whoops, made a bit of a mess this morning.

Was getting breakfast at work and the drink machine (one of those with a big plastic tank on top, some spinny thing inside to stir the drink and a push tap on front) did a dirty on me. I held the cup up to it and pushed on the dispenser, and the top of the dispenser popped off!

Had a min-fountain of juice, trying to plug the holes with my hands while calling for the staff. Must have been quite amusing - for people watching. Made a bit of a mess, I think lost about 2L of juice. Luckily I didn't have to pay for it, and one of the staff said they had issues with the machine earlier this morning.

New week

 Whee, Monday morning rolls around once again. Gotta love that "get up and go to work" alarm.

I remember reading a fan theory about Garfield, the lasagna-eating cat that famously hates Mondays. The theory goes that since Garfield is a cat, there is no objective difference to him about Mondays that is different to any other day of the week. He doesn't work - so why does he hate Mondays? From Garfield's point of view, the only thing different about Mondays as opposed to the weekend is that Jon goes to work. So the reason Garfield hates Mondays is that Jon spent the weekend at home with him, but now he's off to work all day.

Garfield loves Jon, and misses him on Mondays.

Noibats!

 Had a good day today out and about with my better half doing the Pokemon Go community day.

Pretty sure we're "cheating" by walking around inside a shopping centre, but:

• it has airconditioning,
• it has access to bathrooms,
• there's food / drinks easily available if we feel like it,
• we don't get wet if it rains (and it's quite likely this time of year),
• and heaps of other people were doing it too! And everyone knows that if others are doing it, then that makes it a-ok! :D

The main down side is that since it was on a Sunday, the shops close before community day is over, but it worked out well because we drove over to the uni nearby (which has loads of pokestops) and I was able to complete my older task which was about to run out.

In unrelated news, we survived the driving adventure yesterday without damaging the car and without needing to jump into mud, Double winning!

Going exploring!

After living here for about half a decade, we're going to head out and do a spot of 4WD'ing. Have some recovery gear and a shovel packed just in case, convoy of two cars and both have CB's.

Will be interesting to see what we see, the place we're going to is relatively well known so it'll be more "tourist" and less "explore" but without the boutiques.

There's a geocache I'd like to visit while out there, but it's several km down a side road, with multiple don't attempt in wet season warnings. So we'll be giving it a miss on this outing. I'm sure seasoned 4WD's with proven cars would easily do it, but I don't think it would be smart to try on our first outing. I don't feel like crawling in knee deep mud under a vehicle if I'm not getting paid for it.

Shorter days

Seems like each day has more things to do, fewer hours to do it and I end up achieving less and less.

Might switch my creative attempts to digital. Made zero progress with physical stuff.

Nothing to say really

 Feeling a bit down, I'm kinda forcing myself to make a post. Which isn't a good thing because my idea has always been to not bother saying anything if I have nothing to say. I don't see the point in making noise (or in this case writing on the blog) if I don't have something specific to talk about.

All my projects are pretty much on hold, no idea if or when I'll be able to do something again. Still working on spending less time on the phone. Have made some progress on that front.

On the down side, along with less phone time I'm doing less Pokemon Go which also ties in with less exercise. There's currently a bunch of tasks with rewards that I'm not doing - so it's a good thing I'm not too affected by FOMO. If I get it, great! If I miss out, oh well - maybe next time.

February goals

New month, new goals. This month the emphasis is going to be on updating this blog and as a side benefit - getting more practice in writing. Albeit not creative writing, though I could do that.

Goal is to make a post on this blog every day in Feb. Note that it isn't "make 28 posts" because then I could make three posts one day then miss a few days.

Ideally they would be halfway decent and not just "here's today's post" lazy ones!

Assuming I succeed, this would be my first time making a post every day of the month. And I've had this blog since 2007, so that's a lot of gaps.

Here we go!

Upgraded - or at least replacing an old one

 Bit late as it was a Christmas pressie - I got a new angle grinder. Wooh!

So now I say goodbye to my old reliable one:

Bought this GMC grinder from a hardware store that no longer exists, pretty sure somewhere between 1998 and 2003. Had it for a long time and despite having several rather dangerous quirks and being very reliable - it really was long overdue for replacement.

Going to be much safer using the new one!

Back to work

 Sigh, back to normal hours now. I could have gotten used to working one day on, two days off. Though not so good when the day on lands on a day there was something on (looking at you PoGo community days!)

Worked! Sort of...

 Still ongoing with the plaques, learnt a few things and also made a few mistakes.

Looking at the previous update, there was a typo on one, which was a bit frustrating. But since these are tests on scrap wood, no biggie - just sand it back and try again. Here's their current state:

The blank one at the back is the sanded one. The others I had another go at with water and rubbing to get the paper off and looked mostly ok. Then I made the mistake of trying out a "light sanding". Did the one on the left first, didn't notice some of the writing was rubbed off. Did the one on the right and with the first stroke saw lots of writing removed. Whoops!

I gave them a coat of varnish anyway, the damage can be "rustic look". Plus I wanted to see how much of the paper would still show after sealing. There was a definite white "sheen" of paper fibers prior to adding the varnish but happy to see that the writing showed through strong and clear after. Photo taken just after applying, need to assess after it's all dried out.

Lessons learned: pick a font between the two - the thicker one is too obvious when there are issues or damage to the ink, the thin one does not stand out enough from the wood grain. And spell check!

Bonus update!

Here's some useless numbers, that are changed by making this post anyway:

I started this blog in July of 2007. That's 187 months, of which 38 months had zero posts and 29 only had one. Current highest post count in a month is 24 - which was August 2007, first full month I was writing. So far, only the years 08, 09, 15, 20 and 21 had posts in every month. My gross average monthly post count is 3.88, so I'm already ahead of the curve for January.

I might try and post every day in Feb. Too late for Jan, and Feb only has 28 days!

Progress on quote plaques

 Here's a progress update on the first ones:

The good:

Design works well, amount of toner is good, toner stuck well and I couldn't find any spots where the toner had fallen off. This point is after a first pass wetting and removing the paper, next step is to let it dry and do it again to try and get as much of the paper off prior to sealing.

The bad:

The mod podge needs to be evenly spread out over the entire face of the wood - I only applied it where the text is. This means less paper stuck on that needs to be removed (the reason I did it) but has the side effect that there is a colour difference between where there is and isn't mod podge. Also, one of the reasons polycrylic gives better results is that it is basically a liquid plastic, whereas mod podge is water soluble and there is a constant risk of removing the printing when trying to remove the paper.

I'll let it dry before doing another pass to try and get more paper. And frustratingly, one has a typo! Luckily this is just a test with scrap bits so it isn't a big deal, but I won't bother sealing that one.

And as a bonus - my phone informs me that I've spent four hours less on my phone this week than last week. Not a lot, but definitely a step in the right direction.

Staying off phone - good progress so far this year!

 Never mind that it's only day six...

Fourth of Jan I was working, fairly busy so managed to mostly stay off the phone. Yesterday we were mowing and spending time with the family, did good there. Today so far I was on it for a bit in bed then remembered so I got up, tidied up the kitchen, sorted out some sand for sandblasting tomorrow and put together some of the first quote signs.

I'm using the mod podge method (from this video, it's the polycrylic method); the paper is down and they are drying now, we'll see how they turn out. I'm pretty sure I can get better results with the acetone method (also in the video) but I'm not going to go out and buy acetone (yet) plus I still have mod podge left over from prior projects so I may as well use that up. I've previously tried using nail polish remover which has acetone in it, but the other non-acetone ingredients led to sub-optimal results.

I did see a video the other day (which I can't find now) which showed that xylene gives better results than acetone - but it's twice the price.

And Pokemon Go doesn't count as being on the phone because I'm also exercising.

And I wrote this up on the laptop, so it counts as staying off the phone!

Third task complete

Pokemon Go again - completed the third of four tasks: get 100,000 Stardust. Only took a few days, it ticked over this morning.

One more task left, 200 super effective charged attacks. Current count is 16, a bit short of the 200 target! But I'm not in a rush as it's going to take me a while to earn the XP needed to level up. Now at just over 800k, need 9M.

Staying off the phone ... here we go!

 Well, not doing too bad so far - 3rd of Jan and making okay progress.

Today I cut up and sanded some wood for the quotation project, we'll see how that goes. I think the acetone method will give better results but I'm going to start with the mod podge method seeing as I already have that and may as well use it up before buying more supplies.

Also made a couple of apple pies, they'll be good for freezing. Unless they get eaten first!

New Year, New Me

 Or not. Maybe just polish up the old me, make a few improvements here and there.

I'm pretty sure I've posted the old joke here before, where I said years ago that my New Years Resolution was to not make any more New Years Resolutions! So I don't really do them, but I do try and improve myself where I can.

One thing I did notice late last year (actually a few days ago!) was that I am spending way too much time on my phone. Brilliant devices, great that they help us out so much but it's become my default activity. It's depressing seeing how much time I waste staring at that stupid little screen.

So one of my goals this year is to spend less time staring at the phone. Tied to my ongoing goal of trying to do more creative stuff. We've got a stack of great machines like the new Cricut plotting cutter which is fantastic for some craft projects like sandblasting and metal etching. And for Christmas my awesome wife got me a bunch of tools which I can't wait to start using.

And the big goal for the year is to get onto our property - going to be so liberating to be have a workshop or shed that we can use for creative projects!