A pretty slow day, today. I was working, but everyone else mostly lazed around the house. Towards the evening, we all gathered at my sister’s house.
Stacey and Shane treated the whole family to a nice dinner at Seasons 52, over at Keystone.
But Stacey proposed something new – going out to Topgolf. We did the math, and this excursion ended up being cheaper than an escape room (and for 2 hours, instead of just 1).
I’ll be honest – I wasn’t exactly sold on this, as I don’t really play golf. And I wasn’t sure how much fun it would be. But I was wrong! We had a blast!
A travel day, heading from Chicago to Indy. We were reminded that there’s an incredibly nice rest stop on the way at the Kankakee Welcome Center.
Liz, working in the living room, stuffing rope insulation between the flooring and drywall.
Detail view of the work. This stuff has a strong odor (it smells like a Pirate’s locker room), but does dissipate. Eventually.
“Some things never change
Or go away
I wait around
And now it’s yesterday”
This is from a Japanese experimental music collective known as Open Reel Ensemble. It’s a song/piece entitled Tape Bowing Ensemble, and it’s played on a JIGAKKYU (a long strip of magnetic tape, connected to a bamboo bow).
Krish Ashok is the author of Masala Lab: The Science of Indian Cooking, and also does a lot of YouTube content (see his main channel, as well as his collection of Shorts). This was an interesting comparison between two new devices/appliances. Applicable in this day and age, when AI and tooling is rapidly changing day…
by Ted Kooser Cards in each mailbox, angel, manger, star and lamb, as the rural carrier, driving the snowy roads, hears from her bundles the plaintive bleating of sheep, the shuffle of sandals, the clopping of camels. At stop after stop, she opens the little tin door and places deep in the shadows the shepherds…
Spent tonight picking up the front office. I relocated all of the materials/tools, picked up some of the extra Ram Board, and cleaned off the dining room table legs and chairs.
Those things were pretty coated with dust, and haven’t seen the light of day in a while. So I mostly just put on a podcast or two, and hunkered down to do some cleaning by hand.
Really, really fun night chatting with everyone. It’s been a long while since I was in grad school, a long while since I’d been in the company of academics. It was fun to talk about books and politics, and all manner of current events with folks. Really great company, and a really great time.
We opened up some gifts that Katie and Tim sent along, for Hugo and Hazel. A bit of an early Christmas, for the two of them. The gifts from Katie/Time are always a hit (Hugo has a small blanket thing that he got last year, that he still absolutely loves). A small little holiday preview…
There’s a cold snap coming in, with a few days of pretty frigid temps. They start overnight, so my plan today was to seal up our closet doors in the front office… as well as the recently demo-ed window.
Took some time tonight to do some cleanup on the first and second floors. Picked up a lot of the excess Ram Board, threw away the bad ones and rolled up the re-usable ones.
Today, as she was out picking up some lunch… she came home to find a few missed calls and a B&B Formica truck waiting on our street. She had gotten a call from the workers, saying our hearth was ready and could they stop by today to install it?
Lucky news for us – despite the oncoming cold (and a bit of snow on the ground), our window and door guy was willing to stop by to install our upstairs balcony door and windows.
We’ve got a few older (read: super leaky) windows and doors in the upstairs office. We’re replacing some of the windows with newer, recreated versions – as well as a new door to the upper balcony.