Home Office

Back story: When the pandemic first hit and we all started to work from home, Jen and I both had a desk in the same home office. Quickly we realized that we were in each other’s way and I moved my desk to our bedroom. We stayed like that until I had a minor covid scare in September of 2021. At that point I moved into my step son’s bedroom to quarantine. I slept and worked there for a few weeks and then moved back to the bedroom.

In the spring of 2022 we had our cellar redone and in April I moved my desk downstairs. I’m still there. Over the course of this working from home journey, both of my step kids have moved into apartments in Burlington, VT. I promised them that they would always have a place in our house if they needed it, and that includes a place to sleep when they come to visit. Due to that, their bedrooms will remain their bedrooms forever.

When my step daughter moved out she left most of her furniture here. When my step son moved out he took all of his furniture with him. Jen and I have been trying to figure out a way to re-furnish his room. So far we’ve only put a day bed in there. He used it when he was home for a visit last week. That worked out well. What else can we do though?

The next move is going to be adding a computer desk to his room. In fact, I think I am going to move my work from home office in there. My plan is to work from the desk in his room when he’s not here, and work at my current desk in the cellar when he is. That means I am literally going to have two home office spaces. I will keep my music nook setup in the cellar as well. I make all of my guitar noise there as well as doing all of my morning exercise. That’s too much ruckus for upstairs next to Jen’s workspace, so that clearly stays downstairs. Everything for my work space though is going to be duplicated upstairs.

We found a desk online that looks like it will be perfect. We have a couple of monitors we’re not using that will be perfect. Jen has a keyboard and a laptop stand I can use. We ordered a wireless mouse and a webcam and a USB hub today. It’s going to take a week or two to put all of this together so I will keep working from the cellar for now, and then right about the time it will all be setup my step son will be on Christmas break so he’ll be coming home for part of it. While he’s home he can use the desk too. I might even look to put a cheap desktop machine there for him to use and for me to use for any non-work stuff that might come up while I’m in there. That seems like a decent plan.

Now we just have to make it all happen.

Meal Time

What are your family’s top 3 favorite meals?

daily writing prompt

Favorite meals, huh? I can give you the meals that we have most often, but favorite meals vary. They vary by setting and price and complexity and all sorts of fun things like that.

In my house we usually go with chicken breasts, most recently in an air fryer. Sides can be potatoes and a veggie. Sometimes it can be quinoa with stir fried veggies. Another common meal is a sort of disconnected Shepard’s Pie, where we fry up some ground beef, make some mashed potatoes, and add corn and serve them all separately rather than all mixed together. Another regular would be tacos, where we similarly fry up some beef and add veggies and maybe some refried beans and some cheese* and fill up a taco shell and go for it.

Honorable mentions go to spaghetti and meatballs and the occasional pot roast or roast beef that my wife makes shit out of, let me tell you. She also makes the best schnitzel. We don’t have that often, but when we do… chef’s kiss.

Of course if it were up to us and money were not an issue then we’d hit a high end steak house every night. That would probably be THE FAVORITE, but you can’t really do that every day, right?

Of course, today being the day after Thanksgiving, I expect every American to answer this question with turkey and all the trimmings.

Sorry… today’s daily writing prompt response is pretty lame. I’ll try to be more exciting tomorrow. Just be patient. I promise it will get better.

How Was Your Thanksgiving?

It’s about 8:30pm here in Eastern Massachusetts. Thanksgiving Day is fast coming to its close. How was your day, USA? Did you feast like it’s going out of style, surrounded by family and loved ones? I hope so.

We didn’t have a Thanksgiving today, at least not in the traditional celebration’s sense. Jen and I slept late, which was glorious, and then hung some cool new ambient lights in her office before cleaning up a bit. We then hung out for a while. She played World of Warcraft while I watched an episode of Invasion on AppleTV+. After that we went to visit my father. He had his Thanksgiving dinner at his assisted living place. My sister and her family joined him. They have had a super rough week so I am happy they got to share that with him. I hope it lifted their spirits a little.

Jen and I hung out with him for a couple of hours and then went home and made dinner for ourselves. After dinner we watched the last episode of JFK: One Day in America. It was pretty powerful and moving, even if it did not add anything new to what we know about the assassination. It happened nine years before I was born and yet it’s still tough to watch sometimes.

Now we are just hanging out in the living room listening to The Beatles on vinyl because it’s still the 1960’s, right? Look at me with my vinyl records and film cameras. Dead technologies live forever ’round these parts.

After writing a novel or two about stomach pain yesterday, how am I doing today? I woke up feeling a little sick still, and I have not been 100% at all today, but I have been okay. No real issues. There were a few instances of stomach aches but I think they stemmed from my tiny little rewired, redesigned, rebuilt stomach being empty. Once I ate something I was okay. I’m still a little gun shy today though. I should be over it by tomorrow. I still have to do today’s exercise, which is disappointing, and I still have 12 ounces of water to go before I hit today’s goal. I’ll get it all done. I’ll probably wait until Jen is asleep later then I’ll go down cellar and jog in place (pronounced “yog, with a soft J”) for about half an hour and that should close all of my activity rings on my Apple Watch.

Did you know that the US version of The Beatles Help album includes excerpts from the film score? I sure didn’t know that. I know the UK version of Yellow Submarine has film score, but Help does not. Interesting. Does the US version of A Hard Day’s Night have anything like that? Maybe I’ll visit the used record store in downtown Methuen tomorrow and see if they have a copy.

Okay then, that’s my summary of Thanksgiving Day 2023. I loved every second of it, despite not having the kids here. We’ll make up for their absence on Saturday when we do our official family Thanksgiving celebration. We should have a full house for all of that.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the USA. Everyone outside of the USA, here’s hoping you just accidentally had an extra special good day today.

(Sort of Almost) Daily Haiku for You #90

A Thanksgiving haiku for you. I wrote this at about 10:00am. It’s almost 7:30pm now. This would have worked much better if I posted it before everyone ate their traditional turkey dinners. Sorry.

Happy Thanksgiving!
I hope your turkey is moist,
and filled with stuffing