I read Foreign Correspondence by Geraldine Brooks because it is this month’s book group selection. I look forward to chatting about it. It was a highly enjoyable read and I’m a little bummed that her sister Darleen Bungey’s book about their dad isn’t available as an e-book. Maybe some day.

I went grocery shopping. I walked with M.

I think next up is making blondies, because I’m completely out, and then dinner and book group.

ETA

Blondies were good. Book group was enjoyable.

I’ll probably go wake A. up in a bit, but it’s the first weekend after school is out for her, and I just cannot imagine a better way to spend that than sleeping. I did tell her I’d be getting her up before noon so we could go buy R. a belated birthday card / present and a Father’s Day whatever. (I did take him out for two really nice dinners over the last couple days, and I made him a cake on his birthday, so it’s not like we did him wrong or anything.)

I recently dug out my electric toothbrush, determined that it still charged and worked, and then contemplated whether to list it. In the event, I instead went in search of replacement heads that were soft bristles, and I couldn’t find ones that were the correct shape (it’s an Oral B Vitality Dual Clean from 2010 that owes me absolutely nothing), but it looked like that was a standard connector so I ordered a box of very cheap replacements that purported to be soft, and are the more standard round. Seems great! I have no idea whether I’m going to keep using this or not, but I feel good about having thought about what caused me to give up on the electric toothbrush, researching possible solutions and finding one. There are a lot of things from that point in my life (given the age of the kids and what was going on with school and so forth) that weren’t working well and I abandoned them without fully completing the problem solving around them. That was the right choice at the time, but it’s incredibly satisfying as I am decluttering to find these things, and finish that process. Especially when it appears, as in this situation, to work.

Just before we left the house for the Residence Inn, I picked up the Amazon delivery out of the garage. It contained the Musicozy sleep mask, which I set up while at the hotel. It’s really pretty amazing. I haven’t decided what I’m bringing on the upcoming transatlantic, but this might be it. I also got one of those rechargeable battery usb-c oral irrigators that J. from the builder said cut her gums. I made sure the one I picked defaulted to a low setting. It is fairly effective at that lowest setting for my purposes (clearing out pockets) and it’s small enough to travel with so it’s probably going with me on future trips. I’m really happy about that. For a while, we traveled with one of the No Power ones that you attach to the faucet, but a lot of the faucets these days don’t work with the adapter. It’s nice to have this back, especially since we have some longer trips coming up over the summer. Figuring this stuff out while sitting in a hotel with nothing in particular that I had to do right away was really quite calm and relaxing.

Also in that order was a Long Enough gold-color handbag chain, that looks really nice on the Minnie barrel bag! I’m quite excited about it, especially because the chain is very light.

R. typically travels with a bullnose clip or a large foldback clip or clips, so he can make hotel blackout curtains not have that horrible line of light (which if the parking lot is well-lit can be 24 hours). This particular Residence Inn had curtains that crossed the whole window (right stack, if you care) in each room, rather than center split (they also had Somfy operators, which was interesting), so the clips were not needed (well, it would have been nice to have something on the left edge, but the clips would not fix that). Those clips are metal in whole (the bullnose) or in part (the foldback), and I’ve developed a real sensitivity to metal in carryon luggage (translation: I’d like as little reason as possible in my luggage to slow my progress through the TSA checkpoint). I was poking around in search of an alternate solution, and came across the two pack Curtain Clip Pro, which seemed mildly ridiculous but worth a shot. It arrived, and I have center split curtains in the eat-in part of my kitchen, so I tried it there and it works quite nicely. I have my doubts about what it will do on blackouts (because they can be very thick), but they are light, so I’m going to give them a try. They are also entirely plastic, which was most of the point of this exercise.

I got to thinking a lot over the last few days about the transition to renewables, batteries, regulation and resistance. I’m going to to write something about that, but this post is long enough.

It is A.’s last day of school!

I got a vegan chocolate chip cookie and vegan peanut butter chocolate chip coconut milk ice cream at a Cookie Monstah in Burlington. Both were very yummy.

I bought an alabaster “hurricane”, which I intend to put a small, rechargeable LED light in. There is space to run a small cord through the bottom, so I may get a usb-c rechargeable one and leave it plugged in all the time, control it with Alexa, and it would keep working even in a power outage. I bought it at Cabot House. It’s an “Eichholtz” and quite lovely. I went there to look at the same brand’s Terzo dining table, but they didn’t have any on the floor. It’s a candidate for the 3 bistro table combining to make one dining table idea for the new house. Not at all what I initially had in mind, but it’s got a black ceramic top and a brass pedestal base and it looks cool and might work really well. R. has some concerns it might scuff, because it is shiny.

We had lunch at Common Craft. I got the Exhibit A Porter, because it is yum, and the dumplings, which were also yummy.

R. went to the costco and came back with legos. That may be next.

The steak tips at Tavern on the Square are marinated. Sigh. A. does not like that. There’s a Shake Shack at the Mall so we got her custard and a burger there. Mall closes up early. R. and I had dinner at Row 34. We each had one of each of the 10 oysters. Yum. I had the tuna tartare. I also had the Very Olde St Nick Harvest Rye with a big rock (I asked for the big rock), and it was tasty. R. had a mezcal drink that was yummy, and I had the mocktail which was probably the best of all three. Would go back just for the mocktail. So much flavor.

Inspector came out and signed off on the electrical work. Yay!

I drove out to Florence early and did my three meetings. Circulation stair down to pink world is in place, so that was exciting! Also, the doors onto the deck off of the master suite were installed, so that was cool. The numbers from the metal artist look fine to me. And I am very cautiously optimistic about the custom door maker. Fingers crossed.

I caught up on Odd Lots. I’d never heard of India’s UPI. That’s amazing! The future looks so bright at moments like this.

The carpet for the attic room is apparently backordered and so won’t be installed for a couple months. I may call the contractor and discuss alternatives, but honestly, the only house guest I have lined up is coming while T. is out of the house so it hardly matters and everything is so delayed anyway.

I’m doing laundry, because we’re down to A.’s last pair of shorts. I made a single layer, heart shaped chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for R.’s bday. I stopped at Stop and Shop for the confectioners sugar to make the frosting, and didn’t notice it was tapioca starch instead of corn starch. Flavor is subtle, but probably a mistake for me, altho honestly it didn’t set me off as much as tapioca in general does.

I stayed up ludicrously late reading in bed, which was very fun and also kind of stupid. I finished the first book in Leigh Miller’s Monster Relations Bureau (Nora’s Kraken) and then foolishly started the second and read it, too (Kenna’s Dragon). The whole cozy / spicy / monster romance thing is surreal and also awesome if you are in the right headspace for it.

After reading a bunch of stuff about hypersomnia, I’ve become really leery about caffeine (this happens to me at intervals, often in the summer time, so I try to just roll with it and not necessarily justify / defend it, but assume it’s the Right Thing for Me Right Now when it happens) again. I’m not giving up my morning tea (because that is always an error), but I’m going to go back to no more afternoon coffee. Of course deciding this after staying awake late reading is its own kind of mistake. LOL

I walked with M.

I made blondies.

I did some decluttering. We’re moving along some of the many headlamps. We don’t use any, but we for sure do not need 6. I pulled some stuff that was staged in the garage to go to donation, and listed things, like the Hue Bloom lights, which are already out the door. That also included water spray toys, which when I put them in the garage were not in season but are definitely in season now.

I had a delightful zoom with I.

I got a shower this morning, and A. took one this afternoon before her online playdate, so I guess we’re a little ahead there.

Family zoom was enjoyable.

But M and I got a 10 am walk before it hit 80, altho boy was it humid.

R. brought down his Victorinox backpack roller from 2005 +/-. I wasn’t going to list it, and then I realized, Saying I Won’t List It is the beginning of a lot of, and then I listed it and hilarity ensued. So I listed it, and I warned off one of my regulars, and someone is supposedly coming by for the flashlights and expressed interest in the luggage so I figured I’d show it to him but warn him about the wobbly wheel and the worn all the way through parts. It would be perfect for schlepping tools around for a season, but that’s about all the life it has left in it. It could assist in a couple moves, type of thing.

Anyway. I picked it up, and it felt much heavier than it should have, so I opened it up (I’d taken pictures fairly mechanically and the weight hadn’t really registered at that point, at least not consciously. There was a bunch of stuff in there! Which is now on the dining table in the kitchen, waiting for R. to come in from mowing and decide what he would like to do with the stuff that was in there. Ziplock bags including the fancy kind for waterproofing on rides, a clip he uses to keep hotel curtains from having that annoying line of light down where they don’t quite meet, the travel knife in its plastic sheath, a cheap meat thermometer, lanyards. But also a Jansport backpack! A pretty decent one. I should list it, if he doesn’t want it, but he should know he’s getting rid of it, for sure.

I’ve got Big Plans for another chunk of decluttering discourse, that is about making personal metrics explicit. Right now, most decluttering discourse has explicit metrics (sparks joy, useful) and emphasizes that each person must declutter their own stuff, because no one knows anyone well enough to do this for them (not true in obvious edge cases, but these are books aimed at people with the power and will to throw away all the annoying stuff their spouse owns and they need to be warned away because of the probable consequences). The explicit metrics are not personal — and the personal metrics are not explicit.

I don’t know how much one can do with the sparks joy / is beautiful / charms / attracts etc. metrics. Those are Dark Part of the Brain things and making them explicit causes its own problems (Wants Don’t Have Whys). But the utility metrics could use some explicit attention. Is it useful TO YOU. Is it useful TO YOU NOW. WHEN will it be useful TO YOU. If you are keeping it for someone else, WHEN will it be useful TO THEM. Have they already told you that they don’t want it. Etc.

The discovery of a Kanga Room cord management thing that I bought yonks ago, and didn’t realize was still in the house, and which R. has no memory of using, is what made me realize that R. has a “is it useful” metric that doesn’t include “to me, in my future”. So if it WAS useful, it is “Useful”, even if it is not useful to him anymore and probably never will be again. I had no idea this was an issue, because it wasn’t hard moving along the kids clothes and stuff when they outgrew them. But he was very committed — as was I! — to not having more than 2, so maybe that provided an outsized dollop of clarity. Also, I had a path to the Next Kid that he could clearly see, which is very much the approach that is working now.

My hats were finally picked up! I left them out for porch pickup, and of the three items, that was the only bag claimed. Wild!

Also, the person came to get the galvanized water cooler. He wanted it for his chickens. I have my doubts about whether the item that he wanted is the one that he got, but you know what? It’ll be a fun experiment! Delphos also makes automated poultry watering equipment and I suspect that’s what he was hoping this was.

I was ghosted on the flashlights and the corelle and the usb-a extension cords. These are repeat offenders. In theory, someone is coming for the corelle tomorrow morning. We’ll see. ETA: Was not ghosted on the extension cords!!! Someone showed up!

I walked early with M. because it was hot out today. I took A. to therapy, then fed her dinner and went out to Silver Girl with R., where he got the chicken sandwich and fries, and we split the duck fat curry potatoes and I had the Brussel sprouts. I have leftover sprouts, but fewer than I expected. I had the Pink Pony Club, which is like a pink squirrel, but with coconut milk and some other changes (nocino, notably, along with the creme de noyaux and the creme de menthe). I’m feeling good about this Only Have the One Drink strategy.

I had a meeting with someone from Marvin about hypothetical smart locks they might one day make available on their doors. Nice conversation.

After that, there was what will hopefully be nearly the end of reviewing electrical outlets and other boxes. Fingers crossed. This morning I woke up to an email asking about where I wanted the switches for the towel warmers, and I was like, you wouldn’t put a switch on a fridge; don’t put a switch on the towel warmer (it has integrated controls including the ability to connect to alexa).

I walked with M.

R. went grocery shopping.

It was a nice, quiet day. I’m hoping to have more of these.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling fidgety but want to read, I read samples I have downloaded to my kindle. If something is terrible, I usually leave it because maybe later it will be better. But if it is amazing, sometimes I buy it and read the whole thing.

Today, I’m reading a sample of Regretting Motherhood, which is qualitative research involving just under two dozen mothers who, well, see title. Either they see nothing good at all about having become a mother, or the negatives outweigh the positives. In the description of some of the macro characteristics of this group, the author notes: “Five of the women had used assisted reproductive technologies in order to get pregnant”.

Five.

Out of 23.

That is a really, really high fraction. ART probably should come with a warning label along the lines of, “Some research suggests using ART is associated with an increased rate of regret of becoming a mother”.

We’re in the process (around the halfway point in the build part) of building a new home. The architect made some interesting choices along the way that I didn’t fully anticipate would be a problem. To be fair, neither did anyone else. I’m not blaming him. The issues tend to involve the need to locate functional equipment. R. decided he wanted Absolutely No Fossil Fuels, which we didn’t quite attain, because there’s a backup generator if the batteries are inadequate to a sustained winter outage. However, we got pretty close by using ground loop heat pumps. There’s just a lot of HVAC equipment that needs to be in ceilings or walls or floors or closets.

It’s all working out okay — altho I’m still frosty about the loss of the laundry room — and then there was the whole issue with who was going to do the millwork in closets and closet type areas. I hit a point where I just couldn’t seem to get any of the things I wanted (or avoid the things I didn’t want) in the millwork when working with the architect, so I removed that dependency from the build and we went with a different vendor. In the process of doing that, I removed the master bedroom “walk through” closet from the scope of the build; I’m going to kit that out after we’ve been there for a few months or whatever, since we have an overlapping year.

My first plan is Lundia, because it’s all wood, very simple. I figured that was within our capabilities to figure out. Then I ran across Rev-A-Shelf’s new Edge system (so new, it’s not fully available yet), and now I’m not sure what I’m going to do. But I’m also in the process of going through every last thing in my current house (not all at once!) and deciding whether I want to move it to the new house. If I don’t, I’m listing it on FB and getting rid of it now. This has led to some really interesting and enlightening conversations. It has also led to a lot of personal realizations.

There’s about a quarter of the hanging space in my closet that is seasonal/special occasion/wtf. That’s where Christmas themed stuff lives, and my wedding dress, and a very expensive handbag that I never actually use. There are also a number of dresses over there, and I’ve been methodically going through the dresses and things in that lightly / never used section of the closet to figure out what I really never would use again. Last night, a couple renfaire type maxi dresses went into the bag, but a different renfaire type maxi dress turned out to fit great, so I’m gonna wear that for Halloween with a purple witch’s hat. This morning, I pulled out two pairs of weather resistant technical pants that I never wear and tried them on. I figured neither would fit and I’d get rid of both, but actually, one pair fits fine. So I got rid of the ones that didn’t fit and gained a pair of pants that I might actually use since I now realize they fit great (over clothes, which is critical in water resistant pants).

This kind of thing has taken my closet over the last few months from kinda tightly packed to visibly having a bunch of space. I didn’t have a goal, but I’m thinking about having a goal. I’m thinking about figuring out an amount of hanging space that feels easy to keep track of everything in it, and pruning / curating down to that and then staying within that space, even tho it is less than the space I currently have, and then designing the new closet to have that amount of space.

But this is a new idea, so I’m going to contemplate it for a while first.