Calories And Construction

Howdy, y’all. A general update here. I’ve been a busy-bee lately. In the past week, I worked hard on a couple of home DIY projects. In the middle of that, I was blessed to enjoy not one but two family Thanksgivings. Oh, and as it turned out, three turkeys. Yeah, we ended up with an extra.

Last Friday, I started remodeling my teens’ shared bedroom space. In short, I made two separate rooms for them — a nice upgrade since they’ve grown so tall in recent months. Here’s the rub: although a small and simple project, it took me over twice as long to complete than I had anticipated due to much finishing work. Thankfully it turned out well, but I stressed to push myself through.

There was a nice break with Thanksgiving visit #1 — this was my wife’s side of the family. Many people, much food, lots of delicious calories for all. And since I’d been doing a lot of physical labor in recent days, I felt no reservation from consuming a satisfying quantity of savory ham, turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed taters, gluten-free rolls, green beans, and desserts.

We also enjoyed Thanksgiving #2 with my family two days later. Same story: much food and family and friends. If nothing else, I’m grateful for all the delicious calories. With the amount of work I’ve been doing on home projects over the past week, I’ve been earning and burning those energy units.

That brings me to the big DIY effort underway — a months-long deal. I’m adding on a new master bedroom to our small country house. This will allow the existing one to become the dining room, which in turn will let the current living room/dining room combo be separated. 

Thankfully, this does not include a bathroom — I added on a second full-bath last year. So no plumbing, yes! That makes things much simpler. I’m still in the starting phase, getting the foundation set. And it’s almost complete. I plan to begin pouring concrete tomorrow.

Beyond all that, I’ve hardly kept up with tech news lately. And I’ve been itching to play Xenoblade Chronicles X again. I don’t know how I’m going to wait until late March for the Definitive Edition. I’m close to dusting off my Wii U, hooking it up, and diving into it.

I’ve been keeping up with my Japanese language learning and am still enjoying it. I don’t know why, but it feels enriching. I hope to be fluent and literate enough to comfortably vacation in Japan in the not-too-distant future. I would eat a lot of Mochi and try to visit the Nintendo headquarters. Dreams.

Oh, also, Bluesky is a thing again. I’ve been using it more recently. No telling how it will turn out. Here’s my profile.

A final note: Pika continues to expand its feature-set; there’s a new layout. I plan to change my blog soon. Instead of a list of post titles, there will be a stream of post excerpts, with a few ripple effects.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate — I hope you had a good one.