Week 07
February 15, 2021 to February 21, 2021
Lockdown + school half term + working from home = a fragile balancing act.
I've been working from home since 2006, so I'm used to the normal turbulence that comes with school holidays, but with lockdown, urgh! I'm not sure where the expectation comes from of being constantly available at a moment's notice - "let's go for a long walk!" - doesn't quite fit in with my work schedule... but then, what schedule? I'm my own boss, I can set my own hours, right?! I guess my aim throughout these lockdowns has been to find structure to my day... but this week, efforts were thrown out the window! 😆
Let's get the weekly MCU out the way. KK's interest came back, we watched Thor 2, which I felt was one of the weaker MCU movies, but KK enjoys the relationship between Thor and Jane Foster, mostly because she's read the recent comics where Jane has become Thor. Watched latest WandaVision episode too, again no spoilers! I like where the story is heading.
Wednesday was KK's 13th birthday - cue Harry Enfield's Kevin sketch. I did an acrostic of THIRTEEN for her birthday card. She had a lovely day.
Had a lovely chat with Rachel about the upcoming Umbraco Community Office Hours, (which I'm lobbying for renaming to Umbraco Question Time, hashtag #umbqt - time will tell!) 😉.
Thursday, had the lovely job of unclogging our sewer drain. Rods at the ready! 🤢 Ah, the joys of children using too much toilet paper! 🧻 I'll say no more. 🤐
GitHub Skyline - a 3D model of your GitHub contribution graph. Mine looks busy enough. Although, remember it's quality not quantity in your open-source contributions!
Completed the last part of my recent "jigsaw trilogy"...
Expand for a rambling about my jigsaw process.
When I do these jigsaws, I have been asked what I do with them afterwards. Do I keep them? Frame them? Put them up on a wall? It's an odd question to me, as I put them away almost immediately after I've taken a photo of the completed jigsaw. To me, a pleasure and process of doing a jigsaw is the journey not the destination. I enjoy the solving the problem in front of me, piecing it together, (as obvious as that sounds) are part of the creation. After the completion - achievement unlocked - then comes the destruction, taking apart, a hard reset. I take comfort in the symmetry - we create, we destroy.
Our Saturday family movie night we watched Pete's Dragon on Disney+, was predictable, but a good enjoyable family movie!
Watched part 2 of Adam Curtis' Can't Get You Out of My Head. Whilst I find it interesting, I can't help but think that it could have been done in half the time, total runtime of 6+ hours feels like it's labouring the point.
I think I may be going mad. I wasn't sure whether to write this next part or not. But as I've mentioned before, I'm not writing this for you (dear reader), I'm writing this for myself, my future self. Some reality, some humour, some truth.
I may have gone mad, not that I care, expand if you dare.
Sunday. The kids had watched several episodes of whatever on Netflix, totally zonked out, I had to get them away from the TV. I suggest that we do something creative. "What like?" they retort. I see a couple of magazines, ready for recycling - OK! and Vogue - not that we read these, (they were a gift from Lucy's friend, a cheer-me-up). I flick through them and suggest that we do a collage poster. Take random heads, put them on random bodies, random objects in random environments. The kids looked at me as if I was daft - probably right - "No thanks!" and they were off, escaping to their rooms.
"But it'll be fun." I call after them. No response.
I'm stubborn. It will be fun! I flick through the magazines looking for any inspiration. I start cutting, cutting and more cutting. Then gluing, gluing and more gluing, until... this...
Later, my youngest came back, saw the collage and chuckled. She picked up the scissors, flicked through the magazine, cut, cut, cut, glue, glue, glue, youthful creativity ensue.
I sent a photo of the collage around to a few friends, who thought it was amusing and had some artistic merit - well maybe that of a 14 year-old Y9 student 😆 - so I thought I'd share on this weeknote. Will I do more? Not sure. Could be something, could be nothing, more likely a mad moment in time.