December 2022

Doing

Learning

Taking the Advent of Code Challenge as a way to tune up my coding and logic skills. It's amazing how much you lose when you're not coding every day.

I decided to use Javascript, purely because it's quick, easy, and accessible. I'm focusing more on the logic and flow than the language.

Working

Taking some time off. A week at the start of December, and then the Christmas week.

Using the time to wind down and process all the big changes this year, and to work through the grief from our family's two major losses in 2022.

Nesting

Still working on the backyard. It's slowly getting there.

My new Birdies garden bed should arrive today. I had them at the old place, two long beds in Merino colour, and they were fantastic. Great quality and looked good. This time I've gone with the Mist Green colour to match the shed it will sit beside, and the 740mm height for less bending down. It will be great to get it set up and planted out.

Adopting

Holly Golightly cat has arrived. She is four months old and beautiful and loving and all things sugar and spice. She's also complete havoc twice a day when the supersonic zoomies kick in. Rey Cat, while now tolerating her prescence, is completely unimpressed with the kitten antics - unless it's 3am and they're playing chasey through the house together. Then she's on board for the antics.

Consuming

Reading

Enjoying Hannah Moloney's The Good Life. It's a good mix of gardening, self-sufficiency, and community building advice, with a strong message about the climate emergency. The topics covered are hitting home right now as I work on my plans and mini-projects to make our home more eco friendly.

Watching

Started watching Three Pines on Prime. I loved Louise Penny's books about Chief Inspector Gamache and the show seems to be capturing everything and everyone so well. Two episodes so far. Looking forward to the next episode being released on Friday.

Listening

My playlists are all over the place. My student subscription to Spoitify was expiring, so I made the switch to Amazon Music to see how it went (plus they had a deal on).

So far it's okay. I think I few teething issues mostly related to learning the new interface. The biggest pain has been having to rebuild my playlists. I wish there was a super easy way to convert from one to the other.

I'm also a bit confused by Amazon Music's recommendation features and auto playlists. This is the Spotify feature I'm missing the most. They handle this so well.

This Now post is inspired by Derek Sivers and the NowNowNow movement.