Tagged life

a short one, today. even though it's been a full three weeks since my last. i just don't have that much to say i guess. those same three weeks have been a bit of a blur, and i've been delinquent on journaling and so the days have blurred together. there's certainly been highlights, but hell if i can remember them that well. the kids are starting to take some steps on their own, even if they can't stand and balance well yet. wife finished her class and is starting an internship this week. i've had plenty of free time but mostly spent it the same two or three ways, so, whatever.

but work has been stressful and unruly lately and it's been weighing on me. thankfully the worst of it is past and i can move on. speaking of moving on, i've got a weird half-interview thing this week too. it's hard to stay motivated to work on some stuff when you know you might have to drop all of it in a week or a month or whatever.

some other notes:

• i did it! i finally finished that silly little crossbody bag i was working on. it needs a stiffener/insert and i need to make a strap for it, but it is really a bag!
• we had a good weekend lately on the outer banks. it was fun to get out of town for a few days, and get few new stamps in our national park and lighthouse passports, and take the babies to their first beach day ⛱️
• bless the ranged touch folks for getting me to start reading in earnest again. i was having a hard time figuring out what to do after i finished the sanderson cosmere books, and so using them as a parasocial book club of sorts is a pleasant way to keep myself engaged with literature. right now i'm double-dipping with their new episodes and the back catalog; their current project is a year of tolkien, which i will happily take second-hand instead of reading along.

that is it for now. signing off o7

-grady c

i received the following image in a text message from my best friend from high school this morning.

justin timberlake jumpscare aside, i was grateful to be reminded that this month is almost over! i cannot really explain what has been going on this month, other than "hectic." i can't really complain much specifically without sounding and feeling ungrateful, so i will leave it at a bristling about having very little time for myself over the past handful of weeks.

it's good to have something that you're known for. my aforementioned hs bff proclaimed this to be her "longest running bit" to which i could only compliment her on enduring so long. it's something to be proud of! it's cool to have something that you are known for and that is recognized by your peers as 'your schtick.' aside from that she's got a long history with a beloved video game franchise or three, some oc's and artistry, and a few other things that are "her things." sometimes i have to just, idk... wonder what mine are, i suppose.

the only thing i can say that i've really been consistently interested in over my life is finding new and boring ways to waste my own time. has it been a life well wasted? i don't really know, and will probably only figure it out in retrospect. historically i have jumped from hobby to hobby and obsession to obsession on a tri-weekly basis, without much ability to stick with any one thing, finding laziness or another excuse not to.

my current self-diagnosis is that i seem to have a severe dopamine addiction that i've been unable to kick and keep finding new ways to get my fix any time i try. i uninstalled bluesky and reddit and google now, but now i've started scrolling facebook more. when i don't do that i open one of three dozen games i've got installed, in a desperate attempt to distract myself from the daily tasking i perform at work. work is tiring me out so i'm tending to veg more at home. i just... what do i do with myself?

all of those thoughts and more have been circling my head for one reason or another this month. maybe may is when i finally get my shit in together. bless my wife for her infinite patience with me.

baby update: those kids are learning to WALK. a few weeks past 1 year old and we are so so mobile. my wife described it as "exploring elevated surfaces," which, lmao. very apt. i will not be posting pictures of my children on this website but please imagine a toddler with chunky cheeks and a cheesey toothy grin so proud of themself for knocking over a zany zoo activity cube and clambering on top of it in a critter pose. gosh i love these little ones.

the past week and change has been hectic, to be sure. but mostly in the "i don't have spare time to get anything done" way, rather than feeling stressed by overwhelming scheduling and whatnot. sure we had the twins' birthday party at the start of this, but after dropping grandma off at the airport, it's just been one chore after another, struggling to keep up with it all. the babies and i have spent plenty of time together lately though, because

that being said, i have managed to find a few minutes here and there for some leathercraft. mostly trying to make any sort of headway on the most recent project i've been working on, but i keep hitting one snag after another. the zipper i ordered was too wide, so i re-cut the gusset to fit it. i'm ready to sew the back and front panels together, but i forgot a loop that the strap threads through. and so on. trial and error i suppose, and it's turning out well so far, but honestly i am looking forward to having this specific project behind me.

also, i am as-writing realizing that i may not have left myself enough material for the next project i am working on. oh joy

those few minutes have usually been between bedtimes (those of the children and adults being separated by at least two hours), wife-adjacent as she does homework. this evening is the same arrangement, but i'm typing this blog post instead of sewing the other half of the aforementioned zipper gusset.

this project has been an exercise in "how do i make a bag designed for veg-tan leather out of chrome-tan. with great difficulty and improvisation, it turns out! i'm looking forward to sharing it here, but i don't have any pictures worth the bother of uploading right this minute, so i will abstain.

i've got an odd relationship with the passage of time, as of late. there is a groundhog-day-ed-ness that comes with having children. every day is the same routine: wake them up, make sure they get fed and clothed and entertained, put them down for a nap, hope you don't get yelled at too much, and then it's bedtime. if i didn't work in an office i would lose track of the days of the week.

an effect of this is that it doesn't feel like it should already be the end of april, but at the same time, january seems like it was an eternity ago.

there are some things on the horizon that i'm looking forward to this year: my best friend's wedding in october, maybe some work travel in august, and an anniversary trip at some point? hopefully a ren-faire too. maybe some intelligent tracking of these upcoming events will help the time pass in a less fleeting manner.

here's hoping.

-grady c

i find myself wishing i had made this website ages ago, so that it would already be the thing i want it to be without having to put in the effort to get it there.

i'm about to finish another book and wishing i had a place to log book reviews (other than goodreads). i have this same inclination every time i play a video game and want to write a few thoughts about it. truly it makes me wish i had an easier way to journal that didn't require me to bust out my laptop every time i want to post something.

but on the other hand, maybe i just need to keep my laptop close at hand. i can type faster than i can write, after all.

overall, i'm just not sure what i want this site to be. i've got a blog to journal in, but this blog structure isn't super conducive to anything other than posts. if i want an actual static page, it's just not that simple. i could have this be one wing of a bigger website? maybe i will get to that point some day.

my indecisiveness is causing me to lose sleep. i need to just accept what i've got and not push the limits because i don't have the time.

this weekend has been a bit hectic, my wife was sick so i had to take care of the kids largely by myself for the past four days, taking a couple of days off work in the process. that's okay though, i had been thinking about how i wanted a 3 day weekend, and i got one! i just wish the circumstances hadn't involved a family member being 70% bedridden for 3 days. anyway. i love those little babies. babies are great. nobody ever tells you how cool babies are.

other notes: i'm almost done reading the last of the cosmere novels (by brandon sanderson) and i need to figure out what to read next. i'm about halfway done with my next leather project! that'll be up on the gallery in like. a week or so. this upcoming week is going to be very busy, not least of which because we've got a baby shower to attend next weekend, and my wife needs to finish a quilt and mobile as gifts for our friends. let's cross our figures and hope the little ones are agreeable this week.

-grady c

like. i didn't have to make my website using a static site generator.

i could have chosen something simpler, with a mobile app or something, and just done my blogging there.

better yet, i could have just decided journaling was what i would do. the barrier between me and an entry would be a lot lower there than it is here.

allow me to elaborate: my current workflow to create a single blog post requires access, remote or local, to a computer on which i have installed a set of applications which allow me to run a terminal command that will build and upload my website. in other words, i have to have my laptop, or my desktop, or remote access to my desktop. i suppose i can compose the post anywhere, like the notes app on my phone, but posting it is just so much bigger an issue. blessedly, strawberry-starter has the neocities API built into it, so i don't have to log into neocities to update my site, but i'm still limited in how quickly i can get my words out into the world.

not that i have that much to say i guess? at the moment, i feel like i'm having to stretch to find topics to post about on here. the platform i'm using doesn't have any sort of draft functionality, so i can't just save offhand thoughts to expand upon later. on the plus side, this prevents me from doing the impulsive microblogging, jokey type of posts that you would see on twitter or tumblr. i'm hoping to have my space be just a bit more mature than that (i say, using as few capital letters as possible)

at one point i was "blogging" or something and was keeping my drafts in notion. (blogging is in quotes because the truth is more embarassing and cannot be pried from me.) maybe that's where i'll go back to? i tried obsidian for a minute and it was just... a lot.

as for personal updates: the last week has been busy with a capital bee. i had to work late on friday, and we ran errands as a family on saturday. over the weekend we took the kids to the park, and the zoo, and i think they had fun at both. at the very least, wife and i did. the current week has been chill so far? all day meetings are a great way to kill time. i've made it to wednesday, and it's been pretty productive so far. now i think i get to coast through thursday and friday, and then its (ladies and gentlemen) the weekend.

that's all for now, but i have another, more introspective post in the hopper.

-grady c