Enjoying Sunday night dinner with Anja and my father-in-law. As of recent, we’ve been experimenting with taking it down a notch, food-wise. Rather than wowing guests with eight hours of cooking time, we now feel much more comfortable cooking a few dishing and ordering stuff we love. Today, our Middle Eastern menu was complemented by dishes from D&A.

One skill I’m pleased to have been cultivating these past few years is giving myself a permission slip to rest. I just woke up from a two-hour nap and boy, the world is a new place. Anja clearly remembers the dragon I would turn into whenever I was in need of a nap or just waking up from one. As though I would need to punish myself for having taking a break. Now, it’s a mere drop in an ocean of post-nap ecstasy for me.

I’m now writing these notes using an Apple Shortcut (as inspired by Mu-An. It’s a great way to publish IndieWeb content without having to do any special magic. Setting up this posting strategy has helped me evaluate how I handle notes on this website. My writing often contains short, daily reflections, but it may be worthwhile to move that to this section. Then I can reserve the writing area for longer-form content. Derek Kedziora is great at that, maybe I’ll see if I can be, too.

Spring is here, I think? I spend the afternoon in the park with ex-colleague-turned-friend Susan, who is celebrating landing a new and challenging job. There’s a boy in the park who’s walking around barefoot. Later we see him on a slack line. I like this scene; it tells me that summer is almost upon us.

I never seem skilled at …

Today, Lemonade and I visited Studio Pansa Amstel, where Anja has spent the last seven Sundays learning how to work a ceramics wheel. It’s quite the adventure for her, and I love seeing her dive into a new field that’s so different from her day-to-day life and work. Their motto is “dirty hands, clear mind”, …

What I love most about today’s snapshot is the despair I can see in Lemonade’s eyes even when her entire body is a background blur. DJ is a calm 12-year-old dog, and Lemonade was thrilled to see another dog in our home for the first time, but her energy level was high enough that I eventually brought her back to her crate. It was right …

Life sure is different now that we’ve gotten Lemonade on a proper walking schedule. She still feels most comfortable going potty on the puppy pads we have on our balcony, but she absolutely loves going out and exploring the neighborhood.

I’m surprised by how well she walks on a loose leash, and how few issues we’ve had with the …