Category: Weeknotes

Win of the week: found out the greenway route change I advocated for last year got made!

Looking forward to: planning to try making sourdough pancakes this weekend 🥞

Stuff I did:

• 9.5 hours writing 🙌
• 1.5 hours consulting — reviewing proofs
• took a friend adventure to Bellingham
• finished my entry to the July blog carnival on tools
• baked plum crumb cake and terrible sourdough banana bread — turns out you should not use a blender to make banana bread, it makes it rubbery 😅 (I’d say lesson learned except I’m pretty sure I’ve done it before… 🤦‍♀️)
• skipped gaming with my sister to binge read the new Courtney Milan 😄
• hacked back blackberries for an hour and discovered another shrub hiding underneath 🦾
• went to Homebrew Website Club
• one virtual appointment
• skipped my usual walk, we all decided it was too hot 🥵
• wrote an email to city council in favor of an upzoning project but haven’t hit send yet

Highlight of the week: seeing a pink pineapple at the Volunteer Park Conservatory

Looking forward to: Bellingham trip!

Stuff I did:

• 2.25 hours consulting
• 6.5 hours writing
• researched new personal computer
• updated my portfolio tracker, reviewed amortization estimates for when we can pay off the house, took care of financial tasks, transferred a retirement account between brokerages to consolidate more
• voted in Washington’s state primary
• had a fun excursion to Seattle with my friend
• baked strawberry shortcake but discovered that my cream was off so it was just strawberries and biscuits 😓
• cut my hair ✂️ (with this tutorial)
• one virtual appointment
• my regular weekly friend walk

Don’t know where this week went! At least I’m marginally less stressed about politics than the previous couple weeks.

Win of the week: a week of many walks!

Looking forward to: potential friend adventure to Seattle this weekend 😃

Stuff I did:

• 10 hours consulting — sent my big signs off to the printer!!! 😱 and submitted another deliverable to a different client
• 1 hour writing
• installed software on my new work computer — why do I have to add a program just to move my taskbar these days? 🤦‍♀️ — trying out a font manager (FontBase)
• did a make-up weekend walk with my friend at the local State Park (where there was a horse show going on so it was busier than desired 🙃)
• met a friend I hadn’t seen in a while for a mid-week mid-morning walk to beat the heat
• explored a new-to-me park with a third friend
• picnic dinner and a wander with the husband at a pretty creek
• more weeding while I was out watering the backyard plants — I tried watering in the evening and the mosquitoes were brutal
• rewatched Howl’s Moving Castle
• did a big tidy-up-the-house session (because I didn’t feel like writing 😅)
• went to Homebrew Website Club
• played games with my sister

Win of the week: getting my new sourdough starter going 🍞

Looking forward to: I’m planning a trip to Bellingham later this month! I haven’t been in years (went to college there), and I’m meeting some friends of a friend 😃

Stuff I did:

• 6 hours consulting
• 4.75 hours writing
• Did some end-of-project retrospective for my project that’s wrapping up and took care of some consulting admin
• Cleaned out my music library — so far I’ve culled 10GB — more to go!
• Tried backing up my files to external HD and I don’t have enough space on my computer apparently 🙃
• Set up my new work computer and brought back out the KVM switch. My new second monitor isn’t working, so I need to troubleshoot that. Also still need to order a new personal computer… so many decisions 😭
• Started watering the garden this week because it finally got hot
• Revived my sourdough starter I got from Carl’s Friends 😄 Feeling a bit daunted about making bread bread after watching a couple videos, so I might stick with using it more as flavoring in like pancakes and quick breads 🤷‍♀️
• Sunday morning donut run 😋🍩
• Played games with my sister
• Skipped my usual walk with a headache 😥
• One virtual appointment

Win of the week: finally getting to some pruning I’ve been thinking about for a while

Looking forward to: setting up my new computer when it comes next week 😃

Stuff I did:

• 7.5 hours consulting work
• No writing :/ (too much emotional energy sucked into politics)
• Discussed the scope for a potential new project
• Some consulting admin: cleaning out old folders, downloading receipts, updating spreadsheets
• Took Thursday and Friday off work for a long holiday weekend
• Chatted writing at a Bonus Homebrew Website Club
• Reviewed a blog post for a friend
• Baked blueberry nectarine cobbler
• Ordered a second monitor — which comes with three months of Creative Cloud 🙌
• Another hour and a half of weeding — I’ve made it to the back of the yard and cleared around like ten more plants 🦾 — some welcome native volunteers mixed in with the weeds!
• Pruned our street trees to open up the sidewalk and garden a bit — still shady but walkers have better sightlines
• Skipped my usual weekly walk because people set off too many fireworks last night and the air quality was gross 🙃

It’s been two years since I quit my job and started out on my own! 😺 So far I am loving working for myself, and the projects I get to work on now.

Win of the week: taking an adventure with my friend

Looking forward to: my sourdough starter from Carl’s Friends arrived so I’m going to revive it this weekend!

Stuff I did:

• 17 hours consulting
• 1 hour writing 😬
• ordered a dedicated work PC! It’s going to be really nice to have separate devices for work and personal use again 👏 (I started my business with the fewest possible costs, which meant using my existing 2019 laptop, but I’ve been having scratch disk issues with Creative Cloud 🙄) I need to decide whether to use a KVM switch to use the same peripherals and desk, or if I have enough room to create a second desk setup in my office if I move my bookshelf out 🤔 I don’t really care about the tax benefits that would come from a dedicated setup 🤷‍♀️ But having separate zones could be nice…
• went to a medieval village festival with a friend, which was lame (and aimed at kids) but just interesting enough to spend two hours wandering around and getting lunch, plus the point mostly was to get out of the house and hang out 😉
• tried a new pancake recipe (with cinnamon instead of vanilla!) — it’s a keeper 👍
• watched Oppenheimer
• two virtual appointments
• caught up with my childhood best friend
• walked with a friend
• weeded for a couple hours — cleared the walkways and started making two paths through the wilderness of the backyard so I’ll be able to water the plants we want when it gets hot in another week or two

Highlight of the week: I went to a (virtual) listening party for a new album from my favorite band Islands — kinda fun to listen along with a bunch of other people who love them as much as I do 😄

Looking forward to: going on an excursion with a friend this weekend

Stuff I did:

• 3.5 hours consulting
• 6 hours on consulting website
• 5 hours writing
• Baked lemon olive oil cake with freeze dried strawberry glaze from Snacking Cakes 👍
• Dentist appointment + one virtual appointment
• Took Juneteenth off of work
• Played games with my sister
• Picnic date night at the park for solstice
• Walked with a couple friends

Highlight of the week: finally crossing this darn bridge 😁

Looking forward to: planning a solstice date night ❣

Stuff I did:

• 12.75 hours consulting
• 6.5 hours writing
• Took my toaster to a Repair Cafe in hopes of getting a sticky dial fixed, but no luck 🤷‍♀️ I did, however, find my missing kitchen scissors, which had slipped under the toaster! ✂️
• Baked Inspired Taste’s blueberry muffins — very standard muffin, would make again (I ran out of granulated sugar so mostly used coconut sugar)
• Did a photoshoot comparison of my phone and two old digital cameras 📸
• Met up with friends to walk across the fancy new pedestrian bridge at Microsoft campus, and also managed to make a loop so we could cross a second new pedestrian bridge 🙌
• Added two more friends to my usual end-the-week friend walk

Win of the week: sent off the first deliverable on my new project and prepared a proposal for a cool potential new project 🦾

Looking forward to: walking over a new pedestrian bridge that’s finally open after taunting me by appearing finished but closed for over a year 😒

Stuff I did:

• 8 hours writing — mostly over the weekend
• 24.5 hours consulting 😲 — now I have two projects underway and have quoted a third — could be a busy summer! 🙌
• Re-watched The Fifth Element
• Went to Homebrew Website Club
• Caught up with a friend on a walk and did my regular weekly walk joined by a mutual friend I hadn’t seen in person since 2021!