As we mark off the 47th week of 2023 I find myself enveloped with a sense of thankfulness. I have a great deal about which I am extremely thankful and, as is fitting given the week’s holiday, I have done a fair amount of reflecting them.
Help, I’m alive, my heart keeps beating like a hammer
I have my health, I have my family, I am loved and I want for, practically speaking, nothing.
For that, and more, I am deeply thankful.
Grateful even.
Meanwhile, another week has come and gone with only 5 weeks left in the year.
Here it is visualized with squares representing weeks gone, open dots representing weeks left and dashes representing nothing because 52 isn’t neatly divisible by a good number for this table:
| ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ |
| ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ |
| ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ |
| ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ |
| ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ |
| ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ○ | ○ |
| ○ | ○ | ○ | - | - | - | - |
I’ve mentioned before that marking time can be a bit of a double edged sword. On the one hand there’s something about observing the year as it unfolds, about recording and reflecting on each week as it happens that is extremely valuable. On the other hand it feels like you’re really aware of the passage of time, you’re really seeing the sand grains fall through the neck of the hourglass.⌛
The clock ticks life away
This has been a good week.
I took the week off from work in the hopes of recharging my batteries a bit. It’s largely worked though, unfortunately, it’s also been a week of pain. Suffering from chronic back pain is the worst. Pain has a way of blocking out everything else. It can make it hard to think and focus, it can make it hard to connect with other people. It can make it hard to live. It’s made worse by not knowing for sure when or where it might flair up.
I’ve been trying to focus on my self-care, to do what I can to improve things, but it’s been difficult. This cycle, this ebb and flow of pain, is almost maddening. I recognize the main culprit has been fewer hikes coupled with a bit of illness from some kind of virus- definitely not the ol’ ‘rona- mostly just alternating congestion and runny nose with a bit of a headache for a couple of days.
But, as I said it was a good week despite the pain and illness. I was able to tick off some todos from the ever-growing list, have some down time, do some re-arranging, play a few games, and, of course, enjoy a delicious Thanksgiving meal with my family.
I’ll recount the week below, as I do, but suffice to say it was a lovely week overall, though I’m happy to have one more day off before I have to go back to work. I’m also happy to have a little more time-off at the end of the year.
Here’s the week:
Sunday - Waffle Day
Lou made delicious cornmeal waffles in the morning for Waffle Day. I love waffles! I love cornmeal! Cornmeal waffles are a slam dunk delicious win!
Later Lou and I took a nice little walk downtown - we stopped into Gastropup with Ollie and spoiled him again with a variety of chews and treats.
Momo came for dinner. I made breakfast for dinner - a simple breakfast for dinner of scrambled eggs and hash browned potatoes O’Brien
Monday
Monday was a nice little day. I was able to knock off a few todos, including a little refresher research around, and a posting about, DEAR MAN, GIVE, and FAST.
For dinner we made a homemade tzatziki sauce and put it on a delicious salad with roasted garbanzo beans and fresh crumbly feta.
For dessert I made a rather tasty bread pudding.
Tuesday
Got some more todos done.
I took a little “hike” around town with Ollie. I put in just shy of 5 miles and did a lot of hills. It was a lovely afternoon and a lovely way to spend and afternoon.
Wednesday
I started Wednesday by taking Ollie to get his nails did at Wilco.
I ran a few errands.
For dinner I made honey chipotle crusted salmon with mashed potatoes with roasted smashed Brussel sprouts drizzled with a balsamic reduction. It was mighty tasty though I believe I reduced the balsamic a bit too much, so next time I’ll try to keep a little more of the vinegar flavor that was lost this time.
Thursday
Thursday was, of course, Thanksgiving. A national day of thankfulness and gluttony.
We took the state ferry across Puget’s Sound to Seattle to have dinner at Tris’ place with her boyfriend, Christian. It was a lovely morning and great weather to cross the sound. Mount Baker stood clear and covered in snow.
It was an absolutely delicious meal! They everything you could want. It started with a delicious charcuterie board with crackers, breads, and cheeses (including a fantastic cranberry cheese). There were deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, smashed yams with toasted coconut topping, scalloped potatoes, green beans, roasted Brussel sprouts, jellied and non-jellied cranberry sauces, and, of course, turkey with stuffing. Nearly every bit of it was made from scratch and all of it was super yummy!
Also, there was a ton of pie, which we mostly brought. So much pie. I got pumpkin, apple, marionberry, and chocolate. Tris also made a from-scratch pumpkin pie that turned out pretty delicious but for the crust that was a touch too-done.
In the evening we were able to get stunning views all around as the sun set from the roof of their building, including this lovely view of Tahoma:
After dinner, pie, and the turning on Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (as well as letting a few episodes of Frog and Toad run), we took our leave and drove back around the sound, capping off a lovely Thanksgiving with family.
Friday
Black Friday, as it’s called, became another Pi day for us, as I mention here, “1124” appears in the 25,705th place of Pi. As Pi is infinite, I figure every number sequence likely appears somewhere in Pi so that every day can be Pi day.
In this case it became Pi day as we enjoyed the heck out of some pie all day long. We had leftover Thanksgiving pie for breakfast, quiche (egg pie) for lunch, and wood-fired pizza (pie) for dinner followed by, of course, pie for dessert.
It was a tasty day for sure 😂
We also spent some time working on rearranging things a little bit and doing a little cleaning and organizing as well.
While we don’t generally partake of Black Friday, mostly as Lou and I both survived years of retail and don’t really want anything to do with that nonsense, we did take a little trip to the local furniture store and picked out a couch - we originally planned to get an inexpensive little couch with a chaise return because we’ve only had little love seats in the living room for a while having donated our last couch to Momo when we moved out and only replacing that a while back with some modular furniture that, honestly, turned out to be pretty uncomfortable.
Somehow, and I’m not really sure exactly how it happened, we ended up spending a bit more and, instead, ordered a reclining couch that should be here sometime in the next couple weeks.
I’m excited as it will be nice to have a reclining sofa again. We’d inherited one when we lived in Minnesota but wound up getting rid of it rather than move it across the country when we moved here. I’ve definitely missed reclining some and think this ought to be a lovely sitting experience.
Saturday — today
Today hasn’t been a particularly eventful day, a little more cleaning and organizing.
Lou and I started out the day making a homemade quiche that turned out pretty well, though with a bit more moisture than would generally be considered ideal.
Obviously I’m a sucker for pie (and, really, pie crust is what really does it for me).
We took a little walk.
I wrote up this post and the other one on my dev blog.
So, ultimately, we’ve arrived here again, the end of another weekly post.
The day isn’t quite over, but this post has pretty much run its course.
Another week down.
As always, I’ll perhaps revise this post in the future but, for now, I’ll bid you adieu and see you on the other side — with only 5 weeks left in the year, you don’t have many of these posts left to read in 2023.