02/17/2025 - An Unexpected Journey

Today's Rating: 7/10

Song of the Day: Dollar Bill Bar - Sierra Ferrell

Current Book: Dust - Hugh Howey

It is currently 4:09 AM CST 02/18/2025 as I sit here writing the inaugural post for What's In A Day. Truth be told, I'd much rather be asleep right now, but whether it's excitement for the first post, dread for the start of the work week, or general sleeping issues, I'm wide awake. I had struggled for ~30 minutes since first stirring at 3:20 before deciding to throw in the towel and wake up for the day. I'm sure that there is some great quote out there along the lines of "every curse has its blessing" to fit this situation, but I do think there are some benefits to writing on a sleep-deprived brain. As someone who tends to over-filter/over-analyze everything I say or write, I have found that a lack of sleep helps to blunt these filters and allow the words to flow much easier (but unfortunately makes typing more difficult and throws grammar completely out the window).

As this is the first post, I feel it is important to give some context and guidelines around how I intend to write these. Posts will be written retrospectively (ideally the next morning) about the previous day. My goal is for each post to take about 30 minutes to write with an additional 10 or so minutes for general review/structuring/images. Speaking of images in case anyone's curious and wants a first person perspective of me writing this post, here's my desk setup:

That's enough intro for now I think, and I'm running short on my allotted time. Let's get into the meat of the post.

Yesterday was a rather interesting day for me. I had off work for President's Day which means I had to find things to fill those eight hours normally occupied by work. Holidays like President's Day that a large portion of employers don't give off to employees are particularly hard to find things to do since most other people are working. Typically on days like that, I usually like to ask my wife/parents if they have any chores I can do to help out. Don't perceive that as me being altruistic; I do it to save my self from the immense boredom I usually get on these days.

Wife Tasks:

Transfer the dirt from the pots with dead plants in our front yard to a massive hole we have in the backyard.

We've been fruitlessly trying to fill this hole for years and keep dumping dirt/sticks/dead plants into it. I'd take a photo and attach it here, but I'm too lazy to get up.

Check on the status of our two dogs' microchips

We had read in the news ("news" typically means Reddit for me or DailyMail for my wife) recently that one of the companies where you can register your dogs via chips had gone out of business. Luckily, both of our dogs were not impacted!

Clean the garage windows to prep for her to install a privacy film

Our garage windows were covered in spider webs/general debris and needed to be cleaned off before she would go anywhere near the windows. I grabbed the broom and got to work as the designated bug defender of our household.

After finishing the above, I snuck out to play tennis for ~45 minutes as it was a nice sunny day and I had found someone else not working.

Mom Tasks:

Help transfer all of her accounts to her personal email from her work email

My mom is getting close to retirement age and is finally thinking (at least partially) about life post-work. As part of this, she's realized that all of her accounts are tied to her work email address, so she needs to swap them to her personal email to avoid a headache down the road (that headache would most assuredly pass through her straight to me). I've also been encouraging my parents for the past couple of years to start using password managers like Bitwarden, so I took the opportunity (🐦🐦🥌).

Never in my life did I expect what waited for me when I got to her office.

I did not realize that one person could be signed up to so many services/newsletters/accounts. Nevertheless, I got to work and four hours later had most of her accounts migrated and added to Bitwarden. I'm sure there will be more in the future, but I am glad that her passwords are stronger now (instead of the typical permutation she has of a few letters and one or two strings of numbers)

Those tasks occupied most of my day which made it pass rather quickly (besides setting up this blog which will be its own post/page). I got home around 7:15 PM from her office and microwaved dinner. My dad had ordered some posole from an online retailer that shipped from New Mexico. It was rather good which surprised me as I have not enjoyed posole much in the past. I'll try to remember to take a photo for tomorrow's post. Like most Americans, we eat at "America's table" (the coffee table in front of the couch) and watch YouTube while we eat.

I'm sure that I am not the only one that likes to watching food/cooking videos while I eat. I've been enjoying watching the "Keith Eats The Menu" series like the one above we watched last night. After that, I read for about an hour or so in my book, and it was light's out around 10 PM.

Welp, I went WAY over the 30 - 40 minutes allotted (writing this section ~1.5 hours later). I'll give myself some leeway since this is the first post.

Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow!