A suggestion on how to spend a day at home
blog.mousereeve.com
blog.mousereeve.com
[0] http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/dutch-baby-recipe0.html
Now, it's time for me to make breakfast. :)
http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-the-apple-pancake-13112
Also, my favorite biscotti recipe (a proper Italian biscotti without butter):
https://smittenkitchen.com/2008/07/chocolate-hazelnut-biscot...
(Skip the hazelnuts -- you will go crazy trying to peel them, blanched or not -- buy hazelnut meal/flour instead and use 8 oz of it in place of the hazelnuts.)
- Roll out of bed
- Crawl to your computer station
- Work on hobby projects in your underwear
- Notice the sun rise again, and that you've been on Wikipedia since yesterday
- Grab leftovers from the fridge and eat while watching YouTube
- Crawl back to bed after waking up in your chair
:-)
I spent half the 90's drinking Jolt from the local Quiky-mart.
I mean, it tastes good, and it does carry a decent punch in terms of caffeine. But coffee's a lot more convenient, and you spend less time explaining it.
And damn I miss Computer Language magazine, and the covers, and the awards.
Many of us long to take a break from obligations and sink into a deep state of singular flow on our creative hobbies, whether it be software, building a ship in a bottle, working on that car rusting in the garage, etc. To be able to take a full day, ignore everything else, and spend it on exactly one passion project is a personal, internal joy; not one predicated on pretensing up to match externally presented standards.
By thinking this way, we misunderstand and alienate ourselves from other people, and we cut ourselves off from experiences that we might really enjoy. Given that we all only have a limited time on this planet, that's a high price to pay indeed.
Don't mean to jump on you specifically; I just found the use of the word "pretentious" in this thread very triggering. =p
How else do you expect to get anything done? :-P
(Cute write up though. In Norway, they call this "koselig". Honey-moon with a sig-other kind of day, maybe, but some of us like to live more.. intensely.)
That word sounds half-way between the English "cozy" and the German "kuschelig". A missing link. Interesting. :)
And I wholeheartedly recommend learning how to poach eggs. Not only is it yummy, but there is a distinct pleasure to having your three-year-old sleep over at her grandparents, and at breakfast time there request that her egg be poached.
There's nothing pretentious or high maintenance about either! :p
2) stuff 'n shit
3) wake with a start at 4am in an armchair, with huple's cat on your face. Stagger to bed.
4) goto 1.
Sometimes on a nice sunny day, i feel like i should go out an paddle on the lake or go for a bike ride when i'd really rather just putter about the yard.
That puts me in a mind state where i'm not enjoying myself because i feel i should always be doing something else.
You are doing something else.
I'm getting older and the Canadian summer is short.
Guess I just want to get in as many of my favorite action sports before i wear out my body.
I'm pretty high mileage from the 20 years of weekly bike crashes and surfing wipeouts.
It does however make me reflect that I would do something like this on my "day off" too. And by "this," I mean I would feel the need to create something, post something, or otherwise turn my relaxation into some kind of output.
Recently I've tried actively not creating and just allowing myself to relax without being conscious of it.
I should note that I'm not presuming anything about the author. Writing may well be their way of relaxing. I just wanted to share a self-realization that I hope may be helpful to others.
I did quite well by not touching my electronic gadgets so much. Although cleaning is really tough, I feel satisfied. Actually I am thinking about quitting my job just to spend more time doing more personal things. With work, I can't get that.
Unwinding is very important.
If you work at home, even more so.
The wife and I used to watch shows on the laptop before bed. Instead we read. It helps sleep. Granted it's on kindles (individual backlight, convenience) but it helps.
Disconnecting is important.
Maybe instead of pajamas and breakfast all day, I'd throw in a hike/stroll or a ride in nature.
But this did make me smile.
We could probably all have a better day by eating less of them.
To misquote Bruce Lee: "I do not fear the man who has 20 breakfasts, I fear the man who has one breakfast 20 times."
I honestly stepped into the article expecting to read something like "Wake up early. Work on your side project. Go the gym."
I think it's perfect for HN.
I guess I ought to be freaked out and rushing to find a new job, but to be honest having worked my butt off for years / decades, it sure is nice to slow down dramatically and take it easy - if only for a few weeks. Not even actively looking for the first half of the payout, just enjoying a mix of Pluralsight, meditation and whatever, slacking off, plus doing most of the school drop off and pick ups.
I feel like my brain is in a way recovering from years of abuse (the constant stresses). I'm processing the new learning much better; kicking down a number of gears is most definitely making me a better person, and hopefully a better dev too for my next role.
But yeah, slowing down and especially being able to enjoy family time more without being elsewhere (at work) in my mind is almost priceless.
IT'S OK TO BE CONFUSED
Then again, if it isn't detrimental to you and you enjoy it and stuff, why stop?
They're practically going to be few and far between, but taking a day for yourself (or for just you & your spouse) while they're still young doesn't have to be a dream!
[Disclaimer: Post may not apply if they're still babies. If so, then yeah, you're screwed. ;-) ]
I like to start Sundays by preparing a somewhat elaborate breakfast for the family. But afterwards, Sundays are a bit bland and boring.
It has never occurred to me to prepare a second breakfast!
If I'm going to have a switched off day (which I heartily recommend), majoring on breakfast, it's going to start with a full English or Scottish.
Whoever flagged this, is probably very stressed. Should take the day off and treat themselves for a good time at home.
I think there have been a couple of things that got caught in some software filter before, and mods wanted to unflag / unpenalise the submission.
> The system used to say [flagged] only when the story was both heavily flagged and dead (closed to new comments). Now it says [flagged] if the story is heavily flagged, dead or not. Flagged-but-not-dead was the case here. That's why you didn't see a 'vouch' link, btw; there's no need to vouch for posts that aren't dead, since the purpose of vouching is to unkill them.
I clicked into it thinking it would be something interesting instead it's about spending a day being lazy.
If the criticism here is that this blog post does not directly address the subject of technology, it still has value to me as a software engineer. Mouse is an engineer whose work I look up to because it models a way of having a life that is passionate about technology and passionate about other things too.
I love programming language and software design. I love discovering the way things work. I love thinking about how things can work better. I love working towards and achieving technical elegance. And I love following the community conversations about this stuff. In short, I love everything that Hacker News is typically about. That's why I visit the site on a daily basis.
I follow Mouse's work because she connects those kinds of passions, passions in the domain of software engineering, to other areas of passion. Her work gives me hope about what my life can be like. To me this article says, software engineers can take a day off and indulge something they love, and don't have to worry about falling behind as programmers. This isn't what Mouse is saying explicitly. It's what I conclude from or project onto her blog post. But I don't think it's implausible that her writing would have the same meaning to other HN readers.