Just met Prepontente in the first Dungeon Crawler Carl book he appears in (avoiding spoilers), but the audiobook version of him is *amazing*. I couldn't pause the book fast enough to confirm my excitement when I heard the first scream!

A laugh out loud moment for this morning as I catch up on the Barkley.

Also, I love when all the roofs (normally black) turn white with frost. It is such a sleek and brief transition, as the sun will return it to its normal color soon. Snow does something similar, but the frost feels more rare.

Opened the blinds to the morning light and immediately noticed the frost on the ground. Which means I'm kicking myself for assuming I couldn't go for a trail run because it would be muddy, but now know it probably would have been fine but, of course, no longer have time for. Tomorrow!

It's that time of year! Valentine's *and* the Barkley! 🥳

I think I sprained my left ring finger climbing last night. The middle joint just feels a bit tender/painful to the touch. The routes were very odd yesterday - with a V4 and V5 (about my normal ability limit) being super easy and V9 being tempting (normally wildly outside my ability).

I think we are finally going to take down our Christmas tree this weekend. Earlier than some years (and crazy late by others' standards), but it just isn't the same to leave it up in the winter months when there is no snow on the ground. What a weird winter.

Nearing the end of an era. My tea of choice for the last few years - pretty much as soon as I was introduced to it - has been Good Earth's Creme Earl Grey. It has been discontinued for around a year, and I managed to stock up - but finally opened my last box this morning.

Seriously - the sky is stunning this morning (with zero filters applied).

This morning's run was powered by Ray of Solar by Swedish House Mafia. If anyone wants to have an early 5:00/6:00 AM Run/Rave, hit me up! ;)

That was a very fun halftime show. :)

Attended a Q&A with Beth Brower yesterday evening with a neighbor. We don't often make it to those kinds of events, but it is always fun when we do. For anyone who hasn't already read the Emma M. Lion books - I can't recommend them enough!

Haha, so embarrassed. I managed to read the wrong book for book club today. Fortunately it is a very small bookclub and we had plenty of other things to talk about - and now three books to talk about for next time (the book I read, the book they read, and the intended book for next time).

I seem to be really good at coming up with decorative "needs" that are hard to find. Decorative Ceiling Registers (pretty much identical to Floor Registers - but with screws). Adjustable Room Dividing Rod with Sockets (basically a curtain rod, but with different brackets, and about 163" long).

We had some friends invite us to a movie last night at the Sundance Film Festival - Tuner - and it was fantastic. Super sad that we've only just made the acquaintance of the festival and this is its last year here. One of my favorite elements of the show was how receptive the audience was.

The deer were posing (from a distance) for me this morning.

Visited a newly opened climbing gym - one our local membership includes. The gym is small, and currently uses the light up style holds that have to be partially transparent to show the light. It was extremely difficult to identify routes - and the slickness on every hold was annoying. 1/3

The morning light is finally starting to come ever so slightly earlier, but slowly enough that there is a part of me that wants to shake every fool who thinks year long daylight saving time would be a good idea.

Played Peak this evening with seven of us and had an absolute ball. Chaotic efforts to reach the top of each biome & with mixed results, but so much fun.

There was a mysterious wet spot near a corner in the basement, an area actively under construction. At first I was internally panicking a bit - as water seeping into the basement would be a major problem. Imagine my odd relief to discover that one of our cats had instead used the spot as a bathroom.

My life, in a brief moment. It's not always comfortable, but it's pretty great. :)

Started a fresh game of Baldur's Gate 3 with one of my sisters and immediately managed to drop us all in a hole with significant damage to our health. The joys of remembering how to play!

It feels like screaming into the void, but for those of you from the States - reach out to your congressional representatives.

remember to start fresh and clean

As someone who probably opens more maple syrup containers than the average person, the little seal at the top of the bottle *never* comes off in the easy way it looks like it would.

As somehow who hopes to build a free little library in the next year or so (and has a lot of nostaliga for Blockbuster and rarely utilizes streaming services), this makes me really happy.

It has been a very full and wonderful week! Back to reality tomorrow, but also so happy to be home with our fluffs. Family, puzzles, gifts, food (so much food), games, morning walks, a family 5k, rock climbing, art (both making and seeing), paper crowns - too many fun things!

The current view of the Tennessee River (this shot from last night) in Alabama does *not* disappoint.

Every time we go on any sort of trip, the most painful part of it is leaving our felines mostly alone for the duration of the trip. They have each other, and wonderful neighbors who check on them regularly, but it is still a lonely stretch of time for them.

We bought a lime and a lemon tree (little ones) several months ago and when we brought them in for the winter, the lemon tree promptly dropped all its leaves. Now, despite that, both trees are blossoming and there is the slightest unexpected and lovely fragrance as you walk by them.

Sometimes my morning NYT and LinkedIn puzzles make me feel like Taravangian testing my intelligence for the day. Today would not be a day for big decisions. ;)

Turkey tracks this morning!

The other wrinkle in today's basement work - somehow with the plumbing work done today we no longer have hot water anywhere in the house. We can run it for awhile and get lukewarm, but not hot. A problem for tomorrow (along with some very short showers).

Random additional benefit to having a few more noses down near our gas meter as the team works on our basement - someone noticed the slight smell of gas and called the gas company to come and fix a minor leak. Has probably been around for four years since we moved in. So that's fun.

We just finished Dungeon Crawler Carl today - it was absolutely hilarious and I can't recommend it enough (noting the gratuitous violence and explicit language). We bummed a copy of the first book off of family with an Audible account and I really wish there were listening options outside of

"When it comes to living abroad, studies show that it's not about variety, but rather depth that leads to clarity about oneself. In other words, it's not the number of countries you visit, but the amount of time spent in a particular culture that gives rise to new insights." - Defy, Dr. Sunita Sah

What a difference a few hours drive makes! Lovely, either way. :)

Opinion: there is never an acceptable excuse for a pre-collegiate level sports coach to require practice on Thanksgiving.

One (very early) step closer to a finished basement! The whole house smells of fresh lumber.

Have I spent the better part of the last hour carefully picking up deer poop 💩 from our backyard? Yes, yes, I have. I guess we'll find out directly which plants the deer like to eat and which they'll leave alone. Also, bless disposable gloves and litter bags.

The whole peanuts in the front bird feeder have not successfully drawn the ravens who sit on the house across the street, but it *has* successfully brought the magpies. Not ideal, but not the worst either. But I may not buy more peanuts.

And, even though it has been hours and only lasted for a short while, the sky put on a show this morning at sunrise.

It has been a thoroughly lovely day. Chai (x2), a hike, brunch, rock climbing, reading, tiramisu (x2), and bookclub (with some unexpected tea, book, and cat themed gifts - I was spoiled!). And I got to spend the majority of it with my husband (he had the day off and I took it off).

A lovely birthday gift. :)

I've been too ambitious during the day about things I'm going to do after work, when the reality is that I will come home and do almost nothing.

Also, the jet lag is more real today than it was yesterday. The two felines did not make it easier by insisting on sleeping on or nearly on me all night last night, so they may be banned from the bedroom tonight to allow for some slightly better sleep.

Fun random fact of the day - the pronunciation of Zion with regards to the National Park - in spite of the spelling, it is pronounced "Zi-in" - as in you are "in" Zion, not "on" Zion. All other contexts may vary, but that is the correct pronunciation for the location that is a National Park.

Added wrinkle to our getting home routine - we parked in a spot (having given notice to the public transit that we'd be there for over a week) only to have them call us while in Japan to ask if we could move our car as they needed to apply a slurry to where we were parked. Obviously,

I think today is going to be a roughly 32 hour waking day - all of it November 2nd. I do prefer that to an abbreviated day when flying West across the date line! There might have been some snatches of sleep on the flights, but nothing substantial.

I have a lot of habits (like anyone) that I often do on a daily basis. Morning puzzles, tea, language study, exercise/steps - to name a few. But I also have an aversion to the need for daily count goals - finding that those cause me more stress than benefit.