ok, well, technically, it's not the solstice yet. but it actually is starting to feel like autumn. nights getting below 60ºF (15ºC)... sunny days that aren't too hot... a subtle crisp-ness. my workday is punctuated by the sound of pears falling from their tree. squash plants have exploded out of the compost bin. i am trying to savor it, because the transitions tend to go by fast.
after an extra day due to a delayed flight, i finally finished my two weeks of dog-sitting and returned to my own house. i was really missing my own house by the end, but i did make productive use of my time. besides doing a lot of boring but necessary server maintenance, i found a self-hosted inventory app that was very similar to something i was thinking of making (but afraid to go down the rabbit hole) myself. i have a lot of individual pieces of equipment, with different warranties, manuals, receipts, and locations that can be hard to keep track of. so i was using airtable for a while (bleh, but i learned it from a job).
i was thinking of migrating it for a while, and i neglected to update it for several years because i wasn't sure where to move it to. but since i found this app (it's called homebox) and installed it on my server, i was able to figure out how to export CSVs from airtable and get them into homebox, and i got all my receipts and photos added as well. now, the next step is to bring the data up to date. luckily, i've been very modest on acquiring new gear for the past few years, so it shouldn't be too daunting. now that the setup is established, i can work on it slowly over time. i'm moving in a few months, so whatever i don't add by then, i'll go through in the process of packing then.
i'm glad i found this app, and didn't have to build something myself, or try to use either of the ill-fitting tools i was considering before. this app is much better, it's very flexible (it has custom fields), and also has an API and lots of ways to export things, so if i want to do something with my data that the native app doesn't allow, or i want to move to a different app in the future, it shouldn't be a problem.
well, i like doing this sort of thing, because i really like being organized, but it's probably very boring to read about. what else has happened?
- andrei and i went to the movies last weekend, while i was still house-sitting. the movie we went to see ended up being irredeemably bad. i didn't have particularly high expectations, but the movie was worse than the worst i could have imagined. and then we got caught in a rainstorm that was so heavy it was hard to see to drive home. real lemon of a night, lol.
- i made it to yoga class for the first time in a bit. really need to do that more, i could tell my body really needed it.
- working on a printed publication for my job. learning some new things. also my bosses are doing some neighborhood environmental advocacy that they pulled me into briefly.
- moving back into my own house after two weeks required many small tasks that added up to a lot (between resetting their house and settling back into mine). i think i'm finally back to "normal" now.
- i haven't watched it for the past few days since i haven't had time, but i've continued to watch la casa de las flores in spanish. considering i am still not very good at speaking spanish, i'm amazed at how much i can understand.
- i also have been listening to a lot of celia cruz (known as the "queen of salsa"). i think that cuban salsa is my favorite form of latin music.
- i started an orthodonic treatment with clear aligners (think off-brand invisalign). honestly they are extremely annoying but manageable. my dentist believes that they will help my dental/gum health, so it's not just for aesthetic purposes. the main impact is that i have to constrain all of my eating and drinking besides water into a few short periods of time per day, so i cannot just drink tea and nibble tiny pieces of chocolate all day (boo).
- i bought a 2027 planner already! lol.
i read a blog post earlier about how it's a good thing to share your "scraps" — a.k.a. small snapshots of works-in-progress, behind the scenes process things and discarded things. i definitely already have this in my ideals, but it's a good reminder to put it into practice more. sometimes, i just assume that people don't really care, and perhaps they don't exactly notice if i'm not doing it (especially online, it's not like there's a shortage of things to look at). but if i do do it, i think it helps create a better atmosphere where things don't need to be so precious and polished. and i like seeing when other people do it, so if it encourages them to do so too, that's also nice.
ok, i'm tired so that's all for now. bye!
