Still alive
Yeah, yeah... I stopped writing while travelling in Europe in May, and then didn't start again because -- get this -- I didn't want to have to click the button saying the retro-posts I planned to make about the Europe trip should display out of order.
Not dead. Kinda getting through, week by week. Work is highly variable and we're under review again, this time with the spotlight firmly on my team and the other team that should have been merged last year. Doing tango classes with Beloved. I've had a fun series of Ultimate teams, and acknowledged that I enjoy indoor, while I endure outdoor. Reading individual patterns from A pattern language to each other as we think about what to do with the house. Enjoyed Winter Weekend with 50-ish mostly-old mostly-KAOS friends at Mt Hutt Retreat. Still playing lots of EVE.
Next week Beloved and I will have been married for 14 years, and together in some form or other for 19 years. It's quite a long time.
Next week we also plan to zero our mortgage. Haven't yet decided about whether to make it go away -- having on-call finance to draw down does have some attractions -- but we'll be truly debt-free. It's both a good feeling and... the end of an underlying goal which has guided choices for years. We have an ongoing discussion about whether to improve our current place, move to somewhere 'better', or build from scratch. That opens up all sorts of questions about aspiration, consumer desire, financial prudence, opportunity costs, and how we want to live our lives. So, existential questions around house decisions.
With the whole "no, we're not going to have kids" thing from last year, and now this, I'm feeling oddly like a young empty-nester. I've been joking for ages about scheduling a mid-life crisis, and the joke date for that is now "this summer". Knowing me I won't get around to it then, but it does feel like a time for questioning and the possibility of change.
Not dead. Kinda getting through, week by week. Work is highly variable and we're under review again, this time with the spotlight firmly on my team and the other team that should have been merged last year. Doing tango classes with Beloved. I've had a fun series of Ultimate teams, and acknowledged that I enjoy indoor, while I endure outdoor. Reading individual patterns from A pattern language to each other as we think about what to do with the house. Enjoyed Winter Weekend with 50-ish mostly-old mostly-KAOS friends at Mt Hutt Retreat. Still playing lots of EVE.
Next week Beloved and I will have been married for 14 years, and together in some form or other for 19 years. It's quite a long time.
Next week we also plan to zero our mortgage. Haven't yet decided about whether to make it go away -- having on-call finance to draw down does have some attractions -- but we'll be truly debt-free. It's both a good feeling and... the end of an underlying goal which has guided choices for years. We have an ongoing discussion about whether to improve our current place, move to somewhere 'better', or build from scratch. That opens up all sorts of questions about aspiration, consumer desire, financial prudence, opportunity costs, and how we want to live our lives. So, existential questions around house decisions.
With the whole "no, we're not going to have kids" thing from last year, and now this, I'm feeling oddly like a young empty-nester. I've been joking for ages about scheduling a mid-life crisis, and the joke date for that is now "this summer". Knowing me I won't get around to it then, but it does feel like a time for questioning and the possibility of change.