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Dad Stuff

My daughter is 10 months old! Time is flying. It seems like she has learned something new every couple of days. As I write, the newest developments are that her top front teeth are coming in, she’s loving waving and clapping, we’re trying out cloth diapers, and when we ask her to say “dada” or “mama” she consistently replies “dada” to either.

I’m soaking up every moment with her, particularly laying on the floor and letting her crawl over and attack me while we giggle together. I got teary-eyed the other day as I held her while she slept and I thought about how someday I won’t be able to hold her anymore and these days will feel like a distant, warm memory. All the more reason to really be present, put the phone down, and take in each moment as completely as I can.

Creating

I’ve been feeling extra creative lately! I’ve been writing on the blog, I set up a digital garden at garden.weidok.al, which I am mostly using to share my sermon notes and Readwise notes, and I created an app called Fed Meetup! I would have thought that becoming a dad meant I would have way less time, but somehow it has opened me up to being more creative. Funny how things work out not at all how I expect!

I’ve also been considering starting up a newsletter. I like the idea of having a commitment to write weekly within a single topic, and writing about something that is useful to others. The newsletter would be for average computer users/office workers, and would be about tips to use a computer just a little bit better. Things like hotkeys, workflows, apps, lesser-known parts of the OS, or anything that could help people be just a touch more efficient on a computer. If that sounds like something you would read and subscribe to, let me know!

Work

We launched the NASA Cause Analysis Tool! I’ve been the product manager for this app since it was approved to be funded back in April of last year, and it’s hard for me to believe that we already have working production software! Now that it’s released, we’re focused on releasing it, again and again. There’s a lot more functionality yet to be added, but I’m excited to have it available to users so we can get feedback as we build new increments. I’d like to write a post sharing more about this.

It’s performance review time of the year at NASA, so I just finished up my self-assessment and feedback for coworkers. I’m learning to love this time of year, as it forces me to reflect on the past year, which is something I would like myself to do anyways. I’m thinking about writing a blog post about my highlights from this year at NASA.

There are so many exciting things going on right now, some of them I briefly mentioned in my post about my day earlier this week. While it’s busy, I feel fortunate to be in this place at this time. I would have never thought I’d be doing all these cool things and working on projects that reach across the whole agency.

Faith and Friends

So many babies are being born! I’m not sure how many since my last update, but I think we’ve added around 5 new babies among our church group since then. It has been fun sharing the joy with everyone and helping out by participating in meal trains.

I’ve been really enjoying taking sermon notes in Obsidian, and then publishing them to my digital garden to share with my friends since we usually talk about the sermon from the past week when we get together on Thursday evenings. I’d like to write a post about how I’m using Obsidian on my phone to take sermon notes. With markdown formatting, Obsidian is so much easier to to format on-the-fly than other note-taking apps I’ve tried in the past. And I like digital better than analog for sermon notes because it’s searchable, I can easily copy/paste snippets of scripture, and I can take pictures during the sermon if needed and add them into the notes.

Lawn Care

That time of year has rolled around again… I’m focused on lawn care. I have a lot to learn here! When our house was built two years ago, they didn’t do a great job rockhounding the soil, so it’s tough and rocky and the grass comes up in patches. I tried re-seeding last year which helped a little, but not too much. I think I need to aerate.

Anyways, most of our grass is sickly but we had a couple of patches that grew up really fast and thick. They grew way quicker than I expected, so by the time I cut them they were too tall and I killed them so now we have some yellow patches in the back.

We’re planning to redo our flower beds soon. Those were installed for us but with no weed barrier or defined edge, so that has gotten out of control. I’m going to re-edge it and put in some landscaping rock instead of mulch because I do not want to deal with mulch every year.

Leisure

In between everything above, I’m trying to make time for disc golf with friends every now and then so they don’t pass me up :) I’ve also been enjoying reading “Foundation and Empire” by Isaac Asimov.

Exercise

Yeah…. Not been doing great here. With all my creative passion recently, I’ve thrown exercise to the side. I’m looking to change that though. The doc says I have elevated cholesterol and triglycerides, so it’s time to take exercise seriously and back off the carbs. I’m sad about taking time away from all the things above that I love, but there’s plenty of “gray” time in my day where I’m just distracted that I could take from instead. And I know from the past that getting into a good exercise routine will just bring me more energy and vigor, so it will be additive rather than subtractive. My wife and I tried some YouTube yoga together yesterday, but then as we were about to enter child’s pose she noticed a small spider in front of her face and that abruptly ended our session!