We went through layoffs at work recently. Like a lot of companies, the belt is tightening, and the bathtub drain is getting blugged. I’m lucky to have not been laid off. Lucky again - this is the third “surprise” layoff where I’ve kept my job. I’m batting 1.000 but I know my number has to come up sometime.

I graduated from college in 2009, 9 months into the Great Financial Crisis. I was lucky to get into a good graduate school on a stipend that paid my rent, and even luckier to be leaving undergraduate without student debt. I was lucky that when I needed to quit graduate school I could find a government job.

We all use dozens of pieces of software a day - email clients, web browser, email clients inside web browsers. Cameras and chat, digital art tools and spreadsheets. We switch between them dozens of times, and when we really get into a task, when can sometimes achieve a state of flow, a state of satisfying and effective effort that lets us accomplish more than we thought and enjoy it all the way.

I started taking paternity leave on my first daughter’s due date. (Un?)fortunately, she was born late, and I found myself with both a lot of free time, and a lot of pent-up anticipatory energy.

My workshop was a bit of a mess, since I’d acquired more tools - including a heavy miter saw and grinder. My mother-in-law was staying with us and helping with chores, so I decided to focus on cleaning up the shop. I built a sturdy set of shelves from scrap lumber and cheap sheathing plywood to hold my bench tools when they’re not in use.

I have a lot of guitars and ukuleles, and I was also feeling like I hadn’t played them enough. When we moved at one point, I sold all my guitars but one, but that honeslty didn’t last too long. Now that I own a home, it was high time to build myself a real place to keep them. Keeping instruments close at hand reduces my barriers to practice and play.