§ The week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve has become one of my favorite times of the year. With all of the holiday preparations out of the way and work projects buttoned up it feels like I can finally wind down and fully enjoy a few vacation days.
§ It was a book-heavy Christmas this year. Caroline gave me The Art of Play which helped feed my much-discussed dream to design a playground.
Caroline and I both got an electric snow blower as well. I have to admit that I’m now, for the first time in recent memory, looking forward to our next big snowstorm so I can give it a spin. Unfortunately/fortunately we have had unseasonably warm weather since Christmas.
§ I know I’m veering into way too much weather talk territory but it really has been bizarrely warm here the past couple of days. Yesterday was 55°f, today is forecasted to be 60°f, which is more than 20° warmer than the late-December average here. The warmest ever temperature on this day in Cleveland was December 29, 1889 which reached 66°. So close.
§ I think I’ve finally settled on a use for the Action Button: toggling the flashlight.
Since getting this phone I’ve bounced between a number of less-boring options—adding a note to Obsidian, triggering voice dictation, opening ChatGPT, toggling a focus mode, activating Control Center—but every time I would forget to use it after a day or two.
Assigning the Action Button to the flashlight lets me turn on and off the flashlight super quickly without needing to fiddle around poking at the screen. If this doesn’t stick, I think I’ll finally give in and assign it to run my tea timer shortcut. A physical tea button does sound pretty great.
§ This year I decided to focus on the theme of curiosity. Was it successful? It is hard to say. Frankly, I ended up forgetting about the theme entirely for large swaths of the year.
Switching gears, I want 2025 to be the year of tiny everyday improvements. Here are a few right off the jump:
- Replace my crappy kitchen measuring cups
- Properly level my washing machine so it stops shaking around during its spin cycle
- Fix my sliding closet door that often sticks
- Everything related to my car
My hope is that “tiny everyday improvements” will be more clearly actionable than “curiosity” and that will keep it more present in my mind as the year goes on.
§ This year I started titling these weeknotes. Some weeks are harder than others to title but I do have a few standout favorites. I liked Millennial Americana, One or Two Wasps, Noisy Rubber, and Chilly Driftwood but I think we can all agree there is no topping 100 Screaming Macaws from back in March.
§ Ok, see you next year.
