Greetings, folks, from the leisurely period between Christmas and New Years where you never quite know what day it is.

I had a little bit of a bout of illness here the last couple of days (my spouse too – I blame my kid back from college, which is fair, I was sick every year right after finals – she knocked a 3.5 out of her first semester, though – works for me), but I’m mostly back in the swing of things now.

The last couple of days, I’ve been playing with recipes in my Instant Pot pressure cooker (and then some) that my lovely spouse got me for Christmas – so far, I’ve knocked out some excellent refried beans (from dried beans to creamy taco-filling goodness in 30 minutes), a decent pot roast (from which I learned some things) and a middling cheesecake (again, a learning experience, though it didn’t stop the girls from eating it all within hours). I have plans to do an ersatz roasted whole chicken, and maybe a few other things before my break’s out. It’s been fun, learning how to incorporate a pressure cooker into my tool kit.

Since Christmas, it’s largely felt like winter, which is nice. the week or so prior (which I also had off – use-or-lose leave is a thing I deal with), it was brushing 70 – I rode almost 30 miles on the bike! I accomplished a lot around the house, though – I fixed the toilet (replacing all the innards), re-arranging my drawers, and picking up new kitchen table chairs at IKEA. Since Christmas, I’ve still been accomplishing some things, but I’ve been lying a bit lower, resting off the kid-provided illness, doing laundry, and finishing off James S.A. Corey’s “Babylon’s Ashes”, the sixth book in the excellent Expanse series of novels. I also held a small memorial service for the microwave, which died tragically last night – luckily, a decent replacement was on sale at Target this morning.

Also, today, we took the kids to see The Last Jedi, which I enjoyed just as much the second time. Some people are complaining about it, but again, it felt like equal parts deconstruction (which we’re due for after nine movies, a canon TV series, and bunches and bunches of EU tie-in media) and homage ot Empire. Again, though (and I think I said this in the last post), it felt like it could easily have been an ending to things, rather than part eight of nine. The spouse caught the force broom this time, however.

Oh well – I’ve got a week to go before I have to enter the world again. Gonna mostly just chill at home, I think. The youngest is agitating to play My Little Pony: Tales of Equestria, the MLP RPG, which I need to work through a bit, and I gotta think a bit about Marscon, where the Humdingers are musical Guests of Honor in a couple of weeks, so I should probably pick up the bass and dust off some of the Fantastic Geeks… tunes.

I’ll probably just end up drinking whiskey and playing Civilization, though, like I’m doing tonight.