Daily - 2025-11-28

Previously…

Yesterday recap

It was a good day. Wife and I got up at our normal time, but the kids slept in a little. After breakfast wife realized we missed something one of the kids loves for our Thanksgiving snack table, so she zipped out to the store. Once back the gorls had breakfast and we watched the dog show.

I was never able to get a reliable stream for the parade, so we had to skip for the first time in like 8 years.

About midday my sister came by with her two of her three kids for about an hour. We chatted while the kids played and then we put out the snack table. During this time we got an update on their youngest who was born with a heart condition and had surgery right after birth. They are now due for their next heart surgery and will happen some time in the next 3 months. The little dude recently turned one and he’s been doing great. This is just something he’s gonna have for the rest of his life as my sister was telling us how many other surgeries he will need. Obviously the whole family is rallying around my sisters family to help them however we can.

I put on the Chiefs/Cowboys game and we all chilled for a couple hours. About 2PM we all got dressed in our fancy clothes. We like to get dressed up for these holidays, even if we aren’t going out.

We have special names for the children and I should probably clarify because I’m going to start referring to them with our insider names for my future posts.

• Our two youngest daughters = the gorls
• Our son = the boy
• Our oldest daughter and her fiance = the kids

The kids came by about 3PM. After an hour or so we had our talent show. I started it with my magic routine, which I fucking nailed. I thought for sure I was going to mess up the order of operations on one of the tricks, but I got it.

Oldest went next and she got a ridiculously high score with a song for Just Dance 3. She loves to play that game and has scores I didn’t think were possible. Then she did this one and hit perfect on every single move.

Next was the littlest gorl. Little background, we got a pug puppy about a year and half ago from my brother-in-law’s parents. Originally we weren’t going to get one because we like to pick animals from the shelter. But then the BIL parents told us someone backed out of taking a puppy so they had an extra. The gorls went by to see them and then next thing I knew we had a pug named Strawberry. Strawberry and the littlest gorl and absolutely ride or die best friends. For her talent show contribution she showed all the tricks she has taught Strawberry.

Older gorl was next up, but she became overwhelmed and very nervous. She is highly sensitive and some sensory processing troubles, so this wasn’t a surprise. But, she said she was the one that came up with the idea and didn’t want to back out and be the only one who didn’t perform, which was worse because it was her idea to have the show. She eventually said she would try to do it after dinner.

She had been practicing for a little over a week and put in a lot of effort, so it was breaking her heart that she couldn’t do her performance.

Right before dinner we took our annual family photo. This time it had to be inside because it was raining cats and dogs.

We had dinner, which as fantastic.

After dinner, older gorl went into another room and practiced. Littlest gorl helped her, too. Littlest gorl is an amazing sister with a huge heart and is always helping older gorl. Older gorl announced she was ready.

This is one of the most inspiring thing I’ve ever seen. She was so nervous before dinner that it overwhelmed her. But, she was resolute. She had practiced her dance routine all week and wasn’t going to back out, no matter how scared she was. She performed a dance number she created to one of her favorite songs and did it in front of everyone in the house. She fucking nailed it! I’m so proud of her. These things are so hard for her, but quitting wasn’t an option in her mind. She came up with the talent show idea, she put in the work, she wasn’t going to back out no matter how scared she was. It is one of the bravest things I have ever seen.

After we all hung out and we had some great conversations with the kids. About 7:30PM the kids left for home and we got the gorls ready for bed. Then wife, the boy, and I watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, another annual tradition. Finally, off to bed.

Gratitude

I have an amazing family that I got to spend the entire day with.

Todo

Chores

• Post Thanksgiving clean-up. Lots of stuff needs to be cleaned and put away.
• Last of the yard clean-up before winter. I knocked down the fenceline previously, now I need to mow the back grass and throw out a few things. Then the yard will sit until Spring.
• Decorate xmas tree and put up decorations, including our yard Santa.

Fun

• I believe my brother is going to come by. Sometimes he backs out on these trips, he lives about an hour away. He won’t back out completely. What it will be is he will back out today, but come by tomorrow or Sunday. He does goofy stuff like this all the time.

Projects

• Change up the data layout for my new EDC setup. I am going to try out using the Dell 7490 as my EDC and I a big part of this project is bringing a ton of offline data. I wrote a blog post about some “wrong ideas only” and a portable homelab/EDC desktop clone. One of the ideas I actually liked, which is to spread the data out over a few external drives that can be plugged in as-needed. I’m gonna have a think about what data will go on which drives and start configuring.

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