legibility

Of course, simplicity is good, etc. You might think: “it’s my own house, I can learn the complicated ways it works.” But a house is rarely only yours; it belongs to your family/housemates and guests too. So even simple things like “you have to push the dishwasher door to the left in order to open it” become real problems.

All of this is to say, I bought a label maker and have been labeling everything.

bits of plastic

It’s surprising to me how much stuff in a house is held in by like, a little screw into a little bracket that sort of holds the thing on, screwed into a stud or maybe just a bit of drywall, whatever!

Do wall anchors really work?? yikes

An obvious instance of this is a door-frame pull-up bar. You can put your whole weight on this? And it’s not going to pull down your door frame? well, ok

enjoy your connections

that’s sort of what this post is about. we think we want to be more free but actually what makes us happier is being more connected. being connected feels like being bound, which makes us (Americans at least) chafe. I suspect it’s a balance thing.

or this, about contact vs networking. When I think about it, “doing favors for people” seems nice. That suggests I’m not overburdened by people asking for favors. I’m also really really bad at saying no, though, so I’m leery of getting close to the “having to say no sometimes” line. Still, the fact that my instinct is “I’d like to do more favors for neighbors/etc” suggests I ought to edge more toward being more connected.

kids: do less

I’m reading this blog by “Teacher Tom” a lot, and as much as I’m worried about just reinforcing my biases, I like his philosophy about kids. Seems like it’s largely “fuss less.” Let them play, geez. Everyone will be happier.

Relatedly: sleep training - man I dunno, teaching them to figure themselves out seems way better for everyone than coddling them for many more months.