Started preparing for painting the barn Sunday, 15-Feb-26 20:25:54 CET

Sunday, 22-Feb-26 20:06:36 CET

The west wall of the barn was painted

This week I brought my violin for repair. We set up the old Dutch baroque cupboard and repopulated it. The west wall of the barn was painted.

Monday 16 February

When I came home from the course in Austerlitz, I was mentally exhausted. It started snowing, but it didn't last long. It was perhaps 1 centimeter and white in the morning.

Last week I did not write that much. This week, I would like to address that. Also, it feels like the blog's spirit has gone stale lately. I want it to be more vigorous. At the same time, I am recovering from a busy weekend and have some projects going on, so it is, as it always is: I am juggling more balls simultaneously.

I have not been talking about my stiff neck at all. When I plastered, I developed a stiff neck. I kept it steadfast. Over the weekend, I had hoped that I would be better and I could move my head freely, but I still have pain in my neck. This did not improve over the weekend.

We both worked from home today. I tried to make the iRobot clean the house. The ground floor went fine, but there was an issue with the first floor. I couldn't figure out what the issue was. The result was that the guest room was cleaned twice, but the rest was skipped.

In the evening, I worked on last week's blog. I uploaded it with a collage of the films I had taken throughout the weekend.

Tuesday 17 February

So now it is Tuesday morning, and I am driving to work. I slept really well last night. Merida had been missing me. She came to lie next to me, licking my nose a little and purring loudly straight into my ear.

Today, I will remember to make an appointment at the violin shop to see if they can repair the violin.

At the course in Austerlitz, I spoke to Ellen. Many years ago, she had a friend, Helga, who was also attending courses and played a song from Jämtland in Sweden. Well, Helga is of age and recently developed dementia. I talked to Ellen about Helga. We both miss Helga.

I liked the song that Helga played. Ellen likes it too, and I wanted to practice the song together with Ellen. When doing so, Ellen presented me with a challenge: Let us practice the song so that we can present it on stage at a future gathering. It will be good.

I’m on my way home. It’s currently 3.5°C. Today it has been sunny and raining intermittently. It was a nice day at work. I was productive, that was good. We already rolled out the product in many countries, but I am currently working on an additional feature that will be released in a separate phase. This next phase brings extra functionality to the previous features. Our customers are loving it, I can see that on the statistics and the feedback, so that is good.

During lunch, I told my colleagues about the music weekend. By doing so, I recalled I had to call the violin repair shop. I called the violin repair shop, and they had time for me on Friday. Erica, the Central HR Regional Onboarding Specialist, told me that her daughter also plays violin. I was not aware of this. Ed, the division cost center owner, was considering starting to play the keyboard as well. One of his sons had stopped playing keyboard, and it was now collecting dust. He had seen that it is more fun to learn to play instruments in this day and age. We will see how that works. It is nice to hear that colleagues pursue creative hobbies. I like that. It was sunny during lunch. We were lit up by the winter sun.

In the evening, I practiced the tunes from the course in Austerlitz. It went well in practice. I decided to continue practicing these tunes from time to time.

Wednesday 18 February

Today I worked from home, and DW had a day off. Well, she had a busy day, actually. She continued on the painting project. She brush-painted all corners and cavities where the roller cannot reach.

It was sunny today, and it was beautiful. In the morning, the temperature was around freezing.

Today, I decided I will wear a scarf until my neck heals. My work proceeded very well. After work we had lunch. Lately, Merida has been jumping up to our table. We put strands of tape with the sticky side up. If she were to jump up on the table, she would get stuck in the tape, and she hates that. That will keep her away from the table for a couple of months. Today we had toast bread for lunch! DW said that the tablecloth had more wrinkles than necessary. She would need to treat it for wrinkles the next time it is washed.

After lunch, DW continued the painting project. I dismantled a cupboard in the guestroom so we could make room for the old Dutch baroque cupboard from MIL's old house.

Thursday 19 February

I discovered that Merida had gotten stuck in a tape trap and made a ball of it.

Today, both DW and I went to our respective offices. When we stepped out of the house, I noticed a couple of stray snowflakes swirling around in the air. In the south, I heard it had snowed one centimeter overnight. I know it is a hassle with snow and most people hate it, but I grew up with snow, sometimes a lot of snow, and I get childishly happy about seeing snowflakes falling from the sky. The climate is heating. Right now, we are 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels. This winter is, in general, the coldest winter you will experience the rest of your life. That said, the weakening of the jet streams will not be able to hold the cold above the Arctic stable but instead let it slip and slant, causing more snow to fall, and a lot of it, in the future. It is surprising how a warmer world can cause colder winters, but that is how it can be.

I had a productive day! I got the new feature released. I published it first for our Dutch customers. When we know that the rollout is flawless, the feature will be rolled out to other countries as well. The business development manager was delighted. Today, Rita came to the office as well. She was feeling better.

During the folk music weekend, I had completely turned off the sound on my phone. I did not notice messages from DW that she was arriving by train. I came 15 minutes after her arrival. On the way home, we stopped at the farm shop to buy some bread for the pumpkin soup DW planned to make for us.

We still have a significant amount of pumpkins. I'd like to know whether we can use up the pumpkin stock before the next load is harvested. The soup was delicious and beautifully yellow.

This evening I learned that the Ukraine the latest podcast started a Ukraine the latest YouTube channel. That is good! Subscribe now!

Friday 20 February

Today I had a day off. I logged in to work on servers, and everything was fine. DW worked from home. She has some important meetings to attend today.

It was totally overcast and four degrees Celsius this morning. I will not work in the barn today. Right now, the barn is in DW's hands for painting, so there is no progress on that today.

It has been a long stretch of intense work on the barn, and it is finally starting to come to an end. Currently, we have the tools in a heap in the middle of the workshop of the barn. That is highly inconvenient. I would so much like to tidy up those things so I can use the workshop conveniently. I would also like to finish the studio in the house. The studio is the last room in the house to be unfinished, and until a couple of weeks ago, we called it the workshop. We decided to give it another name: the studio or atelier.

This morning, I edited the recordings I made during the music weekend. I removed irrelevant things at the beginning of the recordings, and I’m using Clipchamp for this. It’s a very simple program. After shuffling files around for a while, OneDrive gave up, and I stopped editing.

This morning, I also worked on emptying a cupboard on the first floor. The idea is to swap cabinets so that the guestroom has a narrower cabinet, and in the hallway by the stairs, we will have the latest old Dutch baroque cabinet with mysterious letters on the top. I did not finish moving the cabinets.

In the afternoon, I drove to Baarn and the violin repair shop van der Knaap Violbouw. When I started the ride, the car was at 188857 kilometers, the temperature was 7.5°C, and it was overcast.

I was ten minutes early, so I went for a walk around the block. It is a small city with 1930s-style housing. Small and cute, but in urgent need of renovation, if that has not already been done. The block was bigger than I had anticipated. There were little streets inwards, but they were all dead ends, or semi-private car parks. It took me a while to understand the block's geometry and that it was better to use a map. By then, people had already sent me a look like "you don't belong here". They did not say anything.

I recorded the visit to the violin shop. Here is the recording. It is in Dutch. This recording is a little like "Jens blog radio".

I arrived at the violin shop right on time. The green entrance door featured a magnificent, heavy, black-iron ornamental detail in the shape of an animal—perhaps a dog or a wolf. The shop is bigger than you think. In the first room, there is a counter, and there I presented the lady owner with my violin and told her about the crack in the neck.

The lady told me that in about 3 years, they will close their shop because they are getting old. She called for her husband to have a look at the violin. They examined my violin and the crack on the neck. The violin maker could point out that the violin had undergone several modifications, and I think my grandfather made them.

Essentially, the body of the violin is one original part. It started as a baroque violin. The neck is part of the original violin. Then the fingerboard, the black part below the strings, has been wedged to change the angle. The violin maker had a measuring device showing that the fingerboard should actually be wedged up even more. The fingerboard should be flush with the pin on his measuring device.

It is not an expensive violin as such, but it was my grandfather's, and I like its sound. The maker said it was harder to play the violin at higher settings than it should be on a violin. Well, we agreed on a price to install a larger wedge, and he would start work on it. I thought the repair costs would be higher.

I was not aware that my violin was originally baroque. I had to look up the differences when I came home. The baroque violin neck is indeed more parallel to the violin body, whereas on modern, regular violins, the neck leans back from the body.

When I was done at the violin shop, I decided to drive carefully so I could stop at a parking space when the kilometer counter reached an even number.

I drove to the parking lot of a nearby castle. Castle Groeneveld. I was closer, but not enough, so I drove to a second-hand shop, still not at the magic number. I went to the local recycling center. Here I arrived at the magic number and could park! We bought the car new in 2013. We will see how long we can drive this car. It serves us well.

While I was out and about, DW had another important meeting. It went well! She was pleased when I came home.

I continued on the cupboard project. Moved all the parts to the first floor. When DW finished her workday, she came to help me assemble the cupboard.

After this achievement, we went to the grocery store and bought deep-frozen pizza. DS came to dine with us. It was a great evening.

Saturday 21 February

It’s a beautiful day, really beautiful: 10 °C and sunny, not that much wind. I woke up this morning at 7:00, and it was Merida who woke me up. DW kept sleeping, and I went downstairs to give Merida her breakfast. I had a magnificent sleep, with a score of 92. For breakfast, I made DW's favorite smoothie, raspberry and red currant. Also had pear, banana, apple, and orange juice in the smoothie.

I tried to let Merida out into the beautiful weather. She was curious about the birds chirping and playing around in the garden, but she was not interested in going out by herself. "How many times do I have to tell you there are three requirements for going out in the garden: 1. It has to be sunny. 2. It has to be above 20 degrees Celsius. 3. It has to be windstill."

We talked about how successful yesterday was and how we are feeling about it. Usually, when DW is successful at her work, she identifies a risk and, not only that, informs a very high-ranking manager about it, and that manager listens to her. That last part is sometimes the most challenging.

DW started painting the barn while I loaded the red cupboard into the car trunk. I fastened the parts thoroughly to prevent them from flying around and crashing into the windshield in case I made a sudden break.

When I was about to drive away, I wanted to dictate, but I discovered I had misplaced one of my new lavalier microphones. I was horrified and started blaming myself for being reckless. Those new microphones are tiny, so I need to put them back into the rechargeable case when I'm done. Always.

I was really angry at myself. I could not find the microphone clipped to my clothing, and I could not recall doing anything with it when I arrived yesterday evening. I searched the usual places but couldn’t find it, so I decided to use my other microphone since I got two.

When I took on my seat belt, I found that the missing microphone was clipped onto the seat belt, hurray!!

During this short incident, I already had that dreadful feeling coming over me that I can feel when I lose something, it’s like I lost a part of my soul, intense, dreadful. And now I was healed. I recovered from a rock-bottom state to a great feeling in a couple of minutes. Life can be a roller coaster.

Happy and relieved, I went to the farmers' market to replenish our supply of nuts: walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, and cashews. I parked in a clay water puddle, and I felt the joy of a child when the water splashed up.

Then I continued to the second-hand shop to offer them the disassembled cupboard. They did not want to have it unless I stood there and mounted it back together again. They received a box with shoes, a clock, and Nintendo Game Boy games.

I had a few other options rather than disposing of the cupboard. I could go back home, fetch the tools, or borrow from the second-hand shop and mount that thing in their carport. I could mount it at home and take it back on a trailer. None of these sounded like attractive options.

I continued to our regular recycling station to see if they wanted the old cupboard. Of course, they wanted it.

The cupboard will no longer be standing in someone's room. It will, however, provide the municipality with energy when they burn the cupboard. I kept the hinges and the screws, so if I want to make something similar on my own, then I have spare parts. The only challenge with that is that I need to create a good order on all those nice-to-have things, but I’m pretty sure I’m able to create that order in the new barn.

When driving home from the recycling center, the sunny weather had given way to overcast gray skies, and the temperature was 11°C. When I came home, I stepped out of the car, and I thought to myself, I had to put the microphone away so that I would not lose it again. I could not find it! With the blink of an eye, I was back in my dreadful mood. It could not be true. I searched the front seat, the pockets, and the car's floor. No, nothing. I inspected the seatbelt, and there it was! Now I have done the same thing twice, it is amazing!

Yesterday, after my adventure at the recycling centre, I went to the train station to pick up DD. DD and DW have planned a soap-making workshop together with a friend of DD. When her friend arrived, the three ladies started the workshop led by DW. They mixed oils in fats with water and lab lye. They added a few cents to make the soap smell nice. So this is a friend of DD, not the friend.

The living room turned into a girl's zone, so I retreated to my office and worked on the blog and on editing sounds from the music course last weekend.

When the soap-making workshop was finished, the kitchen area had a strong soap smell. For me, it was fine, but Merida had a hard time coping with strangers and intense smells. She was not happy.

After the workshop, DD's friend went home, and we had a simple dinner together. We had the rest of the pumpkin soup that DW made on Thursday. It was nice to have DD on a visit. We caught up on stories from the past months.

Sunday 22 February

Today we had a slow morning. We had an overall slow day. I have something going on in my joints, which is not a good thing. I decided to embrace doing less for a day and socialize with my dear daughter and my dear wife.

DD and DW populated the new cupboard with glasses. They arranged the shapes to enhance the symmetry. I need to do something about the lamp above the cupboard. It is now hanging over all this splendor as a misplaced sore thumb at the end of a curled case pipe. We got spotlights for this lamp, but that's something I will work on another day.

Merida was still a bit annoyed about the stinking perfume and strangers bringing unfamiliar cat smells. She found a new place to hide amid the atelier's mess. Can you find her?

We talked over the plans for about three weeks. The idea is for DW, DD, the friend, and me to go to our farm in Sweden and repair the roof of the wood storage house. More about this project later.

DW went to the barn to continue on the painting project. She feels that I am keen on keeping the project progressing. She was done with the corner painting and started rolling the first walls. She finished the west wall with the two windows and a large double door. I am confident that she will finish the painting next Wednesday. Perhaps.

I drove DD to the train station; it was nice to have both kids on a visit the same weekend. DD was impressed by my new microphone system. DD is a videographer, and she could see the need for a system like this as well.

Here ends this week's blog. I am back at a healthy word count, and I have regained the blog's vigor the way I like it most. I wrote 3387 words this week! Welcome back next week!