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Jamie v5.0.0

Today I turn fifty! šŸŽ‰

I don’t find that I have a lot of profundity to share. But here are some thoughts…

  • I have never regretted being generous.

  • Most things are much more “in the middle” than I used to think. Right and wrong. True and false. Binary things. Often things are not that simple.

  • Our time is finite. And despite the saying “time is money”, it isn’t. You have control over money. You have no control over time being spent, only how it is spent.

  • Many things are positioned is this or that, when they can easily be this and that.

  • Iā€™m amazed at how much Buddhism got right so very long ago about attention, being present, mindfulness.

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Wicky Thing Tealights

Yesterday I made more 12oz candles, as well as some tealight candles. After realizing that the small tealights needed to be on a towel to slow down cooling they came out great. Today I did a burn test on four of them. The wood wick still gives a great crackling sound, even at the small size. Burn time is impressive at 5 hours or more. Good scent throw too for such a small candle.

I’ll keep a number of these around because you always have little bits of extra wax when making candles and having tealights to fill up would be a great way to use that.

Four lit gold metal tealight candles with wood wicks burning on a marble countertop, the closest candle in sharp focus with a tall flame
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We made it 662 days into the pandemic before having a confirmed COVID-19 exposure. We are all vaccinated and three of us are boosted. šŸ¤žšŸ¦ 

Bummer for me that it happened the day before my birthday. šŸ˜¬

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New reported Covid-19 cases via The New York Times. I wonder what this Omicron spike would like like without vaccines. The slope of that climb is incredible.

Line chart of U.S. daily Covid-19 cases from Feb 2020 to late 2021 showing a dramatic vertical spike at the end far exceeding prior peaks near 250,000.
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First attempt at making tealight candles along with some regular Things 4 Good candles. Requires precision for 0.5 oz pour. Towel under the tealights is to slow down cooling. First ones I let sit on counter and the wax tunneled as it cooled too fast. šŸ•Æ

Handmade tealight candles in black and gold tins with wooden wicks cooling on a green towel beside larger black candle vessels
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POAP 3398636 at Jamie Thingelstad's 50th Birthday.

Vinyl record design for Jamie Thingelstad's 50th Half Century Birthday Jam January 3rd POAP 2022
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Blokus is another New Years Eve tradition. Tyler (Blue) won this year with just 4 points left. Tammy (Green) with 8, Jamie (Red) with 11, and Mazie (Yellow) at 21.

Blokus board game near end of play with blue, green, red, and yellow translucent tiles filling most of the white grid.
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Every New Years Eve we play Clue and for the first time in memory I won! On my very first turn I guessed Mustard, Knife, Lounge and randomly hit both the weapon and room. I got it down to two people and then had to guess because I thought someone else would get it. šŸ†

Clue board game in progress with character tokens on the board, detective notesheet with crossed-off suspects, and Knife and Mrs. Peacock cards face up.
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Shelfie of next round of books my book club is reading: The Blocksize War (my pick), Empire of Pain, The Florentines paired with Aeschylus I (only first section), Addiction by Design, and Mni Sota Makoce. Iā€™m looking forward to all of them! šŸ“š

Stack of six books on a dark table: The Blocksize War, Aeschylus I, Addiction by Design, Empire of Pain, The Florentines, and Mni Sota Makoce.
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Time for our traditional New Years Eve fondue dinner.

Cuisinart pot of melted cheese fondue on a burner stand beside a cutting board with cubed bread pieces