been thinking about how i want the next decade to take shape for me....  obviously a lot of this has been kickstarted by 'okay, you're moving, this is what it's going to look like with the new home pad, location, and its own pros and cons'.

then there's also the other factor that a few vent-y posts have been written up and deleted in my head about how there's a wide swath of the internet and things-adjacent-to-the-internet (post 2010 social media, etc) that i simply don't feel like being around anymore. (minus dreamwidth, i can at least trust this site to be there, and to be mostly a similar flavor of dry life and fandom observations a decade later.)

so what do i like? something that's become obvious in the last decade is i like learning new skills all the time - generally centered somewhere around the STEM/STEAM skills. frankly i'm learning so much more about technical art skills both in the dayjob and with $kradeelav_handle art right now than i did in college. loving that. want to do even more of that versus scrolling! (if you follow me on bsky, you might notice me moving all the follows back to rss feeds, this is partially part of all of this. a digital deep clean if you will.)

and this new physical home/location opens up a lot of similar .... deep? real-world skills to learn that just haven't been an option before. for example:

* new space is going to allow for so much more privacy and an actual office space for me where i can spread out a bit. figurines on floating shelves!!! uninterrupted stints of drawing hours!!!! finally :D  i'm kind of an architectural snob in some ways so having space truly aesthetically pleasing and made for me for the first time in my life is ... a big goal accomplished.

* i want to learn how to cook! :o the new place will have an actually accessible kitchen (!!!!!!) (sink, oven, stovetop, etc), so this opens up a huge, huge potential for the first time in my life. being able to cook international dishes (thai, middle eastern, actually good ramen) that i like versus having to rely on others (and their taste........ that is sometimes different than mine......) or doordashing in stuff from a few select places is. hell yeah. i also suspect this is going to be a strong bonding moment between my mom (famously good cook) and me as well.

* similarly, but on a more somber note, kinda strongly suspect some end of life care for family members is in the cards this decade; personally kind of uniquely suited for understanding just how emotional work goes into organizing caregivers, medical tedium, understanding that dying is Not Pretty but there's ways to handle it with dignity, etc, and i like these specific family members well enough to be around for a lot of this as long as i have that guaranteed office to retreat to. so kind of mentally.... slotting that in as 'this will take some time and emotional energy'

* i want to git gud at self hosting and the nerdier pre-2000's essential sysadmin skills; this new space is going to have enough room for a full fledged server closet for me where i'll have enough room to go crazy with three fiddy thousand computers :D  i'd like to also tinker with hardware more; be able to fix old hardware (eg, the old wii if it breaks), or build a rig or two.

* thankfully work is still remote given some unique accessibility stuff and i've kind of weaseled myself in a pretty sweet spot there politically so i'm not.... too worried with all of that. there are more reasons i'm not hugely worried about the dayjob, but being permanently remote is also an additionally good reason to hone those sysadmin skills.

anyway the more i rotate 'this is what you're planning to fill your life with for the next decade' regarding the above, the more excited i get. think that's a good sign.