That week flew by and I have been too busy to write everything out. Once again I’m very glad I took photos because things tend to blur together.

January 26 – Day 26

I worked from home all day. An appraiser came to check out the house for the valuation for the mortgage of the buyers. A big step towards getting all the paperwork done for the sale in May. That evening, we went over to a friends house and picked up a new scooter-to-him for David. This one he has since used quite a bit. Yay for reusing perfectly fine objects and giving them a “new-life”.

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January 27 – Day 27

I visited the Amsterdam Book Center to see the Espresso Book Machine in person. The book center is retiring this machine and looking for a new home, it can print and bind a book in mere minutes, quite impressive. This particular machine is the oldest running in Europe - been in service for fifteen years.

That evening, I jumped on a call with other concerned US citizens to do our best to protect Democracy.

January 28 – Day 28

Another full day of working at home and taking the kids to tennis lesson and back home. That evening, I started reading one of my favorite books from my childhood - Island of the Blue Dolphins. There is so much to unpack from what I picked up as a child of this fiercely independent woman living on an island all by herself, and what I now understand now about the world and colonialism and more.

January 29 – Day 29

We woke up to a blanket of snow all over - more than just a dusting, but not too much. It made me a bit late to meet a woman in the morning and buy her guitar for Santi, but it all worked out as I gave her a ride to work.

I then went to IAE HQ in Amsterdam for a lunch meeting with Wikimedia Nederland to talk about how we could partner together throughout this year a bit.

Later that afternoon, I met with some really cool women and got to know them in person and talk about how to improve the world and actions we can take here in the Netherlands.

That evening, I brought Santi his new-to-him guitar and he was super happy with it. A definite upgrade from what he had been learning on before.

January 30 – Day 30

In the morning, I went back to Amsterdam for more in person meetings and picked Jeff up. We drove back down to Utrecht, picked up my guys and then we all took off on a road trip to Brussels!

That night, I went to a party and saw the biggest block of cheese ever - wow!

January 31 – Day 31

FOSDEM - that was A DAY! My goodness. FOSDEM stands for “Free and Open source Software Developers' European Meeting”. It is a two day conference in Brussels and 1000s of people come by to hear a multitude of talks on many different tracks.

We talked with an insane amount of people and luckily wonderful people brought us coffee, throat lozenges and one person even dropped off chocolate! I had a wonderful team of volunteers who helped run the stand and you can read the write up over on the work blog and see more photos.

February 1 – Day 32

Sunday was spent somewhat checking in with people and some with my family who experienced the “Junior” track. David got used to programming a bit with SNAP.

I drove us back home around 17:00, finally getting home around 20:00 and going “kerplunk” into bed after a very full weekend.

Artists are “hitting back“ with their powerful voices at the atrocities happening in Minneapolis and elsewhere. Bruce Springsteen wrote this song on Thursday, recorded on Friday and released on Saturday.

I am not saying anything new, but it is amazing the power of art to convey emotions, give voice to the voiceless and stand up to authoritarians.