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It’s a lesson I thought I’d learned the last time we sold a house. Live in your home the way you prepare it before you list it for sale. We’re doing the things we always said we’d do, but now it’s for someone else.

No, we’re not wasting money on extras for another, but we are fixing what we knew we needed to do from the first day of ownership. Sadly, it’s taken us six years to get to this point. Of course, entropy is real, and even more fixes must be done.

Take out the rotting tree. We’ll get to it one day. Restain and weather seal the front deck. Yep, we’ll figure it out. Get the chipped tile replaced in the kitchen. For sure, it has to be marked off of the to-do list.

Sadly, I have gotten to these for the benefit of the new family that will occupy their home that we prepared for them in a few months.

As we prepare to move into our new home, I’m determined to make this place special. No more “one day.” I want to live in the house my wife and I are dreaming about hand in hand as we get closer to closing.

LouPlummer writes:

SetApp is a monthly subscription service that offers access to 240 different Mac apps starting at $9.99 a month. I currently have 37 different applications from Setapp installed on my MacBook Air. Some of them are startup items that run all the time when my Mac is on. Others I use an a regular basis for maintenance and routine tasks. They have quite a few apps that I’ve purchased in the past but no longer have to pay for upgrades because they are now included in my plan. I’ve listed a dozen of my favorite programs from Setapp, along with their cost if purchased or subscribed to separately to give you an idea of what you can save with a subscription.

Check out his post to see the apps that make the subscription worth it. I also use SetApp and have different options that make my subscription pay for itself.

• Bartender

• Boom 3D

• Clop

• Hookmark

• Luminar Neo

• Nitro PDF Pro

• Spark Mail

• Gemini

Bartender

Do you have way too many menu bar items on your Mac? Yeah, me too. Get them under control. Hide them permanently or put them on a different shelf or in groups that you hit the button to see. Know what menu bar items are there even if you have a huge ugly notch in your MacBook Pro. Trigger specific bars by location, battery level, wifi connection, and time of day. You don’t know you need this app until you have it. ($16 for Bartender 5 without SetApp)

Boom 3D

This app makes music and movies sound amazing. You can play with 3D surround, various EQ presets, a volume booster, managing individual app volume levels, 20k radio stations, and a great local music player. I don’t know how it works, but it makes my cheap headphones and sound sticks sound great. ($25 for Boom 3D without SetApp)

Clop

Pika.page, where this blog is hosted, doesn’t process images. What you post is what it serves. Our iPhone photos and camera images are huge, so having an app that optimizes them to the smallest possible size with little to no loss in quality and places them in my clipboard ready for pasting is great. ($15 for lifetime license without SetApp)

Hookmark

Dude. Just start using this app. I use Craft as a second brain and project manager. It’s a great container for all the documents that accompany my projects and my resources folders. The problem is that when you open and modify the file, you must delete the old copy from Craft and re-drop the new one. Not optimal. With Hookmark, I can have folders with all my documents inside and create links to documents. Every edit and move around my hard drive are two-way linked. I tried explaining how I use it, but it’s robust and can do much more. You’ve got to check it out if you use a note-taking app that you’d like reference files connected to. ($69.99 year one. The app is updated every 12 months, and if you’d like to upgrade, it’s $34.99 each year without SetApp.)

Luminar Neo

Simply put, this app uses AI to edit your photos. Think of anything you’d like to do to make an image great. It does it effortlessly. ($143 annually without SetApp, but they’re always doing some kind of sale.)

Nitro PDF Pro

I hate using Acrobat. This app lets you edit PDF text, OCR, embed links and files, add images, notes, and annotations. You can convert PDF documents to apps in Office Suite. In addition, you can fill out sign and combine files. A fully featured and powerful PDF editor. ($179.00 as a one-time purchase without SetApp.)

Spark Mail

Yeah, it’s just an email app. The AI is terrible. Keep it turned off. It’s pretty and has everything modern email apps have. Still, I mainly use it because I can use Gmail shortcuts that require no modifier key. Hit one button, and you’ll be archiving, deleting, and moving up and down your inbox. ($59.99 annually without SetApp.)

Gemini

Find and delete duplicate files. That’s it. ($19.95 annually without SetApp.)

I was on the ground floor of Anchor in 2016 and quickly grew my very first podcast. The platform’s true genius lay in its ability to foster a tight-knit community where real conversations were had. Call-ins sparked discussions, and feedback was given daily.

We had these behind-the-scenes connections, but we were also reaching out to the broader world via an RSS feed. It felt like public radio. The draw of Anchor wasn’t in seeking external validation—feedback from beyond its ecosystem was virtually absent. Our joy came from the magic of the people within that special little app.

I don’t know why Anchor tanked. Maybe it was ahead of its time, or maybe Spotify’s acquisition ruined it. Now, a void exists where there was once a vibrant community of podcasters actively engaging with each other’s content. Anchor uniquely motivated us to produce daily content, primarily internal, but also in actual episodes that went out. The connections we had pushed us to be creative.

A few weeks ago, as I dove back into podcasting, I was redirected to Spotify—the new home for my podcast since its acquisition of Anchor—and discovered hundreds of unanswered calls from listeners. These personal touches, like customized bumpers and intros, were unique to the Anchor experience. “Hey, welcome to Rex Barrett’s Podcast, The Maven Show,” they’d say, adding a warmth I miss.

This longing for genuine interaction remains unfulfilled. Despite resuming podcasting with a few new episodes, the absence of an actual feedback loop is felt.

Although Spotify might aim to replicate Anchor’s features, allowing for messages beyond ratings and reviews, it doesn’t quite hit the mark. The essence of interaction has vanished, leaving us podcasters to hope our voices find an audience in the vast unknown.

Podcasting is intriguing. You share your thoughts with the world, yet the impact on your audience remains a mystery. Despite statistics provided by podcast platforms, there’s no accurate measure of listener engagement that a normal guy like me can figure out.

This leaves me reminiscing about Anchor—a platform that once cultivated genuine connections is now lost. I’ve found snippets of this type of community spirit on Mastodon and through my social.lol family. Blogging has also connected me with a handful of like-minded friends. I’m committed to continuing this journey, hopeful that nurturing these small communities will lead to growth, thriving connections, and rekindling that lost magic.

My wife and I have been casually looking for a new home. We do as most, I assume, and download Zillow and the like, set your search criteria, and wait for notifications. It feels similar to fishing: pick the location, sort out the fish you’re angling for, wait for a bite.

Our search is a bit more complicated because we want to find five acres to accommodate two houses. One for my family and one for my wife’s parents as we walk through their health issues as they age.

A property bit, and we’re in the process of reeling it in. Five acres, wooded area, big manicured yard, a 2000 square foot home for my in-laws, and a 5000 square foot church. It was nearly a pass, but when you squint and look sideways at it, that church would make a heck of a home that would enable us to have people over, host events, and serve our community using the large meeting room.

We’ve almost landed the property. Pre-approval paperwork is in hand, an offer has been made, and now we wait.

Liminal space is challenging to navigate. That’s the place between what was and what will be. I’ve found that these spaces shine a light on my weaknesses and insecurities. We made the offer nearly 24 hours ago, and in the meantime, I’ve prayed, I’ve let the property go mentally, assuming the delay means another offer came in. I’ve imagined my family living and playing on the land that will likely be where I call home until retirement. I’ve also stress-eaten and gone in and out of checking out by jumping online to waste time and hope it makes it pass quicker.

I want to do well in the liminal space. I want to say that I was bold in facing our future, be it good news or bad. I’m fighting to be present with my family, and I’m trying not to go to food for comfort.

I’d rather be fighting and doing something to get to a closing date. But, all I have is the time between what was and will be, and I’m trying my best to step into it with faith and a peaceful presence that my wife, daughter, and in-laws can feel and be encouraged by.

By the end of the day, I may have reeled in what I think could be our dream home. However, the line could snap, and the big one could get away. If that happens, we’ll mourn the loss, but we won’t stop fishing.

Creativity is a conundrum for me. On the one hand, I have this point of view, which drives me to create the things I desire to see brought into this world. For example, I love hacking together cameras made from parts of other cameras. The photos I get from them are strange, mostly soft, and have a lot of distortion. I look at them and think they’re great. But place it beside a sharp, bright photo, and there’s a noticeable difference. If a person has no backstory on how the image was made, my insecurity tells me that they’ll think it’s just a dang bad picture.

In the book An Audience of One: Reclaiming Creativity for Its Own Sake by Srinivas Rao, he explains that having a satisfying, creative life means staying true to your voice and not seeking external validation. Why? Because seeking validation from others, financial reward, or critical reviews are extrinsic motivators that will eventually lead to misery, as you have no control over those. When you’re in it for how satisfying the creative endeavor is, the process is the reward, and you’re doing what you enjoy.

I bought my first pro-level camera in 1997 and always had it with me. I was creative and happy, and I had weird, beautiful photos on walls scattered all over my home. In 2010, I made the leap and became a professional photographer. Weddings, senior and family portraits, and events became the focus of my camera’s lens. It was brutal, and I hated it. The images were fine by any measurable metric, and it kept food on the table and a roof over my head. I couldn’t find my creative muse with this style of photography, and it led me to put the camera down for years. My creativity was wrecked.

A new wave of cameras began rolling out a few years back, riffing off old film cameras. They caught my attention. I bought a Fuji x100 and a Ricoh GR and started shooting again. My creativity, now watered by this new work, grew and thrived.

It was when I was creating for myself that I found joy. I signed up for Flickr again and started finding my people and my fans. I trusted my voice, threw away comparisons, and stopped creating for the hypothetical “others.”

The funny thing is that when I’m creative in this field, I find myself more creative at work, at home, and, more broadly, in life. My advice? Get out there and do what you love doing, not for likes or clicks, but because it’s molding you into a more joyful person.

As a recovering obese guy who’s had more than his fair share of apple fritters, I know for a fact that junk food tastes great. How I feel after eating it is another story. One strange thing happens after I kick off a morning with sweet junk. My mind tells me I must balance it with some salty junk. Then, since I’ve already wrecked my calories and macros for the day, I just eat junk the rest of the day.

There sure is a lot of junk food on the internet. Shoot, it’s the most effortless content to grab. Scrolling the infinite timelines on X, Instagram, or TikTok is great-tasting content; it makes you crave more (no one can eat just one) and is free for us to use. The problem is, much like its food counterpart, the junk content isn’t full of nutrients.

As I age, my body slows down, but I’m feeling my brain work quicker. After reading a few books on learning and decision-making, it comes down to experience and pattern recognition. We’ve been there - done that, and have some idea about how to solve the problem.

But I want to continue to improve. Filling my time with these junk apps is alluring, and I feel good when using them, but I want to find content that takes me somewhere. Ultimately, I don’t want to look back and see hours blocks of time squandered on things I’ll not even remember in a day or two.

The old adage garbage in, garbage out is probably mostly true. There’s no recycling of TikTok content to make trash a treasure. If it is true, then the content we ingest is the foundation we’re building on.

I want to find content that can be a solid foundation to build my life. That means shifting from these bites of junk content to more curated, highly nutritious reading.

I will be ruthless, cut the junk, and begin spending time at the table feasting on the good stuff. We have the hours in the day. My weekly Screen Time report tells me the truth.

I remember, years ago, how everyone had their little space on the web carved out. We toyed around with things like the original MySpace, Xanga, and Tumblr. Sure, we had constraints, but we could make our little soapboxes have any background color, tickers scroll across the screen, and all the animated gifs we could find.

We had these spots pretty close to the way we wanted. They were free, and we didn’t care how this magic happened. All we knew was that we were making friends, adding them on AIM, and even meeting up in real life through tools that came along like Meetup. Shoot, I started a non-profit built on the backs of these free tools. And it worked until it didn’t.

I won’t do a deep dive into the hows and whys. I’d rather go out and shoot photos. I assume it had something to do with the eventual need to make an actual profit. But that’s unimportant because we lived through the stupidification of the internet.

The corps won. The everyman lost. What we thought were my spaces were their spaces. We all shifted to different locations on the web, and some of us quit altogether. All the great friends I made were now empty avatars on various social networks. I know more than a few people who rage quit and deleted accounts with thousands of friends, coming back a few months later and realizing that it’s nearly impossible to build back unless you play to the algorithm.

There’s a growing group that eschews the algorithm and puts words down in little spaces. Communing in spots like Micro.blog, social.lol, and a host of other hubs gathering people who are learning that everything old is new again.

I’m just a normal guy and I’m in and telling all my normal friends to hop off the social media treadmill. We may all be writing words that no one will see, but I doubt it. I believe more people will tell us about their day, post their favorite music, share movie recommendations, and type out thoughtful pieces that we’ll talk about wherever we determine our water cooler is these days. Let’s not let the corporate overlords steal it all back this time.

OXO Coffee Contraption

Sometimes, your favorite thing is not the fanciest or even the best. For me, this is the entirely too much plastic and acrylic OXO pour-over contraption.

I found a blog, Low-Key Coffee Snobs, that did a complete review of this coffee toy, so I don’t have to do the deep dive. Head there and read about it.

I promise I’m not bragging, just giving context. I am an award-winning (just once) coffee crafter. I won a open invite coffee throw-down in our local third-wave shop a few years back. I brought home shirts for the family and a nice coffee scale I used for years until “the breaking.” We won’t talk about that.

With that context, this device isn’t fancy. It doesn’t scratch that “crafted coffee by hand” itch. It’s a set-it-and-forget-it type device. With it, I use Starbucks Italian roast. I know! On top of that, I pour some Premier Protein, a premade protein drink, into it as creamer.

You know what? I love it, and it makes me happy to drink this smoky, fake chocolate-tasting, cheap, and quick cup to get my morning going.

Yeah, it ain’t fancy or the best, but it’s kind of my favorite. Unless I’m with my coffee friends, then it’s the hunk of plastic hiding behind my coffee mugs on a high shelf.