• Kinda fell off the wagon and had some coke zero and carbs and of course I got a headache. I figured I would but I did it anyway. I just wanted a coke and I wanted some cookies, so fuck it. And naturally it destroyed my sleep and gave me a headache the past few days, so that's been fun. Coke zero goes on the "gives me headaches for sure" list. The cookies were a sad failure because I wanted to just get some of the premade cookie dough pellets that you bake yourself. Makes it easier to pace yourself and it's just a dozen preportioned cookies as opposed to making a whole batch of cookie dough. But I somehow managed to pick the "clean ingredients" foo-foo cookies that turned out to be gluten free. :-( I got nothing against gluten free, but I wanted the full cookie experience and I feel like I got sham cookies. That's what I get for picking the non-nestle/pillsbury cookie dough brand, I guess. So I can't even pick out cheat cookies right, ugh.

• I'm working on a christmas present for spouse. Since he's the breadwinner it's kind of dumb to play the "what do you want for christmas" game but I do it anyway. (Let me ask you what you want for christmas so I can use your own money to buy it and then make you wait to have it???) Spouse is a creature of few wants and if there is something he does want he generally gets it for himself. I think that's why I focus on cooking even though I don't enjoy it - food is like a present you can give someone every day that is always welcome. But christmas comes around and I gotta come up with something extra.

So I'm making spouse a valet tray for the bedside with two wireless charging spots built in. He fiddles with hooking up cables to his personal & work phone every night. The cats love to mess with the cables to get attention, so he's always fishing for them. It could use improvement.

I bought an acacia wood tray from a store that is like TJ Maxx for home decorating (like, if you want gorgeous useless throw pillows that would be classified as a war crime in a pillow fight, you would go there). What with charcuterie platters currently popular with the influencer/instagram crowd, there's lots of nice trays and wood serving boards available - shoot, you can buy them at target. I'm sure they're easy to make, if you have access to nice wood and equipment, but I don't. The toughest part is not paying $25+ for one. I picked this solid wood tray in a rectangular shape with rounded corners and handles cut into the wooden lip around the tray. Very simple, rustic looking, not too big. Internal dimensions are about 6.75"x13" - just big enough for a couple phones and spouse's wallet and pocket stuff. Then I got a pair of wireless charging pucks (I thought about a dual charging unit but it was expensive and then if it fails the whole thing must be replaced).

So the plan is to cut circles into the bottom of the tray to fit the charging pucks, and then "hide" them under some thin wood veneer and leather faux inlay, stained and sealed and finished. I want to put in a little leather covered divider between the phone area and the wallet area to keep stuff from rolling onto the charging areas. I went to the local joann fabric store and all they had was unsuitable garbage so I had to order a piece of thin navy leather. I already have a pack of wood veneer scraps because this faux inlay thing is something I have been thinking about incorporating in art pieces. I may need to elevate the tray slightly to accommodate the thickness of the charging pucks and allow for heat dissipation. I'm going to use these leftover wooden beads I got to hang the ornaments from the ceiling mural, stain and glue them to the tray bottom. So the cost is $15 for the tray, $26 for the charging pucks, $8 for leather. Maybe I will need to get some wood sealer, but basically I can do the project for under $50.

I anticipate the most annoying part will be sawing the holes for the charging pucks. I have a jeweler's saw but I've only used it for small straight cuts. Fortunately I will be hiding this under faux inlay so I don't have to worry about sawing perfect looking circles. No one will know if they are wonky. The wood bottom is about 3/8" thick. I can use the rotary tool to make the carve out for the USB cord. I'll figure out how to fix the pucks in the tray so they can be taken out and replaced if they fail. I'd also like to figure out a way to make the LED lights around the puck glow through the faux inlay. Maybe if I drill some tiny holes around the outer edge of the puck I can get some of that light to show through.

I picked out a geometric pattern based on a 6 fold arabic pattern. It has 4 distinct polygon shapes that interlock - an equilateral triangle, a kite shape, a smooshed pentagon, and a large 12 pointed star shape. I need to figure out the sizing of the pattern, make templates and then cut those shapes out of the materials. The tray is small and in some places I want the original wood bottom to be visible, so this shouldn't be too much work.

The pattern has a large central star shape ringed by the smaller shapes. I'm going to do three repeats of the large central star motif - two centered over the wireless charging areas and one for the wallet/pocket items area. Theoretically the pattern will be seamless and make it easy to see where to lay the phones.

In addition to the tray I think I will make a little coaster painting of the cats as loth cats. I think it would be funny and something spouse could easily have on his desk at work or whatever.

• Spouse is anxious because he has not heard for sure we will be in Anchorage. There is a chance we will get Fairbanks or Juneau, which would suck. Spouse more or less ceded Fairbanks to his ex-wife after they separated, she's still there, and he just knows too many people in Fairbanks he is not excited to be around. A coworker of mine once described Fairbanks as the sort of town where he could see all three of his ex-wives on one grocery shopping trip. Fairbanks is just Fairbanks. Juneau is smaller and not on the road system. You can't drive from Juneau to Anchorage - you have to go by boat or plane, so that completely fucking blows. I do not want Juneau. At least in Fairbanks you can fantasize about driving away. It's a 6 hour drive to Anchorage, but the option is there. I've visited Juneau once, on a layover that had enough time to leave the tiny airport and briefly see the town. It's nice enough and the scenery is gorgeous but I super don't want to live there. They have set up some moving meeting this week and we are supposed to know for sure by then.