
A suggestion on how to spend a day at home - tripofmice
https://blog.mousereeve.com/a-suggestion-on-how-to-spend-a-day-at-home/
======
MegaDeKay
Warning: the linked article failed to suggest a Dutch Baby, a grave omission
indeed. This recipe [0] is my goto, but I only use 2 tablespoons butter and
cook for 20-25 minutes instead of the suggested 30-35 minutes (a burnt Dutch
Baby is not Good Eats). Serve with cottage cheese, berries, and / or a good
sausage. I like bison smokies, but that is just me.

[0] [http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/dutch-baby-
recipe0.html](http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/dutch-baby-recipe0.html)

~~~
tripofmice
I wrote this article and you are correct, I have failed this community. Dutch
babies are important.

~~~
MegaDeKay
It's OK. Everybody makes mistakes. The important thing is to learn from them
and do better next time.

------
white-flame
That sounds pretty terrible, and kind of pretentious & high maintenance.
Howabout this, for the hackers among us:

\- Roll out of bed

\- Crawl to your computer station

\- Work on hobby projects in your underwear

\- Notice the sun rise again, and that you've been on Wikipedia since
yesterday

\- Grab leftovers from the fridge and eat while watching YouTube

\- Crawl back to bed after waking up in your chair

:-)

~~~
Mizza
My thoughts exactly. Where's the IRC? Where's the trap music? Where's the
high-proof liquor?

How else do you expect to get anything done? :-P

(Cute write up though. In Norway, they call this "koselig". Honey-moon with a
sig-other kind of day, maybe, but some of us like to live more.. intensely.)

~~~
flgr
> Cute write up though. In Norway, they call this "koselig".

That word sounds half-way between the English "cozy" and the German
"kuschelig". A missing link. Interesting. :)

~~~
Broken_Hippo
It is kinda cozy and cuddly, kind of. "Koselig" is one of those words that
doesn't have a direct translation, and takes a bit of experience for the
immigrant (me!) to get an understanding of.

------
gerbilly
I like how she sidesteps something that can really ruin a day off: the feeling
you should be making the most of it.

Sometimes on a nice sunny day, i feel like i should go out an paddle on the
lake or go for a bike ride when i'd really rather just putter about the yard.

That puts me in a mind state where i'm not enjoying myself because i feel i
should always be doing something else.

~~~
civilian
This might be for you: [http://owlturd.com/post/148836283844/a-and-b-smell-
the-flowe...](http://owlturd.com/post/148836283844/a-and-b-smell-the-flowers-
image-twitter)

~~~
gerbilly
I'm not type-A though.

I'm getting older and the Canadian summer is short.

Guess I just want to get in as many of my favorite action sports before i wear
out my body.

I'm pretty high mileage from the 20 years of weekly bike crashes and surfing
wipeouts.

------
emilong
This is lovely!

It does however make me reflect that I would do something like this on my "day
off" too. And by "this," I mean I would feel the need to create something,
post something, or otherwise turn my relaxation into some kind of output.

Recently I've tried actively not creating and just allowing myself to relax
without being conscious of it.

I should note that I'm not presuming anything about the author. Writing may
well be their way of relaxing. I just wanted to share a self-realization that
I hope may be helpful to others.

~~~
yeukhon
I actually did some of that yesterday (today). I took the day off because of
today's birthday party in the morning. I figured I needed to clean the house,
do some shopping and relax. Next time I will probably work on personal
projects I meant to finish.

I did quite well by not touching my electronic gadgets so much. Although
cleaning is really tough, I feel satisfied. Actually I am thinking about
quitting my job just to spend more time doing more personal things. With work,
I can't get that.

------
jmspring
This made me smile.

Unwinding is very important.

If you work at home, even more so.

The wife and I used to watch shows on the laptop before bed. Instead we read.
It helps sleep. Granted it's on kindles (individual backlight, convenience)
but it helps.

Disconnecting is important.

Maybe instead of pajamas and breakfast all day, I'd throw in a hike/stroll or
a ride in nature.

But this did make me smile.

~~~
smnplk
I would definitely add sports. Maybe even some hard stuff, some hill climbing
on a bike. Sometimes physical suffering relieves stress.

------
twic
If you're planning to spend the day alone like this, a useful life hack I've
learned is to skip the shower, and spend the time saved staving off the
existential dread by reading webcomics.

~~~
therealdrag0
I like to do the shower at around mid-day.

------
mainframe-mess
That's a lot of carbohydrates.

We could probably all have a better day by eating less of them.

~~~
randallsquared
Maybe the exact foods you eat at the breakfast are not super important to gain
the benefit of this plan.

~~~
Waterluvian
Yeah. What I got from this is to completely stray from the norm. Spend your
whole day doing the thing we usually struggle to find 5 minutes for.

~~~
kybernetikos
When you phrase it like that, it seems that there might be something
meditative in elevating something mundane to be the main point of the day.

To misquote Bruce Lee: "I do not fear the man who has 20 breakfasts, I fear
the man who has one breakfast 20 times."

------
wyager
What is this? Some sort of art? Not saying it shouldn't be here, but I'm not
really sure how it's relevant to HN.

~~~
peterkelly
It confused me because I work from home. Every day for me is "a day at home".

~~~
Broken_Hippo
It is a break from the norm, which is the whole point. In your case, it would
be a decent, once-in-a-while-spoil-yourself type of breakfast followed by lots
of not working and not doing your daily habits.

~~~
smnplk
I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I've been doing something similar for the
past 1 month :/ I can't stop, help!!

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I don't think there is a solution! Though you could leave the house for some
frivolous thing, or work for a few hours and call it quits.

Then again, if it isn't detrimental to you and you enjoy it and stuff, why
stop?

------
slidese
Well, I have kids. One can dream though.

~~~
white-flame
Babysitters. Slumber parties. Summer camp for the kids. Ship them to relatives
for a day with their cousins (and make sure to reciprocate).

They're practically going to be few and far between, but taking a day for
yourself (or for just you & your spouse) while they're still young doesn't
have to be a dream!

[Disclaimer: Post may not apply if they're still babies. If so, then yeah,
you're screwed. ;-) ]

------
daxfohl
Tone reminds me vaguely of American Psycho. Was expecting a murder somewhere
in the middle.

------
BFatts
I enjoyed that quite a bit.. However, now I must make a little breakfast.

------
jakobegger
What a great suggestion!

I like to start Sundays by preparing a somewhat elaborate breakfast for the
family. But afterwards, Sundays are a bit bland and boring.

It has never occurred to me to prepare a second breakfast!

------
miend
This sounds like the kind of day which, as I lie in bed at the end of it,
leaves me feeling very anxious for having effectively done nothing with it.
I'd at least throw in some physical exercise -- that ought to help. Or any
kind of creative activity.

~~~
sanderjd
Being able to relax for long periods of time without feeling anxious about it
is a valuable (and learnable) skill!

------
martinko
Time well wasted was not wasted.

------
devonkim
Besides taking a shower, isn't this basically a day in the life of hobbits as
described by Tolkien? I've basically done this for a while when I don't have a
job, but it's really, really boring to me. I'm not sure what seems missing
about it, but maybe it means something's wrong with me if I can't even relax a
day.

~~~
infinite8s
Maybe the stress of not having a job makes it less enjoyable?

------
ianai
I'm glad to say I just took two days off work. I did this, with my own
flourishes.

------
truebosko
Now try and do this when you have a child :)

~~~
a3n
I think (know) that a child would be totally into wearing pajamas all day, and
eating second, third and beyond breakfasts.

------
lsiebert
The author has an excellent resume that documents their use of python
microframeworks.

------
araruki
Biscotti? Scone? I'm sorry but does everyone in the USA eat dessert for
breakfast?

~~~
robin_reala
Yes.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/15/break...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/15/breakfastaroundtheworld/)

------
anexprogrammer
Not a bad plan!

If I'm going to have a switched off day (which I heartily recommend), majoring
on breakfast, it's going to start with a full English or Scottish.

------
return0
I feel like i m glowing .

------
michaelbuddy
How could a day with only breakfasts not be happy and comforting?!

------
gaius
Why is this flagged? It is not controversial and has 158 upvotes!

~~~
eecks
Since you've already brought the meta topic up.. I don't think this belongs on
HN.

I clicked into it thinking it would be something interesting instead it's
about spending a day being lazy.

~~~
noshbrinken
Do you mean something interesting related to technology? Or just that your
expectation is that HN is for "something interesting" inherently, regardless
of subject?

If the criticism here is that this blog post does not directly address the
subject of technology, it still has value to me _as a software engineer_.
Mouse is an engineer whose work I look up to because it models a way of having
a life that is passionate about technology and passionate about other things
too.

I love programming language and software design. I love discovering the way
things work. I love thinking about how things can work better. I love working
towards and achieving technical elegance. And I love following the community
conversations about this stuff. In short, I love everything that Hacker News
is typically about. That's why I visit the site on a daily basis.

I follow Mouse's work because she connects those kinds of passions, passions
in the domain of software engineering, to other areas of passion. Her work
gives me hope about what my life can be like. To me this article says,
software engineers can take a day off and indulge something they love, and
don't have to worry about falling behind as programmers. This isn't what Mouse
is saying explicitly. It's what I conclude from or project onto her blog post.
But I don't think it's implausible that her writing would have the same
meaning to other HN readers.

