Several months ago my work started offering at-home covid-19 rapid molecular testing via Cue. Now that it's possible to buy these kits as an individual I wanted to write some about our experience and who it might be a good fit for.

These tests offer sensitivity comparable to PCR in an at-home ~25min timeframe, and if you choose to take the test with a video call you get an official result. The main downside is that they are expensive.

The system is two parts: a reusable reader and disposable cartridges (with nasal swabs).

With our youngest child we got a Snoo automated bassinet, and overall we've been very happy with it. On the other hand, the corresponding phone app has several missing features. Since all of this is software, it should be fixable, but the current state is a hassle.

When the baby is fussy, one of the first things I want to know is how long they've been up: the longer they've been awake, the more likely it is that they need sleep. If I open the app I see:

Bedrooms, at least in the US, are nearly always constructed with built-in closets, but I don't see why? What's the appeal?

Personally, I don't like them. I want the flexibility to arrange furniture however currently best suits my needs, and a built-in closet permanently reserves a portion of the floor area. Stand-alone wardrobes also offer flexibility when occupants vary in how much stuff they have that is a good fit for a closet.

When we were adding dormers to our house four years ago we needed to decide whether to include closets in each of the rooms. Here's what the three new/expanded bedrooms looked like with and without closets:

Anna's bedroom

I'd been thinking of moving away from T-Mobile since their depressingly cavalier account messaging a few weeks ago where they sent what were effectively "your account is in the process of being hacked" notifications as part of migrating to a new billing system.

This billing migration continues to be poorly handled, and after a series of conflicting messages I no longer have service:

2021-11-02: As part of your new My T-Mobile experience, your Autopay feature needs to be re-setup prior to your next bill cycle date. To avoid a service interruption, please login and re-setup your Autopay at [url]

Several months ago I wrote about how my wrists/hands were still not doing well, and about how I was going to be trying Methotrexate. I have since gone off it, initially for a covid shot, but I'm now considering staying off it.

After meeting again with my rheumatologist on 2021-06-28 I started on 10mg/wk (four tablets) taken all at once, plus 1mg/d folic acid (one tablet). My first dose was 2021-06-30. This was just over two weeks after Nora was born and my third day back at work, so it's not a good example of "change only one thing at a time". Initially I noticed a small increase in mouth sores, but not anything else. It's possible that my wrists and hands were feeling somewhat better, but it's already very variable, with good and bad days.

I met with the rheumatologist again on 2021-08-04, and we increased my dose to 15mg/wk (six tablets). I still didn't notice much of a change.

In October I noticed that my food preferences had changed. It happened very slowly, over many weeks. I became less interested in strongly flavored savory foods (normally something I enjoy a lot), and would have more days when I forgot to eat lunch (usually only happens rarely, when I'm super interested in what I'm working on). It became much more common that I would notice that it was early afternoon, feel like one ought to should eat lunch, go down to the kitchen, and end up having a bowl of cereal. I often just wasn't hungry, though I would still eat out of feeling like that's what I should do, and I stayed in my normal weight range. If I did actually eat some savory food, I often enjoyed it once I was doing it, but before I started the smell and thought were pretty negative. I thought it was likely that this was related to the medication, but didn't know for sure.

In March 2020 contra dances, along with most everything else, shut down. For most of the time since I would have considered it irresponsible to hold a dance regardless of whether it was currently legal, but at this point I think holding dances with masks and vaccination required is reasonable. The risk to vaccinated attendees is very low, dancing is now fully allowed again, and since many much riskier activities are common opening up activities like this doesn't appreciably change the shape of the pandemic.

I've gone through all the contra dances on Try Contra, and categorized them by whether they appear to have resumed. It looks like ~26 out of 331 dances (8%) have restarted. Here's the list; let me know if I've missed any: trycontra.com/list.