Either you run the day, or the day runs you. — Jim Rohn

I recently decided to begin replacing many of my lights and switches with HomeKit capability. The lights have been easy peasy.

And by recently I mean within the last 30 days. It has been a great distraction. Which is also unfortunate as it’s still a distraction.

You take the Apple Home app, scan the QR — or type in the — HomeKit code on the light, plug the light in, turn it on, then have the Home app add the light.

Easy peasy.

Until it wasn’t.

When you flip a switch on/off 5 times then the bulbs reset. I should have installed the bulbs after the switches. I reset the bulbs at least a few times. The first time I did so, I didn’t have the QR or HomeKit Codes backed up and readily available.

This meant that I had to go around, unscrew the bulb or faceplate, document the code and MAC address, and reset every switch or bulb.

Everywhere.

Which means adding each device again. Each floor. Each room. Each switch. Each light. At least I have everything documented now. I have become much more intimately familiar with the guts of my house. Because you can’t have intimacy without Tim.

After I got everything setup, and seemingly stable, I decided to upgrade my HomePod minis to the latest beta audioOS.

That was a mistake. The audioOS was too new for the Home app on my iPhone. Apparently the phone must be running the beta version of iOS that’s the same version as the HomePod mini.

The only fix was to downgrade audioOS on the speakers and delete then recreate your Home.

And downgrading audioOS proved to be an exercise in patience and lots and lots of searching. I had an idea for a blog article to explain how to do it. The tabs are still open. The words are unwritten. I’m feeling there’s a bit of a theme here. An unwritten theme.

So much time spent making an effort to make the home smart. So much time playing with circuit breakers. So much time realizing I’m not an electrician and am so fucking slow at installing switches and power outlets.

So many times shocking myself. Way more than I should have. I just got tired of running upstairs and downstairs to figure out WTF I’m doing.
I do not know WTF I’m doing.
Each time I shocked myself I thought, “Fuck. You should have turned off that circuit breaker, Tim.” And then laughed at myself. And then repeated it for some reason. I guess I like being shocking.

All of that was a special kind of first world suffering.

I’m grateful to even have a house. This has still been challenging though.

The house is so close to having all the switches and outlets normalized to the appropriate switches and outlets. So close. Only a few more to go.

If HomeKit makes me reset my home anytime soon we’re going to have some choice words. And by we I mean me. Because HomeKit can’t talk.

This has been a project. And I’m pretty good at using novel projects to get my dopamine going with tiny wins.

ADHD.

It has been a project that has distracted me from the other projects that my mind keeps coming back to. But it has been a project that will bring me great satisfaction when it has finally been finished.

Started 11 years ago when this house was purchased.

Do you know what else started 11 years ago? No. Of course you don’t. Not unless you’re me reading this in the future. Then you do. Probably. 11 years a go a joke started and the punchline didn’t hit me until this month. It’s related to ducts. Maybe I’ll get back to it. Definitely not this post. Which means it may or may not actually be written.

I restarted this blog thinking that I’d write a bunch of funny stuff. And I think I have written some stuff that makes me laugh. I’m feeling as if there are funnier stories to tell.

It can be challenging to share funny stories when there’s low-key negative emotions being processed.

The first psychiatrist I went to as an adult said something to me that has stuck with me since it was said. He said, “When people are depressed it’s usually because they’re not doing what they think they should be doing.”

Stuck to me like parking lot gum on a brad new shoe.

Maybe I wrote that before, and I’ll probably write it again. I’ll probably end up rewriting a bunch of the same stories in the future. Dunno. We’ll see.

This is tardy though.

My goal is three entires a month.

Writing and posting them all at the end of the end of the month is untenable, but I’ll figure something out.