So Many Books…
… so little time! I finished this: I REALLY liked it. I thought it was going to be lighter and fluffier than it was- but it wasn’t fluffy at all. It was sad, and funny. Sometimes there’s a book everyone else loves, except for me. But not this time! It lived up to the hype. Now I have all my Christmas Book Flood books: I want to dive into every single one of them, but my son brought home books #2 and #3 of Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy. He’s insisting that I read them while he’s home, so I’ve started this one: It’s a long book- 500 pages, and I’m longing for a stretch of time to just sit and read. Will I get it anytime soon? Hmmm. I read 52 books in 2024. My goal was 50, and I finally achieved it. Should I set the mark higher in 2025? Yes! I’ll go for 60- why not? My favorite books of the year were the three from Ken Follett’s The Century trilogy. My least favorites… well, let’s just say I read a lot of Japanese locked room murder mysteries, and I think I’ve gotten that out of my system. Overall I’m excited to read some great books this year. I just wish I had more time… but maybe I do have the time and I’m just not allocating it correctly. More about that coming up in 2025 goals! Do you have a favorite book of 2024? Do you set any reading goals for the year?
First Coffee Date of 2025
Woohoo! It’s the first Friday of the month, and that means it’s time to meet up with Coco and Deborah for the Ultimate Coffee Date! If we were having coffee together, I would tell you… I’m still drinking out of my holiday mugs, and no one can stop me! The tree is down, and the rest of the house is being slowly de-Christmased. But I’m clinging to my mugs until the bitter end (which is, by the way, when school starts again. After that it’s just depressing to have Christmas things around.) As always, it’s hard to see the holidays end. Everything seems so blah and ordinary! But, we do have a couple things to look forward to. First, we are getting a COLD FRONT (Florida-style, that is.) 40s is SUPER COLD for us! I have to find my gloves! Not only that… I’ve been ahem, gently complaining lately about feeling overworked and under appreciated. But don’t worry- I have a break coming up! Next week we go to Tampa for All-State, where my daughter is playing in the band. This is the third year we’ve done this as a family, and I really love it. It’s the perfect combination of some together time, but also everyone doing their own thing. And guess who doesn’t have to make dinner for four nights? ME. We expect it to be even colder in Tampa than it is here. Will we need winter coats? I don’t think I own one. Lastly, yesterday I mentioned that I came up with my word for 2025. I had two somewhat different ideas for the year- one, that I want to immerse myself more deeply in some of the things I’m doing. But I also want to push myself to try new things, instead of sitting comfortably on my couch in my pajamas, reading with a cat on my lap all the time. Hmm, is there a word that could mean both “immerse” and “expand?” There is!!! My word for 2025 is… “ENGAGE.” As in, to participate or be involved, AND/OR, to be absorbed and engrossed in something. A deeper dive into “engage” coming up soon! Are you still in holiday mode, or is it over? Do you have a word for 2025?
New Year’s Day Meltdown
Does anyone remember the episode of The Simpsons where Marge totally loses it, and has to go to “Rancho Relaxo?”? Well, I had a mini version of that today. As I’ve mentioned, the lead up to Christmas was EXTREMELY busy. I literally did everything- put up all the decorations (inside and out), bought and wrapped all the gifts, cooked all the food, made all the cookies… but that’s okay. This is my husband’s busiest time of year, and besides, Christmas is more important to me than it is to him, so I don’t mind doing it all. But what put me over the edge was having to cook dinner every. single. night. Shouldn’t there be some kind of special dispensation for holidays? By the time Christmas rolled around, I was about to lose my mind. I announced that after Christmas Day, I wasn’t making dinner for an entire week. And then… My husband and son got sick. I haven’t mentioned it before, but we think they had Covid. I don’t want to jinx myself, but so far my daughter and I are healthy (fun fact- my husband and I have both had Covid, but never at the same time. Can we continue our streak?) Instead of doing less, I ended up doing more, including putting together a birthday for my daughter and baking a cake from scratch. Then I took down the Christmas tree, and made a New Year’s celebration. (And by the way- let’s remember that I’m the only one going to work as usual- everyone else is on winter break.) This morning I went out for a long run. In the middle of the run I got a text, and it was suddenly too much. I imagined it was a text from my family, demanding to know where the blueberries are or something stupid like that. I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE! I finished my run, then read the text (turns out it wasn’t from my family after all- they were all still in bed.) I showered, ate, and then announced that I was going into the bedroom ALONE for several hours. Ahhh. I set up my new planner, thought more about my word for 2025 (GUESS WHAT- I came up with a word that encompasses both “immerse” and “expand”… more on that soon!) and started to read my book- and then I feel asleep, and took a 90 minute nap. When I woke up I felt so much better. I’m still vaguely annoyed, I guess at the universe. I mean- seriously? They had to get sick NOW? To clarify- they’re both much better than they were. My son especially is almost back to normal, other than a hacking cough. My husband is getting there. He has some lingering fatigue, so like if I ask him to unload the dishwasher, he can do it- but then he’s so tired, he has to lie down. I know I’m the lucky one here. I would much rather be well and going to work than be home sick. I just got a little overwhelmed by everything- I feel much better now that I got it all off my chest! How was your New Year’s Day? Was it relaxing? Top photo by Vladislav Muslakov on Unsplash
Happy New Year! (and… I Did It…)
Yep, I took the tree down. I suddenly had a burning desire to get it over with, and when I get that desire I just have to do it quickly. I can’t let myself think too much, because then I start remembering how fun it was the day we got it, how excited we were, how all the Christmas fun was still ahead… No! Out you go, tree. Of course the tree exploded about 10,000 dead needles on the way out- we’ll be cleaning those up for a while. Meanwhile, my sister sent me a photo of her “January tree.” They took all the Christmas decorations off and put blue and silver lights on the tree. As I admired the photo, I realized that I should NEVER be allowed to have an artificial tree. I would make it into a January tree… then a Valentine’s tree, then Easter, 4th of July… I would never want to take it down. When the next Christmas rolled around, I would take the brown and orange decorations off the “Thanksgiving” tree and voila! The Christmas tree would be ready to go. Much better for me to have a real tree that becomes a huge drooping mess by January 1st. We got the tree out and moved the couch back to its normal place. And then I put up some New Year’s decorations! And made some festive food. I also made our traditional “clock cookies,” which are actually the NYC Black and White Cookies from this book: I made a few “clocks” before giving up and making the rest of them black and white. Overall the kids and I spent a cozy evening at home. The rest of our Christmas stuff (including plenty of white twinkle lights) is still up, and I’m enjoying it- but it’s a relief to have the tree gone. It was a huge chore hanging over my head, and it’s over for another year. It’s 2025- HAPPY NEW YEAR! Top photo by DESIGNECOLOGIST on Unsplash