Tag Archives: happynewyear

last one of 2024

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The last week or so has been pretty undisciplined over here. I started pulling apart my home office to reorganize it for the New Year and it is still in that classic organization-in-process state of “far more of a mess than when I started”. I hope to get a jump on the “back to normal” routine before my real “back to work” happens on Thursday. Brandon is coming home from a family trip and I have to run out to the airport to pick him up; after, it will be our last big decadent holiday meal (ham and homemade baked mac & cheese) but I’m skipping the champagne.

I don’t make resolutions per se but I do try to consider what is working for me and what isn’t. A few of the “keep” and “magnify” list for 2025:

Physical Health:

  • Walking more (I’ve been a runner for 10+ years but have not been committed to the consistency of just walking, in the evening or when a run isn’t possible)
  • Adding in strength training (see above – I don’t go full on, just a few short kettlebell workouts a week has felt really good)
  • Magnesium supplement has been amazing for my sleep
  • Upping my protein
  • Sticking to a few boring yet consistent meals for breakfast and lunch – low points, high fiber and protein

Mental / Emotional Wellbeing:

  • Journaling more, both here and on paper
  • Staying ‘in my lane’ – avoiding drama and arguments when I can, limiting my exposure to people that stress me out or feel toxic (when I can)
  • Remembering that taking care of myself and spending time with Brandon, my daughter, and my loved ones is just as much of an important job as my 9 to 5 and deserves just as much energy and commitment
  • Spending as much time as I need to be alone and inwardly-focused
  • Multiple meditation sessions a week; I’d love to amplify this in 2025 to a more daily, consistent practice.
  • Indulging in the activities that bring me joy – knitting and fiber arts, trying new crafts, making candles, looking to vlogs, blogs, books and media for creative inspiration, reading and writing. I’d like to get back to creative writing in 2025.
  • I’d like to find a volunteer opportunity or take advantage of smaller opportunities for giving – donations to the local food pantry, knitting mittens for the Mittens 4 Detroit initiative, etc. One of my larger goals as I approach retirement (which is still fairly far off, but visible way in the distance) is to start gradually lessening the time and emotional energy I invest in my 9 to 5 and amplifying the time I can spend doing volunteer work outside the home. This is definitely a longer-term goal as having a house, a partner, a teenager, and a slightly more than full-time job (and being an introvert) does not currently afford me enough time (in my estimation) to take on a volunteer role. But I am committed to keeping that as a goal as I begin in the next 10 years to ramp down my work life.
  • Spending as much time as I can with my daughter. She is in the final two years of high school and before I blink, she will be spreading her beautiful wings to fly ever farther from my nest and I want to fully enjoy all of the time I have with her, while I have her under my roof.

Honestly I kind of hate New Year celebrations so the best thing I’ve found for me has been to just stay midstream and keep going like usual. But if it’s your jam then I hope you enjoy the evening! 2024 was by no means an easy year, so on the arbitrary calendar delineation day, I want to take a moment to acknowledge and appreciate the lessons it sent my way and send up a wish for a softer and more peaceful 2025 for us all.

the last one of 2023

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I’ve been off since the 22nd and while I really appreciate a nice, long break, I’m glad that the New Year is here and things can get back to normal(ish). I didn’t have any goals for the break except to spend time with my family and my best friend, to sleep and eat and run and read, and meditate, and knit, and I did all of those things except not as much knitting as I’d have liked. We celebrated Brandon’s birthday on Christmas, with pastries from the new bakery in town, Cannelle, and back-to-back viewings of ‘A Christmas Carol’ (the 1980’s version with George C. Scott, which is my favorite) and ‘Scrooge’ (the 1970’s musical with Albert Finney, which is Brandon’s favorite). We love them each for very different reasons. I finished my last couple of books for 2023 (‘The Running Grave’ by Robert Galbraith and the last two of Naomi Novik’s ‘Scholomance’ trilogy), I watched ‘Serpent Queen’ on Starz and that spiraled me into a Tudor binge watch that hasn’t quite run it’s course yet. I ran several days, but not as many as I’d have liked.

I had a great meet-up with my lifelong bestie yesterday, which was deeply needed. I am a true introvert so getting out of the house first thing in the morning made me horribly grumpy, especially with Sarge (my big cat) curled up more or less on top of me, nestled in the duvet and begging me to stay put. But my friend Kat and her husband are a tonic, with tales of their big old house and big families and shared bird-watching and crafting excitements.

Brandon went to North Carolina for a couple of days to visit his parents, and I had some fantastic time with my daughter. She’s been meeting friends at the gym / rec center every day to work out and I’ve been driving her and we sing Taylor Swift and then eat together and she disappears into her room to FaceTime and read and do her teenage things and I turn on some anglophile viewing and settle down with a cat and some Chianti.

Today is the last of 2023. I slept in to strange dreams of my coworkers, their kids and grief and switching watches with them, one of them dressed as a beautiful toy soldier with her hair curling over her shoulders, to the accompaniment of a man in a grocery store singing ‘Sundown’ by Gordon Lightfoot on a grand piano. I have to pick Brandon up at the airport this evening and I have a bounty of Italian goodies from Cantoro’s Italian Market for our dinner. The kid will make an appearance to eat her tiramisu and help Brandon pop the cork on our favorite low-budget champagne (‘not champagne sparkling wine since it doesn’t come from the Champagne region of FRANCE’) – Cook’s, $13 Spumante. And we’ll probably fall asleep well before 12 and wake up tomorrow to the biggest Sunday scaries of the year on a Monday, strip the house of the lights and bows and baubles and boughs, and we’ll start 2024.

Happy New Year to any of you who still read this weird little space. See you in 2024.

this is pretty much the most snow we’ve had in december this year and it quickly vanished

there’s a world outside of yonkers…

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The first full week of 2023 was one of those strange ones that feel almost like a failure to launch. Although I was back to working in my home office after Monday, Brandon had some light workdays and the kiddo is still off from school. So there was some banging around in the kitchen as they made lunches and snacks and I think there may have been some shared episodes of “Rick and Morty” between the two of them. Otherwise the kiddo is at the age where she can sleep til 11:30 and keep herself occupied – smoothies with friends, working out, art projects and movie rentals on Prime. She’s also been prepping her audition for spring theater’s “Hello Dolly” production so we are all singing “BARNABYYYY” a lot lately.

We also met up with some of her friends and their moms on Wednesday night for pizza and – indoor skydiving (?!) I did not skydive (although one of the mom tribe did and said it was fun but short) instead choosing to knit on my Clinton Hill Cashmere Bandit Cowl and kibbitz with other moms.

iFly Detroit

It was pretty much chaos at work for reasons that I of course can’t share here.

I started a new book – the third in Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series, which I forgot to mention as one of my favorites of 2022. I’m not sure I understand any of it but it’s phenomenal – the tagline on the first of the series (which was also my favorite) promises “lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space! Decadent nobles vie to serve the deathless emperor! Skeletons!” There’s way more to it but yeah, it’s epic.

Likes this week: black leggings, Wishful enzyme scrub, Essie gel “Behind the Glass” on my nails, Damar Hamlin, Chapstick Total Hydration tinted lip oil, using my Verilux Happy Light at my desk during these dark days, listening to A Little Bit Culty podcast with a player from the Nexivm insanity, taking all my vitamins every day this week and being riveted to the chaos over the Speaker.

Dislikes: rehabbing a pulled muscle in my back and not running all week, Harry and Meghan, menopausal issues on high all week, post-holiday letdown, this time of year until essentially the end of March, people who don’t do what they say they’re going to do / being blindsided by that, George Santos, and bring riveted to the chaos over the Speaker.

This weekend is Elvis’s birthday which we may celebrate by going to see an Elvis movie at the local cinema (if I can stay awake). It’s also the big audition – so tonight it’s thawed leftovers from the Annual Freezer Cleanout, a fire in the woodstove, and a “Hello Dolly” rental for additional inspiration and research. TGIF!

2023!

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Happy 2023! I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season. I’m back to work tomorrow after being off since the 16th…after 20 years at Widget Central, I’m finally one of those people who can take two weeks off at the end of the year! It occurred to me halfway through my holiday that if I were retired, this is basically what my days would look like. I can say that once I am retired, my nails will be painted regularly, I’ll run or get outside or go to the gym almost every day, I’ll take way more naps, read and knit more, and, on the downside, drink much more wine. But retirement is far off so who knows where I will be then.

I finished a pair of mittens over the holiday, and cast on three new projects. Coincidentally, I sat down to watch ‘Little Women’ (the PBS version with Maya Hawke as Jo) and found myself winding up a mini-skein named ‘Louisa May Alcott’. I’m working on a bandit cowl from Clinton Hill Cashmere (their bespoke cashmere DK is like a dream), a workman’s dishcloth (I’m converted) and a gradient triangle scarf. The scarf will use minis that I got myself for Christmas as part of an 8-skein mini Advent – fingering weight themed Literary Women 0 from Six and Seven Fiber. MTC on these projects.

I actually sort of like the comparative austerity of January, after the splurge of the holidays. I like to budget again, and meal plan, track spending and be more frugal and use up stuff in the freezer and do Dry January. I don’t have any real resolutions, vision boards, or ‘words’ for 2023. 2022 was a busy yet ultimately calm and positive year and I just hope to repeat that…I hope to be essentially a good family member, partner, mom, and person. I see myself driving my kid around a lot, still, to her various activities, trying to be engaged and invested in her life and her experiences and her hobbies. My romance / partnership with Brandon is an absolute joy, no matter what we are doing, and I also want to see my bestie more often. I hope to connect with my parent / mom tribe and do solid work for Widget Central while still keeping a defined work / family life balance. Maybe I’ll paint my nails more and – I hope to check in here more often. I don’t know, the blogsphere is something I still feel excited about, but it also feels a lot like throwing words into an abyss that I never revisit. Last year I journaled in my Hobonichi much more often, and I have a five-year journal as well that I write in very regularly (it’s so cool to see my entries for the past years stacked up, so I can see exactly what I wrote.) And at least Facebook has a ‘Memories’ tab where it pulls up what I was doing two, ten, five years ago. Once I blog, the posts just go away and I’m not even sure who reads or connects with them, so it can feel a bit like a strangely useless exercise. So we’ll see what I can accomplish in that regard.

No matter what, all the best to you & yours and here’s to a good year ahead.

the last one of 2020

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We spent the end of the year quite pleasurably up north with my parents. I got out for a trail run and the Michigan lakeshore was like an alien landscape, empty, with high waves and wind and a low, pale sun.

“There are such a lot of things that have no place in summer and autumn and spring. Everything that’s a little shy and a little rum. Some kinds of night animals and people that don’t fit in with others and that nobody really believes in. They keep out of the way all the year. And then when everything’s quiet and white and the nights are long and most people are asleep—then they appear.”
Tove Jansson, Moominland Midwinter

I got dug into a dense book from my dad’s bookshelf and we played a lot of poker.

My parents are wonderful and we love spending time with them. They are gentle, intelligent, funny, and generous. I have so much gratitude for their continued strong presence in our lives, their good health and safety.

However, their cats hate us – they’re rescue cats and they are accustomed to having a very quiet existence with my folks. I’m making inroads, though.

We left for home on a snowy morning that quickly turned to rain, and now we are home, in front of the fire with many blankets and food and wine, to ring in the New Year.

I love some statistics so here’s my 2020 Year in Books.

https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2020/15419153

And my Top Nine of 2020!

Thank you all for reading and following and sharing my ups and downs. There’s nothing else I can say about this year that hasn’t already been said, and said well. So I will end with deep gratitude for what I have and hope for the future. I truly value the connections I’ve made via this blog. Happy New Year to you all and we look forward to a blessed and better 2021.

start the way you mean to finish

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I’m not big on posts that are essentially “all the awesome things that happened to me / I accomplished / I read / I ate in 20xx” so this isn’t that. I do, however, like a bit of reflection.

That sweater hasn’t gotten knit yet (although I just have ribbing, pockets, and sleeves to go); I beat my running mileage goal by 1.5 miles; and I read a lot of good books.

2019 was a wonderful year for me, after several bad-to-middling ones; but rest assured, if you are going through a hard time and don’t want to read a self-congratulatory post, please know that I had to go through rough times to get to this part of my life. A lot of them were through my own choices. So now, every day that I’m able to see the blessings in being surrounded by love, peace, calm, simplicity, and family is a day that I feel immense gratitude for. I fought against myself so hard for so long, and against the flow of my life, and against things that were good for me and made me happy, and I’m so thankful for the person I am now, and for all of my people – family born and family chosen.

The last couple of days of the year have been restful and quiet, some shopping, some running, lots of eating and drinking and cats.

I’m really excited for 2020 and so grateful for all of you who read this blog and look at my pictures and keep coming back.  I look forward to starting 2020 the way I mean to finish it, with gratitude and love and peace, and that’s my wish for all of you, as well.

See you next year.

xoxo

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“for last year’s words belong to last year’s language; and next year’s words await another voice.” – TS Eliot