Sunday Salon - December 30

Greetings! Everyone recovered from Christmas or are you, like me, making recovery a slow, drawn out process? I always wait to take down decorations until at least New Years so they are are still up, but I still haven't gotten the gift bags put away, some packaging from gifts is still sitting around, and, sigh, I still haven't gotten my Christmas cards sent. And this weekend, I just don't care. After a wonderful but hectic Christmas and a very busy three days at work, I'm using this four-day weekend to relax, slowly put things back in order and read, read, read.

Here's What I'm:

Listening To: Studio 360 on NPR - yesterday's program was an entire hour devoted to "Culture Shock 1913." In this year, modernism really began to make an impact on the general public from an exhibit of cubism in the U.S. to the Paris premiere of Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" with choreography by Nijinski (if you're familiar with Disney's "Fantasia" you'll recall "The Rite of Spring" as being the long piece about the development of life on Earth). If you click on the picture above, it will link you to this very interesting story about a year in history that profoundly changed the way people think.

Watching: Almost nothing. Some football, "Elementary" and "A Christmas Story" - that's about it for this week. The five of us celebrated Christmas on Christmas Day and watched "A Christmas Story" together, eating our Asian dinner just as the movie family sat down to Christmas dinner in a Chinese restaurant.

Reading: This past week I finished A Golden Age by Tahmima Anim (which I loved) and read Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses which made me wonder why it's been so long since I picked up anything by Tan. My goal was 75 books this year so I've picked up Julian Barnes' The Sense of An Ending (finally, Teri!) which I thought was an appropriate title to end the year on.

Making: I made a yummy potato dish in the crockpot for Christmas dinner with the in-laws last Sunday and this week I turned those leftovers into a great potato soup. The Big Guy took the leftover ham and made a great ham and  bean soup as well. Nice to be able to use the leftovers in ways that make the cold weather easier to bear.

Planning: On ushering the new year in very quietly. I'm sure we'll do our usual Chinese takeout and pop open a bottle of champagne at midnight but otherwise, I think it will be a movie/football night. Do you have big plans?

Grateful for: I feel like I must say this is some form or another every other week, but family. I am blessed to have very close families on both sides and know how lucky I am to have in-laws that I enjoy.

Loving: My new Nook. Yep, my family all pitched in (lead by Miss H who was bound and determined that I should have one) and got me a Nook HD for Christmas. I have yet to download a book onto it but will figure that out this weekend. I have some from Netgalley ready to go. I have enjoyed using it to read email, keep up with Twitter, and just to explore.

Also loving reading all of the year-end posts. I mark down books throughout the year that I find on people's blogs but when those books start showing up on year-end best-of lists, then I know I need to star them and move them to the top of the wish list. Sometimes I even find books that I've overlooked somehow that need to be added.


Looking forward to: Two more days of relaxation before heading back to another three-day work week. Hmm, wouldn't it be nice to have those every week? What are you looking forward to this week?