Life: It Goes On - January 3

Happy Sunday and Happy New Year! I'm feeling a little blue today. I'd been looking forward to having the week before Christmas off, followed by a four-day weekend the next week for months and months and now it's over. With winter ahead of us. And no vacation scheduled. On the plus side, I was happy to be working from home this week when we got 7" of snow and I was able to sit at my desk enjoying the beauty of the snow instead of having to worry about driving in it. 

Last Week I: 

 Listened To: I finished Jess Walter's latest, The Cold Millions, but didn't want to start anything else so it's been a lot of music. 

Watched: All of the football, of course, and Thursday I watched a marathon of the Thin Man movies, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. I'd forgotten how complicated those plots are and how great the dialogue is; and, of course, the chemistry between Powell and Loy is marvelous. 

Read: I finally finished Marilynne Robinson's Jack. Her books are beautifully written but they are work to read. No chapters, not a lot of dialogue, just a lot of stream of thought. I held off starting a new book until some books I'd had on hold with the library came in because I'm longing to read an actual book. So my first book in print for 2021 will be Rachel Joyce's Miss Benson's Beetle. I have no idea what it's about; this is another book I picked up strictly because I've always enjoyed the author's work.

Made: We rang in the New Year with lobster tails and homemade sourdough cheddar biscuits and it was such a good meal with start the year with! One of my winter projects is going to be figuring out ways to use my sourdough discard and those biscuits are definitely a recipe we'll have again.

Enjoyed: A garage New Year's Eve get-together. I wish I'd gotten pictures! The four of us were all bundled up, with rugs under our feet and blankets over our laps but we managed to make it two and a half hours and knock off a couple of bottles of champagne. Now, if we can figure out how to add some heat into the system, we'll be able to get together throughout the winter. 

This Week I’m:  

Planning: I've got some painting to do and I want to get back to the organizing in my basement and my office. But...tomorrow is the start of Bout of Books and I haven't participated in a Bout of Books in a very long time. What better way to kick off this reading year? 

The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 4th and runs through Sunday, January 10th in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are reading sprints, Twitter chats, and exclusive Instagram challenges, but they’re all completely optional. For all Bout of Books 30 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

So maybe all of those other projects will just have to wait. If you're interested in joining, you can sign up here.

Thinking About: The 40 Bags In 40 Days Challenge, which starts February 17th. Two people live in this house. I've done this challenge for seven years already. Still, my house is packed full and there's no doubt in my mind that we can get rid of 40 bags of "stuff" we don't use or need. 

Feeling: Delighted. My sister meant to send me an ornament for Christmas that had pages from a Julia Childs' cookbook in it but instead had ordered a Betty Crocker ornament. I'm good with that but she wasn't content. So New Year's Eve, when we came home from our evening out, The Big Guy grabbed the mail and I discovered that my sister had sent me this Julia Childs bookmark. It made me laugh and reminded me how blessed I am to have such a considerate sister. 

Looking forward to: Lots of reading this week. 

Question of the week: Do you have resolutions for the coming year? I stopped doing that some years ago, opting instead to choose One Word for the new year. Some years I've struggled with choosing that word and I've always had mixed results with taking that word through the year. But it works better for me and this year the word just came to me and I knew it was the one. I'll post more about that later this week. Do you choose One Word for the year?