Books I read: December

Hey look, another December post so I can finally get to January one of these days! So, my reading of 2014 is done. I fully never expect to read as much in a single year as I did this year. 155 books. ONE HUNDRED FIFTY FIVE BOOKS. What's interesting to me is that at the end of 2013, I was completely burned out by reading, and I wanted to go back to rereading my favorites. To "give myself an out" and read things I knew I'd love. Well, it turns out that philosophy had me reading three new books more than 2013, plus 56 books I had read before. I read whole series again, reread first parts of series before continuings, etc etc etc. I loved it. I will continue this philosophy, really. Read what I want. Brilliant.

reread

56. Matched - Ally Condie

new

91. Shift - Hugh Howley also liked, althought I liked Wool better.

92. One Plus One - Jojo Moyes Not as compelling as Me Before You. But good.

93 Blue Lily, Lily Blue - Maggie Stiefvater Too much! Too little space! I loved it but just so much happened and yet not enough happened.

94. Dead To Me - Cath Staincliffe Perfectly serviceable British detective novel. I think I’d like the ongoing series better than the first one when the characters are just settling in.

95. Between the Lines - Jodi Picoult & Samantha van Leer Oh, this was darling.

96. The Impossible Knife of Memory - Laurie Halse Anderson I did not go into this expecting to like it much, but I loved it.

The Transfer (short story) - Veronica Roth Cute is not exactly how I’d characterize this, but … cute. (note - 40 pages, so I didn't note as a full read.)

97. Crossed - Ally Condie I was reminded somehow that I read the first of these and then never went back to the rest of the series. Really, I loved it. All of them, I thought the crossing of storylines was excellent.

98. Reached - Ally Condie see above

99. How to Build a Girl - Caitlin Moran I am a little of a prude about books, and at times I was embarrassed to be reading this. But it was really well written and I loved the tone. It was just interesting in the best way.

Year in Review

Before I move on to 2015, it’s only fitting that I say a proper goodbye to 2014. It was a mixed bag, if I’m being honest, but a lot of it was so very good. So very good.

(This was dinner NYE: filet stacked on creamed spinach on top of garlic mashed potatoes. To say it was good was an understatement.)

1. What did you do in 2014 that you’d never done before?
Visited Colorado. Organized and executed a girls’ trip to San Antonio, TX with some of the best girls ever.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I looked back, and it appears I never made any. SUCCESS! I try to keep to loose “I should try…” resolutions, and if they hold up, I’m happy, and if they don’t, perhaps it wasn’t meant to be.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
A couple old friends gave birth to boys (both having girls in the two-year variety), and it was happy times.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
The brother of a close friend, who I would also consider my brother, took his own life. A weekish later my aunt passed in her home alone which is a terrible way to go.

5. What countries did you visit?
Just good ole ‘Merica, unless you count all the countries at the Epcot Food & Wine Festival. There are a lot of very delicious countries.

6. What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014?
More confidence and compassion for myself.

7. What dates from 2014 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I’m not good with dates. All the days.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I can’t think of any big achievements. Survival was the name of the game.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I worked hard to keep my anxiety under control and I often failed quite spectactularly. I didn’t feel I was a great parent a lot of the time (especially with Spencer), often because of my anxiety issues.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
no

11. What was the best thing you bought?
a dresser for the boys. I wanted that so bad, it was pivotal to the bedroom redo (and dealing with wrinkles)

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Marianne was amazing – Hugo is still on my happy wall.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
The general intolerance of the internet.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Bills, the kids. Some on real travel. (three trips! I took three trips this year!!)

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
My trips.

16. What song will always remind you of 2014?
Does anyone say anything other than Shake It Up? Henry loved it until his brother scorned him for it, which I might not forgive. Can I hold a grudge against a six year old that I spawned? Anyhow, also a lot of Christmas songs because the kids are still singing them constantly. And Let It Go. 

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
a. I cannot remember my state of mind at the beginning of last year. I think I’m happier. Hopefully more at peace, anyhow.

b. Likewise, I cannot think of what size I was but I think I’m thinner.

c. About the same.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Sit. Play. Watch tv (I know! But I so rarely do it!)

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Yell. Argue with children. Not listen.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Oh! I should have done this before Christmas! No matter, the same way as all Christmasses these days. Lovely Christmas.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
Gilmore Girls. Yep yep.

24. What was the best book you read?
Oh my. I can’t say best, but I had some favorites: Book of Life (Deborah Harkness), Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Laini Taylor), the Magic series by Ilona Andrews, The Sky is Everywhere (Jandy Nelson) and several more, I’m sure.

25. What did you want and get?
a bottle of The Botanist gin.

26. What did you want and not get?
World Peace.

27. What was your favorite film of this year?
I loved Mockingjay Pt 1. I’m struggling to remember what else I saw – Gone Girl, Big Hero 6, Into the Woods, Maleficent. I feel sure I’ve seen something else but I don’t know.

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 34. We went to dinner with family.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I can’t think of anything.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2014?
clothes. Purple shoes.

31. What kept you sane?
my pocket friends, especially Dawn, Sara, Sarah, Erin and Mel.

32. Who was the best new person you met?
I met a lot of great people, but I have to say Dawn. I met her in person and it’s just the best. She's my spirit animal.

33. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2014.There are “friends” and then there are FRIENDS. I’m so lucky to have FRIENDS.

It only took two weeks to move on! Oh, except books - I haven't done my December books post. Goodness! Two weeks and everything goes to hell!

A Before and After

I took a week off (closer to 10 days) work, but I didn't go anywhere. My goal was a lofty one though: I wanted to redo the boys' room. When we moved in nearly 7 years ago, Spencer was 4 months old. We painted baby blue and white and brown stripes, and it was our nursery. Henry was born when Spencer was exactly 2.5 yrs old, and so it still was a nursery - I added a bit of bright green throughout the room and in the closet and kept the sweet stripes.

I don't have babies anymore (weep). It was time.

This is what the room looked like when Henry was born:

  

And then a year later we added the bunk beds:



But honestly, this was what it looked like most of the time (taken right before I emptied the room out):

So goodbye, stripes:

And this is how it looks now:

Christmas Eve & Day

I worked for a short time on Christmas Eve, but after that I was going to be off for awhile so I didn’t mind so much. Daycare was open until noon, so I grabbed the kids after work and we spent the day hanging out and they played with the neighbor boy some. We really wanted Thai food, but apparently nobody stays open for Christmas Eve so we had Lee Roy Selmon’s because I got an email for $5 nachos (hear that? Occasionally the barrage of emails works! No one tell anyone). They were having a great happy hour so I had strawberry basil martinis and nachos and soft pretzel sticks … it was an acceptable menu change (although I still haven’t had Thai food, bah). 

 

Afterward we did the traditional drive around looking at Christmas lights and drinking hot chocolate in pjs. It had stormed and there were very few lights on, but we found one good neighborhood and called it a night.

I took a pitiful amount of photos all of Christmas, but here’s the tree after santa came, and stockings:

 

And Henry really loves Philbin (it’s definitely his stuffed animal of choice now)

And great minds think alike for Christmas gifts:

And we also got gorgeous glasses to drink said drinks out of:

(This photo actually from New Year's Eve)

And we had a lovely Christmas breakfast on my beautiful table, and another lovely meal later at my in-laws’ house. It was a wonderful time.

Thankful. For you.

It’s been 12 days since I sat down and wrote at this blog, and while I want to go back and cover how great Christmas was, and new year’s (especially dinner, yum!) I just wanted to take a moment right her to say how much I appreciate the people who care about me. I have a great family, I have a few local friends but my internet people are just so much the ones who get me. I don’t think that I could get through much of this last year without them, and I’m so glad to know so many wonderful people.

I caught my husband staring at my wall of Christmas cards, and he said “you know, before you take these down, you need to tell me who all of these people are.” And I will, because I hope that one day he knows you too. No one gets me more, beyond him, than you.

And yet there was more Christmas!

Is 25 days too many for Christmas? I would submit to you that most of the time, no. But right this very second, yes. Yes it is. Yet we persevere.

17. I could not remember this far back, but thankfully my camera remembered for me (and now I shared the biggest reason for taking pictures. To supplement my spectacularly terrible short term memory). We made ornaments for grandparents and teacher gifts. I got the ornament idea from Heather, but she had a kit from Hobby Lobby. I got some silvery ornaments from Michaels and used already-owned finger paints and sharpie to decorate. I love them. We also filled a mason jar with hot chocolate packets and Christmas candies and a Starbucks gift card for Spencer’s teacher. Henry’s daycare lady will get a Chili’s gift card because I know it’s a place she goes, and one of the ornaments.

18: Night at Bethlehem. Every year my neighbors’ church does this giant ‘do where there is a bazaar a la old time Bethlehem and a reenactment of the birth of Jesus, and I think it’s Spencer’s favorite. Last year we went and partway through the No Room at the Inn song, he stood up and yelled hey! I’ve read this book! Good times. We were on a short schedule this year because I had an early flight but we still got some goodness in before heading home. The kids got their candle, dreidels and chocolate chip cookies so they were set.

19: Watch a Christmas movie! This was our last official “watch a Christmas movie” and we watched Christmas With the Kranks. In retrospect, probably a little too old for them but they stuck it out until about 15 minutes until the end when they had enough.

20: Make a gingerbread house! Spencer had been awaiting this very day for 20 days, and he was not disappointed. He had a great time. Daddy took over the making and decorating, so Mommy wasn’t overly annoyed too. Good times.

21. Baking! The last of the baking. At the time, I didn’t know it was going to be the last of the baking because technically I have more to make but that stuff’s going in the freezer until some random time I decide I feel like making Oreo truffles. Right now is not that time. I did make chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip, forgotten kisses, gingerbread cookies (although I used Trader Joe’s dark gingerbread mix for this and I have to say, A+), and toffee! My toffee came through this time! With only one major finger burn! Paired with the previously made peppermint fudge and chocolate dipped marshmallows, I am done, man. I wanted to make Oreo truffles (regular and mint) and sugared nuts, and I have all the makings for all of those but dude. I’m tired.

(Henry enjoyed learning why baking day is such a good advent day for him)

22. WE FORGOT TO DO IT. Ha! Honestly, it was a Monday so I can already tell you it’s “read a Christmas book,” which we can easily fit in tonight if we want. This morning Spencer was again reading the 12 days of Christmas as loud as he could, so maybe that ship has sailed.

Tonight we have “make place cards for Christmas breakfast” which will be very easy. I have pretty cardboard-style gift tags, and we are going to write names on the back and tie them to napkin rings. You might do things fancier at your house, but I think this matches our stamina level. Christmas Eve is always “drive around in PJs with hot chocolate looking at Christmas lights until the little ones fall asleep.” It might say exactly that on the placard.

I have some wrapping to finish but otherwise I think we are in good shape to sail into the holiday with minimal exhaustion. After going through what we could eat on Christmas Eve, I’ve decided we are going out for dinner (Thai? Probably?) which means I can set my breakfast table midday instead of the middle of the night. I’m also making most of Christmas breakfast on Christmas Eve, so in the morning I can just stuff everything in the oven for warming. I’ve gotten over my anxiety about the children being disappointed about Christmas at this point. I know they’ll like things. I know they’ll be disappointed there are no handheld video games under the tree, but I do hope they get over it. S asked for a non-tech item Sunday morning and it was bought by Santa by noon. We are done. Done. I’m done.

Merry Christmas!

Conversations with Henry and other stories.

“God can see all things.

God is a pyramid.

But he doesn’t have a mouth. Only people and dogs have mouths.

And cats. Cats have mouths.

Cami eats really fast.”

(Cami is my MIL’s cat)

(I’m assuming the rest of this is related to the pyramid with the eye on it on the dollar bill.)

This kid, man. I don't even know where he comes up with what he wants to talk about, and he certainly doesn't need a sounding board to get it out. 

Also, I told my husband about this conversation, and his response was "I've seen Cami eat. She does eat really fast."

There was very little sleep last night from me, because of this child, but the folks at Jimmy Dean knew that and their machines made me a breakfast sandwich with extra carbs.

We've been bbarrelingthrough our advent activities, with even very little push back.

12: ICE at the Gaylord Palms - this was very interesting and seriously cold, but a pretty small exhibit for the money. I'm glad we did it, but I'm not sure we would do it again. (also, I'm the sucker who paid for the photo. Hey, I'm not going back, right? YOLO and all that)

13: We spent the day at Epcot snacking around the world with Tara and Jen and visiting with internet children. It was great fun. I wanted to see Elsa turn Cinderella's castle to ice once before the holiday was over, so we headed to MK for the evening. It was a lovely fun day.

14. Making holiday treats: I still haven't tried toffee again yet after last week's poor showing, but I made peppermint fudge, chocolate-dipped marshmallows, cheerio and m&m treats (think rice krispies with more gluten). The boys did not help, and I was okay with that. Not on the advent that we did also: my cousin graduated so we trekked to my uncle's house for a party and then my mom came over to babysit and we went out for an arty movie (yawn) and sushi and wine/scotch. It was a delightful weekend, and I needed a nap afterward.

15. Read a Christmas book! (I love Mondays). I had a terrible anxiety attack related to money and paying bills for my mom and being over all "maybe I should make sure I'm a little more on track with my meds". Christmas book, I love you for being so low maintenance. Spencer read to me this time, and I counted it on his reading log. Win all around.

16. The lights at the Botanical Gardens: Every year I look for something to do that isn't on our regular course of things we would normally do. This year I found that the Florida Botanical Gardens do up a lot of lights and for a small donation, you too can walk around and enjoy it! So we did. It was very nice (and I take terrible nighttime photos, but pretty!