Happy New Year, friends!  I hope that wherever you were celebrating, you were safe and warm and surrounded by loved ones.  And I wish for you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2020!  We spent the last week up in Albany, NY, visiting my folks for the holiday.  I worked remotely a fair bit, but managed to eke out the last few hours I had to do in order to meet the top bonus threshold at work, so that’s something.  The kids were in grandparent wonderland – they went to see Frozen II and up to the observation deck in Corning Tower to look down on the tiny ice skaters below – while Mom and Dad billed our last hours of 2019.  And we rang in 2020 in our usual way – with cheese fondue after the kids were asleep.  We also squeezed in time with family and friends, visiting with my Aunt Maria, my grandmother, Steve’s Aunt Susan, our dear family friends, and my high school bestie Jennifer and her family.  While I’d have liked to work a little less (theme of the year, right?) it was a good, solid week with the fam.  We shoved off home at zero dark hundred on Friday morning, because we had 2:00 p.m. tickets to see #AURORAinDC at ARTECHOUSE on Saturday.  (For the uninitiated, ARTECHOUSE is an innovative gallery that pairs art with technology for a fully immersive sensory experience.  My former work wife, Samantha, has been bugging me to check it out for years, and the Aurora installation looked amazing, so I bought the whole family tickets as a Christmas gift to Steve.  We all loved it.)  The rest of the weekend was pretty standard stuff – just your run-of-the-mill errands and chores, coupled with a short hike to Jones Point, to prepare us for the week ahead.  I’m sort of dreading it.  I have a very full and busy week at work and I don’t really feel prepared, and I know the kids are going to have a rough time transitioning back into regular schoolday life.  Send good vibes, please.

Reading.  What a week in reading!  With two long car trips, a week at my parents’ house, and a stack of Christmas gifts and fresh library finds to tempt me, I have been wading happily through my bookshelves for hours and hours.  I read I Was a Stranger, General Sir John Hackett’s marvelous memoir of his time spent hiding with a family behind enemy lines after the battle of Arnhem, on the car ride up to Albany and over the course of the first evening.  On New Year’s Eve I polished off the last poem in Nature Poems for Every Day of the Year, which I’d been reading bit by bit all year long.  On New Year’s Day, I decided to start a new tradition and read New Year’s Day, my favorite of the four novellas from Edith Wharton’s collection Old New York.  Seemed appropriate.  Then I turned to One Woman’s Year, a recent Persephone title – I always like to read about the seasons in January.  On the way home and over the course of Saturday, I delighted in Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther, which was completely delicious – full review coming (although not soon, because I have a lot of New Year’s content to get through first) – then turned my attention to Great Goddesses, which Steve gave me for Christmas.  It was absolutely wonderful, and I closed it with a sigh on Sunday night and turned to my first library read of 2020 – This Is Where You Belong, which came recommended by Anne Bogel via her One Great Book podcast.  I’m just a little ways in, but so far, so good.  And that’s a LOT of books.  Whew.

Watching.  Oh, this and that.  Home Alone while visiting my parents, of course.  Some football, when I catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye.  Lots and lots and LOTS of Octonauts, because Nugget is on a jag.  And the entire first season – in one sitting – of Hello Ninja, for the same reason.

Listening.  Actually, nothing at all, unless you count several marathon-length work calls I listened in on at the end of the week.  Since I didn’t commute and didn’t drive anywhere on my own last week, I didn’t listen to any podcasts, music, audiobooks – nothing at all.

Moving.  The “moving” category returns!  I’m trying really hard to get some balance and some time for me back in my life, and this is part of that.  So, for movement – not as much as I’d have liked, but not nothing.  Two hikes – a good shake-out on New Year’s Day and a short jaunt around Jones Point this weekend – and a barre3 online workout on Sunday.  I was hoping to get out for a run, but I wimped out because it was that bone-chilling damp cold out.  I’m sure I would have been happy if I’d actually gotten out there.  But I settled for the barre3 workout as a substitute, and I’ll get out on the trail this week for sure.

Making.  SO MUCH!  Most exciting of all, I made $80 selling some old bookcases on Facebook Marketplace.  I was a little anxious about the whole process, but it seems to have worked.  At least, the family I sold them to has not messaged me in a rage or tried to return them.  And now I have $80 in my wallet and a lot more space in my basement, so I’m happy.  I also made a spicy vegetable curry and two loaves of bread (one that worked really well and one that was a huge failure) and a fridge stocked with fresh vegetables and fat free yogurt because: January.

Blogging.  Before getting into 2020 content, I have several more posts looking back at 2019 and I’ll be dropping two of them this week: first, a month-by-month review of the year’s adventures, which I always enjoy writing, and second, a look at my Christmas book haul.  The usual time, the usual place.  Check in with me then.

Loving.  YOU GUYS.  So, up above I said that I made two loaves of bread and one worked?  It was this one: sourdough maple walnut bread.  OMG.  What can I tell you about this bread?  We’re calling it “flapjack bread” in my house, because – as the recipe writeup says – it tastes like flapjacks.  Nugget has polished off a shocking amount, but I can’t entirely blame him.  It is WAY too delicious, and I will be bringing it to the office.  I’m always looking for ways to use up discard sourdough starter and this is a winner.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?