While I was making other plans

 What have I been up to? Learning how to turn yarn into other things, mostly. And loving it.

Another year winding down

 Each year seems to go by faster than the last.

If we both were born in another place and time

Grief is a strange and persistent beast. My mother died four years ago, and I haven't really written about it since I had to write her memorial. Yesterday, Olivia Newton-John, one of my mom's favorite singers, died and the grief just ... resurfaced. I'd say it came back, but it never really leaves. 

I would have called her as soon as I heard about ONJ, and we would have grieved her together. (I have such a vivid memory of the night Princess Diana died, calling my mom and crying together over this woman we never met.) Instead, today I put on my mom's Olivia Newton-John records and sang my way through "The River's Too Wide" and cried my way through "I Honestly Love You." 

Let's try this again, shall we?

Christmas and birthday books for the win! Technically, I've already read/listened to the Broken Horses audiobook (and I loved it, earning the "only audiobook Jen likes" award), but I enjoyed it so much I wanted the actual book ... and I'm glad I asked for it, since there are photos, etc., that obviously didn't make it to the audio version. It makes for a nice contrast to the Obama/Springsteen book, which I believe is essentially a transcription of their podcast.

Here's hoping I'm more successful at this to-do list this year than I was last year.

But who's counting?

So, there were some good things that happened this year. I managed to meet my walking goal of at least 10,000 steps every day this year (365 days, bitches!). I am by no measure in shape now, but I'm in slightly better shape than I was.

Unless I finish the book I'm currently reading before midnight (not planning to), I have read 406 books this year (to be fair, some of that number were short stories/novellas), but also, I read a lot. Did I mention the anxiety reading? It hasn't stopped.

My workload this year about doubled from 2020, which was good for my bank account but not always good for my sanity.

My sister and my two nephews moved back to Massachusetts, which has been wonderful.

I'm hoping for more good things in 2022, but I'm not necessarily counting on it.

That didn't go quite as planned

So, I didn't read those books. To be fair, I read other books, just not those. I continued to anxiety-read my way through 2021, but no regrets. I managed to not lose my shit completely, which with the state of the world, was a pretty big accomplishment. There was a brief two- to three-week period where I had some optimism post-vaccine, but then ... yeah. I'm in general awe of those people who have managed to keep a running journal of the pandemic, because I can barely compose two posts in a year. One of which was primarily a photo. If I had done other posts, they probably would have looked like this: photo of one of my dogs; photo of all of my dogs; another photo of my dogs; photo of just two of my dogs with guilt for not including the third. 

In other year-end wrap-up news, I managed to see one movie in theaters this year (Black Widow in that brief window mentioned earlier); I haven't really embarked on new shows, though I did go through the Marvel shows on Disney+ once Sam successfully wore me down; I read a bunch of romance novels (see first paragraph); and weirdly enough, work picked up for me in the second-half of the year, which was good but also really, really tiring. I'm eager for the new year and a little down time to ... hang out with my dogs some more?

Cautious optimism

 

Perhaps I'll be able to finish this to-do list this year.

After the boys of summer have gone

So, apparently, I miss baseball. This shouldn't surprise anyone, even though my Sox love will never be as strong and ever-present as in 2003-2004. Bygones. The point is this: Last night, I dreamed that the Sox needed me. They needed me to play. Apparently, in my fantastical dreamland, I am a catcher, but when they told me I was getting in the game, I panicked. Because I had forgotten all the signs. So I had to talk frantically with the pitcher, trying to decide if one finger down means the fastball or two fingers. And then I woke up, because that was some stressful shit.

Listen up

Making playlists is one of my favorite things to do, so when my friend Carrie posted about the One Song a Year challenge on the Facebooks, there was no way I could resist.

Many years were a struggle for me (how do you pick between Blood on the Tracks and Born to Run?!?), and some years I felt like I had to dig deep (2009 & 2013, I’m looking at you), but I think I could re-make this list every year and come up with different decisions. I almost made an alternates playlist, but there were a few years where I didn't have a second choice (mainly because my first pick was so solid, I didn't even go looking further. I mean, if I wanted to, I'm sure I could come up with more songs). There are some artists and entire genres missing (my early 2000s love of Eminem and hard rock is glossed over in favor of my enduring love for singer/songwriters), but decisions like that are what make this a really fucking difficult challenge. It took me the better part of a weekend to craft it, but what else do you have to do? Take it at your own risk.

The Rules: • A song from each year you have been alive • The song has to be from the year it was released • An artist can only appear once • It has to be a really good song • It doesn’t have to be the first song you found from the artist • It doesn’t have to be your favorite song from the artist, but it has to be an artist/song that has your love forever

Of course, I made it into an actual playlist, so you can listen to my list on Spotify here.

Strange days, indeed

Okay, so we are living through some weird shit right now, people. And there's not much that we can do but hunker down and wash our hands a lot. So I'm reading a bunch (mostly happily-ever-after romance stuff, because I don't need anymore reality, thanks), and I'm creating playlists on Spotify. Also, petting my dogs a lot, because they are gorgeous and sweet and have no idea what the hell a virus is.