I don’t usually do end-of-year wrap-up posts*, but I’ve never had a year like this last one, either. I mean, we got pregnant, bought a house, and had a baby, all conveniently within the confines of one calendar year. So that was weird.
How’s 2019 gonna top that?
*Does one sentence count as a wrap-up post?
Started: 12/27/18
Finished: 12/30/18
It got rave reviews, but now that I’ve read it, I’m not sure why. The story jumps from section to section, there are parts that don’t fit at all, and we’re inside the main character’s head, but the character’s not fully developed. There’s too much telling instead of showing, and at the same time not enough telling to understand her motivations.
Happy 18th anniversary to us! Today, our marriage is as old as we were when we met. Are we doing anything special to celebrate, you ask? Ha ha, you’re hilarious. We have a three-month-old. We’re ordering food for dinner, probably, and we’ll be lucky if we have any champagne. We sure know how to party. (Look for a repeat of that sentiment on New Year’s Eve. Our night is likely to look like TV, Chinese food, and MAYBE champagne. We’ll only see midnight if Jack refuses to go to sleep earlier.)
Started: 12/19/18
Finished: 12/27/18
This was an odd one, and I’m not sure I liked it. I didn’t dislike it, and I was interested enough to finish it, but I’m feeling kind of meh about it.
Tomorrow morning we head for PA for Christmas. This will the first time we’ve driven more than half an hour with Jack, the first time we’ve spent a night somewhere other than home with Jack (not counting the hospital), and the first time he’ll be around more than five people at once.
I’m not terribly worried about the drive. He’ll probably sleep much of it (although I most likely just jinxed it). And the people – he’ll be fine. It’s the nights away from home that have me a little worried. No, I’m not worried. I’m resigned to the likelihood that we won’t get any sleep. He’ll be in a new place, in an unfamiliar crib (or something), new noises (including another baby), so he’s likely to have trouble settling down, and since he’ll be in our room, I think I’m likely to have trouble settling down.
Maybe he and I can tire each other out during the days enough to sleep like logs at night. That’s actually pretty likely. 🙂 And maybe, just maybe, the experience of sleeping somewhere other than home will make sleeping at home that much more attractive to him and he’ll go down for naps easier.
I can dream.
I mentioned this a while back, but my book list (my What I’ve Been Reading page) crashed earlier this year because the way I’d been building it wasn’t ideal. My solution has been to load each book as its own blog post and tag and categorize each one so they’ll show up on the new What I’ve Been Reading page. Unfortunately (for me), I have to create a new blog post for each book. I’ve done that for all of 2018, but my next task (in all my free time) is to keep working on the list, all the way back to 2009. If you have subscribed so you get emails every time I post something, I apologize for flooding your inbox. It’s going to keep happening here and there. But I like the way it looks now! So there’s that.
Also, I should be using this time to work, not write, so bye.
Started: 12/17/18
Finished: 12/19/18
A couple meet, fall in love, and flee their Middle Eastern city via a magic door. The writing keeps you at a remove from the characters and the story, so you know how the characters are feeling, but you don’t feel how they’re feeling, but it’s well-done. There have been several sentences I’ve read out loud to John because I liked the phrasing so much.
‘Twas the night before I have to start working again
And all through the house
I am pacing the floors
and if I find a mouse, so help me, I will squish it flat to help relieve the anxiety
Okay, I’m not THAT anxious, and if I see a mouse, I will jump on the couch and scream. I’m a little bit anxious about being able to find the time, and I’m pretty sure that at least some of the work time every day is going to be when I would usually be sleeping. But also, I don’t WANT to find the time. I’ve been perfectly happy spending nearly every waking (and sleeping) moment with Jack. But NO. I just HAD to buy THIS house. (Never mind that I love this house and I don’t actually regret the purchase.)
I want it the way I want it, and the way I want it is to not have to work. Any idea what the Powerball is up to these days?
Started: 12/14/18
Finished: 12/17/18
Set in the near future, it’s about a biotech company looking for ways to improve pregnancy and early motherhood. It took a weird turn at the end, had one big block of exposition that I found irritating, and wrapped too neatly and quickly. The ending didn’t make sense for two of the male characters.
Started: 12/12/18
Finished: 12/14/18
A British love story that references Love Actually and Bridget Jones liberally. The beginning was difficult, but it got better largely because the friendship between the two women was well-written. The man was two-dimensional, boring, and not worth the angst thrown in his direction.
Started: 12/11/18
Gave up: 12/12/18
I have loved (or really liked) everything I’ve read by Octavia Butler, so it pains me to say I gave up on this book. SF vampires = all good, but the main character presents as an 11-year-old. I don’t care that she’s actually in her 50s or whatever (because vampires) – that makes the sex icky and weird. I tried to get past that and kept reading, but then it turned into all exposition, all the time, and I couldn’t care enough to get to the plot.
Started: 12/2/18
Finished: 12/11/18
Female spy captured in Nazi-occupied France tells her story via written confession. Fascinating, funny, sweet. Ultimately the story of a friendship.
I talked to my boss for the first time in over two months this week. I’m going back to work, part-time, in about a week and a half, so it was time to check in and make sure he was still good with all the stuff we worked out, and you know what? He is. I have to go back to work, which sucks, but I’m getting everything I asked for, which makes it a little bit okay. Part-time, flexible working hours, only one or two regularly scheduled meetings…I don’t get healthcare, which totally sucks, but we can figure that out on our own. And we will, probably this weekend.
Still, it was really nice not to think about work at all for this long, and I’m a little bummed that I have to think about it again, and then, gasp, actually do it. I might need some help remembering how to do my job.
I anticipated smelly poopy diapers (and the smellier ones still to come) and diaper blowouts and getting peed on. I anticipated (to a certain extent) having days where I can’t make it into the shower and everything I’m wearing is something I wore the day before and then slept in AND has spit-up on it. I did NOT anticipate the baby spitting up on me WHILE NURSING and then getting squirmy-yelly-mad when I insist on a 20-second break to mop us both up. Ew, baby. I know you ate that once, but it’s not better the second time around.
(See what I did there, Mom and Dad? His first word isn’t destined to be “gross”.)
The other day when I was walking with Jack, we saw a red car driving slowly towards us. It stopped a few houses ahead, and a white-haired lady got out of the passenger side. I assumed she was being dropped off, but then she looked at the house across from her and clapped a few times. If she said anything, I couldn’t hear it. I had time to wonder what on earth she was doing. As we got level with her, she said “Little black dog wearing a cone. Have you seen him?” Ah. “No, but I’ll keep my eyes open. If I find him, where should I return him?” “The house at the end of the cul de sac. No one’s home, but the door’s open.” Uh…maybe that’s how he got out? Or maybe she left it open so he could get back in. We got beyond the car and I looked down the cul de sac. There was a little dog in a cone standing in the front yard of the house at the end. “Ma’am? Is that him?” It was. Probably too embarrassed in the cone to wander far.
Smart little dog. We had one of those. And we had one of the other kind. When Roxy got out, she took off, but if you could get close enough with her leash, she’d come trotting back so we could all go for a walk. Riley, on the other hand, occasionally got out the back but could always be found waiting patiently to be let in at the front door.
I did it again. While walking with Jack this morning, I started drafting a post in my head, and when I got back, I remembered that I’d thought of something, but that’s as far as I can get. I had hoped it would come back to me when I went out for my “run”*, but no luck. Gone forever.
*That’s right! I’ve started exercising (other than walks with the baby in the stroller) again! It’s a “run” because I can’t call it running yet, or even jogging, not really. I’m starting from basically nothing, so I’m back to the walk/jog pattern. Walk for 5 minutes, jog for 1 minute, repeat for at least half an hour (longer when I can get the time). Do that three times a week (at least), for at least two weeks, then walk for 4 minutes, jog for 2. It’ll take a long time, but it’s a safe (injury-free) way to get back to running. And MAN do I want to avoid hurting myself. I miss running. The hard part now is figuring out when I can do it. Jack still has, like, NO pattern. Not for eating, not for sleeping, and that makes it hard to work out with John when I can leave him with Jack during the work day. It’s best (for all three of us) if I go out immediately after feeding the baby, but will that be when John can look away from work for a bit? Hard to say, hard to predict. But we’ll figure it out.
I did see someone using the same brand jogger that I have and actually jogging with it. We exchanged brief hellos, but she went by too quickly for me to ask how hold her baby was when she started jogging with her. The recommended age is 8 months, so it’s likely to be a while before Jack and I jog together.
Started: 12/1/18
Finished: 12/2/18
Third in the Wayward Children series. The first book set up the premise (which is great). The second and third explore some of the worlds and follow some of the first book’s characters. I still love these books, both for the ideas and the characters. These are some real teenagers going through some real emotional issues.
My brain is mush. It’s worse than pregnancy brain, I think – it’s exhausted brain. I’ll think of something to write about, start writing it in my head, and then it’s completely lost by the time I get in front of my laptop (usually days later). I used to send myself emails with notes in them. Why don’t I do that now? Because mushbrain. So John has the baby right now, I have two hands free, and I’ve got nothing. Nothing interesting, nothing amusing, nothing more than an account of the day.
I also probably won’t have my hands free for much longer. John has the baby, yes, but he’s starting to cry (Jack, not John), and it sounds like it’ll turn into the hungry cry any minute now.
I might not have my hands free, but I’ll have a cuddly baby in my arms (when he’s not wailing, he’s SUPER cuddly), John made us a cozy fire in the wood stove, and he’s going to grill us salmon (once HIS hands are free).
This is our exciting Saturday night.
Started: 11/27/18
Gave up: 12/1/18
Someone visits people before Death does. Could have been good, but there’s no plot (I got a quarter of the way in – nothing) and the main character isn’t interesting enough to carry the book without a sense of purpose to what action there is. Gave it up.