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R. and I drove out to Florence to meet with the architect and builder. Good meeting! Also chatted a bit longer with the architect after, to better understand some of the recent adjustments to the plan.
We stopped at Freightyard and I had a BLT. R. had a turkey sandwich and bought some baked goodies. If we ever want any antique hooks or metal brackets, that’s the place to get them.
I read _Wolf Nip_, by Vivian Arend. It’s very short, and very calm. It’s the tail (ha ha) end of a series, but there are connected series that continue on. I have not read any other books in the series. This is yet another of the 2017 acquisitions that I never got around to reading. I think I’m going to go to figure out what on earth happened that resulted in me buying a bunch of really fun books and then never reading them.
ETA:
I have done some research!
2018 was the year I decided to learn how to mix drinks.
2018 was the year I attempted the 50 book challenge. I want to be clear here. I _misunderstood_ the 50 book challenge as a keep your reading at 50 books or less for the years, then realized, d’oh, people are trying to get _up to_ 50 books. I decided in 2018 to _try to reduce my reading_ to 50 books _and I failed wildly_. But along the way to trying to get the reading at 50 or fewer, I created a drinking related project (get better at mixology).
2018 was also my 20th anniversary of retiring, and there was extra travel related to that. We were also juggling a bunch of things like vision therapy.
So.
I have a ton of 2017 purchased books that are _awesome_ and series and authors that are absolute catnip that I lost track of because I had a stupid goal in 2018 to read fewer books. Honestly, there’s got to be a moral there somewhere.
ETAYA:
FWIW, 2016 was 2016 and also, I was doing a bunch of travel to national parks which was complicated to plan and mildly traumatizing to experience. Also, there was that crazy rollercoaster with D. and her daughter R. Finally, our housecleaner died in 2017ish, and I sort of didn’t catch up from that for a really long time.
I keep looking back over these years and just trying to understand _why_ they were so hard, and I don’t know that I have any kind of a simple answer. It may have just been one damn thing after another.
Still more:
Yesterday, I cooked some bacon in the countertop oven (“toaster oven”). I poured most of the bacon fat into the jar I cook out of, but it was pretty full, so it did not all fit. I was reluctant to throw the rest away OR to start a new jar, so I put a postit saying Don’t Clean on it, and then later, I made a sheet pan dinner on top of the bacon fat.
*drool*
But there was still fat left, so I did a repeat today.
*still* *more* *drool*
I spend a lot of time thinking unkind thoughts about sheet pan dinners, but sheet pan dinners on top of a layer of bacon fat are the shizzle. Also, I have been drinking, and reading Sarina Bowen’s _Man Hands_ and I cannot stop laughing.
And Yet More!
I finished reading _Man Hands_, and it’s really a delightful read all the way through. It has a pretty strong Crusie vibe, but Crusie often has some mean-ness in at least some of the characters and honestly, even the characters being mean to each other (Ash and Braht, notably) are kinda doing it not to be mean, but for very other reasons. Weird stuff! Very fun take on reality TV, figuring out what kind of career you really want, what kind of person you want to share your life with, who is your family. Lots to love here, and apparently, there is at least one sequel? Still more from the gift that was 2017, in terms of buying amazing books and then never getting around to reading them. 2017 me apparently had amazing taste in contemporary romance.
We stopped at Freightyard and I had a BLT. R. had a turkey sandwich and bought some baked goodies. If we ever want any antique hooks or metal brackets, that’s the place to get them.
I read _Wolf Nip_, by Vivian Arend. It’s very short, and very calm. It’s the tail (ha ha) end of a series, but there are connected series that continue on. I have not read any other books in the series. This is yet another of the 2017 acquisitions that I never got around to reading. I think I’m going to go to figure out what on earth happened that resulted in me buying a bunch of really fun books and then never reading them.
ETA:
I have done some research!
2018 was the year I decided to learn how to mix drinks.
2018 was the year I attempted the 50 book challenge. I want to be clear here. I _misunderstood_ the 50 book challenge as a keep your reading at 50 books or less for the years, then realized, d’oh, people are trying to get _up to_ 50 books. I decided in 2018 to _try to reduce my reading_ to 50 books _and I failed wildly_. But along the way to trying to get the reading at 50 or fewer, I created a drinking related project (get better at mixology).
2018 was also my 20th anniversary of retiring, and there was extra travel related to that. We were also juggling a bunch of things like vision therapy.
So.
I have a ton of 2017 purchased books that are _awesome_ and series and authors that are absolute catnip that I lost track of because I had a stupid goal in 2018 to read fewer books. Honestly, there’s got to be a moral there somewhere.
ETAYA:
FWIW, 2016 was 2016 and also, I was doing a bunch of travel to national parks which was complicated to plan and mildly traumatizing to experience. Also, there was that crazy rollercoaster with D. and her daughter R. Finally, our housecleaner died in 2017ish, and I sort of didn’t catch up from that for a really long time.
I keep looking back over these years and just trying to understand _why_ they were so hard, and I don’t know that I have any kind of a simple answer. It may have just been one damn thing after another.
Still more:
Yesterday, I cooked some bacon in the countertop oven (“toaster oven”). I poured most of the bacon fat into the jar I cook out of, but it was pretty full, so it did not all fit. I was reluctant to throw the rest away OR to start a new jar, so I put a postit saying Don’t Clean on it, and then later, I made a sheet pan dinner on top of the bacon fat.
*drool*
But there was still fat left, so I did a repeat today.
*still* *more* *drool*
I spend a lot of time thinking unkind thoughts about sheet pan dinners, but sheet pan dinners on top of a layer of bacon fat are the shizzle. Also, I have been drinking, and reading Sarina Bowen’s _Man Hands_ and I cannot stop laughing.
And Yet More!
I finished reading _Man Hands_, and it’s really a delightful read all the way through. It has a pretty strong Crusie vibe, but Crusie often has some mean-ness in at least some of the characters and honestly, even the characters being mean to each other (Ash and Braht, notably) are kinda doing it not to be mean, but for very other reasons. Weird stuff! Very fun take on reality TV, figuring out what kind of career you really want, what kind of person you want to share your life with, who is your family. Lots to love here, and apparently, there is at least one sequel? Still more from the gift that was 2017, in terms of buying amazing books and then never getting around to reading them. 2017 me apparently had amazing taste in contemporary romance.