A week when nothing bad happened (to me)

I feel like I'm tempting fate with that post title, but it's really been a pretty calm week, no disasters. I might even call it a pleasant week. Of course, that's totally ignoring the impeachment trial in Washington, which has really depressed me. I've tried to watch some of it, but overall it just makes me ill. The fact that the Dems felt they had to make their case over and over, the fact that the Repubs are just ignoring it all -- how did we get to this state? And who are the millions and millions of people who voted for that creep in the White House, and why do they continue to support him? Is it all due to the distortions of Fox News?

On a not entirely unrelated subject, I've chosen my books for the Classics Challenge and many of them have something to do with the Civil War and its aftermath, since I'm also going to be reading presidential biographies of Lincoln and probably Johnson and Grant this year. I'm somewhat daunted by the list of books I'm planning to read -- I think so many of them will be really depressing. But I also feel as though I need to have a better understanding of the Civil War, since it -- and slavery -- had and continue to have such an enormous effect on our country. So I am going to do my best to plow through all these unhappy volumes. Meanwhile, to kick off the biographies, I'm trying to read volume one of Michael Burlingame's MASSIVE bio of Abraham Lincoln and I'm actually having a lot of trouble, partly because it's a catalogue of every single thing Lincoln ever did, but mainly because the book is too big for me to read in bed. My arms aren't strong enough to hold it up, and it hurts my stomach. So I have to read it at the kitchen counter, and that's not a place where I normally read anything except the newspaper. This is why I'm only on page 86 out of 759 pages of text (and they're very long pages, since the book is so large). The book should have been due this Wednesday, but I got an email from the library today saying it had been automatically renewed. So I have three more weeks to read 674 more pages.

The book is impossible, and yet Lincoln comes across as such a wonderful person. And he's only 25 (so far). The contrast with the current incumbent COULD NOT be greater.

On a somewhat lighter note, another plan I have this year is to read a lot of Ursula K. Le Guin. I think I've only read The Left Hand of Darkness, her most popular novel, and Lavinia, her last novel. I've decided to start by reading the rest of her Hainish Cycle novels and stories, and just picked up Rocannon's World from the library. Later on I might read the EarthSea books with the twins. As a break from anything remotely serious, I'm also starting to work my way through the Merrily Watkins supernatural mysteries by Phil Rickman, which are sooooo fun to read that I have to ration them. I also have to buy them (used, from stupid Amazon) because they're not available in libraries here. Too British, apparently. I think they must be popular in Canada too, because the ones I've gotten so far have Canadian price tags stuck on them. I've read the bottom two in this stack and am planning to save A Crown of Lights for after I read some serious Civil War stuff. It will be my reward.

Calm weeks provide less to blog about -- but that's OK. Not complaining, universe! My book group met -- and I wish I had a photograph of the wonderful "rotting log" (like a Bûche de Noel) our hostess made to celebrate the book we read, The Overstory. I had wondered what she would serve, because how can you serve a tree? Silly me. She also had several nut-based snacks. In retrospect, it was quite an easy book to cook for. Some of the members of the group don't try to match the food to the book, but this member excels at it. She sent me home with a box of cheddar-flavored mealworms, I passed them on to the boys, they took them to school, and a friend of theirs downed them all.

I also had coffee with a (non book group) friend at Barnes & Noble this week, and it upsets me to think about how seldom I do that anymore. I used to have coffee with friends constantly, multiple times per week! I suppose dinner with my children has replaced coffee with friends, but hmm. It seems as though I could manage to arrange this at least once a month. I might need more friends, though. Anyway, this particular friend is someone I used to work with. She's 10 years older than I am and has done a lot of interesting "good works" through the years, like foster care and helping refugees in Africa. She's also very funny. We talked nonstop for two hours and I came away from our meeting feeling energized and full of ideas.

Once a month, seriously. Totally doable. Think about it.

In between all the usual domestic tasks -- doing them and avoiding them, I should perhaps say -- I managed to complete a sewing project, which also hasn't happened in a while. I made a tablecloth! Our coffee table is a flagstone, and it's very rough and heavy. I suppose that's its charm, but charm can get tiresome. So I usually put a cloth on it, and when I was removing the red cloth I put on it for Christmas, I thought, "Couldn't I have other seasonal tablecloths?" I thought about buying them, and then I thought, "Couldn't I make a seasonal tablecloth?" So I paid a visit to JoAnn's Fabrics and found this nice cloth, on sale because it's a Christmas pattern -- but it really isn't, it's just evergreen trees and cones. I washed it, ironed it, and then pressed under a half-inch hem all around, and then pressed that under another half-inch, and then I sewed the hem down, and voila -- a tablecloth. I did manage to screw up the corners, because I was trying to make lovely mitred corners, but I didn't read the directions closely... but it doesn't matter, because nobody's ever going to look at the corners anyway. I'm looking forward to making a springtime tablecloth in a few months.

Also this week I took three walks in the neighborhood. One of my New Year's resolutions was to get back into walking, but unfortunately, I currently have really painful plantar fasciitis in my right foot, agonizingly painful even if I walk around Target. But Rocket Boy found me some MBT shoes on eBay and had them sent here. They arrived Friday and my heel already feels so much better. Today's walk was completely pain-free. MBT shoes take some getting used to, but they are wonderful for plantar fasciitis. I used to have a pair, but I stopped wearing them after my feet got better, and Rocket Boy took them over and wore them out. So that's why he bought me these. I was so happy when I put them on! Now I have to wear them a lot while the weather's so mild, because this sandal style won't be great when it starts snowing again.

One other thing I did this week -- today, actually -- was get the boys' hair cut. You'd think this wouldn't be so hard for me, but it's one of Rocket Boy's jobs that I've resisted taking over. He got Kid A's hair cut on one visit, and my niece Risa got Kid B's hair cut when she visited in September. But the time had come for ME to do something about their shagginess. We planned to go to the same barber Risa went to, but for some reason they weren't open (maybe their hours have changed). So we walked across the street and looked in the window of another barbershop (an open one) and someone inside waved at me. "Let's try this one," I said, and we went in. It turned out to be a very male, very collegiate sort of place -- three tattooed older men cutting three college-aged men's hair while loud rap music played. My first impulse was to leave immediately, but instead we sat down and waited. After about 20 minutes a chair opened up and Kid A took it. His haircut turned out well (he likes his hair short), so Kid B took his place -- and the guy just butchered him. It's like a crewcut. Kid B is now deeply unhappy (won't even face the camera, poor boo), and all I can tell him is that it will grow back. So we probably won't go back to that place! But their hair is cut and I can forget about that problem for another three months or so.

And now onto another week, with some serenity saved up to deal with whatever happens next.

Another Januaryish week

It's not unusual for January in Boulder to be like this -- chilly, but not really cold (up into the 40s most days, 20s at night), and no precipitation. Snowy months come later. February could be snowy, but January is dull. Gray, brown, quiet. Everything appears to be asleep, except for the chickadees. I just saw a chickadee out my window, hopping around in the sleeping maple tree -- at least, I'm guessing that's what it was, since they're everywhere. If you have to have an everywhere bird, it's hard to beat a chickadee. They have such a cheerful song, and so much energy. Also, they're so social. I just read an online article about what a birb is, and a chickadee is clearly a birb (though apparently many people feel that all birds are birbs and a cute bird like a chickadee is really a borb -- do I have that right? maybe it was some other nonsense word).

I am not particularly cheerful right now, but I respond well to cheerful things like chickadees.

When I last blogged, I was talking about our plumbing problems. A third plumber came out last Monday, the 13th, and fixed the plumbing. I wish I had the photo he took of the thick, healthy tree roots in the sewer line. Nice to know we're feeding our trees with our sewage. I wish they didn't have to wreck the pipes to get at it, but short of digging an outhouse, I can't figure out how else to do the transfer. Anyway, while the plumber was here, he turned off the cold water to the washing machine. He also left his credit card reader on my counter, which I spotted some time after he left and thought was something the kids had brought home. He called on Wednesday, after I'd done a successful load of laundry (because I used the warm/warm setting) and we figured out that I had his reader; he came by to pick it up and thanked me profusely, telling me to call him directly when we had our next plumbing problem and he would give me a discount. Later that day I did another load of laundry (on the warm/cold setting) and the washer stopped when it hit the rinse cycle. I tried it on permanent press, delicate, regular and the same thing kept happening. And I thought, well, it can't be the nice plumber's fault, since I already did a successful wash (on warm/warm) two days ago! So I called our nice appliance repairman and on Friday he came out and -- for $70 -- turned the cold water back on. See the square behind the washer, with the red (hot) and blue (cold) taps? I had never noticed that before. Sigh. Rocket Boy thinks I should have asked the plumber to pay for the appliance repairman's visit, but it's just too complicated. Sigh.

Nothing else has broken since then, but hey, the year is young. I also have not yet dealt with the broken skylight, and I'm going to be really sorry about that when it snows again. I did, however, drag our big ladder over and climb up it to take this photo of the broken skylight from the top. But I forgot to bring a measuring tape with me -- and the twins were off at their second home, the Teen Lounge at the library, so they couldn't fetch it for me -- and even if I had brought a measuring tape with me, there was absolutely no way I was going to climb onto the roof in order to measure this thing. I left the ladder up so that the TWINS could climb up it to measure, but then I forgot about it, and then we had another windstorm and the ladder blew over (fortunately not with anyone on it). I was at a meeting at their middle school to learn about teen use of marijuana and vaping, and apparently the twins heard the crash when the ladder blew over, but did not go out to investigate, nor did they tell me about it when I got home -- I discovered it the next day. It's still lying on the ground, blocking the path. Did I mention I'm not particularly cheerful right now?

One of my New Year's plans/goals/resolutions was to take the twins on an outing at least twice a month. We went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science on January 3rd, so this weekend I decided we would go to the Denver Botanic Gardens. We went fairly early on Sunday morning to miss the crowds. The Gardens aren't crowded this time of year, of course, but they're having their yearly Orchid Show right now, so there are more people there than otherwise would be. All the usual things happened on this trip: (1) Mom forgot to review the directions before leaving and our seriously out-of-date TomTom's instructions confused me, so it took us a while to get there and involved a lot of profanity on my part; (2) Kid A wanted to leave almost as soon as we'd arrived; (3) The boys started begging for food as soon as we got there, around 10:45; (4) The kids fought like wolf pups, nearly knocking down other visitors and coming way too close to breaking some plants; (5) I finally gave in and we had lunch at 11:15; (6) We left sooner than I would have liked.

I did enjoy seeing the orchids, though. Orchids are such luscious things. I found myself wanting to take a bite out of some of them. My favorites were the pale yellow ones, followed by the pale yellow with magenta spots (some are in this picture), followed by, hmm, maybe the creamy pure white ones, followed by the frilly lavender ones, followed by... They're all lovely. I also found myself wanting to get a pale yellow dress to match my favorite orchids. This was a very nice thing to do on the day after the 12th anniversary of my mother's death, since she was fond of orchids and grew so many of them in the back yard.

Monday was Martin Luther King Day and the library was closed, so we just hung around the house all day like slugs. We watched the movie "BookSmart" which baffled the boys (I had to answer a lot of questions), but did hold their attention. Rocket Boy called a few times and the kids skyped with him too. He got both boys electronics sets for Christmas, so he started working with Kid B on his, over skype. I had to help a little, but mostly stayed out of it. It's so nice to let Rocket Boy do something with the kids that doesn't involve me -- such a very rare thing these days. In the photo you can just barely see RB's face on the iPad on the right. This was later, after he and Kid B had done the groundwork and now were trying to make the thing work, with Kid A. I don't know if it ever did work, or even what it was. Not my pigeon!

So, that was our week. I only managed to cook a real dinner once -- nacho casserole -- it fed us for a few nights and then we survived on frozen dinners and soup and whatnot. So I'll try to do better this week, but my mood is definitely not optimal. Today I have these things on my list: (1) put away the clean laundry; (2) put away the clean dishes; (3) make banana bread; (4) have coffee with a friend; (5) spend some time cleaning the living room; (6) make dinner. Oh, and (7) blog. One thing on that list is now done, and more soon will be. We're hanging in there.

A week

Well, it's been a week. A -- what would I call it? A January week, but it isn't really very January here. We've had a few days where it didn't get to 40, but most days it does, sometimes into the 50s. (Today we're at 39, but it's forecast to get a little warmer.) No snow, no ice, no veterinary bills over $1000. On the other hand, there have been the usual bothers, some less usual than others. Let's just call it a week.

It was extremely windy last weekend (80+ mph gusts), and on Saturday night, after I said goodnight to the twins and fed the cats and was preparing to take a shower, there was a tremendous crash outside in back. I didn't want to know what it was, but knowing that I might need to do something about whatever had happened, I turned on the patio light and cautiously stepped outside. The wind was blowing like a son of a gun, and my eye was caught almost immediately by the strange dark shape hanging down onto the patio that wasn't there before. Our massive Siberian elm (a "trash tree" that tends to do poorly in windstorms), had dropped one of its branches RIGHT through one of the porch skylights. The branch had gotten stuck in the skylight, so it was just hanging there, a foot or so off the ground. Photos, taken the next day, don't show how truly creepy it looked in the dark.

I went back inside and said a lot of things to the walls and the cats, like "Oh shit, oh shit, OMG!" which woke up the twins -- or maybe the crash woke them up, but my comments encouraged them to get up and investigate. They went outside in their shortie pajamas and bare feet -- it was probably in the 30s -- and said wow, and that sort of thing, and then went back to bed. I went to bed too, because the bathroom window is too close to where the branch came down for me to want to take a shower, but I didn't sleep for hours, because the winds actually got worse. We had three or four nights in a row like that, but fortunately no other damage.

Now I have to do something about this, get the skylight replaced and all that. Of course it turns out to be an unusual skylight that Rocket Boy put in, oh, maybe 30 years ago, so how the heck am I going to figure out where to get a new one, and it's screwed into the wood with unusual screws that look like nails and you have to use a special tool to remove them and RB's not sure what the tool is or where in the garage it might be. But he wants me to get right on it! I did go up on the ladder today and look at it, but it's windy again (!!) and there's no way I can actually crawl onto the roof and measure the broken skylight, and the whole thing is so daunting that... I don't know, I don't know. I did text the guy who did a lot of yardwork for us last summer and asked him if he could replace it, but he said no, not his thing. So I'll have to contact someone else. Bleah.

The bulk of the week was calmer -- the twins went back to school on Tuesday and of course complained about that a great deal, but I'd kept them almost on schedule through the vacation, so it wasn't as difficult a transition as it might have been. I spent the whole week trying to get myself to take down the Christmas tree, and failing, but I did get all the ornaments and lights and whatnot packed up. It was just the tree that I couldn't seem to face. Taking down the tree is very complicated -- there are all sorts of pieces that need to be put away just so. The branches on each level (A, B, C, C, D, D, E1, and E2) have to be stacked together neatly and then have a wire wrapped around them, with a cardboard tag that indicates the letter (even though the letters are also marked on the branches themselves, but I knew those cardboard tags were important to Rocket Boy, so I couldn't leave them off). When I was taking the lights off the tree, I broke off several branches that the lights had apparently been stabilizing, and I was just feeling very unhappy about the tree and didn't want to work on it. OK.

On Friday afternoon the twins brought home their disgusting smelly gym suits and I set about doing a wash, so the gym suits would be clean for Monday. Toward the end of the wash cycle I heard some funny noises coming from the bathroom, but I ignored them. Foolish mom. Eventually Kid A went in to use the bathroom and discovered a surprise. "Mom! There's all this gross dirty water in the bathtub!" I sadly went in to see and found the bathtub half full of soapy water, with unidentified icky things floating in it. Also, the toilet wouldn't flush. I called Rocket Boy but he didn't answer, so I looked up the problem on the internet -- "Why is icky dirty water flowing into my bathtub?" It's a clog, the websites all told me, and you can't fix it yourself. Call a plumber. I remembered the name of the plumber RB called the last time this happened and looked them up, but Google said they were "Closing soon," i.e., at 5, and it was 4:58. So I called the plumber that we had to call after the first plumber didn't have a long enough snake to get at the problem, and they said they could send someone out the next day. At a little after 10 am Saturday, the plumber arrived, went down in the basement where the sewer pipe access is, and set to work.

I was embarrassed by how messy the house was -- funny how the house seems so much worse when you know someone's coming over -- so I decided it was finally time to tackle the tree. And while horrible noises from down in the basement rocked the house, I took the tree apart, level by level, and packed it all away in its big black garbage bag and then into its gigantic box. When the plumber left, around 1 pm, after charging me $215, the tree had vanished. I ran the dishwasher right away, and later took a shower. Around 5 pm I did a small load of laundry. Gurgle, gurgle, said the bathroom. Oh no. I couldn't look. Sure enough, the bathtub filled with dirty water once again.

This morning I called the plumber back and they're going to send someone out again on Monday (I said it wasn't an emergency). The twins and I carried all the Christmas boxes down to the basement. The only thing left (other than a million Legos all over the floor) is our circular tower creche thing, which we don't have a good box for. That's my goal this week -- find a box for it. And get the plumbing fixed for real. And figure out what to do about the broken skylight. And wait for the next disaster.

New Year's goals and plans

It's early January, so that means it's time for resolutions, as I usually call them, but which are really goals and plans -- I don't resolve to do anything, usually, not really. Looking back, last year I remember that I got very upset about making resolutions, because I felt too tired and depressed and poor to do anything. I couldn't pay off my credit card, I was terribly worried about the prospect of Rocket Boy moving to St. Louis, and everything seemed overwhelming.

I am happy -- and rather surprised -- to note that things are different this year. I still don't have a lot of energy, I'm still often depressed, and we still don't have a lot of money. And Rocket Boy is living in St. Louis! But we have more money than we did a year ago. And I'm making things work, more or less. And I seem to have a bit more hope. So, I went ahead and made 24 resolutions (plans, goals, whatever) for 2020. It's not that I think they're all going to happen, or even most of them. But I don't feel bad about making them. I'm willing to hope that this could be a good year.

A cartoon in the paper this morning noted that "VOTE" should be everyone's #1 resolution this year, but since voting for me is like breathing, it's not on my list. Here is my list:

(1) Find a job or volunteer work, something meaningful to me. It would be better for our bottom line if I found paying work, but I'm considering the possibility of volunteer work too. I think I should do something -- it's good for me to get out in the world, have some responsibility beyond the house. But what will the something be?
(2) Give writing its due in my life. I thought, when I quit my job back in September, that I would spend more time writing. Instead, I stopped altogether (except for this blog). This resolution reminds me that I love to write and writing deserves a bigger place in my life.
(3) Continue saving money, minimum $500/month, preferably $750 or more. Since Rocket Boy started working, back in May, I've managed to save just under $10,000 -- compared with $0 saved in any of the previous 10-12 years. Of course, a big chunk of that money will be used in the next few months, to pay all our property taxes and insurance. But that was the whole point of saving the money, and anyway, I'll keep on saving more.
     (3.5) Don't go into credit card debt. Just a reminder.

(4) Read at least 52 books, including the Classics Challenge. It'll probably be more.
(5) Read biographies of Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and Grant. Rocket Boy has already bought me Team of Rivals and a Grant biography, so I think I can get through at least three presidents this year.
(6) Keep reading to the kids at night. Even if they suddenly decide they're too old for this. I don't think they will, though. It seems to be very important to them.
(7) See at least 26 movies/shows. I'm finding it fun to share favorite non-kid movies with the kids (I first wrote "adult movies" but no, I'm not sharing porn). Also, since we essentially don't have TV anymore, it's fun to catch up on some popular shows via DVDs from the library.

(8) Continue keeping the household running. Not so much a resolution as a reminder that this is a big deal, and I should be proud of myself for doing it without RB.
(9) Arrange needed repairs (e.g., replacing disintegrating bathroom tile and probably the drywall behind it, replacing or fixing kitchen floor, pruning the backyard). I don't want to do any of this. We'll take the tasks one by one (unless some other disaster occurs first).
(10) Arrange 2-3 vacations w/Rocket Boy and the kids. In 2019 we had our trips to the Four Corners area and St. Louis. In 2020 I'd like to do something for Spring Break, the summer, and maybe Fall Break again. It's made me so sad that we haven't been able to travel the last few years.
(11) Care for pets responsibly and sensibly. We had a disaster with Chester this past week -- a consult with an internal medicine specialist led to $1500 in charges, with the promise of a lot more ahead. In one day, we spent our Spring Break airfare on the cat (we're now thinking about a within-Colorado driving trip instead). I told our regular vet that I'm not doing that anymore. No more special consults, no more emergency vet charges. We'll keep the cats comfortable and that's it. Wish me luck on this one.
(12) Start getting the kids to help with chores -- meal prep, cleaning. This is probably the hardest resolution on the list. How will I do it, exactly? I'm thinking baby steps and extremely low expectations.
(13) Encourage the kids re: schoolwork and music practice. This doesn't mean hassle them endlessly, but it does mean staying on top of what they're doing and thinking of ways to help them do better. Kid A, despite the academic support he gets, is "below expectations" in everything except PE and Band. Kid B is doing better, but definitely not as well as he could be. Really have to think about this.

(14) Continue going to bed at 11, getting 7.5 hours of sleep each night. For the first time in years, I've been doing really well on this, and life is so much more pleasant after a good night's sleep. I'll try to keep it up.
(15) Continue trying to maintain my weight, or lose a little. The eternal resolution, scaled way back (ignore the pun). I've been keeping an almost-daily record of my weight for the past four and a half years, starting in May 2015.
     2015: lost 7 lbs. (from taking weight loss drugs through my doctor)
     2016: lost 3.5 lbs. (still from weight loss drugs, which I went on and off)
     2017: gained 24 lbs. (quit the weight loss drug because it raised my blood pressure and immediately gained back all I'd lost plus a lot more)
     2018: gained 6 lbs. (still part of the reaction to going off the drugs, but then I started doing a new weight-loss program and lost a little)
     2019: gained 1 lb. (spent months trying to do the weight-loss program, finally quit)
Although I would like to lose 60 lbs (ideally 100 lbs), gaining 1 lb over the course of a whole year is not bad. Some things I'm finding useful include eating a late breakfast, replacing lunch with an afternoon snack, and not eating after dinner. If I desperately want ice cream, I eat it in the afternoon, not at 9 pm. It seems helpful to compress my eating into a smaller time frame -- not quite fasting, as is currently being recommended, but a little like that. Of course, if I get a new job, I may have to eat more. It's easy to eat less if you aren't exerting yourself.
(16) Walk in nature every day (or as often as possible). This fall I just stopped walking. No more walking the kids to school, no more walking associated with work, and I don't seem to want to walk for pleasure. This is nuts! I love walking! I would really like to figure out what has gone wrong here and fix it. I still think getting a dog would help, but not while we have two such expensive cats.
(17) Lift weights twice a week. Still trying to revive this practice. Maybe this will be the year.

(18) Blog each week. I've been doing pretty well with this. Recently I realized that most of the blogs I used to read regularly have gone defunct and I miss them. I decided not to do that to my few faithful readers. Also, this is such a good way to record our family's doings.
(19) Stay in touch w/friends, reach out to people. Always hard for me. I've had two old friends reach out to me in the past month and I want to keep that going. I am not an island.
(20) Do fun stuff with the kids -- try for two special outings each month. Considering that we've done about two special things in the past 8 months, this is a big plan. On the other hand, it's not really that hard to do fun stuff with the kids. We went to the Denver Museum yesterday (see photo) and we're talking about visiting the Botanical Gardens tomorrow. If we do, I'm already good for January.
(21) Get the piano tuned. I keep wanting to play the piano and then I remember how awful it sounds, so out of tune. But for some reason the thought of calling the piano tuner produces great anxiety. Very weird. Keep trying, because playing the piano is fun.
(22) Journal regularly. I bought myself a little journal for 2020 in which to note the days' happenings. Not sure yet whether I'll use it. A resolution reminder to give it a try.
(23) Bake every week. I got into baking more this fall, and it's been fun to be able to feed the kids homemade oatmeal cookies or banana bread instead of chips and candy. I'm going to skip the recommendation to reduce our sugar intake and focus on eating fewer processed grocery-store foods.
(24) Do more sewing. Last year, sewing drawstring bags for the spaghetti dinner reminded me that sewing can be fun. Since then, however, I have only used the sewing machine for mending. This resolution is a reminder to seek out this source of pleasure.

What I read in 2019

My goal for 2019 was to read 78 books (52 + 26, or three books every two weeks), but I surpassed that by quite a bit: I read 123 books in all, more than two books per week. I've never read more than 100 books in a year, and most years I read far fewer, so this really surprised me. I started drowning myself in books because I was anxious about the upcoming changes in our lives (i.e., Rocket Boy's move to St. Louis) -- and then just kept on reading, all year long. It got easier to read a lot, quickly, as the year went on. The ability to read is a muscle that benefits from exercise.

I've been keeping a record of the books I read since January of 1980, when I was 19. (My sophomore year college roommate, Karen, got me started. I keep meaning to ask her if she still keeps track.) That's 40 years, and although I've never lost either of the blank books that contain my lists, I thought the time had come to make a digital copy. So now the 2,002 books I read from January 1980 through December 2019 (plus the 1 book I've read so far in 2020) are also in a Google Sheet. That's an average of 50 books a year, or a little less than one book a week. I read an article online about how many books you can expect to read in what's left of your lifetime. Doing my own calculations, let's say I remain an active reader until I'm 85, reading around 50 books a year -- that would only be another 1300 or so. Now I must decide which 1300 books I want to read during the rest of my "one wild and precious life." So much pleasure to look forward to.

For 2020 my goal is just 52 books, because I'm giving myself permission to read long books. I have several in the pipeline already, including two massive biographies of Abraham Lincoln, and The Overstory (502 pages) for our next book group meeting on January 13th. I'm sure I'll read plenty of short books, too, but I'm starting out with long ones. Granted, over the last two days I read an entire Phil Rickman supernatural mystery (589 pages), but I'm assuming the Abraham Lincoln bios will take longer!

Finally, here is a review of what I read in 2019, by category.

Children's Books. Almost everything on this list I read aloud to the kids, though we did also read a few adult books together and I read a few of these on my own. It was interesting sharing some older books with the kids, but I had to stay on my toes to avoid reading aloud the casual racism that kept popping up (yes, Rabbit Hill, I'm talking about you). My favorite was a new book, Hello Universe.

• Moominsummer Madness by Tove Jansson (read by myself)
• All's Faire in Middle School by Victoria Jamieson (Kid B and I read together)
• Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
• From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
• Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson
• The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• Upside Down Magic: Weather or Not by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins (Kid B and I read together)
• The Capture by Kathryn Lasky (Guardians of G'aHoole #1)
• Freddy the Detective by Walter R. Brooks
• Steel Magic by Andre Norton
• Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident by Eoin Colfer
• Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly
• The Witchcraft of Salem Village by Shirley Jackson (barely a children's book, it prepared me to read The Crucible for the Classics Challenge, see below)
• The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg
• Story Thieves: Pick the Plot by James Riley
• Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry
• Mr. Lemoncello's All-Star Breakout Game by Chris Grabenstein
• Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman (This was Kid B's favorite book this year.)
• Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
• Ghost by Jason Reynolds (This was Kid A's favorite book this year.)
• Book Scavenger: The Unbreakable Code by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman
• The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright
• Book Scavenger: The Alcatraz Escape by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman 
• Story Thieves: Worlds Apart by James Riley 
• When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead 
• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman 
• Apothecary by Maile Meloy
• Free Lunch by Rex Ogle (a devastating memoir of growing up poor -- better for older kids, but my two were mesmerized by it)

Books for the Book Group. My book group chose some interesting books this year, some I liked, some I disliked (Elinor Oliphant comes to mind). I liked The Round House a lot, but I'm going to say my favorite was How to Be Both.

January: How to Be Both by Ali Smith
February: Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
March: Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller
May: Elinor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Carol Honeyman
June: Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton
July: Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
September: Her Kind of Case by Jeanne Winer
October: The Round House by Louise Erdrich
November: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh


Books for the Classics Challenge.This was really fun to participate in. Some of the books I chose had been on my "to-read" list for decades. I thought I wouldn't do it again in 2020 but she just posted the categories today and I realized I'm totally up for it. My notes on 2019 are below.

• 19th Century Classic: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe, 1838. I found this hard to read, but fascinating, mesmerizing, especially the ending.
• 20th Century Classic: A Passage to India by E. M. Forster, 1924. I'd wanted to read this ever since I read Forster's thoughts on it, maybe 35 years ago? I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped, but I was relieved to cross it off my list. The movie was fun.
• Classic by a Woman: The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather, 1915. Rocket Boy and I both read this book this year, in part because the heroine visits cave dwellings like those in Mesa Verde (which we visited in August). Not my favorite of her books, but worth reading.
• Classic in Translation: Pietr the Latvian and Maigret and the Yellow Dog by Georges Simenon, both 1931. It was fun to read some very early Simenon. They're so short that I read two.
• Classic Comic Novel: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, 1884. I'd wanted to read this forever, but kept putting it off. I enjoyed it very much.
• Classic Tragic Novel: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850. My friends read this for a high school class that I dropped out of. Finally, I know what they were talking about all those years ago. But I didn't really care for it, didn't feel sympathy for the characters, probably didn't understand it.
• Very Long Classic: Moby-Dick or the Whale by Herman Melville, 1851. I loved it, all 822 pages of the edition I read. Not what I expected at all. One of the most amazing books I've ever read. It was amusing to note that Melville was a neighbor and huge admirer of Hawthorne.
• Classic Novella: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, 1895. This was the first book I finished in 2019 --  Rocket Boy's choice for a book to read to the twins. I found its basic ideas very depressing. It packs quite the punch for a novella.
• Classic from the Americas: The Nymph and the Lamp by Thomas H. Raddall, 1950. I found this book when trying to figure out what the tiny dot southeast of Nova Scotia on the National Weather Service hurricane map is. That dot is basically a sandbar, called Sable Island, and while I was researching it I came across a mention of Raddall's book. I read the novel (set on Sable Island) and now I am quite sure I will never forget what that dot on the map is.
• Classic from Africa, Asia, or Oceania: To the Islands by Randolph Stow, 1958. I probably never would have encountered this if I hadn't been trying to find a book from "Oceania." Very interesting book set in northern Australia, rather ahead of its time.
• Classic from a Place You've Lived: The Valley of the Moon by Jack London, 1913. A strange book to read in our current political environment. The book's northern California characters are proud to be descendants of early New England settlers, but find themselves doing badly compared to more recent, darker immigrants. In the end, white people triumph. Very weird.
• Classic Play:The Crucible by Arthur Miller, 1953. Another work that my friends read in high school and I didn't. Having read The Witchcraft of Salem Village earlier in the year, I knew what was going to happen, and I dreaded it. I found this short play physically painful to read.

Mystery/Thriller. I broke this into sub-categories this year, because my favorite mysteries were not the usual run of the mill type. Obviously I could break it down further -- historical mysteries, cozy mysteries, etc. I loved the Last Policeman trilogy, especially the first book, and I also loved The Remains of an Altar, which is part of a 15-book series that I'm now going to try to read in its entirety (finished the first one today).

• The Little Dog Laughed by Joseph Hansen
• Dr. Knox by Peter Spiegelman
• The Seagull by Ann Cleeves
• Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster by Karen Lee Street
• Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers
• Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
• The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem
• The Next to Die by Sophie Hannah
• In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin
• Cave of Bones by Anne Hillerman
• The Tale Teller by Anne Hillerman 

Mystery with a Science Fiction/Dystopian Aspect

• The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters
• Countdown City by Ben H. Winters
• World of Trouble by Ben H. Winters

Mystery with a Fantasy/Supernatural Aspect

• The Devil's Hearth by Phillip DePoy
• The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark
• What the Cat Saw by Carolyn Hart 
• Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
• The Remains of an Altar by Phil Rickman

Science Fiction. Didn't read much of this category, unlike some previous years. I found Perihelion Summer very scary. It seems almost prophetic, with the fires burning in Australia right now.

• Have Space Suit, Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein (read with the kids; Rocket Boy's favorite book we read together this year)
• Perihelion Summer by Greg Egan
• Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Fantasy/Horror. Nothing too special here. Supernatural mystery eclipsed it thoroughly.

• Alice Isn't Dead by Joseph Fink 
• The Devil You Know by Mike Carey

General Fiction. This is kind of a random group of books (and of course the list really includes several others that are up above under what I read for my book group and the classics challenge). For a favorite I'm going to go with Good Things I Wish You, which reminded me that I want to catch up with Manette Ansay -- I've missed her last few books and she's such a good writer.

• The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham (awful)
• Good Things I Wish You by A. Manette Ansay
• Miss Bishop by Bess Streeter Aldrich
• A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym (I like to re-read Barbara Pym every February)
• No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh (did not like this, did not understand the hype)
• Transcription by Kate Atkinson
• The Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble
• Harold and Maude by Colin Higgins
• The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
• Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss 
• Of Lena Geyer by Marcia Davenport 
• LaRose by Louise Erdrich
• Carry the One by Carol Anshaw (another writer I'd like to catch up with)

Christmas Books. After I finished Moby Dick in early December, I decided that I would read nothing but Christmas books for the rest of the year. I didn't know at the time how very many Christmas books there are out there, and how dreadful most of them are. Several that I got from the library I didn't manage to finish, they were so gruesome. I realized that there is a formula to these books, similar to that found in cozy mysteries (many Christmas books are cozies). They all include recipes, which is fine, but most of them also have a world view that creeped me out -- all the women live for shopping and having their nails done, all their husbands live for having sex with their wives (permitted by the wives only after the husbands have helped out with Christmas preparations), nobody has any deep thoughts, and love, heterosexual sex, and baking conquer all. Here are the ones I finished.

• Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan (pleasant)
• Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days by Jeanette Winterson (worth reading, definitely does not follow the creepy world view described above, despite the recipes)
• Spirit of Steamboat: A Longmire Story by Craig Johnson (fun, I might check out the main mystery series)
• Portrait of a Murderer: A Christmas Crime Story by Anne Meredith (not much fun)
• Christmas by Accident by Camron Wright (appallingly awful)
• A Christmas Odyssey by Anne Perry (OK, kind of weird)
• A Rumpole Christmas (stories) by John Mortimer (sweet and funny)
• The Christmas Pearl by Dorothea Benton Frank (pretty bad)
• Aunt Dimity's Christmas by Nancy Atherton (pretty bad)
• An Old-Fashioned Christmas: Sweet Traditions for Hearth and Home by Ellen Stimson (pleasant, enjoyed reading the recipes though I didn't copy any out)
• On Strike for Christmas by Sheila Roberts (some interesting ideas, but creepy)
• Christmas Holiday by W. Somerset Maugham (not his best book, but a great relief after reading all the creepies)

Graphic Novels/Memoirs. Not a usual category for me, but I read a few this year, and how do I choose a favorite? I loved them all, especially the first three on the list. I'm going to go with Are You My Mother?, which I really ought to own so that I can study it some more. But all were good, all were fun. I plan to read more in 2020.

• Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
• Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel
• Goldie Vance, Volumes 1 and 2, by Hope Larson, Brittney Williams, and Sarah Stern

Memoir/Biography. This is always a favorite category for me, and it's really hard to figure out which one I liked the most. I'm going to pick Shirley Jackson as my favorite, because that really is a good book, but I liked some of the others almost as well.

• Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin
• Late-Life Love by Susan Gubar
• Memoir of a Debulked Woman by Susan Gubar
• Eating Pomegranates: A Memoir of Mothers, Daughters, and the BRCA Gene by Sarah Gabriel
• The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America by Tommy Tomlinson
• Rocket Boys/October Sky by Homer H. Hickam, Jr. (read with the kids)
• My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past by Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmai
• The Shadow in the Garden: A Biographer's Tale by James Atlas
• American Ghost by Hannah Nordhaus (a Boulder author, lives in our neighborhood)
• H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

Presidential Biography. Only made it through two of these this year, but in 2020 I get to read about Abraham Lincoln, so I'm looking forward to that. The Buchanan bio was terrifying.

• Franklin Pierce: New Hampshire's Favorite Son by Peter A. Wallner
• James Buchanan by Jean H. Baker

General Non-Fiction. This is a pretty sad list -- I should try to do better in 2020. For a favorite, I'm going to go with Mozart's Starling, which is a wonderful book (thank you, Marina!).

• Total Cat Mojo: The Ultimate Guide to Life with Your Cat by Jackson Galaxy 
• Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish 
• Midlife: A Philosophical Guide by Kieran Setiya
• How to Hold a Grudge by Sophie Hannah
• Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death by Jill Lepore
• Mozart's Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
• Mama, Mama, Only Mama: An Irreverent Guide for the Newly Single Parent... by Lara Lillibridge