January is over

Wow, we've reached the end of January already. That went fast. I think it was all the work I assigned myself. I spent so much time making lists and checking them off (or fussing endlessly over not getting stuff done) that the time just flew by.

I haven't done a coronavirus update in a few weeks. Two weeks ago, 397,000 people had died. As of this afternoon, 440,272 have died, 43,272 more than two weeks ago. That's an average of 3091 per day. The number of cases per day is dropping, which is wonderful, but it still seems high. If the number of deaths per day doesn't start going down, we could hit 500,000 in three weeks. 

I just keep wearing my mask, social distancing, not going much of anywhere (except the occasional walk, occasionally with twins, as above). Last night we were going to eat at Chili's, but the kids didn't want to go, so I just picked up takeout. It's a long drive for takeout, but it meant that I also got to dash into Walmart, which is next door, and get paper lunch sacks, which our grocery store no longer carries. (I use them to clean the litter boxes.)

Not much to report on, as usual. The kids got their new glasses, so that crisis is off my list. This week, maybe even tomorrow, I'm going to have blood work done, and the next week I see my new doctor. 

I am just dreading this appointment. I imagine it several times a day. In my imaginings, the doctor always tells me I'm too fat (which is 100% true) and then something bad happens:

• Sometimes she tells me she can't treat such a fat slob, that I disgust her. How could I possibly be content to live like this, I should be kicked out of Boulder.
  
• Sometimes she puts me on an extremely low calorie diet, like 500 calories a day. When I say there's no way I can stick to that, she tells me she can't work with someone who won't even try. 
  
• Sometimes I tell her about all the times I've been on Weight Watchers, in my teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s, and she says, "why did you quit?" I try to explain about losing weight -- as much as 50 pounds! -- and then gaining it all back while still going to meetings, the time I actually reached my goal but the leader told me I needed to lose 5 more pounds and I started starving myself and ended up fainting during a meeting. She says, "if you care so little about your own health, I can't help you."
  
• Sometimes I ask her if she'll give me a referral to an ophthalmologist, so that my insurance will cover it, and she says she'll only do that if I agree to start taking my health seriously.
  
• Sometimes I tell her I have trouble walking these days because I can't breathe in a mask. I tell her I wish I had a dog to walk, but we have cats and what if I got sick and couldn't take the dog out, etc., and she tells me I obviously don't care about being healthy since I keep making excuses.
• Sometimes she lists off the bad things that will happen to me because I'm fat: I'll go blind, my feet and then my legs will be amputated, I'll have heart attacks and strokes, I'll get Alzheimer's, I'll get colon cancer, I'll get ovarian cancer, I'll die before my children finish high school.
  

These are just a few of the scenarios I've come up with. It's like I'm transferring every doubt and fear and insecurity and anxiety I've ever had onto this poor doctor who I've never met. It will be pretty funny if she turns out to be nice and wants to help me. I'm trying to focus on not cancelling the appointment, because of course that's what I want to do every time I have one of these terrible fantasies.

*****

Candlemas/Groundhog Day is on Tuesday. We'll have pancakes for dinner, or perhaps crepes -- I have strawberry jam and whipping cream in the fridge. Okay, we might just have regular pancakes, but we'll see. We'll burn the last of the Advent candles, which I have forgotten to do on several other occasions, and try to get Christmas put away.

To that end, I have started taking down the tree. I needed to get the ornaments off because Mr. Merlino has been taking them off for me. He likes to pull apart the straw stars and then eat some of the straw (it shows up in the litter box). Look what he did to some of the other ornaments. The flamingo now consists of one leg and a little bit of pink stuff. Bad cat!

As I took the ornaments off, Mr. Merlino took some off too and chewed on them, so eventually he was put in the garage and I got the rest down and stowed away safely. So that's an important task done.

Speaking of tasks... it's still January, so perfectly natural to still be talking about resolutions, right? It's February tomorrow, so let's review our quarterly and monthly goals.

Quarterly goals:

• Read a presidential biography. I am on page 279 of Team of Rivals, out of 754, so that's 37% of the book. I'm reading it in fits and starts, other books keep calling my name, but I think I'll have it finished by the end of March.
  
• Work on a home improvement project. My quest to deal with our unbelievable mess of files and papers is not going well. Right now I have two gigantic piles on the floor of my bedroom. I thought if I put them there it would be harder to ignore them, but it turns out that it is very easy. Keep trying. Still have two months to go.
  

Monthly goals:

• Make contact with at least one friend or family member. In January I had a Zoom call with friends and I finally managed to send a congratulations card to a friend who recently adopted a daughter and an e-birthday-card to a friend who turned 70. February might be a good time to have a family Zoom call and I'll plan to write a letter to my friend in Los Angeles.
  
• Read the book for the book group. I plan to start it tomorrow and read about 35 pages per night. We meet on the 8th.
  
• Read the book for the Classics Challenge 2021. I have definitely decided to do this. In the next week or so I'll finalize my list, post it formally, and start the first book (maybe after I finish the book group book).
  
• Take the twins somewhere fun. All we did in January was one park trip combined with a Starbucks trip. February probably won't be much better, not until I get new glasses. But we could go sledding if we get some good snow.
  
• Donate $$ to some organization. After thinking some more about this, I decided not to make a master list now, but keep jotting down ideas as the year goes by. In January, I donated $50 to the American Lung Association, which used to be one of my (and Rocket Boy's) regular charities. I think $50 will be my set amount, so that will be at least $600 for the year, which we can afford. I'll choose February's recipient later in the month.
  
• Do one of the smaller goals on my master list. January was the twins' health month: physicals, eye exams, and new glasses. February will be mine: blood work, a physical, hopefully an eye exam and new glasses, and whatever the physical leads to, such as amputations (no, stop it!). I'm not going to plan any more than that.
  

It's also the beginning of a new week, so I should review my weekly goals.

Weekly goals:

• Cook dinner with one twin, alternating weeks. It's Kid A's turn this week, so today or tomorrow I'll sit down with him and make plans for it. This has actually been going pretty well.
  
• Lift weights (twice a week). Strong Women Stay Young has not turned up and I have used that as an excuse not to do any weightlifting. So, today I ordered a used copy of Strong Women Stay Slim, as a compromise. It has weightlifting advice in it, but also other stuff, so that when Strong Women Stay Young FINALLY decides to reappear, I can keep both books.
  
• Bake something. Our delivery of Girl Scout cookies arrived yesterday, so I won't need to bake cookies for quite a while. I am toying with the idea of making lemon poppy seed bread for Candlemas (in addition to the crepes), but not sure if I'll do it, since the stupid twins don't like poppy seeds. Maybe I can think of something else.
  
• Watch a movie with the kids. We didn't watch a movie together the whole month of January. I just haven't been in the mood. I'll try again this coming weekend. I'm not ready to remove it from the list.
  
• Blog. I'm doing it!
  
• Deal with the trash, recycling, compost, and weeding out the accumulation of stuff. I failed at this last week because I didn't get the trash out in time for pickup. I put the recycling out, but the bin was only about half full. This will be compost week. Maybe I can pick up some branches and whatnot before the snow comes on Thursday.
  
• Pay bills and put money into savings. This is going fine, although the time has come to start paying all our property taxes, so I won't be saving anything for a while. I also need to start our taxes.
  
• Work on the current home improvement project. This is failing utterly, so I will try again this week.

And finally, since it is of course a day, I will look at my Daily goals:

• Go for a walk or get some other type of exercise. We took a 26-minute walk to the creek. It's a nice day.
  
• Help the kids with school. Kid B and I are struggling with his Language Arts homework. We've worked on it for a while today and may do more later.
• Clean the kitchen. I ran the dishwasher but still have a bunch of recycling (from last night's Chili's run) to wash by hand. Also must put away the clean dishes.
  
• Spend 30 minutes cleaning this week's room. Last week was "hall and floors" and I totally ignored it. Maybe I could do some vacuuming today. Next week is "bathroom" but since I cleaned the bathroom last week for the plumber, I'm not going to do it again so soon. So maybe this coming week will be "hall and floors." I don't like vacuuming.
  
• Make dinner or otherwise arrange for it to happen. I've been trying to make soup all week. Maybe tonight?
  
• Clean the cat boxes. I'll do it this evening.
  
• Read. Yes.
  
• Write. This blog will be enough for today.
  
• Get at least 7-1/2 hours of sleep at night. Not doing as well on this I could be. Try to turn off the light by 11:30 tonight.
• Extra: take the ornaments off the tree! Done!
  

I'm having more trouble with some of the weekly and daily goals than the larger ones, so I'll have to spend some more time thinking about them. But in general, I'd say I'm reasonably pleased with how the year has started. I'll try to keep the momentum going.

January thoughts

So, another week is done and we have a new president, so the days and years of constantly checking the news to see what terrible thing has happened in the last 15 minutes have come to an end, for now. Obviously it's not going to be easy for Biden to accomplish even a fraction of what he wants to accomplish, and the Trumpsters are still being arrested and saying stupid things -- there's still news, in other words. But it feels different.

January is coming to an end, too, rather more quickly than I had expected. One more full week and then we move into February, the month of hearts and love and chocolate (except that I should go easy on the chocolate). January has been an easy month, weather-wise, as it sometimes is in Colorado. It's been chilly and gray and cloudy (sometimes) and dull, but we haven't had any big storms (there is a chance for snow later this week) and the temperatures have been bearable. Mostly 40s during the day, 20s at night. No big deal. The twins have worn long pants only two or three times, always because I insisted. Once was for sledding, on a day when we had a few inches of snow.

The twins have gone to in-person school two days a week for two weeks running, and I am very excited to think that it may continue for a while. Thursdays and Fridays are my favorite days of the week. I even drive them to school instead of making them take the bus (they take the bus home), just to be absolutely sure they get there. 

I don't get an enormous number of things done on the days the twins are at school, but nobody tells me to be quiet and not interrupt their online class. It's so wonderful. And by the time they get home I'm missing them. I wait by the front door with the cats, watching for Two Babies (aka my two big seventh graders) to walk down the street. Wearing shorts. I greet them with real pleasure, and I think they appreciate that, even though I am just their dumb mother.

I know I said I wouldn't spend all of 2021 just writing posts about my resolutions and goals, but it's what's on my mind these days, so this will be another one like that. Remember, reading this blog is entirely voluntary: I will still be your loving friend/sister/cousin/anonymous person who you don't know even if you don't read it. 

A few posts ago I said I was going to review my monthly goals toward the end of the month, so I guess that's today. Here are what I said would be my goals each month -- and how I'm doing on them.

• Make contact with at least one friend or family member. I did have that Zoom call with old friends early in the month. But I could still write a letter to a friend. Maybe this week.
  
• Read the book for the book group. Since we don't meet until February 8th, I'll start the book around February 1st. I did check it out from the library, so I'm all set.
  
• Read the book for the Classics Challenge. I've been collecting books for this, but haven't read any yet. I usually start the Challenge late, so I'm not going to worry about it for this month.
  
• Take the twins somewhere fun. This has been a bust so far. We've done a few walks, went to one park other than our neighborhood park. What's stopping me from planning anything else is that both my old and my new pairs of glasses are broken. I'm getting by until I can see an eye doctor by wearing glued-together specs only when I drive or go to a store, etc. Big trips might endanger the temporary mend, so they are out for now.
  
• Donate $$ to some organization. This week I'll try to choose an organization and make this happen.
  
• Do one of the smaller goals on my master list. I actually got a lot done on this. The twins had their eye exams yesterday and we ordered new glasses. I made an appointment to see a primary care doctor. Our insurance says I can't see a real ophthalmologist unless a primary care physician refers me, so that's what finally got me to make the call I've been dreading.
  

That list makes me feel good. In general I've been kind of disappointed with my progress the last two weeks, because I never seem to be able to do all the things on my daily to-do lists (or even close to all of them). It all comes back to housework, which I hate to do, am very bad at, and can come up with endless reasons to put off until some other time. While putting off housework (and scary phone calls), I also put off everything else. 

I would like to be a person who does not put things off, who jumps happily into each new task as soon as the previous task is done.

Are there such people?

I also just seem to be so low energy. I know it has to do with being fat and out of shape, but it's aggravating. For instance, right now as I type I'm thinking about what I haven't gotten done today. I wanted to make a batch of cookies to have around this week. I purposely did not buy anything like that at the grocery store today. But the thought of measuring and mixing and beating things makes me want to lie down. It's also dinner time, whoops, so I must go make that. But I feel like I don't have the energy to make a stir-fry. All those veggies to cut up, plus the tofu. What could I make that's easier? (Maybe scrambled eggs and toast?) That's me all over -- how could I make things easier? 

Things I DID do today: cleaned the bathroom, planned the week's meals (it's Kid B's week to cook and he chose his meal too), grocery shopped, put away the groceries and the clean dishes, did a load of laundry (towels and dishtowels), fed the cats, fed the kids, wrote this blog post. Couldn't I stop there?

Anyway, tomorrow is another day and another week. A plumber is coming tomorrow afternoon to fix the shower -- which is 100% broken. That's why I had to clean the bathroom today. Tomorrow is also Horrible Day, when we do school assignments at home without the teachers. It would be nice to have made cookies before Horrible Day begins. Well, we'll see. It's 6:30 -- I still have a few hours before bedtime.

Navigating January

So Rocket Boy has been gone for a week, and he's dealing with lots of challenges in St. Louis -- like moving into a new place. I liked his basement set-up at the old place, but there have been roommate troubles, so he's found something else. We both wish he could come back to Colorado to live, but the earliest that could happen is probably next summer (and probably not then, either). In the meantime, I feel he shouldn't come back for a visit until March, if then, because of the scariness of the virus. Maybe by then he'll have had the vaccine.

So the kids and I are hunkering down for the winter. Fortunately it's pretty calm right now, chilly but not too cold, and we didn't have any new snow this week (just high winds, which removed last weekend's snow and did not damage the roof). We might get some snow tomorrow, but not a lot. At least that's what they're saying today.

The coronavirus is truly scary right now. Over 397,000 dead -- it was just 300,000 a month ago! I'm trying to be a little more careful, especially with the new, more contagious variant blowing around, but really I'm just hoping for the vaccine. Since they've dropped the age to 65, Rocket Boy is eligible to get it, but who knows how soon he will, in weird Missouri.

I gave my new resolution-based schedule a try this week, and wow, was that ever a fail. But rather than give it all up, I must think about what went wrong. For example...

Too many things on the list

Do I have too many goals this year? or is basic housework all I can realistically accomplish given my advanced age? Is even housework too much for me? Each morning I look at my list for the day and blanch. And yet, when I had a job, I often got many more things than that done in 8 hours -- and then went home and did a lot more. 

Is it because, in my heart of hearts, I think this?

I don't really have to clean the kitchen. We're not going to DIE if I don't clean the kitchen.

The urgency just isn't there. Still, it is January, when everyone is a bit low energy. I should have a little more patience with myself. And remember that life is very pleasant when the kitchen is clean.

Unexpected/unplanned stuff

On Tuesday as Rocket Boy was putting the last few things in his car before driving off to Missouri, I got a text from our tenant next door, asking us to please fix her leaking gutters, because it's a safety issue. We told her we'd get right on it (and we did, sort of -- I left a message for the gutter people that evening, they didn't call back, I got RB to call the gutter people from St. Louis later in the week, he talked to them, they said they might drop by yesterday, they didn't, maybe this week). 

After RB drove off, Kid B threw a fit because his Chromebook was acting up, and Kid A noticed that one of our new cats, Priscilla, was meowing in a very hoarse voice. After panicking briefly, I called the school district's IT department, and they walked me through a "cleaning" process, after which the Chromebook worked better. Then I called the vet about Priscilla and they said to watch her for a few days and call back if her voice didn't improve (she was better the next day). 

Oh, and the next day, I got an email from the department at CU where Kid B is going for an evaluation next month, reminding me that I hadn't filled out a case history. Then I remembered a bunch of other things to send them, some of which needed to be scanned. I'm still working on this, four days later.

Almost every day has unexpected stuff like that. I need to be more flexible.

Undone stuff cluttering up the next day's list

In other words, stuff I don't get done on Monday gets pushed to Tuesday, stuff I don't get done on Tuesday gets pushed to Wednesday, and so on. I'm trying to figure out how not to have that happen. And yet, isn't that just life? Stuff comes up, you have to handle it, other stuff gets pushed to another day, and suddenly it's Sunday, the Day of Rest, and you have 14 things on your to-do list.

Actually, it was 16. Some of them got done.

School at home

Monday is impossible, because I have to be so involved, but Tuesday and Wednesday aren't easy either, even though the teachers are in charge. 

For one thing, I can't be noisy when the kids are trying to concentrate. That eliminates vacuuming, which I always seem to feel like doing when they're in math class or whatever. It also means I can't do their laundry, because one of them is always working in their bedroom, and every other day I can't do my laundry, because Kid A likes to work in my bedroom (when it isn't his turn for their bedroom). Kid B likes to work on the living room couch when it's not his turn for their bedroom, which means I can't do the dishes (too much noisy splashing) or bake (the mixer is too loud). And of course I can't watch TV.

I also find that I can't do anything that requires a lot of concentration, because I always have to be ready to jump up and help with a crisis. That means reading and writing aren't really great choices either. I could go for a walk, but, same problem. I need to be here.

Ultimately, I seem to spend most of "teacher-led school at home" playing computer solitaire. Which is not on my to-do list.

Prep work needed

Even though I swear I've seen it within the last two months, I couldn't find my copy of Strong Women Stay Young, so I couldn't lift weights. The state of our office and our files and our unfiled paperwork filled me with such horror that I couldn't even begin to work on it. This weekend I planned to spend a little time getting organized so that next week will go better, but it didn't happen. Still can't find that book! It may be time to order a new copy. The day it arrives, my copy will miraculously reappear.

I don't want to do this stuff, duh

Many of the items on the list are things I don't want to do (dishes, cleaning). Some are things I really REALLY don't want to do, such as find a new doctor for myself. I wasted over two hours one day this week agonizing over that (and still didn't do it). How can I make my tasks more fun? or mix in fun things with the hard things? Or reward myself for doing the hard things?

Speaking of this kind of mundane stuff, I just read a novel called Weather by Jenny Offill (no, I haven't given up on Team of Rivals, I was just on a break), and at one point there's this gem:

I finally tried the meditation class. My knee was hurting so I sat on a chair. The mostly enlightened woman was there on a cushion. I'd wondered what happened to her. At the end, she asked Margot a question or what she seemed to think was a question.

"I have been fortunate enough to spend a great deal of time in the melted ego world. But I find I have trouble coming back to the differentiated world, the one you were just talking about where you have to wash the dishes and take out the garbage."

She was very pregnant, six months maybe. Oh, don't worry, I thought, the differentiated world is coming for your ass.

That made me laugh. I still marvel at my complete innocence of what was coming at me when I was six months pregnant.

Not enough sleep

One of my resolutions is to get enough sleep, but some of the other resolutions interfered with that. I stayed up too late trying to finish things. Also, the kids went back to in-person school for two days this week, so we had to get up earlier on Thursday and Friday. Did I go to bed earlier? No. When I don't get enough sleep, I can't get anything done. I can't even win at computer solitaire.

I didn't even do the fun stuff

Because I'm spending so much time NOT doing hard, unpleasant things, I have no time for easy, more pleasant things. For example, I got no exercise this week. None (until today). Nor did I do any writing except a blog post. Which is something! I shouldn't downplay my one little achievement.

If at first you don't succeed...

So, I'm going to try again. And again, and again. It takes a long time before I give up on resolutions entirely. I am a big believer in tweaking.

Here is my plan for the week that begins today (stuff like feeding the cats, cleaning their litter boxes, laundry, and cleaning the kitchen is also assumed):

Sunday: I was planning to take the kids to the Denver Art Museum, but it was closed today, due to the fear of violent pre-inauguration protests. So we got Starbucks (a bribe) and went to Scott Carpenter Park. I planned to fix our usual Sunday "breakfast for dinner" (pancakes this week), but got thrown off course by some minor disasters -- one of my car's tires (that just got rotated 6 weeks ago) has gone flat and Kid A's glasses suddenly broke. I spent a long time on the phone with Rocket Boy discussing how to deal with these problems and then didn't want to cook dinner, so we had bread and butter and cheese. STORY OF MY LIFE. We were also going to write thank-you notes and watch a movie and paint the Sistine Chapel, but none of that got done. It'll be bedtime soon. Oh, and hey, just now I was cuddling with the cat and my glasses (which were on top of my head) fell off and broke. These are my back-up glasses, since I broke my regular glasses last April. Oh yeah, it's been a good day.

Post-Note: Rocket Boy showed me, via Skype, how to glue Kid A's glasses back together, as well as my glasses that I broke last April. Both are holding for now. My back-up glasses remain broken.

Monday: MLK day, a holiday, and it may snow. I'd like to do some baking -- maybe another coffee cake and a batch of cookies? And a pot of soup for dinner, if I can find a recipe that doesn't require a trip to the grocery store. But possibly none of that will get done because I should try to deal with the flat tire problem, not to mention all the broken specs. I'll get Kid A to choose what he wants to cook this week and plan the other days' meals. And if I actually do any cooking, I'll clean the kitchen!!!

Post-Note: I made the cookies, but nothing else. The kids had ramen for dinner and I had ice cream. Most of the day was spent worrying about the tire. Finally I drove to the shop and had it fixed, for free. Kid A chose his meal to cook and I did clean the kitchen.

Tuesday: School at home. Grocery shop. This week's room to clean is the office, aka the desk room, so I will spend at least 15 minutes, hopefully more, cleaning off surfaces in there. I will also lift weights, if I have found my weight-lifting book by then. If I haven't, do some other form of indoor exercise. (Continuing to look for the book does not count.) Dinner will be leftovers, assuming I managed to make soup on Monday.

Post-Note: School took up most of the day. Spent 15 minutes cleaning surfaces in the desk room. That was all I could face. Met with the gutter guy to discuss fixing Aspen's gutter (he'll do it tomorrow). Since I didn't make soup, dinner was grocery-store sushi. A loaf of blueberry bread just came out of the oven. The cookies I made yesterday are almost gone. I cannot find the weight-lifting book! I did a weight-lifting video, but it was kind of stupid. Must go clean the cats' litter boxes and feed them (the cats, not the litter boxes). And clean the kitchen.

Wednesday: School at home. Spend at least 15 minutes cleaning the floor in the desk room, and then spend at least 30 minutes working on the files. Go for a nice walk. Make dinner with Kid A.

Post-Note: Enjoyed watching some of the inauguration -- and of course that took time. The gutter guy came and fixed Aspen's gutter and I paid him. I called a plumber about our shower diverter problem and they're coming on Monday. Did not, however, manage to call an optometrist. Took a 20-minute walk, not an especially nice one. I wish I had a dog to go on walks with me. Did not clean the office or work on the files, so that was bad. Kid A and I made dinner, but I did most of the work. It's OK, baby steps. I wasn't skillful enough with a knife to peel an apple (for applesauce) when I was 12, and I didn't really want him to burn himself while frying bacon. Some of the recipes in this kids' cookbook are not that great for kids.

Thursday: Kids at school. Gather up trash, recycling, and compost from around the house. Spend 15-30 minutes cleaning some other aspect of the desk room. Lift weights (maybe, see above). Give myself an hour to write. [Call about a doctor for me. Note that this will probably derail every other thing on the to-do list, because I will be so anxious about it.] Make dinner (unless there are leftovers from Kid A's cooking).

Post-Note: Wasted a lot of time being anxious, but finally settled down around 11:30 and spent over two hours doing research and planning for a writing project. So that was fun. Spent some time looking at doctors' bios online, but did not make the call. Sigh. Also did not call an eye doctor. I gathered up the bags of compost inside the house and put them out in the bin, then gathered up lots of branches from the last two windstorms and put them in the bin too. No leftovers, so I fixed mahi-mahi burgers for me and Kid A, a Boca burger for Kid B, and frozen onion rings. No weight-lifting and no desk room cleaning, but I did clean the kitchen.

Friday: Kids at school. Put out compost (early) and trash. Pay bills and move money around. Spend 15-30 minutes cleaning the desk room, and 15-30 minutes working on the files. Go for a lovely walk. Give myself an hour to write. Leftovers for dinner (or cook if I didn't cook last night).

Post-Note: A pretty productive day, actually. Did a bunch of chores, paid bills, spent an hour on my writing project. Did not do anything in the desk room (very bad), but managed to make appointments for both kids to have eye exams and get new glasses (tomorrow!) AND after stressing for another hour or so managed to make an appointment for a physical for me, with a new doctor. Major accomplishment there. I also took a brisk walk, but only for 15 minutes -- I just can't breathe in a mask. Dinner was canned soup -- I seldom want to cook on Friday night.

Saturday: Go to a park or hike with the kids. Write a letter to the friend I didn't write to last week. Get the twins to write thank-you letters, if that hasn't happened yet. Takeout for dinner. Watch a movie with the twins. Do things on the week's to-do list that didn't get done on all the other days.

Post-Note: The big thing today was eye exams for the twins and picking out new frames. That took up a lot of the morning. We also went on a 20-minute walk to the school park and back -- didn't spend any time playing because it was cold and gloomy and they insist on wearing shorts even though it's January. I also did two loads of laundry (still have to put my clothes away) and got takeout from Noodles. No letters of any sort were written, I didn't do any cleaning or baking, and we did not watch a movie. I still have to finish loading the dishwasher and run it, and I have to re-glue Kid A's old glasses, which he has broken again, since the new ones won't be ready for a week or two. I have a million things to do tomorrow, Sunday, the -- ha ha -- Day of Rest. Oh well.

I promise that not all my 2021 blog posts will be like this one. Eventually I will find a rhythm and not need to do this in such detail. (Or I will give up entirely. No, don't say that!) It's January, the month of new beginnings, and our new President will be inaugurated on Wednesday. Think positive. Stay strong. It will happen.

2021 Goals and Plans

I read an article somewhere, probably the New York Times, about how our resolutions should be modest this year. Low-key, undemanding. It makes a lot of sense. When I look at my list of plans for last year I'm impressed by how few of them I managed to tackle. It's all about the pandemic -- what most of us did in 2020 (and this was one of my resolutions) was survive. Actually, my resolution was "Keep the household running." But that's quite similar to "survive," and I didn't know there was going to be a pandemic.

So now I'm looking at 2021, and survive is #1 on my list. It's also #2. Specifically, #1 is "Survive the rest of the pandemic" and #2 is "Keep the family going and the kids going on in school." And I'm thinking about how #1 is actually not in my control (of course, neither is #2), because although I try to do the right thing, the virus is easy to catch, hard to avoid. So, the real goal is something like "hang in there, if possible." I think the New York Times would accept that as modest enough.

But, being me, I didn't stop there, and my resolutions list for 2021 actually has 26 things on it, many of which I know I won't do. I was looking at the list last night, thinking about how hard it looked, and I decided that what I really needed was a plan for how these 26 things might be accomplished. A schedule, perhaps, but with lots of flexibility built into it, because -- yeah.

I decided that I should break the list down into

• Daily goals
• Weekly goals
• Monthly goals
• Quarterly goals

In other words, there are things that I want to do every day, and there are things I want to do once or twice a week, and there are things I want to do once or twice a month, and there are things I want to do once or just a few times a year. At the start of each week, month, and quarter, I should take my list of resolutions (goals, plans) and make a subset of the list to apply to that week, month, quarter. The new list would be based on what I did or didn't accomplish the previous week, month, quarter, etc.

This might all be insane. But I do truly love lists and plans, and it's January, and I'm looking ahead to this very bleak year (and month, and season), so this exercise appeals to me. I'm also totally miserable about what's going on politically, feeling really desperate and hopeless and powerless. I need to get some control over something. Also, Rocket Boy starts driving back to St. Louis on Tuesday, so this will help me keep going, encourage me not to fall apart.

So here are my Daily goals, more or less:

• Go for a walk or get some other type of exercise (preferably involving twins)
  
• Help the kids with school (5 days/week)
• Clean the kitchen (evening, unless it's too messy for me to cook)
  
• Spend 30 minutes cleaning this week's room on my (separate) cleaning schedule
  
• Make dinner or otherwise arrange for it to happen
• Clean the cat boxes
• Read
• Write (4 or 5 times a week is fine)
• Get at least 7-1/2 hours of sleep at night

Many of these are things I do already, but maybe I need a little nudge to get them done every day. You'll note the list doesn't include "get dressed" or "feed the cats" because those things always happen. On the other hand, it does include "read," which always happens, so I guess by putting it on this list I'm declaring that it's important.
 
Moving on to slightly more difficult stuff, here are my Weekly goals:

• Cook dinner with one twin, alternating weeks. Planned for Wednesday nights.
  
• Lift weights (twice a week, probably Tues & Thurs)
• Bake something (on the weekend)
  
• Watch a movie with the kids (probably Saturday night)
• Blog (usually Sunday)
  
• Deal with the trash, recycling, compost, and weeding out the accumulation of stuff (Thursday, since pick-up is Friday)
• Pay bills and put money into savings (Friday)
  
• Work on the current home improvement project (see Quarterly goals below, probably Wed & Fri)
  

I notice that I have things planned (roughly) for every day except Monday. This is because Monday is Horrible Day, when the kids have asynchronous school at home with Mom and everybody's miserable. One thing not on the list is laundry, which I do about every 6 days for me and every 5 days for the kids, because it's governed solely by whether we have any underwear left.
 
Now we have Monthly goals:

• Make contact with at least one friend or family member -- last year I tried to have coffee with a friend each month, but the pandemic shut that down after two dates. This year I'm thinking it could be a letter or phone call.
• Read the book for the book group
• Read the book for the Classics Challenge (if I do decide to do that this year)
• Take the twins somewhere fun
• Donate $$ to some organization
• Do one of the smaller goals on my master list (e.g., get new glasses, get the piano tuned, take my new sewing machine out of the box)

The idea is that at the start of each month I will plan when each of these things will happen. We'll see.

And finally there are Quarterly goals:

• Read a presidential biography
• Work on a home improvement project

Home improvement projects could be big things, like re-do the water-damaged, falling-apart bathroom (maybe next summer), replace the damaged kitchen floor (I don't know when), or major cleaning tasks.

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OK, so this is all very interesting. Now let's try to set up our first week/month/quarter.

It's Sunday, January 10th -- the beginning of a new week. It's also the beginning of a new month (last week doesn't count), and the beginning of a new quarter. Let's work backward, starting with the new quarter:

Quarter 1: January through March

• My presidential biography is Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Already reading it, enjoying it very much
• Home improvement project: I think the best choice is to work on my section of the office, and our piles of un-filed stuff, and the overstuffed file cabinets. I will try to spend 30 minutes on this every Wednesday and Friday this quarter.
  

Month of January:

• I had a great time connecting with some old friends on a Zoom call yesterday, but I'm also going to write to a friend I heard from at Christmas who adopted a daughter this year. Maybe this week.
  
• The next book group book is The River by Peter Heller, which I need to obtain. I doubt if this is something I want to add to my permanent collection, so I've put a hold on it at the library. We're not actually meeting until February 8th, so I won't read it for a while.
• I need to decide whether or not to do the Classics Challenge again, choose the books, and then find my first. I'll work on this throughout the month.
• Next weekend would be a good time to take the twins somewhere, because that Monday is MLK day. I'll aim for Jan 17th or 18th, depending on weather. We'll decide what closer to the time.
  
• I don't know who I want to donate to yet. I'll put this off until the last week of January.
• The small goal we're working on this month is new doctors and physicals. The twins saw their new doctor on Friday. I will try to call to make an appointment for myself this coming week.
  

 Week of January 10-16:

• Sunday: (Laundry). Blog (I'm doing it). Make a pie or coffee cake later today.
  
• Monday: Get Kid B to decide what he wants to cook this week.
  
• Tuesday: Grocery shop. Lift weights. Call about a new doctor.
  
• Wednesday: Cook dinner with Kid B. Spend 30 minutes on Office/Files project.
  
• Thursday: Lift weights. Deal with the trash and recycling.
  
• Friday: Pay bills and put money in savings. Spend 30 minutes on Office/Files project.
  
• Saturday: Watch a movie with the kids.
  

And finally, my Daily goals for today -- how am I doing so far, considering it's already 3 pm?

• Exercise: I shoveled the walks. Rocket Boy took the twins sledding.
  
• School: not on Sundays
  
• Haven't cleaned the kitchen yet
• Haven't cleaned the living room yet
  
• Dinner will be waffles
  
• I'll clean the cat boxes this evening
  
• I'll read before bedtime (Team of Rivals!)
  
• Write (this blog post!)
  
• Get at least 7-1/2 hours of sleep at night (managed it last night; will try to go to bed by midnight tonight since my alarm goes off at 8 am)
• Other stuff: The laundry is calling me, and then I'm going to the library.
  
• When will I make this pie or coffee cake? 

Well, we'll see how this goes. It already looks impossible. It will probably have to be broken down a little. I may not manage to make that pie or coffee cake today. But it's January, it's 2021, and the world's falling apart. I need plans and goals and structure. So I'll give it a try.

What I read in 2020

My goal for 2020 was to read at least 52 books (one per week). Instead, I read more than twice that many -- 118 -- though not as many as last year's scary total of 123. I guess that's one positive thing about 2020: it was a good year to curl up with a good book. In 2021, I plan NOT to try to read so many. I want to read long books, serious books, and presidential biographies (which tend to be both long and serious). I also want to read lots of fun books: mysteries and scifi and even fantasy. I also think I might do the Classics Challenge again, with a different theme. So I'll just set my goal at 52 again and see what happens.

Here is a review of what I read in 2020, 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. I really liked a lot of these books, but I'm going to call out Holes by Louis Sachar, because it's a wonderful book, and the twins and I all loved it. Another surprise was Treasure Island. Rocket Boy chose it as our bedtime book when he was here in September and it was so much fun! I couldn't believe how many references to it there are in popular culture, many of which I had never fully understood before. On the other hand, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (also Rocket Boy's choice) was a dud -- neither twin enjoyed it much and it took us forever to drag ourselves through the book.

I also liked the rest of the Track series by Jason Reynolds, especially Patina (we started with Ghost last year) and it was also fun to see how the twins reacted to some classics from my youth (Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret was particularly baffling to them). Also, they enjoyed finishing the Golden Compass trilogy (we started it last year). I had never read the last volume, The Amber Spyglass. They wanted to hear every word of that very long book.

• Patina by Jason Reynolds 
• The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis 
• Sink or Swim: A Novel of World War II by Steve Watkins 
• Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool 
• The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman 
• The Boy Who Became Buffalo Bill: Growing up Billy Cody in Bleeding Kansas by Andrea Warren 
• Sunny by Jason Reynolds 
• The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman 
• Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume 
• Lu by Jason Reynolds
• Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
• Little Men by Louisa May Alcott (read by myself)
• The Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene (Walter Karig), co. 1933 (read by myself)
  
• By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Holes by Louis Sachar
• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars
• The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
• The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis
• My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
• The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
• There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar
• The Gypsy Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
• The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
  

Books for the Book Group. I liked several of these, so it's hard to choose a favorite. I got Rocket Boy to read Full Body Burden after I did, because it's such an important book for people who live around here to read (he thought so too). I think I'm going to go with Nervous Conditions as my top choice, because not only was it a good book, it was a book I expected to hate. It's about Africa, how depressing, I thought. But it isn't depressing, it's funny and interesting. Eventually I'd like to read the sequels.

• January: The Overstory by Richard Powers (fiction)
• February: Full Body Burden: Growing up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats by Kristen Iversen (memoir, history)
• March/April: Rough Beauty: Forty Seasons of Mountain Living by Karen Auvinen (memoir)
• May: A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (travel, memoir)
• June/July: Circe by Madeline Miller (fiction/retold myth)
• August: American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson (fiction/thriller)
• September: Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (fiction)
• October: (See Classics Challenge below: Classic by a Woman Author)
• November: A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende (fiction/historical)
• December: American Gods (10th Anniversary Edition) by Neil Gaiman (fiction/fantasy)
  

Books for the Classics Challenge.This was really fun to participate in for the second year. I decided on a theme of the Civil War and more specifically, the impact of slavery on the lives of African-Americans. This gradually morphed into mostly books by authors of African descent (8 of the 12). I wrote a separate blog post for each of these, the links to which are in this post. My favorite was The Conjure-Man Dies, with Home to Harlem a close second. I was also very glad to read Uncle Tom's Cabin, because even though it's a bit of a potboiler, I've been reading references to it my entire life without recognizing them (similar to Treasure Island, discussed above). 

Now I'm trying to decide whether or not to participate in the 2021 version -- I want to, but I also want to read more recent books by Black authors. I suppose I could design my own challenge with modern books. On the other hand, I have to do more with my life than just read!

• Classic with Nature in the Title: The Pathfinder or The Inland Sea by James Fenimore Cooper, 1840
• Classic in Translation: Georges by Alexandre Dumas, 1843
• 19th Century Classic: Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852
• Classic with a Person's Name in the Title: Clotel; or, the President's Daughter by William Wells Brown, 1853
• Classic by a Person of Color: Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black by Harriet E. Wilson, 1859
• Classic Adaptation: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, 1868/69
• Classic About a Family: Iola Leroy by Frances E. W. Harper, 1892
  
• Classic with a Place in the Title: Home to Harlem by Claude McKay, 1928
  
• Genre Classic: The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem by Rudolph Fisher, 1932
  
• Classic by a Woman Author: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, 1937
• Abandoned Classic: Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner, 1936
  
• 20th Century Classic: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, 1952
  

Mystery/Thriller. A long list this year, partly because of all the Black mysteries I read, and partly because of my discovery of the Simon Serrailler mysteries by Susan Hill. I read the entire series up through #10, published in 2020. I didn't actually love them that much, but I kept wanting to read the next one. Each book's mystery is usually not completely solved -- sometimes it's solved in the next book, sometimes it isn't. This annoyed me, but kept me engaged. The coronavirus contributed to this list too, since I needed a lot of escapist reading. In 2021 I plan to read more mysteries by Black authors (I have a pile of them already).

• The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey
• The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman 
• The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill 
• After I'm Gone by Laura Lippman
• Dread Journey by Dorothy B. Hughes
• The Pure in Heart by Susan Hill 
• The Risk of Darkness by Susan Hill
• Death Notes by Ruth Rendell
• The Vows of Silence by Susan Hill
• The Black Sleuth by John Edward Bruce
• A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes
• Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
• Dead Time by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• The Shadows in the Street by Susan Hill
• The Betrayal of Trust by Susan Hill
• The Wedding Game by Susan Holtzer
• A Question of Identity by Susan Hill
• The Soul of Discretion by Susan Hill
• The Comforts of Home by Susan Hill
• The Benefit of Hindsight by Susan Hill
  

Mystery with a Fantasy/Supernatural Aspect. I didn't read as many of these as I expected to this year, but I did read several books by Phil Rickman. I think my favorite was Midwinter of the Spirit. Some of the later books seem to be the same story over and over, and in some, his conservative politics come out rather strongly. But they're still fun, and just the right amount of spooky. I have three more lined up to read in 2021.

• The Wine of Angels by Phil Rickman
• Midwinter of the Spirit by Phil Rickman
• A Crown of Lights by Phil Rickman 
• The Cure of Souls by Phil Rickman 
• The Lamp of the Wicked by Phil Rickman
• The Prayer of the Night Shepherd by Phil Rickman
• The Smile of a Ghost by Phil Rickman
  

Science Fiction. I started out the year planning to read a lot of books by Ursula K. Le Guin, and then I quickly got tired of her. In addition to those listed here, I also read A Wizard of Earthsea (fantasy, not sci fi) to the twins, but they didn't like it and neither did I. I still plan to read a few more of her books, and I'm glad I read all of these, but I've lost my desire to read everything she ever wrote. One thing that was interesting was re-reading The Left Hand of Darkness. When I first read that novel, back in 1984, the concept of a people without a permanent sex just blew me away. But in 2020 (in the age of transgender, genderqueer, etc.) it didn't even seem that interesting. We've come a long way in 36 years. One piece I did enjoy reading this year was her short story about the same world, "Coming of Age in Karhide," which explains what really goes on in a kemmerhouse.

• Rocannon's World by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Birthday of the World and Other Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Planet of Exile by Ursula K. Le Guin
• City of Illusions by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
  

Fantasy. Nothing this year, other than what I read to the kids, for the book group, etc. It's not a genre I particularly enjoy, although I expect to read some next year. It seems weird to me that it is so extremely popular among middle-grade readers.

General Fiction. This is a pretty 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). Several of these were read alongside books I read for the Classics Challenge, but although The Marrow of Tradition blew me away, I think my favorite this year was a very recent novel, Olive, Again, which I didn't think I would like, but it's very good. Very thoughtful about what aging is like.

• Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay
• An Unsuitable Attachment by Barbara Pym 
• An Academic Question by Barbara Pym 
• The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf, translated by Susan Bernofsky
• March by Geraldine Brooks
• Innocence by Penelope Fitzgerald
• Zotz! by Walter Karig (read to the twins)
• The Sport of the Gods by Paul Laurence Dunbar
• The Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. Chesnutt
• Cane by Jean Toomer
• Quicksand by Nella Larsen
• The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman
• Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
  

Christmas Books. I decided I would not read any stupid Christmas books this year, only good ones, and then I started the season by reading an absolutely dreadful one (Simplify Your Christmas). The author, Elaine St. James, doesn't want to recapture the joy of the holidays, she wants to toss it away and replace it with the joy of conducting fake "Native American" rituals involving burying pencils with ribbons on them (instead of arrows) in some natural area which surely does not need to have pencils with ribbons buried in it. It's the stupidest book, not to mention that it's very dated. Stay away, stay away. The other three books I read (all collections of stories) were good, though. I think the Willis book was my favorite -- who knew that science fiction and Christmas would make a good mix?

• Simplify Your Christmas: 100 Ways to Reduce the Stress and Recapture the Joy of the Holidays by Elaine St. James
• The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories edited by Martin Edwards
• A Treasury of African-American Christmas Stories, vol. II, edited by Bettye Collier-Thomas
• A Lot Like Christmas (stories) by Connie Willis
  

Memoir/Biography. Always a favorite category, and I enjoyed everything I read in it. The book I found most engrossing, though, was The Past Is Myself, which is a memoir of the author's life in Nazi Germany. She was Anglo-Irish, married to a German, and some of their friends were killed by the Nazis, but she and her husband and their three sons survived. The book came out in 1968, so I guess it's been mostly forgotten, but it's quite fascinating. Rocket Boy's mom lived through the Nazi years in Aalen, near Stuttgart. She was born in 1925, so she would have been in her teens during the worst of it. I thought about her as I read the book, and I also thought about our own wanna-be Hitler, Mr. Trump.

• The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon by Donald Hall
• Ursula K. LeGuin: The Last Interview and Other Conversations edited by David Streitfeld
• Now the Drum of War: Walt Whitman and His Brothers in the Civil War by Robert Roper
• Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life by Hermione Lee
• Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott
• Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow: The Courtship and Marriage of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Ruth Moore by Eleanor Alexander
• The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women by Mo Moulton
• The Past Is Myself by Christabel Bielenberg
• The Fixed Stars: A Memoir by Molly Wizenberg
• Mother Winter by Sophia Shalmiyev
  

Presidential Biography. I can't believe I didn't finish anything in this category this year! How am I ever going to reach the 21st century, if I can't make any progress through the 19th? One of my New Year's resolutions is to break through this reading logjam and complete four presidential biographies in 2021. We shall see.
 

General Non-Fiction. As always, just a grab-bag of books, no guiding framework to my choices -- except maybe the two ghost-hunting books. I was going to read more of those, but they're so silly (and probably belong in the fiction category). Your Neighborhood Gives Me the Creeps was better than average, maybe even a bit too scary. One book I wished I hadn't read was The Secret Life of Cows, even though it was very interesting, because I subsist primarily on dairy products, and although I always try to buy the most cow-friendly stuff I can, this book made me think I probably shouldn't be buying any. NOT something I wanted to know! The nonfiction book I enjoyed the most was Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which is just wonderful for anyone who's ever been in therapy, is contemplating therapy, or wants to understand something about how therapy works (or all of the above). I read it in hardback from the library, but I might also buy the paperback to keep.

• The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara W. Tuchman
• Average is the New Awesome: A Manifesto for the Rest of Us by Samantha Matt
• The Great Taos Bank Robbery & Other Indian Country Affairs by Tony Hillerman
• Ghost Hunting by Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson
• Your Neighborhood Gives Me the Creeps: True Tales of an Accidental Ghost Hunter by Adam Selzer
• Early: An Intimate History of Premature Birth and What It Teaches Us About Being Human by Sarah DiGregorio
• Life Lessons from the Cat: 101 Tales of Family, Friendship, and Fun (Chicken Soup for the Soul) edited by Amy Newmark
• Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb 
• I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
• Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
• The Secret Life of Cows by Rosamund Young