Januarying

It's been a very January week. I just re-read last week's blog and was amused by my list of things I hadn't done. The list is almost identical this week -- didn't exercise, didn't write, didn't clean, didn't take the ornaments off the tree. I did do a little more reading, but not a lot. I managed to finish my long library book and then read a mystery from the pile-by-the-nightstand. That means, as of January 15th I have read three books. At this rate (one book every five days) I'll only read 73 books in 2023.

I need to chill out about that. It will be just fine if I only read 73 books in 2023. Also, the month is not over. I could easily read more than 3 books in the remaining days. For one thing, we'll finish the book we've been reading at bedtime: Things That Are by Andrew Clements. We're trying to finish it this week, before Dad goes back to St. Louis. We have six chapters left.

Like last week, I made progress on my email clean-out. I worked on J, K, L, M, N, O, P, and Q. Progress. I'm down to 3270 messages in my inbox, which is MUCH better than the 10,212 I started with on January 1st.

Cleaning out one's email is about the right speed for January. I recommend it as a resolution.

The only real difference this week is that I did better about cooking. I made an interesting roasted carrot & shallot dish from the New York Times on Monday and served it with tilapia, we had tacos on Tuesday, I made curry on Wednesday and we had the leftovers on Thursday, and on Friday I made veggie pizza. Last night we ate out at Aunt Alice's in Longmont and bought a whole pie to take home -- the bill, including pie and tax and tip, was $90. And that's why I cook dinner every night except Saturday. Ouch!

So I'm thinking about what to serve this week (after the Dutch Baby I'm going to make tonight). We're supposed to get snow on Tuesday/Wednesday, so I'm thinking on Tuesday night I might make Brunswick stew, another NY Times recipe with many alterations recommended by other readers. With cornbread. That might feed us for two nights in a row. It calls for meat -- chicken -- which I've started cooking a little more often, every few weeks or so. Rocket Boy will say Hmm to that, but so what. 

But what else should I cook? On Monday I might make Roasted Red Pepper Pasta -- the twins don't like pasta, but my note says they ate it the last time I made it. Thursday, hmm, maybe roasted cauliflower with couscous. My last note on this (from 2019) says "Twins have stopped liking this," but Rocket Boy will eat it. And then Friday, I don't know. Rocket Boy may leave on Friday, in which case we could just have frozen pizza or sandwiches or something. I might leave it up in the air.

OK, well, that exciting decision-making process is mostly over. I'll go to the store tomorrow, before the storm comes in.

We did an activity yesterday -- Rocket Boy feels bad that he's done so few fun things with the kids, so he was determined to do something. We thought about various museums -- haven't been to the Art Museum in years, the Botanic Gardens has its orchid show going on now, etc. -- but Teen A suggested mini golf and then refused to do anything else. Also, it had to be at Gateway, no going to the fancier place in Broomfield or whatever. Sigh, teenagers.

It was OK. I always like Gateway. We were going to do both courses, but by the time we were ready to do the 2nd one, a really large, slow group was just starting the course. We waited about 15 minutes for them to finish the first hole, then calculated how long it would take to do the course if we were following slowly behind them, and finally just went home. It's OK.

We may do something tomorrow, too -- it's MLK Jr. Day, so the twins have the day off school and RB doesn't have to work. We'll see. Teen B might be willing, although maybe not. Teen A almost certainly won't. I want to shake them and say, "These are your last, best days with your father! Enjoy them! Don't be such doofusses!" But you know, it's impossible. They want to do what they want to do. When they're 40, after Rocket Boy is gone, they'll look back and say oh, why didn't we spend more time with dear old dad. It's just not possible to forestall that. It's how life goes.

Thinking about what else we've been spending our time on, I remembered the puzzles. Rocket Boy likes having a jigsaw puzzle going during the holidays, so we've done a couple while he's been here. This is the current one. It's a Christmas puzzle, in the shape of a Christmas tree. It's a difficult puzzle -- I think the last time I made it I swore never again. But it's OK. When the puzzles are too easy, we finish them too quickly. (Though RB did say to me today, "After we finish this one, let's not start another while I'm here." It's been taking too much of his time!)

We've also watched a few movies, including German movies. We finished watching a goofy German movie called "Soul Kitchen" last night. It's impossible to work on the puzzle at the same time, because then you miss the subtitles -- I kept switching back and forth. I don't know enough German to skip the subtitles, though I know enough to find the subtitles interesting -- the way they translate the German is sometimes not the way I would have done it.

OK, I think this is enough for this blog post. I must just admit that I have nothing interesting to write about. I'm not depressed, only a bit sad that it's RB's last week with us. It's not clear when his bosses will let him come again -- normally he'd come again in March, but they may not let him work from Colorado anymore, so he may just come for a short vacation. We'll see.