2016 was my first year blogging on self-hosted WordPress and my all-time worst year of blogging output. I’ve barely cracked 100 posts, and I am officially declaring this one my Last Blog Post of 2016. After nearly ten years of doing this, I don’t feel a need to make excuses or apologies for inconsistency or offer promises to do better. I’m just grateful if you show up when I do!

2016: The Leap Year That Leaped Into the Abyss

Personally speaking, 2016 was probably a better year than 2015. No one in my family was diagnosed with cancer or spent a holiday in the hospital, so let’s start with that.  I spent time with my book-blogging BFFs in Chicago and celebrated ten years with my husband at Disneyland.  We still have our jobs, our house and our dog…and Hamilton.

But in the world outside our little world, this was a remarkably, memorably rotten year. The biggest reason not to be glad it’s nearly over is the fear that 2017 could be even worse. But if it is, at least we’ll be expecting it. Part of what’s made the past year so rough is that the hardest hits took so many of us by surprise.

Currently

• Reading: I finished a couple of books right before Christmas, and I had no unread items in my feed reader on the morning of December 26. We had family visiting and lots to do over Christmas weekend, and I went back to work yesterday. Basically, I’m puttering right now.

Since my commuting time is greatly reduced during the holiday weeks, I’m in between audiobooks, too. I mentioned in my last Currently post that I might DNF Carrie Fisher’s The Princess Diarist,  but recent events have made me rethink that, and I bought her two previous memoirs, Wishful Drinking and Shockaholic, from Audible yesterday. Princess Leia was quite a writer when she wasn’t saving the galaxy.

• Watching: I’ve been to the movies five times in the last twelve days.  I saw Rogue One in three different theaters with three different groups of people between December 18th and 23rd. We saw La La Land on Christmas Day. And last Thursday night, I saw my very favorite movie on the big screen for the very first time when we went to a special American Cinematheque showing of The Princess Bride in Hollywood.
• Writing: Obviously, this is one thing I have not been doing. One reason I’ve been puttering around reading-wise is that I have four finished books to write about, and I don’t want to get further behind. I haven’t worked on my Year in Review posts, either. I’m hoping to make progress on all of this over New Year’s weekend since we don’t have much else going on. On the bright side, I just might be well set for blog content to kick off 2017!

Further Reading: Year-end Lists and Reflections

Books of the Year from a variety of sources:

• The Ultimate Consensus “Best Books” List
• BookPage’s Best Books of 2016
• SkimmReads Best of 2016
• Shelf Awareness’ Best Books of 2016
• Los Angeles Times: 10 Most Important Books of 2016

Reading, writing, and thinking:

• If Bruce Springsteen Wrote a Short-Story Collection
• Carrie Fisher the writer
• Don’t Get Los in Fiction: People Need You
• On Reading and Anxiety

Happy New Year! Thank you for being here, and I look forward to seeing you again in 2017!

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