Time was weird and often meaningless in the Year of Our Coronavirus, 2020. It felt endlessly stretched, recklessly rushed, and sometimes both at once. So many Big Things happened–pandemic, politics, protests–that the news never let up. At the same time, daily life was so consumed with risk-management strategies–six feet apart, wear a mask, #stayhome–that it all became a blur. Crawling toward the finish line of 2020, a few random observations come into focus… The last […]
I last posted here in March of 2020. It’s hard to grasp whether that was really nine months ago or just a few weeks. I’m not the first to onserve that time had been so strange this year. I don’t think most of us who have lived through this year will forget 2020–like it or not. Please know I’m not saying “lived through this” casually. The coronavirus wasn’t the only thing that took lives in […]
How are you spending your days in this weird new world? What’s your normal now?
It’s going to take a little while to build up a regular blogging habit after such a long time away. The “weekly recap post” seems like a good way to wade back in, so I’m giving that a go. Welcome to Last Week This Week, Edition #1. The best part of my week A warm welcome back to this space! One reason I rarely unsubscribe from a dormant blog is the pleasure of seeing a […]
Let’s start all over again by continuing my recap of 2019. My #OneWord for 2019 was “regroup,” and for reasons discussed in my previous post, I can’t say I did. All things considered, maybe I should just recycle “regroup” for 2020. There were some bright spots and distractions from the assorted dramas of last year. Here’s a recap of 2019 highlights to start 2020 here on the blog. Movies The ones that stuck with me […]
…and glance back at the year that wasn’t here. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I know we’re almost two months in, but I hope it’s not too late to wish you a Happy New Year …whether you call it the first year of the new decade or the last year of the old one. (I guess maybe it depends on whether your count runs from 1 to 10 or 0 to 9?) I’ve been […]
I Read Some Books in 2018 (But You Wouldn’t Know That From Here) Because 2018 barely exist on this blog, there’s no public record of what I read last year. And without that record, it felt like I didn’t read last year. The facts don’t support that feeling, though. I read some books–more than I thought I had, actually–in 2018. I got plenty of use out of Libby and my library cards. True, I did go […]
There’s one big way I need to regroup going into this new year: managing my time. I need to be a realist about it #Regroup: Managing Time I used to be a lot better at organizing my time. Back then, one of my personal mottoes was “Organization is a defense against chaos.” I still think that’s true. But it’s also true that my own defenses against chaos have become seriously disorganized over the last few years. I’ve […]
I shared my #OneWord for 2019 with you on New Year’s Day, but I don’t want that to be the only words we exchange this week. And now, a few more words… about blogging On the afternoon of December 31, I opened my feed reader (yes, I still use one) for the first time in weeks. I clicked the “mark all as read” checkmark. New year, new start. On the morning of January 1, I opened the […]
And A Few Words About Last Year’s #OneWord My #OneWord for 2018 was ACCEPT I thought it was a good choice at the time, and in retrospect, I think I appreciate it even more. I approached it like this: I’m working on what I’d call “active acceptance.” For me, that means taking things as they come, but with intention. Most of what I can change is in how I respond to what I accept. I’m trying to figure out how that […]
Sparkly Shiny Things: Odds & Ends & Random Bits I’m continuing my Mid-Year Check-In with a short-attention-span set of updates. If there are any unifying themes here, it’s not necessarily by design. I was winding down a week off from work when I drafted this. We had planned a few days away but called off the trip earlier this month so we could focus on arranging for Paul’s mom’s upcoming move into assisted living. On […]
Bookkeeping: The Reading Year in Review (Without Reviews) Contributing to Shelf Awareness taught me how to craft a concise, structured book review. I’ve never really mastered the “bite-size” capsule book discussion, though–not on LibraryThing or Goodreads, not on Instagram or Litsy, and definitely not here. My book posts here tend to skew high on the word-count side. I’d like to think I write long reviews because I read books that give me lots to think and talk […]
