Bring On The New Year!

Sing this to the tune of Elton John's "Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road" -- Goodbye, Twenty-Fifteeeeeeeen!

You're welcome for getting that stuck in your head. It's a good song.

We are ringing in the new year with NyQuil instead of champagne. Because, you know, if we weren't sick we would really be partying and living it up.

All day yesterday. Also, all day today.

One of the good things about being away from home the week of Christmas is that we get to come home to loads of cards and gifts when we pick up the mail. Remember how I blogged about some new, small decorations for the house? Well, look what I just happened to open up last night!

This is a custom-made Colorado state decoration! A-peep figured I would appreciate it since I love Colorado (and Denver) so much. She was right! I love it and have given it a new home on our window sill.

This little guy has found a home above Loo Loo Bell's cage. She's thrilled.

Are you ready for the new year? It occurred to me this morning that I really only have two more weeks until the semester starts up, so I've been on the phone scheduling some dentist appts/dr checkups/etc. Am also going to start up syllabus revisions today in addition to the usual reading and napping.

I'm also going to refine a few goals for 2016. Are you doing resolutions?

2015 was good to us. A few highlights were:

*I got to see Gama three times.

*My little brother got married. I love my SIL - she's a keeper.

*G had some pretty incredible work opportunities that involved travel, meeting new people, doing new (important) things, and giving a key-note speech at a local conference.

*He kept up his nerdy nerd involvement and even expanded it to include even MORE games. Lord help us all.

*There was a spur-of-the-moment GIRLZ WEEKEND.

 
*G went to lots of nerd conferences where he met famous nerds and talked about nerd things. Here he is with the actor who played Colonel Tigh on the new Battlestar Galactica:

*I lost (and managed to keep off) 16 pounds.

*We started biking all over the place.

*And hiking all over the place.

*We sold the VA house. And lived to tell the tale. Barely.

*G got to visit the peeps during that whole sh*t show process.

*Did I mention the hikes? Because there were some good ones. I'm proud of us for getting out and exploring in the middle of a stressful season.

*All the food.

*With all the peeps.

*We had some good times.

*There was a lot of reading and a lot of writing.

*There was a lot of complaining about the aforementioned.

*We transformed the front yard!

*I came into my own as a teacher. I overcame enough hurdles to feel, if not settled, exactly, then at least consistently confident.
*I got some good kudos and work opportunities and raises and new jobs.
*I got an entire year closer to the "career" that I want in the long-term.
*We went to VEGAS!

*I presented at a conference.

*We went to SALT LAKE CITY.

*2015 was a year of health for the bun bun, and she even made strides in being a little love bug. We're to the point that one or both of us loves her up every day. Don't tell anyone, but I think she likes it. She just has a surly reputation to uphold.

*And she's quite the traveler!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

G's Good Reads of 2015

And now for the blog post you've all been waiting for...the post with which 2015 would not be complete..my good reads for the year. In no particular order, here are the standouts that I read in 2015:

The Wright Brothers, by David McCullough.

I know B covered this on the blog earlier this year when she read it, but it bears mentioning again. What a fantastic book! As with most things in this life, you think you have a good idea of something until you take a really close look at it, and then you're blown away by all the stuff you didn't even know that you didn't know about the topic. This book is a perfect example. The Wright brothers invented the airplane and powered flight, right? They went to Kitty Hawk and tested their design there on the sand dunes, right? Well, yes. BUT...there was so much more that went into it than that. Highly, highly recommended book (and not just because I'm an aviation geek). And of course, being a McCullough book, the writing is top-notch and very engaging.

On Basilisk Station, by David Weber.

This is the first book in Weber's Honor Harrington series, which chronicles the career of Honor Harrington, a space naval officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy (and a character that Weber modeled after Horatio Hornblower, the main protagonist in CS Forester's books, who was a British naval officer during the Napoleonic Wars). I actually read this some years ago, but wanted to re-read it as I'm going to jump in to the series in 2016. In this first book, Harrington is sent to a backwater posting, Basilisk Station, after humiliating some of her superiors in a fleet exercise. Turns out that the "backwater posting" is anything but, and she uncovers a devious plan by Manticore's enemies to invade Manticorian space. This is a great science fiction read that isn't all lasers and aliens...there are political, cultural, and social undertones here as well. Really looking forward to the next book in this series!

Asia's Cauldron, by Robert D. Kaplan.

Kaplan is a heck of a writer, and I have always found his topics and how he covers them to be quite engaging. In Asia's Cauldron, Kaplan looks at the brewing situation in the South China Sea between China and her neighbors who border that body of water (Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and others). At odds are several island groups to which some or all of the nations bordering the South China Sea lay claim. This, of course, has repercussions on fishing rights, exploration for petrochemicals, military force projection, and a host of other issues. This book is a great primer for the occasional piece of news we see about events in that part of the world. If you like geopolitics, this is not one to miss.

The Martian, by Andy Weir.

Again, I think B has covered this book on the blog already. Wow, what a read. I finished this book in three days flat, and two of those were workdays. Not sure how the movie compares to the book--I haven't seen it yet--but this is a real thriller.

The Marne, 1914, by Holger Herwig.

One of the (unfortunately) few WW1 books I read in 2015 was this title from Holger Herwig. While I would not recommend this to casual readers of WW1 history, as it goes into a great amount of detail that may lose some readers, it presents a concise look at how the armies of France, Britain, and Germany actually maneuvered in the first 6-7 weeks of hostilities prior to the stalemate of the trench systems on the Western Front. Nothing was a foregone conclusion, and in some places the bravado or indecision of specific commanders--whether at the corps or even the regimental level--had repercussions up and down the line of conflict.  Again, not recommended for a casual reader, but if you're interested in what happened before the Western Front degenerated into a series of trench systems from about mid-September 1914 through November 1918, this is a good book to pick up.

So there you have them...my good reads of 2015. Let us know if you read any of these, and your thoughts on them!

Extending the Holidays (A Positive Change)

We are home! Lucy has reclaimed the living room and is refusing to go into her cage. Guess who slept on the couch last night so that she could enjoy stretching her legs after a week of boarding?

Because of the storms on the eastern side of the country yesterday, the airport was insane. There were so many cancelled flights that in order to accommodate travelers, United was offering credits of up to $1500 per person if you were willing to get bumped to another flight. We were not willing. We are not flexible travelers. 

My MIL and I had an interesting convo last week about the very quick spin-up to Christmas, and then the "blah" months of January - March or so. For a variety of reasons, those months are typically very hard for me. Is it all the darkness? The cold? The lack of regular holidays or events to break up that stretch of time? Maybe it's that after having so many fun and different holidays in quick succession (Halloween/fall in general/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year), it is a shock to the system to have nothing at all on the horizon...? This is a first world problem for sure, but a problem nonetheless that I am very aware of in my life. It affects my mood and my attitude and my behavior.

My MIL said that a woman she knows was talking about how her kids just hated it when she took down the Christmas decorations. So, she replaced some of the decs with snowmen (as a winter decoration in January) and the kids perked up. As a family, they turned this into a monthly habit, picking a few small seasonal things to do around the house. On the one hand, I can see how someone can take this too far and turn it into "something else that must get done" each month - sort of a Hallmark Moments way of living. I can see how it creates pressure and can be expensive. That said, I can also see how it can be a fun way to mark the passing of time and the smaller "seasons," if you will, that occur within the greater umbrella of the long Colorado winter. I'm going to try it.

Starting with the dining room table, which is decorated more for winter than for the holidays. So, when the Christmas decs get put away (not until at least this weekend! We are enjoying the lights and colors for a little while longer!), these will stay out for a while, and then I'll replace them with something new around February or March. And that can tide us over, as far as decorations go, until the summer.

We haven't made any improvements or changes to the house lately (still recovering from selling the VA house over the summer, and the insanity of my schedule this fall), so a few scattered decorations will be a welcome change.

Are you thinking of goals for the new year? Any New Year's Eve plans? We're gonna lay low and stick around here with the bun bun. G has been sick for over a week (Merry Christmas!) and I've been valiantly fighting it off (and ever so slowly losing the fight) for the last few days, so things will be low-key around dawrighthouse for the next few days.

You know what that means? Reading!

Time To Go (+ Book)

This time with family has been fun, but for the sake of what remains of my waistline, it's time to go. Time to pick up the surly bun bun and return to dawrighthouse.

I went on a quick shopping trip with my MIL this morning to score some sales on clothes. Got home this afternoon and realized that the security devices are still on them. So guess what we're doing tomorrow before going to the airport?

Then it's nothing but water and running until school starts in January. No more stress dreams from last semester but guess what? Now I'm having stress dreams about it being the first day of class next semester and I don't have a clue about the syllabus. **sigh** I know what I'll be doing the rest of the week. In order to lower my blood pressure.

Isn't this the best pic?

And speaking of books, read this one:

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

This book has been on the best-seller list forever and there has been much hype about it. That said, I didn't really know what it was about. So here you go. A woman takes the same commute to and from work every day. There is a routine stop next to a grouping of houses, and she sees the same couple out on their balcony; she creates names and a back story for them as a kind of entertainment for herself. Then one day she sees the woman do something very suspicious, and then it's in the news that the woman has disappeared. As the narrator gets more involved in the story, the police (and the reader) wonder about her integrity as a witness, since she is an alcoholic with a troubled past. Then the plot, of course, thickens.

Hawkins is a good writer and story teller. People have compared this to Gone Girl, but I do not see any comparison. This is dark and twisted but nowhere near the extent of GG. This one is dark, though. Maybe serious is a better word. The story follows people with problems, dealing with an extremely problematic situation. By the end, though, I could not stop reading.

On to Jane Eyre.

The Hottest Christmas Since Hawaii (+ Book)

I packed super light to come to PA - just a pair of pj's (which constitutes 99.9% of my vacay wardrobe, let's be honest), a pair of sweats (hey, walking has happened twice and is fo sho on the agenda for today), and a pair of jeans (plane wear). They take turns on my body and in the laundry. But all of it is too hot. It's been in the 70's here and I've been having a heat stroke. Liters and liters of water.

And liters of coffee. My MIL bought some peppermint mocha creamer that is probably pure sugar but I don't care it's so tasty.

Homemade German Stollen (sp?) - basically a sweetbread stuffed with a nut mixture.

The nerds went to the Star Wars movie. G says he liked it better the second time. **yawn**

Do you know how hard it is to get anything done with a 4-year-old around? I've been working on this post all morning.

It's also hard to read when you're constantly interrupted. I'm just sayin. Finished J.K. Rowling/Robert Galbraith's newest novel about the adventures of Cormoran Strike and his awesome assistant, Robin.

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith

In the middle of a workday, Robin opens a package that she thinks is for her upcoming wedding, but turns out to be a woman's leg. Dun Dun DUNNNNNNNN. It comes with a note, a song lyric, that is linked directly to Strike's shady past. Mystery ensues.

This is not my favorite - it moves too slowly and the central mystery is bland. Galbraith includes chapters from the villain's point of view, in order to confuse things, which is a twist from the previous novels. I appreciate the character development of Strike and Robin, and the inclusion of some hilarious new characters. The writing is good (so is the mystery), but overall it lacks pizzazz. It's good, but compared to the others, it's just OK.

I highly recommend Cuckoo's Calling and The Silkworm. Read those first. This one can wait.

Time for The Girl on the Train...

Dashing Through the Humidity

Went for two long walks today. My body was like, what is this? Movement?

The rain finally let up but it was still overcast. And seventy degrees. Which means there's a sweat film at all times and my bangs look magnificent.

Then...the niece came. It's been a blur since then.

There's a lot of talk about Frozen. And presents. And tomorrow's Christmas! And there'll be more presents!

All The Food

Hello, loves.

Pretty much all I did today was eat. I try to lesson the blow to my waist line by pacing myself, but it's a load of calories nonetheless. It beez what it beez. Tis the season and all that. I'm drinking a lot of water. I ate oatmeal for breakfast. What more can do, honestly?

My MIL and I went shopping in some great local PA stores. So much German and Dutch influence. So Amish and all.

These sand tarts are very popular around here. I haven't tried them but my MIL says they're extremely thin and crispy sugar cookies, essentially.

Whoopie pies are also a thing. Didn't eat these either.

Told you I would spend a crazy amount of time in that side room. My FIL cooked pork on The Egg most of the day in preparation for a pulled pork BBQ dinner extravaganza. 

And he made a few loaves of bread from scratch. It's as if I've died and gone to culinary Heaven. Who is tempted by cookies and candy when there's this and a stick of butter? I mean, let's be honest!

Wasn't joking about the butter. Yes, I am, in fact, wearing sweat pants right now as I type.

I would say that tomorrow will be different, but the truth is it will be more of the same. If the rain ever lets up, I plan to walk for a thousand miles.

Hope you guys are all planning for an excellent holiday!! I hope none of you are working, all of you are consuming extra calories, and all of you are also wearing sweat pants.