What I want to try to do in 2025

I didn’t want to write this blog post in 2024. For reasons I cannot remotely explain, my gut/intuition/heart wanted to write this in the new year.

So here we are. I’m very sleepy.

I don’t make resolutions. Instead, I choose a word of the year (MORE) and I make a list of things I want to try. Here’s this year’s list:

  1. To make something daily.
  2. To write something daily.
  3. To cook more.
  4. To dig deep into my personal spiritual practices.

Those are the main ones. I’m sure others will pop up. I’ll document them when they do.

📚 My Reading Year, 2024

Like last year, I’m going to share some notes on my reading before popping the full list of all the books I read this year in here.

I read 106 books this year, including 4 picture books/easy readers. As with last year, I overwhelmingly read romance. This is about twice as much as I normally read, which can be attributed to two things: how propulsive so many romance books are, and the fact that I was freelancing and only doing that minimally from January through July. This left a LOT of time for reading. I read two or three books a week in that period. I’ve slowed down to my usual one a week since beginning my part-time school librarian job in August.

I did deep dives into the backlist of Kresley Cole and Sarah MacLean, thanks to the podcast Fated Mates. This podcast has been the greatest influence on my choice of what to read this year. I read a lot of old X-Men comics reading along with the book The Best There Is at What He Does: Examining Chris Claremont’s X-Men. I’m still in the middle of that project, which I started after watching X-Men ‘97. I think I’m going to pick it back up soon.

In just the past couple of months, I have really found my way into fantasy romance. My favorite and the series that really got me here is Milla Vane’s barbarian fantasy romance series, A Gathering of Dragons. It answers the question, “What if grimdark, but romance?” which is not something I thought I would want when I first started this tear of romance reading but actually is exactly the thing I want right now.

Here are all the books I read this year:

Trial of the Sun Queen A Fate Inked in Blood Bull Moon Rising Swordcrossed A Heart of Blood and Ashes The Beast of Blackmoor Killer Underwear Invasion! Nobody's Baby But Mine A Caribbean Heiress in Paris Some Writer! Heaven, Texas Lord of Scoundrels Captives of the Night The Truth About Him Everything I Left Unsaid You Had Me at Happy Hour The Pairing The Villa The Lion's Daughter If I Stopped Haunting You Operation: Cover-Up Hungry Bones Knockout Heartbreaker Bombshell Love, Come to Me When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary When Grumpy Met Sunshine This Will Be Fun Indigo Hers for the Weekend Gentle Rogue The Knowledge Gap Tender Rebel Love Only Once Daring and the Duke Brazen and the Beast Wicked and the Wallflower The Day of the Duchess A Scot in the Dark The Rogue Not Taken The Price of Pleasure The Captain of All Pleasures If You Desire If You Deceive If You Dare The Devil of Downtown Here We Go Again The Prince of Broadway The essential X-Men The Rogue of Fifth Avenue The Essential X-Men Volume 2 Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover Essential X-Men - Volume 1 No Good Duke Goes Unpunished One Good Earl Deserves a Lover A Rogue by Any Other Name Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke's Heart Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake The Familiar The (Fake) Dating Game You Should Be So Lucky The Witch Queen of Halloween The Player The Master The Professional Munro Wicked Abyss Shadow's Seduction Shadow's Claim Sweet Ruin Dark Skye Suddenly You The Kiss Quotient Matilda MacRieve Lothaire Preferential Treatment Dreams of a Dark Warrior Demon From the Dark Pleasure of a Dark Prince Deep Kiss of Winter You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop Kiss of a Demon King Dark Desires After Dusk Dark Needs at Night's Edge Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night No Rest For The Wicked A Hunger Like No other The Truth About Dragons Two New Years Nacho y Lolita/Nacho and Lolita Fox Has a Problem Dreaming of You Then Came You The Charm Offensive New Adult A Dish Best Served Hot A Proposal They Can't Refuse In the Case of Heartbreak Love Requires Chocolate The Frame-Up Never Been Kissed Get a Life, Chloe Brown A Touch of Stone and Snow

🍿 Watched Autumn at Apple Hill.

🍿 Watched Autumn at Apple Hill.

I wanted made-for-TV Christmas movie vibes without succumbing to the early Christmas fervor, because I adore autumn and Halloween. So I hunted around and found Autumn at Apple Hill, which checks so many boxes for this kind of movie:

✅ adorable small family business
✅ event planning
✅ charming small hometown
✅ workaholic Suit Man
✅ save the place!
✅ neighborhood holiday Halloween party
✅ developers hotel chain
✅ charming hotel
✅ guy she went to high school with

via GIPHY

Is it fine art? Nope. Does it get the job done? It sure does.

Fortnight notes, 9/30/24 - 10/13/24

Trying fortnight notes today.

I finally got W’s fancy watch back to him, with a nice new battery and glass that isn’t cracked. A belated anniversary present but handled all the same.

I had grand dreams of embracing my Jew-ishness (the hyphen is there because while I’m ethnically ⅜ Jewish, my family assimilated so thoroughly that I am completely disconnected from the plurality of my heritage) by making a Cheerwine brisket for Rosh Hashanah but was thwarted by migraines.

On October 5, W and I built our 12 foot skeleton with the help of our neighbor and in the evening, I went to see & Juliet with our friend who has gotten tickets from some friends of hers who couldn’t use them. I wasn’t sure I would like it because jukebox musicals rarely work for me, but it was a lot of fun. The second act has more ballads in a row than I would have liked but overall it was a great time.

One of M’s friends was born the exact same day as him. We went to her birthday party which was Taylor Swift-themed with karaoke. Many of the other guests were students I work with and their families. I was the first grown up to actually do karaoke. I sang “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” and while I didn’t do as well as I wanted to, people said nice things. Kid reactions ranged from saying to a parent with pride, “I KNOW HER!” to a confused, “Why is the school librarian singing?” A couple parents said I was so brave to get up there and I told them that I’m a karaoke hustler (not actually, I’m a ringer if a DJ knows me and needs somebody to jump in with an upbeat song but I’ve never participated in a contest) who’s spent lots of money on voice lessons, so that made it easier.

On the way home from the party, I took M to Fresh Market and he picked out a delicious vanilla cake from their bakery to have as we celebrated with W’s mom. When we got home, we finished building a big trampoline which was M’s main birthday present.

The next day was M’s actual birthday and we gave him quite a few books, a LEGO Friends cat playground set, and the Pokemon Battle Academy box that teaches you how to play the trading card game.

It was a mostly normal work week. Friday was a staff development day so M got to stay home with W while I went in and caught up on some work and learned about the development of our campus safety plan.

Then I ran errands! I picked up library holds and a new belt and returned a nightgown I didn’t love. This was big as I’d been sitting on these errands a little while.

Saturday we went as a family to a local farm that does a corn maze and hayrides, has a spooky nature trail, and lets you pick your own pumpkins. It was a gorgeous day and we were outside for about 4 hours.

Today, W and I went to the local theater’s horror series and saw The Thing and They Live. I ate way too much popcorn and have felt pretty gross tonight. Next time, no popcorn or a smaller order of popcorn.

How have the past couple of weeks been for you?