Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns
If you think Jesus would have come into your home that day and not issued a strong rebuke to the head of household, you are mistaken. These words of condemnation have been haunting me for days now. They aren’t all that different than the soundtrack I play in my head on an almost-daily basis. It’s…
I am nesting. On Saturday I emptied the refrigerator. Last summer’s homemade pickles in their jars. The bread ends that seem to multiply on every shelf. The eggs. The milk. The fruit and veggies. All of it sat on the floor or the counter as I carefully removed the shelves and wiped them down with…
I’ve heard that life is like a highway. And it definitely seems like that sometimes. The pace of life swirls around me at dizzying speeds. We’re all so busy. In such a hurry. Always somewhere to be, something else to do. I’m a get-to-the-point, get-there-quick kind of girl. I don’t like to waste time on…
So, it’s 2021. January. A time for new beginnings. This year, especially, we hope for new beginnings. Or at least, I do. Toward the end of last year, my reading life faltered. There was just TOO MUCH going on in my head and the world and I was trying to read non-fiction and it wasn’t working for me. I abandoned (temporarily) a book I really wanted to read and binged a bunch of fiction. Mostly cozy mysteries and some YA books just to feed my brain some fantasy worlds.
By the time 2020 was over, I had blown past my Goodreads challenge goal, and I had a new idea for a way to challenge myself with my reading for 2021.
I’m here to tell you about it.
First, do you set a goal for number of books to read in a year? If so, what determines that number? I usually look at the number of books I read the previous year and set something similar or a little higher. Last year, I wanted to read 50 books. I set the number low because I aimed to read more non-fiction. I ended up reading 68 books with much more fiction than originally planned because well, pandemic.
This year, I set the goal at 70. I know I can make this goal no matter if I’m reading fiction or non-fiction, especially if I choose books more often than social media. (Anyone else find themselves scrolling when they could be reading?)
Late in the year, while working out, I was listening to an “all 90s” station online and “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel played. I’ve always been a fan of Billy Joel, and despite what some people say about its merits, I like the song. It’s catchy and chock full of historical references. Most of which I don’t understand. I read that Billy Joel wrote this song when he turned 40, including major historical events from his life up to that point. I found that interesting. I wondered what events I would include if I was going to write a song about my first 40 years of life. (This is something I’m still pondering. Maybe it won’t be a song, but a list or a poem.)
I realized as I listened that not only did I not know to what the lyrics were referring, I didn’t know much about the time periods in general. I looked up the lyrics. There’s even a Wikipedia page that explains some of the historical references. I decided that in 2021, I would read some books about the events listed in “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
Because, as I’m learning, the problems that are revealing themselves in the United States today did not happen overnight. As Joel says in the song, the fire “was always burning since the world’s been turning.” I have such a limited view of history, even American history, and I want to change that.
To keep the list manageable, I picked one topic from each set of stanzas in the song before a chorus for a total of nine books, some fiction, most non-fiction.
Here’s my reading plan:
I added all of these books to my “want-to-read” list on Goodreads, and they are all available from my local library (and we own Truman), so I’m not planning to spend any money on this reading challenge. I invite you to join in on all or part of it. I can’t promise that this will be a one-book-every-month thing because have you seen the size of Truman? Nor are these the only books I will read this year. In fact, I haven’t started the challenge yet because I have two non-fiction books I’m working through right now. (I’ll tell you about those at a later time.)
One thing I’ve realized is that my picks from the song’s list of historical events and people is still very much centered on U.S. history. I believe it’s important to know about the events that formed our country, AND I believe it’s important to understand what was happening around the world. Maybe my next challenge will be to pick books and topics related to international events mentioned in the song!
I’m not sure I blogged about books at all last year. I did send a few newsletters about reading to a small group of people. I’m still undecided about whether I will continue that, but I will update you occasionally on this challenge here. And if you decide to read one or more of these books, I’d love to hear about it! You can comment on the blog or send me an email or a message on Facebook or Instagram.
Happy 2021 reading, friends! Ultimately, read what you like and love and what interests you because time is too valuable to spend on reading things you hate.
Last year, I occasionally blogged about how we were spending our socially distant pandemic days as a way to remember the time and how we spent it. I decided to do the same thing for our Christmas vacation because Phil took the week off of work and for the first time since moving to Pennsylvania, we didn’t go home at all for Christmas or New Year’s.
I’ve broken it down into categories to make it easier for you to follow along, and I didn’t record everything (because no one needs to know how long the kids played video games or how many times I washed dishes).
On Christmas Eve, we kicked off our break with a family tradition, White Christmas, and to make it more interesting for our son who claimed he would be bored, we tracked all the instances of smoking in the movie (because the movie’s rating mentions smoking). Spoiler alert: it’s not a few times.
Earlier that same day, I watched While You Were Sleeping, which I consider another must-watch of the holiday season.
On Christmas Day, after presents and video calls, we watched Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Phil and Corban had seen this in theaters last Christmas (was it ONLY last year??) but Isabelle and I hadn’t seen it yet. Our work here is done.
In keeping with our Saturday night tradition, we watched another Marvel movie: The Avengers: Age of Ultron. We are slowly working our way through the Marvel universe in order, and man, did I forget how weird this one is.
Tuesday night, we watched Soul, the new Disney/Pixar movie, and friends, this is the movie we needed for 2020.
New Year’s Eve was our movie marathon day. Each member of the family got to pick a movie to watch. Isabelle chose Hamilton, which took up our entire morning and for that we are not sorry. Phil chose Eddie the Eagle about a British ski jumper in 1988 Calgary Olympics. It’s a feel-good story (and yes we are enjoying our Disney Plus membership gifted to us by a family member). I chose Jurassic Park (the original classic one) and Corban chose Home Alone 2. (We watched Home Alone the weekend before our break started.) That took us until 11 p.m.
During the week, Phil and I finished Series 11 of Doctor Who, which we had checked out of the library.
If you know us, you know that food is a big deal, and we were not leaving our week-at-home eating to chance. We carefully planned out our dinner meals and extra treats so that we could stock up at the store and not have to think about what we were having every day. (We use a Google doc to keep ourselves organized. Nerd alert!)
For Christmas Eve, we wanted something that felt like comfort food, so we made chicken pot pie (or chicken pie as it’s known in Lancaster; the kind that’s made with a pie crust, not with pasta in a pot; food names are weird). We ate cookies our neighbor dropped off and drank eggnog with the movie, which is part of the White Christmas watching tradition.
Breakfast on Christmas morning was cinnamon rolls from a can (we have not tried homemade yet because of time but think we may have to), tropical fruit, sausages and hot drinks.
We grazed on a variety of meats, cheeses, olives and crackers for lunch while dinner cooked in the oven. For years, Phil has wanted to make porchetta, a recipe he saw in a Michael Symon cookbook. It requires a fresh ham, which he ordered from a local butcher, and it was bigger than we expected. Still, we pressed on with the prep and cooking, and it was delicious! With the porchetta we had cornbread stuffing (a new recipe we tried from Bon Appetit magazine) and a shaved Brussels sprouts salad (another Chef Symon recipe) and sourdough bread (not homemade) with Irish butter. I drank a beer. Phil had whisky. Our dessert was Jello poke cake.
On Saturdays, our son chooses the menu from a rotation of meals he has approved. This week it was a mac and cheese casserole that usually contains hot dogs, but we convinced him to include some of the leftover porchetta meat. Mixed frozen vegetables on the side.
Sunday was our hike day (more on that later) and one of the culinary adventures we wanted to have during our Christmas break was MREs. Phil ordered a random bundle of them online and we took them on our hike. The promise of a hot meal sustained us as we hiked in the sub-30-degree temps, but the air temperature may have been too cold for the heating chemical to work properly. Still, we had a picnic at an outcropping next to a lake in December–a fun memory! Some of the MRE contents included: teriyaki beef sticks (which come from nearby Lebanon, PA), bread with cheese sauce, trail mix, crackers with chocolate peanut butter sauce, a chocolate toaster pastry, chocolate pudding, southwestern chicken burrito bowl, beef ravioli, tortellini with tomato sauce, southwestern beef and beans.
For dinner, we had pierogis (from frozen), chicken tenders (from frozen) and raw broccoli (must have a vegetable!).
On Monday for lunch, Phil made grilled cheese sandwiches out of the sourdough and leftover porchetta, and this was my first grilled cheese that used mayonnaise instead of butter on the outside of the sandwich. It was not a mistake!
Dinner was an assortment of canned soups of the Campbell’s and Progresso varieties. (Part of our intention for food was to do things we don’t normally do, and canned soups is not a regular part of our diet.)
Tuesday and Wednesday featured a lot of local takeout.
For lunch on Tuesday, we had açaí bowls from Oola Bowls, a stand at Central Market. We followed that up with salad. Tuesday was like a cleanse day for us except there were still a lot of cookies and other leftovers in the house.
On Wednesday, the boys wanted to get McRibs from McDonald’s and I avoid the golden arches as much as possible, so the girls ordered crepes from Rachel’s Creperie. (Son and I had crepes the week of Thanksgiving and daughter did not get to participate, so this was a double win for me.)
After watching a taste-testing episode of Mexican food a few weeks ago, we were hungry for authentic Mexican food. We ordered from Cocina Mexicana (enchiladas verdes for me-yum! There were also tamales, and chile rellanos and nachos and chorizo fries.)
New Year’s Eve was another feasting sort of day. We started with monkey bread for breakfast. Leftovers for lunch. For dinner, we had sweet and sour meatballs, crab rangoon dip, other chips and dips, veggies, Christmas cookies, more meat and cheese. I drank a beer long before midnight. The kids toasted with sparkling grape juice. Phil had Scotch. I was on to water by then.
Besides watching movies and eating food, we did some other things during our break.
I put together a puzzle, with some help.
We video called with family, multiple times.
On Saturday, we spent most of the day cleaning and organizing the kitchen, the mud room and the mud room closet. I cannot tell you how amazing it feels to have these rooms functional and uncluttered. I even got rid of some coffee mugs and some pans we don’t use.
Sunday was our hiking day. We went to Muddy Run Park in southern Lancaster County and took the Lakeside Trail, which was adverted as “rugged walking.” The sign was not wrong. When we started, the ground was still a bit frozen but as the day went on, it loosened up a bit. All of us were on the ground at one point or another during the hike. We were cold and tired and bruised a little by the time we got home, but the fresh air did us good.
We returned to cleaning on Monday, this time an area of the living room where the kids keep their legos and various other toys and projects. This, too, took up a large part of our day, but it, too, is satisfying. We’re still waiting on a shelving unit we ordered to complete the project, but cleaning was a big checkmark on the to-do list.
Before cleaning I went to the library.
That night, we drove around looking at Christmas lights. This house on Longfellow Drive in Lancaster is an annual favorite. They raise money for Make-A-Wish and this picture does not even do justice to the amount of lights and holiday cheer that are on and around this house.
Tuesday was Christmas cookie day. Isabelle and I made the sugar cookie dough for Grandma’s cookies and then tried our hands at twisty candy cane cookies. Both required a lot of time and effort but it was worth it in the end.
We played a game of Icons: Women Who Play to Win. Highly recommend this card game. We did some online shopping so the kids could spend their Christmas money/gift cards.
On Wednesday, I had to run to Target because we were nearly out of toilet paper and I needed some mailing supplies. I bought myself a 2021 planner because I’m feeling optimistic.
After lunch I helped Phil put his new seat cover in the truck. Isabelle and I frosted the sugar cookies. And I attended a webinar on social media use. I prepped cookies and packages for mailing.
Our post-dinner entertainment was two rounds of the Exploding Kittens card game, another Christmas gift. Another recommendation.
Isabelle and I braved the post office on the morning of New Year’s Eve and it actually went better than expected. We were in and out in less than 10 minutes. I talked to one of my grandmas on the phone. In the afternoon, I went to visit a friend who is recovering from surgery. (We wore masks the whole time and stayed six feet apart.)
And what would a vacation be without reading? No vacation at all for our little family unit.
Corban and I finished The Tale of Despereaux on Christmas Eve Eve. I loved every bit of it. I finished the eighth Phryne Fisher mystery, Urn Burial, a few days after Christmas and started reading Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other. Phil got two books for Christmas and he’s alternating between them: Birding at the Bridge, which talks about birds at the Brooklyn Bridge, two of his favorite things; and The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food, a cookbook. He reads some cookbooks like actual books and I admire him for that. Isabelle plowed through a bunch of books in the I,Q series.
Additionally, there was the usual bits of housework, some resting and napping, some fighting and irritation between people, dishes and laundry and lots of video game playing because the boy child got a new gaming system for birthday/Christmas from everyone.
As with Thanksgiving, it may not have been the holiday we wanted, but it turned out just fine.
And now back to our regularly scheduled schedules. Happy New Year!