Week 52

 Wooooooooo! Here we are! 

Christmas and my first week of vacation are both behind us and I'm already feeling wistful. I filled those first few days of the week with gentleness toward myself and didn't give myself too much to do. My one priority each day was to soak in the sun as much as I could. I walked my usual haunts and made a beautiful late-afternoon Christmas Eve visit to Manito Park. Listening to Bach while walking through frozen gardens is magical.

Christmas was sweet. Our gifts were mostly given for both of us to enjoy -- we call it "Us-mas." Joel gave us extremely thoughtful gifts (handmade wooden napkin rings, vintage glassware), mine were mostly practical (e.g. a new milk frother, a nonstick fry pan). The pets got some new toys, too. We Zoomed with all of our family at different points in the day which made me feel a little less homesick. And on Christmas night, it snowed. It made for a bright night and invigorating trek the next morning in our snow pants across the bluff. We sat for a moment on a little mound and looked out at the valley that we look at a bazillion times over the course of a year and watched the misty clouds move around it.

In other news, as of this week I am the proud owner of an at-home blood pressure monitor, which is fun and instantly makes me feel a couple decades older. My numbers have been consistently high this year, and I went to the doctor at the beginning of the week to try to figure out what is going on. It's not for lack of exercise, or needing to lose weight -- I eat few processed foods (pretzels and cheese are my primary sources of weakness) and cut back on coffee to mostly weekends. My cholesterol is low. We definitely drank more alcohol this year, but we've cut back considerably in the last month, and I've inadvertently lost a few pounds because of it. I don't feel more stressed than usual but I do suspect it may have something to do with it. And I need to drink more water. It's my mystery to solve and get a handle on in 2021. 

Wish me luck.

Recipes

My family was texting about our traditional family recipes leading up to Christmas, i.e., Oma's rouladen, Mom's ham and egg souffle. I was happy to find a package of lebkuchen on my doorstep on Monday morning from Boise, which is already half gone, less than a week later. But otherwise, our holiday food was mostly influenced by Joel's family traditions this year. We ate chili on Christmas Eve (made with ground turkey instead of beef), and I made his family coffee cake for Christmas morning. 

For Christmas dinner we went nontraditional but still festive with coq au vin rosé, in the Instant Pot. This might be my first Christmas without beef. 

I'm also enjoying that new nonstick fry pan for all my egg-and-spinach concoctions.

Watching

We watched all the Christmas movies this week: A Christmas Story, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Bad Moms Christmas, Muppets Christmas Carol, and a favorite from my childhood which I had not seen in maybe 20 years: Mame, starring Lucille Ball, which isn't really a Christmas movie save for the "We Need a Little Christmas" number in it. It was a real blast from the past. 

We also watched Mank, on Netflix, which was mostly confusing, even after having watched Citizen Kane recently. 

Making

I finished these crazy socks using the Late Night Socks pattern on Ravelry. That was fun. I recently signed up for a quarterly box from Quince & Co. where they send you yarn and a pattern every three months. The first one is on its way!

Reading

I'm working my way through Circe whenever I feel like there isn't something else I could be doing. It's hard for me to sit on the couch and just read, though now with the snow on the ground I feel like more daytime book-reading is in my future. Mom also got me a book that's been on my list this year, Writers & Lovers, and Joel's copy of Jess Walter's new book, The Cold Millions, is also waiting for me. And we got another book called Wine for Normal People that's been fun to page through as we sip our small amounts of wine. 

Listening

Same as last week: a lot of Christmas, a lot of classical. John Fahey's Christmas album is a good one for some instrumental tunes. 

///////////////////////

I've got one more of these to round out 2020. We're almost there!