So long, 2020

When I started my weekly posts for 2020, I expected to share a year of adventure. In February I went out with a friend and declared that one of my goals for 2020 was to travel somewhere, near or far, every month. We were already off to a good start in January after a quick weekend trip to Coeur d'Alene. I was thinking about Nelson, B.C. for February. We were about to book tickets to France and Spain for March. My friend suggested we try for a group trip to Walla Walla in April (maybe for my birthday!). Other big milestones were on the horizon, so it just felt like a year to get out and go places.

Memories of these kinds of conversations are what many of us look back on as reasons the year was cursed. We brought it upon ourselves, making these grand plans, feeling optimistic and itchy to do something in a year with such an important ring to it: 2020. Our blind optimism caused these plans to evolve into uncertainty, then into cancelled itineraries, and then into a year in which I barely needed car insurance due to driving less than 3,000 miles. Superstition aside, as a result, this blog ended up being just a heightened version of what it was always meant to be - a place to share things I've made (and read and watched and listened to) -- only this time, it was because it was all I could do. It became, unintentionally, a pandemic journal. 

I learned at an early age that if I picture how I want things to turn out too clearly, I will be disappointed. I learned much later that no matter what happens, the one thing I can control is my response to a situation. I pictured a year of going places, but gosh darn it if by the end of it I didn't make the most out of staying put. 

Little did I know that maintaining the routine of writing here each week would become crucial to my mental health. Every Sunday, I'd think about what stood out about the past week, both good and bad. It helped me pinpoint things I needed more or less of in the week ahead. It helped me process challenging events. Each time I hit "Publish" was a sort of celebration that I made it through another week, all things considered. We all adapted to this year, for better or worse. I'm grateful to be able to look back and see how I did it.

Though I'm holding my hopes for 2021 loosely, I'm carrying the gratitude I accumulated this past year into another year of uncertainty, knowing that I am blessed beyond measure to have a small home to keep, people to love and who love me, a job that brings challenges and fulfillment and a steady paycheck, dear friends who live within a mile, a bluff and a valley at the end of the block to throw my cares to, a good data plan on my phone, and, obviously, hobbies to keep my life interesting. 

This is the last of my weekly posts, not just because 2020 is ending but because I need a break! I will return but on a less predictable schedule. In the meantime, thank you for sticking it out with me and if you've been reading for any number of weeks, I hope you found some inspiration to keep notes about your life, to start (and maybe finish) new projects, or that you at least got some good book or movie recommendations.

Cheers, and Happy New Year.

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. 

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

Week 51

Reality hit me pretty hard this week. I think I've held it together pretty well, all things considered -- the isolation, the working from home, the getting along with my partner despite close quarters all the time, the Zoom meetings and FaceTime happy hours, the health precautions to reduce the spread of COVID. But Thursday was my dad's birthday. It marked a milestone for me - a year since I've flown in a plane. A year since I've been to Boise. A year since I've seen my mom and dad. I've never gone this long without any of those things. In the meantime, both Joel and I are both experiencing health issues that are, at least (hopefully) temporarily, taking away some pleasures of eating and drinking, at the height of revelry, just as we enter vacation time that we've looked forward to for months. I have no doubt that what we're experiencing is, to some extent, a result of what we've been through this year.

I keep reminding myself how much worse things could be. Regardless, it's been a year.

Listening: I filled my week with music, because I needed it. For Christmas spirit, a little Dave Brubeck. For general mental health, classical music. A newsletter I follow shared a list compiled years ago by public radio's "Performance Today" of their 50 recommended classical music CDs. I'm working my way through them on Spotify. I had never heard John Adams' "The Chairman Dances" before, and loved it. I listened on my walk and it made me feel energized. And I've spent a lot of time with Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. What can I say, the harpsichord lightens my mood.

Reading: I'm still digging Circe.

Watching: We spent 20 bucks to watch Wild Mountain Thyme (trailer), and it was the best $20 we've spent on a movie in a long time (and first in maybe a year, since going to the theater for the last time was around Christmas time). It was set on two neighboring farms in Ireland, featuring two attractive neighbors (Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan) who have known each other since childhood, with a little Jon Hamm (playing the American cousin) and Christopher Walken (playing the Irish father) thrown in for good measure. I would happily live on location of this film, and in Emily Blunt's wardrobe, rain and all. 

We finished The Queen's Gambit, which ended on just the right note. I loved watching Beth's fashion and hairstyles change over the years - she was absolutely gorgeous, and the lighting throughout each episode was well suited to her look. Still, it was strange to watch a show about chess without knowing anything about how the game works -- I still have no clue.

Recipes

Nothing of note here. I've been making things up on the fly with a pantry full of canned soup and saltines when necessary. This week I made things I've made before - crispy marinated tofu with rice, pizza, sheet-pan chicken. Mark Bittman's black bean burgers were probably the best and simplest version of bean burgers I've made. Otherwise, I've paused the Christmas baking. Except for the pumpkin-peanut-oat biscuits I made for Luna (recipe via Martha Stewart). She was very appreciative. And I used leftover pumpkin to make some basic whole wheat muffins, which have been a nice treat at breakfast. 

For the love of the dog

On Saturday night, we brought in takeout -- a Puerto Rican Christmas meal of arroz con gandules (herby rice with green pigeon peas), pernil asado (slow-roasted pork shoulder), and ensalada de coditos (macaroni salad), with a side of coconut rice pudding, and to drink, coquito, a coconut nog to which we added a little spiced rum. It was such a treat.

Making

I'm done making gifts and am now revisiting abandoned projects, like socks. I'm also developing spreadsheets for planning my 2021 makes, budget, reading, house plans, etc. I love spreadsheets. And I'm trying to figure out what to do with this blog, too. It can't live on Blogspot for much longer, as I hate the platform, even though it's free. I'll be sure to keep you posted on my next moves in future posts.

Until then, please join me in enjoying what we can to the fullest this week. It's almost Christmas! 

 

Week 50

Silly me, I thought there were only 52 weeks in the year, but the way 2020 has turned out, there will be a Week 53 post this year, since the new year starts on a Friday. Of all the years. 

Back in the olden days, this would be the time we'd start gathering at peoples' houses and around the office for Christmas parties, drinking festively and exchanging gifts and cookies. In 2020, this month has been dotted with Zoom happy hours and text threads, lots of package deliveries, and me getting really sick of being in the kitchen and running dumb errands. The thrill of the week was taking part of Monday off to get my snow tires put on and drop off a package at the post office (a J. Crew return from a month ago). 

On certain days I get excited about Christmas, and how unusual this one is. We can make it special and fun. In some ways, we are. In other ways, I'm having a hard time finding the energy for it. I'm trying to shake it off. 

But I will warn you that this was, nonetheless, a pretty blah week, so this report is short.

Recipes

We ate a lot of soup (Mama Leone's with the leftover chicken) and other easy dinners. The best recipe of the week was Melissa Clark's rum balls, a no-bake concoction with gingersnaps, pecans, cocoa powder, maple syrup, spices, and of course, rum. They keep getting better as the days pass. 

Reading

After finishing Zadie Smith's Intimations: Six Essays (loved it), I started on Circe by Madeline Miller. I had a book club Zoom this week and my friend joined the dozens of others who have told me they devoured this book. Greek mythology (i.e., any mythology) is a huge blind spot for me, and this is the first time I've read something about it that has actually captured my imagination. I think this is the perfect way to wrap up my reading year. 

Watching

I finally watched The Family Stone this year. Several friends have told me it's a favorite, and it got me in the Christmas mood. A month or so ago, we watched Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise, and this weekend we followed it up with Before Sunset, which follows the same characters ten years later, in true Linklater fashion. Now we just need to finish the trilogy with Before Midnight. 

And we hopped on The Queen's Gambit bandwagon, too. She is such a captivating character. 

Listening

The album that powered me through my first round of Christmas baking was The King's Singer's "A Little Christmas Music" album. I am not ashamed to say that there's something about men singing in spritely falsetto that just feels like Christmas to me. 

Making

Secret stuff.

Week 49

 

Are you tired of these photos from the bluff? Tough. When Joel and I shared things we've been thankful for this year, the bluff was pretty close to the top. This year especially, it's been there to give me perspective in all the ways I've needed. It's helped me appreciate all the seasons - the growth and the death and renewal of things, the change of the sun's path, the muddy paths that become dusty and then muddy again. It has given me a way to view depth and shadow and my ability to be above it all. It's a place where I can watch Luna bound around unleashed, a place I return to each day alone. I hope you have a place like this. If you don't, I urge you to find one near your home (or wherever you're spending most of your time these days). 

This was a tough week, but there was sweetness inside. I've been thinking a lot about the solace of solitude, and my mind often goes to my first apartment where I lived alone for several years. A friend who was part of that era of my life texted me out of the blue, not long after I had been thinking of that, and of her, and we shared how things have been been hard this week. We also got to see friends we haven't seen for months and talk to them from their porch. And I picked up sandwiches from a place we'd never eaten before. And I'm spending a lot of time with the poetry of David Whyte and Mary Oliver who remind me of different ways of looking at the world.

But still, it was a tough week. How was Week 49 for you? I hope 50 offers some joy for us all.

Reading

I finally finished The Mysteries of Pittsburg by Michael Chabon and floundered a bit when trying to think of what I was in the mood for next. I have tended to avoid reading essays about the pandemic as long as we're still in it, but I'll be darned if Zadie Smith's Intimations: Six Essays isn't exactly what I want to read right now. She is one of my favorites, and I love her reflections on this time we're in.

Watching

Comfort watches this week: The Great British Bake-Off and Meet Me in St. Louis. Also, Citizen Kane, in preparation to watch Netflix's new series, Mank -- also worth watching in general after the president and election we've just had.

Making

I made a felt leaf garland because why not? I used this blog post as inspiration. I'll take a picture of the finished project, if I remember. 

Recipes

The best thing I can share with you is my insistence that you make Samin Nosrat's buttermilk marinated chicken before the year is through...or at least soon. Tender, succulent, perfect in every way. 

Listening

We got our Spotify round-up of all the stuff we listened to this year, and listened to the most, and when all was said and done, Joel and I listened to a lot of Steely Dan, Paul Simon and Sting. I am not sure how I feel about this.

Anyway...

Take care of yourselves, readers. Get good rest, and take in more fresh air than you think you need. The Christmas spirit can only get us so far.

Week 48

The Thanksgiving food was made and devoured, the Christmas decorations are up, and we are just a month away from saying ta-ta to 2020. I'll save my reflections on the year for Week 52, but this week was a good variation on the overall theme that things could have been a lot worse. My mood varied wildly - feeling down in the dumps, hopeful, energized and exhausted. Fresh air improved everything.

 

I'll just start with the food situation around here. Neither Joel nor I have held strong opinions on the necessity of a bird on a cutting board surrounded by mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing and gravy on Thanksgiving, but we are happy to allude to these things in other forms. Our meal this year was a turkey cassoulet (recipe from the New York Times) - a stewy bean mixture with sausage, turkey and bacon, topped with freshly toasted seasoned bread crumbs; pull-apart sour cream and chive rolls (recipe from Bon Appetit); warm Brussels sprouts salad with citrus vinaigrette (recipe from Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons cookbook); and cranberry hand pies for dessert (recipe from Bon Appetit).

This week brought some nice outdoor excursions, both solo and with the gang. On Wednesday afternoon I took the longer route on the bluff that heads further up the South Hill, and on Saturday afternoon we drove out to Fort Spokane - an old Army outpost at the confluence of the Spokane and Columbia rivers. We had never seen it in all our years of living here.

I also finished my orange raglan sweater  - I even weaved in the ends and blocked it. I'm still not sure if I'll actually wear it, but it was a fun learning process and way to keep my hands busy for several months. 

As for what we're watching -- Joel got me to watch 1917, which was quite something. I was really impressed by it. On Thanksgiving night we watched Holmes & Watson with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly - the perfect thing for digestion. And after finishing Schitt's Creek, I started on the latest season of the Great British Bake-Off and almost died laughing over the cake busts in the first episode.

What else, what else. Still reading Mysteries of Pittsburgh, which reminds me that I should do my annual book report post. I've read a lot of books this year, until recently. This book isn't really hooking me but I'm enjoying it enough to continue.

My goals for this next week are to finish my book, start an embroidery project (I have a kit coming in the mail) and to find some extremely basic but good recipes for the week to use up the stuff we have and freeze the rest. We still have a lot of leftover cassoulet...

Cheers to another week!

Week 47

These days are so routine as to be absolutely forgettable. Each day is some version of doing a morning workout, showering, administering pet meds, eating the same breakfast (English muffin, poached egg, tea), working, lunching, walking with the dog, working, walking again by myself with a podcast before it gets dark, drinking afternoon tea, finishing work, taking out cheese and putting it on a small cutting board with a few pretzels, pouring a tiny glass of vermouth, sitting at the table with Joel discussing news headlines and recounting our workday, starting dinner, eating dinner while watching an episode of Frasier, cleaning up, offering each other either sparkling water or tea before watching Schitt's Creek or the Crown, knitting, getting ready for bed and reading until I start to doze. The cat crawls in bed on my right side each night around 1:30 and drapes herself over my arm until I get up four hours later. On Mondays and Thursdays we take turns vacuuming. On Wednesdays I try to remember to water the plants and clean the bathroom. When the weekend rolls around, we sleep in until 8:30. We spend more time outside and watch movies instead of shows. I take on a larger cleaning project or do yardwork. We make more involved dinners and I make something more interesting for breakfast and/or dessert. We drink the whole bottle of wine from dinner. 

Each Sunday, I write out a weekly schedule in my journal to plan for the week, but I rarely actually fill it in, because anything out of the ordinary - a trip to the vet, a Zoom happy hour - is easy to remember without writing it down. 

What's more helpful right now are to-do lists to help me break out of these routines and give me something different to do, and something to remember. This is not to say I don't love my routine. It's comforting and it helps the days pass, and these days I'm looking forward further into the future and the routine helps me forget how far off those days might be. 

I am greatly looking forward to a few days off from work, and my task today (Sunday) is to come up with some ideas to make those days look and feel like some sort of vacation. I have a feeling Christmas decorating might be one of those things. 

Reading: The Mysteries of Pittsburg by Michael Chabon- I'm taking my time with this one, especially since I'm mostly just fitting in a few minutes at a time before bed. In the meantime, books-of-the-year lists are starting to emerge and I'm feeling that annual push to aim higher with my reading goals.

I also got a lump in my throat reading this, written by a woman whose mother died of COVID last week in Spokane. There were certain elements that hit close to home, and I'm sure so many others felt the same way. Beautifully written and incredibly sobering.

Watching: The Crown and Schitt's Creek -- we may finish both by week's end. On Friday night we watched a cute but maybe a touch racist Argentine movie called Chinese Take-Away. On Saturday it was the 1983 movie Tender Mercies (available on Prime), for which Robert Duvall won an Oscar. I'd watched it 20 years ago in my American Film class, and neither I nor my classmates fully appreciated it at the time, though I remember my professor nearly getting choked up while describing it as a meaningful film for him. It indeed hit me more deeply this time around.

Listening: It's about time for the annual listen of my Turkey Trotters playlist, a compilation of toe-tapping old gems which I compiled years ago for Thanksgiving food-prepping. 

Making: I finished my little cabled hat and want to make more. But I am also almost done with my raglan sweater, GLORY BE. 

Recipes: This was the last week of our CSA box. Having that box really made our eating lives more interesting this year and was the best way to ensure we were eating lots of vegetables. We could sign up for the winter box but I think I'm ready for the break. But on Friday night I really celebrated what was made possible by all the contents and made a creamy parsnip and leek soup, which also contained potatoes and celery. It looks brown because I had to use beef broth, but it was delicious. On the side we had a kale salad with Braeburn apples and golden beets. We drank wine from our beloved Wanderlust, a local wine and cheese shop where we have a monthly wine club membership. The bowl that contained the salad was made by a local artisan, KJ Pottery. It was a nice way to feel thankful for the people around us here in Spokane.

I made pumpkin scones with oats and crystalized ginger as well as brown-sugar anise cookies, both recipes from the New York Times. 

And finally, a 5-star Melissa Clark dish for Moroccan chickpeas with kale in the Instant Pot. It's even vegan.  

I'll be thinking of my friends and loved ones even more than usual this week. The one comfort I've found during these shutdowns and travel restrictions is that, strangely, I feel less alone when I know we're all alone together. (By the way, Zoom is free on Thanskgiving!) Time to read some Mary Oliver poems and revel in all the beautiful little and living things that fill our lives with wonder. Thank you for reading and for caring about the little pleasures in mine.