January 22, 2024

Taking Stock for January

Getting: Ready to start booking summer camping trips, which is my favourite winter vice. (Ontario Parks reservations open up five months in advance!)
Cooking: Soup, soup, always soup. The chicken dumpling soup in Smitten Kitchen’s Keepers is a life changer!
Sipping: WATER. Water that’s not infused with tea, because water is one of my New Year’s Resolutions, in terms of ingesting and marinating in via frequent visits to a steam room.

Reading: Interesting Facts About Space, by Emily Austin, and just as wonderful as I’d hoped as a follow-up to Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead.
Thinking: About the person who tried to shame me on Friday for LIKING and then UNLIKING her Facebook post (even though I did like it, and explained as much, but I had pressed LIKE and immediately felt a sense of dismay at the gamification of my feelings AND then the whole ensuing fallout really underlined that my instinct to disengage was quite correct in the first place.
Remembering: to experience the moment/season I’m in right now rather than rushing to the next one
Looking: at the snowy powder on the porch outside. I don’t hate it!
Listening: to the Kara Swisher podcast conversation with Heather Cox Richardson. Why can’t I stop listening to US politics podcasts? I don’t know!
Wishing: The US politics was boring.
Enjoying: The slowness of January as we ease into the new year
Appreciating: Any time the sun shines and the sky is blue
Wanting: More opportunities to promote my novel this spring.
Eating: A McVities digestive biscuit! (Plain, not chocolate)
Finishing: The first essay in my new substack, which will make its debut next week! It’s about re-reading Danielle Steele after 30 years!
Liking: Spending less time on social media and improving my focus by writing long form
Loving: Taking more time in the whirlpool and steam room at my gym.

Buying: A new winter hat! (It’s so good!)
Watching: I introduced my kids to the 1990s movie MERMAIDS starring Cher, Winona Ryder, and Christina Ricci last weekend, and (to my great joy!) they loved it (and it really did hold up!)
Hoping: To be able to keep my January sense of chill as life begins to speed up again.
Wearing: A cardigan, OBVIOUSLY. Because I am a human person with arms and it’s January.
Walking: Carefully on the slippery sidewalk
Following: the trajectory of my 10-year-old’s illness (which is the first time either of my kids have been sick this school year. We’re pretty lucky!)
Noticing: The light lasting longer every day
Saving: A packet of Mini-Eggs that I bought right after Christmas on sale. My daughter asked me if I’d forgotten we had them. I haven’t forgotten. I just like having them.
Bookmarking: Every piece in TNQ’s Writing In/During Crisis series. Have you read them? You should.
Feeling: Good!
Hearing: The mysterious babble of my very noisy 15-year-old fridge.

PS Thanks, Pip, for the template!