On second thought …

I decided no new projects, but I actually started organizing this one a few years ago, so that doesn’t count, right? I swear having projects isn’t an addiction — I can quit any time I want.

I’d started organizing this one so long ago that I no longer remembered where I got the idea to do it, but a quick google search later I’m pretty sure it was here. I remember little else of the circumstances so I’m just going to make up a semi-plausible story. Ahem:

I read about this while still working at the paper, when life was dark both literally and figuratively*, and I was looking for projects to help me get by. I probably was laid off shortly after I started work on this and forgot all about it. Until I found it in my email yesterday. And realized I was in the first week of the new year. So I downloaded the first book to the Kindle app on my phone and off we go!

I’m taking a more structured approach than the original Book-a-Week blog. I’ve given each month a general topic, and tried to find different types of books in 4 broad categories on that topic. Some are really stretching it (sometimes it’s only a word in the title that fits), others are just perfect for the subject. I’m still filling in a few so let me know if you have recommendations. There are 52 books to be read in total — four for each month and 4 additional books with no particular theme or category for months that have 5 Sundays.

Categories are broad: Children’s (or Young Adult), Fiction, Non-fiction, and Miscellaneous — which I put in there because it allows me to read whatever kind of book I want for the fourth one.

I’m toying with also trying to write a short story or essay linked to the month’s theme too, but we’ll see …

I’m missing a good number of books from my plan yet — take a look and see if you have any suggestions!

 

*I worked nights (get it?) and found that combining that with other unfortunate circumstances resulted in me also feeling quite depressed. This project stemmed from an effort to alleviate that.

Backward & forward

Well, friends, as we approach the end of the year and look back on 2011, I feel simultaneous elation and frustration.

On the one hand, I had a really great year. Among the many reasons it was awesome:

• Spent a lot of time with friends doing fun things.
• Took jazz dance classes (do it — it’s fun!) and made a new friend.
• Celebrated my third wedding anniversary and had an amazing belated honeymoon in Ireland.
• Made myself some really awesome clothes. And some really awful ones that I’d like to classify as ‘learning experiences.’
• Started taking yoga classes on a regular basis and made some excellent progress.
• Started seeing a chiropractor and saw huge improvements to my posture and pain level.
• Attended 3 weddings, including my brother’s and Dan’s aunt’s.
• Finally went to Ravinia.
• Took a long weekend in Philadelphia on my own.
• Told two stories at the Moth.
• Won a Moth StorySLAM.
• Went apple picking.

On the frustrating end, I did almost nothing I set as a goal/resolution for 2011.

I think I still win this year.

But next year, I’ve decided I’m not going to do any sewing or knitting related goals, aside from just doing the sewing and the knitting. I also started a calendar journal (but mine is just in a regular blank book journal), and I’m really looking forward to keeping up with that over the next year and seeing how things have (or haven’t) changed come this time next year.

So I’m looking forward to fun projects, but not with any real quantified goals to go along with them. These are things I do for enjoyment and that’s the only thing I want to get out of it this year.

What about you? What interesting/challenging/crazy/I-say-I’ll-do-this-every-year/ambitious/fun goals are you chasing in 2012?

Tags: 2011, 2012, resolutions, retrospective

Very Merry

Merry Christmas.

Travel by glass

It’s getting cold here — though we had a bit of a warm-up last week — and so as we moved on to our second Cocktail of the Month selection, we looked back to warmer months …

In August, we had dinner at one of our favorite placeswhere the whiskey cocktails are always excellent. Dan was served a Brampton, which we both liked very much, photographed on the menu so we wouldn’t forget the description, and then came back to months later. It’s L&E’s take on the classic Toronto cocktail. Neither Dan nor I had been introduced to Fernet Branca before, and everywhere I google says that the Toronto is the best use of this potable bitter.

Get it? See what they did there?

Having never had fernet branca in anything else, I am inclined to agree.

We were doing a little bit of celebrating this evening (superstition — and I swear I don’t know how superstition has such a hold on a skeptical, not-religious body like mine — prevents me from telling you EXACTLY why in a public, google-searchable forum, but barring unforeseen … stuff … we will be moving in a couple months … ), and while I have to say I think stirred drinks are a bigger pain in the ass than the shaken variety, I’m pleased as punch with this one.

Now, I’m not 100% sure that L&E’s Brampton was done exactly as ours below, but that made the most sense after researching the Toronto and re-reading L&E’s description of their Brampton.

Enjoy!

Toronto cocktail

• 2 oz rye
• ¼ oz Fernet Branca
• ¼ oz simple syrup
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir with ice in a mixing glass and strain into a cocktail glass.Take a disc of orange zest and flame it into the drink.Drop the zest into the drink.

Brampton cocktail

Substitute honey syrup for the simple syrup.

Watch me flame an orange zest in blurry pictures!

Tags: brampton, cocktail of the month, toronto cocktail, variation

I threaten to take Pip back to the shelter

and I do it on a regular basis — when he’s bothering Arrrrlene (which is a lot), knocking things off tables (which is a lot), breaking dishes (which is a lot) … but I couldn’t do without a cat that has such good taste in napping places.

(click for Pip cuteness in a larger size)

Tags: cat, cat naps, napping, Pip, random

TWIS: Meet Fran. You will be seeing a lot of her.

If I apologize or babble on about how I’m not posting much lately every time I post in the next couple months, that’s going to be 1) stating the obvious and 2) kind of silly, right? So how about if I just tell you posts are going to be few and far between for a while and we leave it at that?

We’ve had a pretty major decision to make recently and I may have some BIG news about that soon, but my current big news is this:

This is Fran, my brand new and very first dress form, hanging out in my sewing room. She is wearing the Jasmine Fail blouse, which I will be posting about eventually in the hope that someone out there in bloggy-land can help me figure out if it’s salvageable.

She is an early Christmas gift from Dan. I named her after a bird. When we moved in to our first apartment, I had a short wire shelving unit I put on our balcony for potted plants. True to form, they all died a slow death from neglect (it’s a wonder anyone in my household is still alive). Late that first fall, a pair of mourning doves set up house, nesting in the remains of one of the dead plants to hatch their three eggs. The lady bird’s name was Hollafrancescina — don’t ask me how I know. I just do. We watched them for a month or two and then one day everybody was gone. We mourned our mourning doves after they took flight.

So my new dress form is named for the mourning dove, Fran for short.

I believe this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Tags: dress form, sewing, twis