The baking is done, the gifts are wrapped. (Including the things that—thanks to postal chaos, apparently—had me worried all month. They finally arrived on the 20th.) There’s no snow on the ground, but that’s ok.
Whatever you celebrate, if you celebrate, I hope the season is good to you—even if that just means a couple of days to relax.
Thank you for reading, and for being a part of my 2019. See you next year. ❤️
1. rethinking… my holiday baking plans as soon as I figured them out. But I’m out of time, so I can’t make any more changes to my list. Really.
2. putting… up the tree. The 15th is the earliest I’m willing to go.
3. crying… over the Black Widow teaser trailer. Several times. (The Wonder Woman 1984 trailer makes me giddy. Both make me impatient for next year.)
4. listening… to DJ Riko’s 2019 Christmas Mix. I say it every year, but these mixes are amazing. They’ve introduced me to so much incredible Christmas music.
5. sending… my last query letter of the year. I’ve still got a few I want to send in January, but for now I can relax.
6. waiting… an absurdly long time for a shipment from Chapters/Indigo. Yes, it’s a busy time of year, but more than a week for my (in-stock!) order to even go in the mail is embarrassing.
7. accepting… that I’m probably not going to get much writing done this week. Or the rest of the year.
8. eating… Lindor truffles at 9:30 in the morning, because I’m an adult.
9. risking… frostbite for a few photos. By the time I put away the camera, I was genuinely worried. But at least I’m taking some photos?
10. realizing… that almost all of my goals and hopes for 2020 are within my control. Not sure if that’s awesome or scary.
1. putting… off the upgrade to Catalina; it’s going to break too many applications I rely on.
2. reaching… the point where I have to decide whether I’m going to try (again) to grow out my hair, or if I’m going to chop it all off.
3. falling… down a rabbit hole entirely composed of Japanese stationery supplies. I might have a new obsession.
4. planning… the final (for now) round of edits on The Black Sun.
5. emptying… another one of those boxes I’ve been hauling (unopened) from apartment to apartment since at least 2008. The decluttering process is slow, but it’s still moving along.
6. thinking… about making some changes to the newsletter. Is there anything you’d like to see? Writers or photographers who do it particularly well? If you don’t subscribe, is there something in particular that would change your mind? Let me know in the comments, or via the contact form if you’d rather get in touch that way.
7. starting… my Christmas shopping. In early October. There were specific budget-related reasons, but I’m still pretty sure that’s a new record for me.
8. feeling… relieved. I took care of a few chores that were really stressing me out—nothing serious, I’m just terrible at adulting—and I’m so glad to be done with them.
9. realizing… that I’m a little bit out of practice when it comes to grinding coffee by hand. I had a good routine down in the spring, but I’ve been drinking cold brew in the office all summer. It might take a week or two to get the muscle memory back.
10. finding… my way back into a good writing routine.
I’m still on a bit of a hiatus for the holidays. Happy New Year, and I’ll be back full-time next week.
1. eating… all the food.
2. indulging… in nostalgia. (I’ve been playing Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the first time since I was… thirteen? Fifteen? Somewhere around there. However long it’s been, the muscle memory is still strong.)
3. figuring… out how to fix the one issue with The Black Sun that was still nagging at me. It’ll involve shuffling some scenes around and adding some stuff, but it’s going to be so good.
4. making… all the plans. I am so ready to get back to work.
5. feeling… annoyed. My favourite camera store is closing at the end of January. They’ve got another location, but it’s a 40-minute bus ride away, so that won’t be happening very often.
6. craving… a site redesign. It might be time… or it might just be that I’m really feeling the whole new year thing and kind of want to change everything. (Or at least refresh the current design.)
7. accepting… that no ‘real’ work is going to get done before the 7th. (Despite #4 above.)
8. trying… to catch up on the podcast backlog.
9. looking… forward to packing everything away and vacuuming up the glitter. As much as I love Christmas—and this year was kind of amazing—I can only handle the trappings of it for so long.
10. taking… advantage of Boxing Day sales. (In my defence, it was online—so I wasn’t actually braving the crowds—and it was spending gift cards on books. So I feel no guilt.)
Things are going to be slow around here for the next two weeks. Regularly scheduled programming (snapshots, inspired) will continue as usual, and I’m not disappearing entirely, but I won’t be around very much, and there probably won’t be any posts outside the regular ones.
I’ll be back on January 7. In the meantime, Happy Holidays if you celebrate! I hope you have a fantastic few weeks!
1. feeling… sleepy. The cat’s been waking me up in the middle of the night.
2. watching… the trailers for Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame, over and over (and over) again.
3. solving… story problems. Or trying to. (I think I am.)
4. making… cookies. The actual marathon doesn’t start until tomorrow, but I had a jar of peanut butter I had to use up, so….
5. hemming… yet another set of curtains. Thankfully, I’ve only got one room to go, and those will be nice and simple. I’m done with the sheer and/or slippery fabrics.
6. trying… to balance my time. I’ve still got a lot of things I want to get done in the next two weeks, but I don’t want to stress myself too much.
7. listening… to DJ Riko‘s 2018 Christmas Mix. Still one of my very favourite holiday traditions.
8. thinking… about my plans for next year.
9. muting… so many keywords on Twitter for the rest of the month. It’s a good time for a break.
10. wondering… why it’s so difficult to find good quality felt around here. (I’ve got a couple of craft projects in mind, and it shouldn’t be this much of a challenge.)
We’re coming down to the last days of the year, and it feels so weird. I’ll have more to say next week, with my final post for this particular project (and my plan for next year’s project), but for now: I really like every single picture I took this week. Even the ones that aren’t perfect (the meringues, for one… and the NaNoWriMo pin is a little boring. Well. The picture is. The pin itself is lovely). It was a good week.
Also, apparently I was in the top 1% of readers on Pocket this year. (I read the equivalent of 80-something books? In addition to the actual books I read.) So that’s kind of cool, and I really like the sticker.
Whatever you celebrate (even if that’s just a few days off), I hope it’s a good one.
I’m going to be taking a bit of a break from the blog and most social media until 2 January. I’ll still be on Instagram, and my last(!) two Project 365 posts will arrive on schedule, but that’s all. (I’ll be checking email occasionally, but I’m not likely to respond until after the new year, unless I decide it’s an absolute emergency.)
It’s time to take a step back, enjoy the holidays, and then spend some time figuring out what comes next.
See you in 2018!
1. searching… for simple (but nice!) unscented candles. When did they become so difficult to find? (Scented candles do not belong on the dinner table. And yet.)
2. accepting… that I’m just in a weird headspace right now, and the only real creative work that will be done for the rest of the year is making plans for 2018.
3. reminding… myself that I tend to blow things out of proportion. It’s never as bad/weird/whatever as I imagine it’s going to be.
4. listening… to DJ Riko’s Merry Mixmas 2017. I say it every year, but these mixes are amazing, and they always put me in the Christmas spirit. (I’ve been downloading these mixes every year since 2005.)
5. rolling… my eyes at USPS package tracking. I’m getting updates every day (which Canada Post could learn from, btw), but my parcel keeps bouncing back and forth between San Francisco and Denver.
6. getting… myself motivated for the upcoming review & goalsetting session. It’s one of my very favourite things, and I think this year’s going to be a good one.
7. freaking… out just a little bit. I felt like I had plenty of time before Christmas and the new year… until I didn’t.
8. making… gingerbread cardamom waffles. (Like: literally, at the moment this post goes live, that’s what I’m doing.) It’s turned into a bit of a tradition on the day that I decorate the tree. They’re so good.
9. trying… to catch up with everything I ignored during NaNoWriMo. (Oh, look: Pinterest has fixed the issue with the feed, but it’s still so full of ads that I don’t want to bother.)
10. wondering… if the extended metaphor I came up with the other day is actually the seed of a story. (It could be a pretty badass YA thing. Or it could be Marvel fanfic that I’m never ever going to write. Even if it would be cool.)
1. loving… “What will you tell your daughters about 2016?”, a TED Talk by Chinaka Hodge.
2. taking… a few days off. It was nice at the beginning, but now it’s starting to get to me.
3. baking… all the things. I made this fantastic cranberry ginger cake for Christmas, and these brownies are on the menu for tonight. (I also made these blondies for a potluck earlier in the season, and I’m still a little in love with them.)
4. eating… all the things.
5. feeling… sleepy. This might be related to #4. Or the cat waking me up at 3:30. Or the fact that I think I’m coming down with (another) cold.
6. getting… ready for 2017. I have so many plans. (That, and I’ve really been looking forward to seeing the end of 2016.) I can’t wait.
7. tidying… up my files. Woohoo.
8. wishing… that amazing people would stop dying, just when we need them the most.
9. overusing… italics. I know.
10. drinking… a lot of coffee. A lot.
