Tuesday, December 31, 2019

A Year in Books 2019


Since I have no memory, I have decided to document what I read this year, similar to last year.  And considering I didn’t have six months of maternity leave this year, I would say I did okay getting through a few books in 2019.   Those starred were by far my favorites!

Faithful Place
Crazy Rich Asians
The Everything Store
A Gentleman in Moscow*
City of Ash and Red
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Endurance
Red Card
White Elephant
The Promise of Elsewhere
The Old Drift
The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo
Behold the Dreamers
The Power
Bad Blood
My Sister, The Serial Killer
The Wall
The Sellout*
The Devil Aspect
You Are a Badass
Cribsheet
A Brief History of Seven Killings
Trick Mirror*
Quichotte
Hey Ladies!
Department of Speculation
Motherless Brooklyn
The Mastermind

Sunday, December 15, 2019

A Quarterly Catch Up


Every once in a while things get a little crazy at home, a little crazy at work and a little crazy in life. And during these times I lack the focus, energy and creativity to document my life’s happenings. These past few months have been one of those times... at work we closed our largest acquisition ever on August 1, our fifth largest acquisition on Oct 1 and my boss went out on leave unexpectedly for six weeks leaving me in charge. At home, we continued our losing battle with sleep, with me waking up most mornings with at least one kid in our bed and most often a three and half year old foot in my back or a 16 month old butt in my face.

But in the midst of it all, we did manage to have some fun. And with the mental fog clearing up just in time for Christmas, I thought it would be good to get caught up here...

In September our friends from Australia came to visit. Oskar has fun showing the three kids his playground and the adults were able to sneak in a night out.

In October I headed to Denver for my biennial (hopefully now annual) girls weekend before Halloween. The weekend was a combination of a public drunken night out and a domestic night in... and included a metal detector being delivered to our house compliments of John Elway’s wife.

Anna trying out her metal detector skills
In November I swung a work boondoggle to Vegas which included decadent drinks, high class sushi, a room upgrade to a two room suite, live band karaoke and ending up back stage and on stage with Aerosmith.
No zoom needed



We spent Thanksgiving with the family and cousins in Dunsmuir, and thanks to the winter storm, the kids got to go sledding each day.



Making Christmas Cookies!

Oskar "helping" with the cranberry relish
 And finally, we hosted our first annual Gingerbread House decorating party... and yes, it was just decorating not making... the attention span of six 3-4 year olds is not quite there yet... the party was loud, crazy and fun, and our house was thoroughly trashed afterwards, but it was definitely a highlight of the holiday festivities this year.

The calm before the storm

Finished!

Success!