This is how I spent the last few days of 2016. In bed, semi-delirious with a chest cold that sent me straight to the bowels of hell.
Kind of a fitting end to one heck of a lousy year.
But it’s now 2017. Our bayberry candle burned to the quick. Decorations are slowly being packed away and it’s time to get back into the swing of things.
One good thing about being sick (go ahead and call me Pollyanna) is that I got to read some of my Christmas books. I had specifically asked for page-turners.
- Night Film by Marisha Pessl – fit the bill. It’s a small print, almost 600 page book that turned itself on its head several times. Complicated, intelligent, I couldn’t put it down.
- The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson – not the best written but when it comes to action, it doesn’t get much better than this. Even the family was keeping up with the story as I’d announce yet another action point.
- Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasil Ilmari Jääskeläinen – this is translated from Finnish so the language doesn’t flow as well as it could, but the combination of fairytale, mystery and just plain weirdness hooked me from the very beginning. On the last few pages of that one.
- What do you do with a problem? and What do you do with an idea? – by Kobi Yamada – these two are children’s picture books that belong in every household. If these were around when my kids were little, I would have read them out loud every night. Fantastic, positive and inspirational messages.
In our house, we try not to set resolutions (I’ll never eat another piece of chocolate again!) that almost always fail and instead we set goals, things to which we can work and aspire.
Most (if not all) of my goals for 2017 have to do with writing.
One of my goals is to keep track of the books I read this year, I’ll be posting them on this blog (oh hey, look, I already started!)
I’ll be going to a Poultry Congress in January (love that event.) I’ll be hooking up with one of my favorite chicken people. You’ll be reading about that.
I’m going back to my intermittent fasting/anti-inflammatory diet.(not surprising that I got so sick after eating so much junk over the holidays) Will let you know how that’s going.
I want to get back to trying some of the recipes I rescued from my mother’s apartment after she passed.
And speaking of recipes, I do want to pull together a seasonal cookbook for living on $130/month for food.
A friend and I are making plans to visit France and Spain in April. You can bet I’ll be writing about that adventure.
I also plan on walking New Hampshire’s width (about 90 miles) this spring, hopefully with Griffin again (I know my days as him as my walking buddy are numbered). That adventure will be on this blog.
But now we’re in the winter months of New Hampshire and walking is not the easiest. Layer that on top of painful and unstable joints and you have a person who typically doesn’t go outdoors until the early thaw.
Well not this winter.
I’ve decided to roll out a series on this blog called 10K and a Twenty. Basically on a given day, I’ll start walking and won’t stop until I reach 10K steps. I’ll carry my phone (for photos), a Twenty (which I may or may not use) and a notebook/pen. We’ll see what I’ll be able to learn in those mini journeys.
I’ll commit to at least one 10k journey a week hoping to show that even when walking conditions are not the best, you can still get out and learn about the world. All it takes is putting one foot in front of the other.
Happy New Year my friends, it’s good to be back.
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Wendy Thomas writes about the lessons learned while raising children and chickens in New Hampshire. Contact her at [email protected]
Also, join me on Facebook to find out more about the flock (children and chickens) and see some pretty funny chicken jokes, photos of tiny houses, and even a recipe or two.
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