10 of ‘11

My annual top ten list – not necessarily the most important or biggest events of the year, but the ones I’ll remember most when I look back at 2011.

1. Losing Mark’s Dad – Obviously, the biggest thing that’s happened to our family this year and something that will forever change us.

2. My lumpectomy – In February, I found a lump in my breast. In March, I had it removed. A week later, I found out it wasn’t anything bad – just a lump. Despite ending up as nothing, it was quite a nerve-wracking time.

3. Hurricane Irene – Irene hit us pretty hard and it was our first big storm in the house.  We ended up with no power for five days and several inches of water in the basement. It was more than a week before flooding subsided enough for me to be able to get to work! I’m really hoping that it was a once-in-a-lifetime storm and we don’t have to deal with that again.

4. Officially joining the church – Back in January, I signed Mark and I up as parishioners for our new church. Before buying the house we never registered because we were always all over the place. It’s awesome to officially be a part of things (and having collection envelopes with my name on it makes me feel so adult!). We’re really enjoying the parish – it’s so us.

5. New roof / plumbing the bathtub – This really was the year of water problems. When we went to paint the upstairs bedroom, we found water damage. And then, we found out the overflow drain wasn’t plumped properly. Not what we really wanted to deal with in our first year in the house – but it’s all fixed now!

6. My garden – I planned early, but slacked on documenting the progress. Some of the things did really well (I still have parsley going strong out there!) while others tanked but I loved every minute of it. I can’t wait to start working on the 2012 garden!

7. Myrtle Beach – In May, we went on vacation with my parents and siblings. It was our first family vacation in years, and it was fantastic. My Mom still talks constantly about how much she loved it. We’re hoping to do it again in not too long!

8. We started a wine kick – We took a trip down to the Cream Ridge Winery for pineapple wine, and ended up leaving with a case. Then, we made several winery stops in Niagara Falls and Seneca Lake. Wine’s new for us, but it’s fast becoming the beverage of choice around here!

9. Niagara Falls – Which I apparently never blogged! In September, Mark and I went up to Niagara Falls for a few days, and then stopped at Seneca Lake for a few more. It was beautiful. We did a lot of walking, a bunch of wine tasting and quite a bit of just bumming. (The hotel room in Canada had a whirlpool tub in front of the TV. Love!)

10. Work things – I don’t blog about work much, but this was definitely the most intense year I’ve had yet. Our team shrunk and my responsibilities grew. I also got to go to the SLA Conference with work, which gave me a different perspective on my job and my company.

What will you remember about 2011?

My Favorite Books of 2011

My final book tally for 2012 is 80, including the books I’ve read for In2Books. My “real” tally is somewhere around 73. Either way, it easily shatters my goal of 50 for the year.

In that pile, there were lots of good books, lots of okay books and some that I really didn’t love. Normally, I have trouble picking favorite books, but these five were so fantastic that the easily deserve the title of this year’s favorites. All of them are from YA authors. I did read a fair amount of YA this year – there’s so many fantastic books in the genre right now.

The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan – This was a love story, written dictionary style. The story unfolds in paragraphs illustrating different words, all alphabetized. It was beautiful.

Divergent by Veronica Roth – An incredible dystopian adventure. Roth creates a world around factions – and the heroine, Tris, is at the age where she gets to select hers. I’m really looking forward to the next book in the series.

Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King – A darker book about a teenager dealing with the death of her best friend. All of the characters were very human and relatable.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins – This one made me positively giddy. It’s the story of a girl who gets sent to boarding school in Paris. It completely puts you in the high school mindset in a fantastically insecure way.

The Book Thief by Mark Zusak – The story of a young girl in Germany during WWII, narrated by Death. It’s powerful, moving and beautifully written.

If you’re looking for some new reads for the new year, I’d highly recommend any of these.

November and December Reads

I didn’t read much in November. Between NaNoWriMo (which I did finish, for the record) and Dad getting sick, I just didn’t have the time.

This Lullaby by Sarah Dressen was one of my November reads. My coworker, Sarah, recommended it as she’s also a fan of YA. I’ve been meaning to read something by Sarah Dressen for a while and I think this was a great introduction – Remy and Dexter were so perfectly imperfect. I loved them. It was a really cute love story.

Crossed by Allie Condie was the second in the Matched trilogy. I didn’t love it as much as the first, but it was still really good.

The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks was the other book I read in November. It was another YA love story, but this one I couldn’t stand. For me, the whole thing was embarrassingly cheesy and predictable.

December was a better month for reading.

I started out with Maman’s Homesick Pie by Donia Bijan. It was a memoir of her life growing up in Iran and becoming a chef. It was written beautifully and each chapter ended with a few recipes. I can’t wait to try them out.

Zodiac: The Shocking True Story of the Nation’s Most Bizarre Mass Murder by Robert Graysmith was the basis of the 2007 movie Zodiac. Serial killers fascinate me so I ate this one up.

Wolfsbane and Mistletoe edited by Charlaine Harris is a collection of short, holiday-themed werewolf stories. I’ve really enjoyed the collections I’ve read that Harris has put together before but this one was rough. I’m not sure if that was because of when I read it or the stories themselves.

Three Bedrooms, One Corpse by Charlaine Harris is the third in the Aurora Teagarden series. While I’ve plowed through the rest of Harris’s series, I’m trying to spread this one out so I don’t run out of new things to read by her. I felt like there were some unrealistic relationship jumps in this one, but aside from that it was enjoyable.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan was also a recommendation from Sarah. I loved this one too. It tells the story, through varies narrators, of mothers growing up in China and then their daughters growing up in America. Very well written and one that I would highly recommend adding to your to-read list.

Night by Elie Wiesel is one that I’d read in middle school but I’m so glad I re-read it. It was beautifully written – an elegant portrayal of an amazingly awful ordeal.

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut was another re-read for me. My friend, Maya, and I devoured all of Vonnegut’s books somewhere around 8th or 9th grade, but I don’t remember them well. I loved it this time through, too.

Honeymoon in Purdah by Alison Wearing was recommended to me by one of my reading buddies. It chronicles a (fake) couple’s honeymoon to Iran. The writing was almost poetic and I really enjoyed reading this one so soon after Maman’s Homesick Pie.

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse was high school required reading for me. I appreciate the book for what it is, but I didn’t really enjoy the re-read very much.

What have you read recently?

Christmas, Recapped

We had a merry little Christmas here. And by “merry” and “little”, I mean crazy and filled with family.

We kicked things off the weekend before Christmas with the annual family party for my Mom’s side of the family.

It was an afternoon filled with cousins, presents and lots of food.

 

Our annual Christmas card wreath got all nice and filled up. I love getting these and love seeing them all spread out like this.

My parents adopted two new kitties the day before Christmas Eve and stopped by on their way home to show them off.

They’re teeny tiny! Adorable.

Christmas Eve we went to Mark’s Uncle’s house. It was another day of eating way too much. And lots of good company.

Mom and Andy stayed over our house on Christmas Eve. We did “midnight'” mass (which was really at 10 pm!) and then slept in a bit Christmas morning. Santa came!

Rocky donned his bowtie for the day.

And Kali happily tried out her new harness.

It was a lot of playing, and by the time my family showed up she was completely pooped.

There was more food, and more gifts (and the TV Yule log!). PJ wrapped his own. It was impressively bad.

Grandma brought Christmas crackers. She got a bottle opener in hers – hilariously appropriate!

The matched hat club!

I got a lot of great gifts. These are one of my favorites:

Laura knit them for us! I can’t wait to put them up next year!

And, that was Christmas in a nutshell for us. I can’t believe it’s already over!

Memories

 

“And I found myself thinking: If this continues, if this goes on, then when I die, your memories of me will be my greatest accomplishment. Your memories will be my most lasting impression.”

- From The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan

Christmas Prep

I have a lot of amazing people in my life. For the last month and a half, they’ve proved it over and over. I’m not sure how I would have gotten though without some of them.

And, this is the season where I usually do something to show them they’re loved. I keep hearing that I’m doing too much, or that if I skipped things this year no one would care.

I would care, though.

I mailed Christmas cards today and a few gifts. My homemade hot chocolate mix and marshmallows are packaged up and ready to go for Saturday’s Christmas party. I’m only a few batches of cookies away from having the baking done. My Christmas shopping is almost done.

It seems like a lot, but when I think what everyone else has done for me it doesn’t seem like anything at all.

Obituaries

In my Intro to Journalism class in college, one of our assignments was to write our own obituaries. The teacher was a bit old school and told us that most young reporters get their start writing obituaries. He said it was important to be able to do people justice. I remember chatting with my classmates afterwards, lamenting the morbid task.

We did it, though, and the next class the teacher put them on the overhead projector and ripped them apart, one by one. It was the way he did all of our papers. It was a bit humiliating, but I don’t think I’ve ever learned more.

For the record I, nor any of my journalism buddies, ended up writing obituaries after graduation.

My father-in-law, also a writer, liked to joke that I’d write his obituary someday. I liked to joke back that I’d be happy to, that I’d learned that in college.

His obituary will be in tomorrow’s paper. I wrote it.

I wrote it a lot sooner than I would have liked to – a lot sooner than any of us would have liked me to.

I hope it’s something he would have liked. I hope it does him justice.