December 2024: Wrapping the Year

Goodbye, 2024! This year seemed okay. I've taken some steps to take better care of myself. I am grateful for every day of the year, even ones that felt bad. I am grateful for those who walk alongside me. I wish them care and freedom and peace.

Here are a few highlights from December, including my final list of books read.

Screenprinting

Our department at work had a screenprinting workshop where we made T-shirts printed with our own designs. Screenprinting is cool! Once you have your screen made, it's possible to crank out hundreds of copies of the design. I only made two shirts of my design, which was a drawing of some squash with the words "GOOD FOR YOU." We did this at First Proof Press in Brattleboro, VT.

My screen-printing station

Fancy lunch

I had an oxtail stew. I'm so glad I tried it! It was prepared in French bistro style in a simple thyme-infused sauce over gnocchi. Savory, hearty, rich, delicious. Moral: try things that are new-to-you. Within reason of course. Made by The Restaurant at Burdick's in Walpole, NH.

Sketching

I've been enjoying sketching with pencils and markers. It's a nice way to wind down in the evening, or to keep myself motivated during long meetings or movies. For example, here are some sketches I made while watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy (our annual December tradition).

Lord of the Rings shapes & characters

I'm going through a squash obsession
(butternut squash in alcohol marker + pencil)

Year in Books

In 2025 I read 19 books. Here are screenshots from my Goodreads account.

Most surprising: I was surprised how much I liked A Court of Thorns & Roses. I am some kind of snob and thought that a massive best-seller would be unreadable. But it's great! It's popular for a reason--it's a true fairy tale romance with a fair share of gore and intrigue. I'll definitely move on to #2 in the series.

Most thought-provoking: Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party's Promise to the People by Kekla Magoun was excellent and clearly written. I learned so much about the BPP and the cover operations carried out by the US government against them. Highly recommend this book.

Most boring: Ugh I really didn't like A Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg. It was dorky and cloying and slow. I finished it but it took weeks.

Most twisted: Earthlings by Sayaka Murata is completely bonkers. When I was checking it out the librarian gave me a look and said, "How much have you researched this?" Well, not at all. She said that she had to keep reading to find out what happened, and once I started the book I did the same. The plot is very bizarre and involves a lot of breaking of taboos.

Most underlining: I read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk again this year because it was the textbook for a psychology class I took in the fall. Of course, having an instructor explain chapters in detail and reinforce learning in multiple ways helped me get much more out of the book. It contains super interesting information on how the brain works, how we can get disconnected from our own emotions, and the utmost important of being a kind, supportive parent.

 

Photos 

We went to a holiday bazaar at a church and had hot soup.
They had set up the "Nutcracker Cafe" with decorated tables
where peoples could eat their soup.

I was already obsessed with squash when I met a kitten
named Squash at an area humane society! I fell in love with
this little guy (but was not able to adopt him).

Drawers in the shop where we did screen-printing

A small printing press

More printing equipment

Screen for a custom print job

Celebrating a birthday with pastry & coffee

I was SO proud of this "wrapping station" where
any family member could wrap presents in the days
before Christmas. It was super handy.

 

YES NO vember 2024

With American Thanksgiving coming on the third-to-last day of the month, November seemed to last forever. And it was action-packed! Here's a look at some things I did last month.

First Ice Skating of the Season

After getting into roller skating in the late summer and early fall, ice skating felt difficult! Teetering on one narrow blade is terrifying compared to cruising on four softish wheels. But my muscle memory came back eventually.

Vowing to Be More Involved Locally

I don't know what is going on with our country, but I can't believe that tens of millions of my fellow Americans are idiots and fueled by hate. And also, isn't hating people because they hate people the same as hating people? I don't get it. I want to interact with others and see what they're up to.  And I want to be a more active part of the small, sweet community that is my home. To start with, I'm trying to go out more often and talk to people. I downloaded an app with local events and announcements. One of the first things I did was go to a pop-up of Green Mountain Ramen. I had a delicious bowl of mostly homemade, mostly local ramen with pork belly and organic noodles. We talked about how food is a kind of health-care and how ramen came about because of people in Japan helping each other after the devastations of nuclear bombing. It was an amazing conversation and the ramen was tasty.

Popup shop on a rainy evening

For takeout, broth comes in a separate container

Trip to Burlington

I was invited to a work event in the Vermont city of Burlington, over 2 hours away from where I live. We stayed at a hotel with a view of Lake Champlain. We also volunteered at a local community farm called Intervale. My team's project was to clear overgrown grass away from a field of tiny balsam poplar trees.

Teamwork at Intervale Community Farm

Trauma Class

My community college class kind of peaked in November as we learned about the 6 ways to befriend the emotional brain, according to Bessel van der Kolk's book The Body Keeps the Score. If I were to summarize, the ways to befriend the emotional brain include going through the physical body (such as with yoga, movement, therapeutic massage) and also learning to recognize and name emotions that you're experiencing. Finding community also helps, like joining with others in singing or dancing or theatre. It's a fascinating class and I'm learning a lot about my own brain and emotions.

Fine Dining in Brattleboro

We got a gift certificate to one of the best restaurants in town, so the family went out on an ordinary Thursday to be amazed by the yummy food at Peter Havens. I had a butter-soft beef tenderloin with truffled mashed potatoes, and a companion had seared scallops with risotto and asparagus. I also splurged on some oysters, because why not!

Oysters from Duxbury, Massachusetts

This piece of beef was truly delectable

Scallops are hiding below some sunflower sprouts and lentils

First Snow!

We had a white Thanksgiving! I even cleared out the garage enough to put my car away a few days beforehand. Winter still exists.

Photos

100% agree

Someone is ready for outdoor potato cannon project

Pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving

October's Over 2024

Hello dear reader! I'm deterined to keep posting monthly summaries this year. Here are some notes from this past month! I hope that you are doing okay wherever you are, whenever you read this.

 

Cozy Gaming

Playing video games has been a nice relaxing hobby lately. In October I finally finished two long-playing games. Wytchwood is a cute little "fetch & carry" game with a slightly sinister vibe (that I like). It took me about 3 years to complete the gameplay because I only like playing it at the beginning of fall. This year I finally finished it up. I recommend it!

I also "completed" The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which I'd been playing for over a year. I put "completed" in quotes because I will probably keep playing it (and its predecessor, Breath of the Wild). The open world is so fascinating to roam and there are still quests and goodies to find. But I defeated the final boss and am very proud of myself. 

I also started and finished Inside, recommended by a coworker, and it was excellent. I was explaining that I like puzzle games in a post-apocalyptic setting, and this fits the bill exactly. It was so addictive that I played every chance I got and finished in under a week. Then I accidentally reset the puzzles and decided to play through just those parts again. Love it.

 

First Frost

The weather is turning to cold and night-time temps dipped below freezing this month, which put an end to the tender herbs and tomatoes in the garden. We made a batch of pesto with our basil before the frost came. (Note to self: you do not have to put ALL the pine nuts into a batch of pesto; just add a reasonable amount and taste as you go.)

Espresso

No I'm not talking about the 2024 Sabrina Carpenter hit. I'm talking about the original concentrated coffee beverage. I've been kind of dragging lately and feeling low on energy, so I decided to try boosting my mornings now and then with a tiny homemade espresso. I think that just the ritual of preparing it is kind of energizing--I have a small stove-top espresso-maker that hisses out a dark demi-tasse that I then sip with tons of sugar added. Yum!

Halloween

I wasn't sure we'd be celebrating this year but in the end a family member did put on my emergency T-Rex costume and went trick-or-treating. Also I wore my emergency J.S. Bach outfit on a work video call. I enjoyed surprising my co-workers with my snow-white Bach wig and "composer jacket" that I've had since high-school. Good to have those emergency outfits ready, you know?

Tell me about you? How was October in your world?

Remember September?

I'm not so sure about September 2024. I usually love September as a time for back-to-school vibes--fresh pencils and plaid skirts and rosy apples and crisp note-paper, stuff like that. This year had a little of that feeling, but mostly it felt like a rush. But here are a few things!

New 2025 Hobonichi Journal

September is Hobonichi season, when I order myself a new Japanese planner to use for the following year. For the past 4 years I have been using the "avec" style of Hobonichi journals to make small notes or drawings or collages each day--this style has two small planners that cover 6 months each. You can see this year's pair on the left of this photo. But I've also long wanted a Hobonichi cover, which is usually a fabric book-cover that you insert a journal into. This year I treated myself to a 2025 Hobonichi full-year journal, with an orange and blue cover and a plastic "cover on cover" over that. It has cute little pockets and ribbons (it's on the right below, and in the 2 photos below that).

Common Merganser

I love the pointy silhouettes of mergansers, which are water-birds I sometimes see when I'm out kayaking.

 

Brattleboro Museum & Art Center

I got to see the exhibits at our local museum this past month. They always have such neat stuff!

Harp by Benedict Scheuer, Hand-dyed silk

 

Coyote Imagery by Duane Slick

Raven sculpture by Susan Brearey

Spacemosque is an exhibition about a vessel from the future that grants one prayer per 24 hours and is infused with Islamic mysticism in a genre the artist, Saks Afridi, calls "Sci-fi Sufism." I love it so much.

Spacetime 2019, part of the Spacemosque installation by Saks Afridi

Breath of the Beast by Ilana Manolson, Acrylic on Yupo paper

Perfume Nerdery

I haven't ordered any more perfume samples (they can add up!) but I've started testing and organizing the samples and bottles that I do have. I got a little index card holder and am making one card for each fragrance. I print out the notes and accords and stick them on the back of each card. I'm writing notes on the cards about what I like/notice/dislike about each perfume.

Index card case on bottom right

Notes printed from Fragrantica.com

Fall begins!

Here's what I like to do when Autumn starts. Drink more tea. Play the game Wytchwood on the Nintendo Switch. And get out my "Mabon" Oracle deck and start pulling cards from it. This year I'm also adding in the deck I made myself that features my personal values and is decorated with copyright-free images (see my July post). In this spread I got the Wool card (which is about opportunities for coziness and self-care) and the No-Mind card. Lovely.

August Favorites 2024

August seemed super long this year! Here's a little recap.

Quantifiables

We said happy birthday (18!) and then goodbye (college!)

I have a new blue car that is actually 12 years old

29 years of living in one place was reviewed, moved, stored away, and distributed.

80s-nite rollerskating was neon salvation.

Photos

Fresh tomatoes baked with bread, cheese, basil, and egg

First time seeing the "Viking Village" in a nearby town

I saw a skunk!! I love skunks

I located the path that kept disappearing, and took a photo to prove it exists (It's the path to the left that is completely clear and obvious)

 

A loon! I also love loons.

 

My my, July 2024

July seemed like a good month! Summer is still a fresh new thing in July. It feels delightful to slip out for an ice cream cone or bring in a load of clothing sun-warm from the line. Here are some things I got up to this past month.

My Own Oracle Cards

I've been thinking about my personal values: things that are important to me, that I think are good and important, and that I want to hold onto and grow. My values include creativity, curiosity, authenticity, humor, and embodiment. Because I like oracle cards, I thought it would be cool to try to make cards with these values. For artwork, I turned to the public domain photography at the National Gallery of Art. It is a TREASURE TROVE! I had a great day on the 4th of July just scrolling and scrolling through hundreds of photographs that are available for download. All of those people, those expressions, those relationships, those souls, looking at the camera from long ago. I picked photos I especially loved and matched them up with a list of values using the Procreate app on my iPad. This is a little of my work in progress:

Next I want to figure out how to print or stick these onto cards somehow.

Gaming

I've been playing Legend of Zelda games for over 2 years now, including Breath of the Wild and the newer Tears of the Kingdom. This past month I decided to try some new games. One of them was a "platformer" with two characters, called Shady Part of Me. It has a girl character who can't be in the light, and a shadow character who can only travel on walls where the light creates shadow for her to exist. So basically, there are 2 characters that you toggle back and forth as you work through one and then the other to get to a series of checkpoints. The characters can help each other by doing things like moving boxes or flipping switches. I finished the game in a couple of weeks, but maybe I'll try it again because I missed some little elements I was supposed to collect along the way.

Perfumes

I go through phases where I get interested in perfumes. I've read a few books, including The Secret of Scent by Luca Turin. Now and then I'll buy a bottle of something, usually a blind buy based only on the description. (I've had pretty good luck with my purchases.) My most recent perfume phase involves watching YouTube reviews of people talking about scents they like and don't like, and I discovered that the site Twisted Lily sells tiny sample bottles for $4-8. I don't mind paying that to see what something smells like! So I placed an order and have been playing around with interesting smells this month.

There are perfumes that smell like a cup of coffee, or like suntan lotion, or like cinnamon. There are perfumes that are just one synthetic molecule and "develop" on the skin uniquely for each person. Most of the samples I've tried are delightful. Only one was a miss, smelling exactly like the pine shavings I used to put in the cages of my pet mice when I was a kid. I really love smelling nice. It's like a little lucky charm I can carry around and reset myself whenever I smell it.

MAD Magazine exhibit

My love and I traveled to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to see the "What, Me Worry? Art & Humor of MAD Magazine" exhibit that is there until October. We both grew up loving MAD Magazine in our own ways. To me, MAD was a fascinating send-up of the odd mid- to late-20th century culture that I found myself in as a child and teen. It was kind of a relief to see grownups poking fun at other grownups. I especially liked Don Martin (who drew Captain Klutz among other things) and Dave Berg (who did "The Lighter Side of..." series). I also liked the caricature-like movie "re-dos" by Mort Drucker, who created spoofs like Star Blecch, Shtick Tracy, and the Da Vinci Coma. We were allowed to take photos at the show, so here's a little taste of what we saw.

Wallace Allen Wood, Is a Trip to the Moon Possible, 1955

Don Martin, Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward Men, 1962

Dave Berg, The Lighter Side of... selections, 1970s

Roberto Parada, X-Files the Spoof is in Here! 1998

Tom Richmond, Harry Plodder and the Torture of the Fan Base, 2007

Mort Drucker, Saturday Night Feeble, 1978

One of my favorite things was an interactive touch-screen kiosk where you could virtually fold in a bunch of different Al Jaffee Fold-Ins from the back covers of the magazine. It was really fun to be there and mingle with the other weirdos of all ages. Highly recommend!