2023 Year in Review, in bullets

[katestine]

I have never been so thrilled to put a year in my rear view mirror. Hooboy did 2023 suck:

• I started the year with a mystery ailment that crippled me and had major surgery;
• my baby was in the hospital for 2 weeks (story to be shared someday);
• I worked until the wee hours multiple days a week for months trying to keep my boss from firing me;
• learned about how both nature and nurture combined to disable me;
• and then got sick and injured as a result of all that for the last 2 months of the year.
• My relationship with my mother deteriorated.
• Destination Thanksgiving was not as bad as expected, but it was not good either.

There were good parts.

• I went on the trip of a lifetime to London and Paris with my mother and son, where we went to all the history and museums around his interests, which was fantastic because he is mini-me. (His favorite was the Conciergerie.)
• 3 of my fellow granddaughters (including my sister) had babies this year and another announced her pregnancy.
• Our family vacation to western Florida was not really one of the better parts of the year, what with cruising during a hurricane on a less than ideal ship, but we met my new nephew.
• Skiing after Christmas was superb in unexpected ways - Jon and Lexan both got better at skiing from 1.5 weeks of skiing; Sherlock learned to ski, from first lesson to skiing intermediates that scared his father at the beginning of the trip; and I finally got through my injury and got to ski fast. (Third Christmas in a row where there were impediments to my skiing!) The family time was amazing, spending almost a week staying with my brother and his family, getting to know them the way you can't in just family holidays. Truly a wonderful end to the year.

The best parts of the year were my family. Jon was an absolute rock through all of this, truly the best partner a person can have. Being with him makes everything better, because of his kindness, generosity, humor, and good nature. I don't like much about parenting, but watching my kids grow and gain abilities is amazing. Sherlock is a sweetheart, but also more strongwilled than a Ferengi. Lexan is loud about how bad his year was, but is growing up to be such a wonderful companion.

It was not a good year for reading. I read 35 books, of which only 5 were nonfiction, which at least is above 10%? but 1 was a graphic novel for kids and 2 were memoirs. Best books of the year is hard to say:

• I liked Leah Carroll's Down City,
• I'd never read Robert Harris' Pompeii and I wish he had other books I'd like, although there was one scene of nightmare fuel and it doesn't even involve the volcano,
• I'm glad I randomly came across The Queen's Bargain at the library, although I have a lot of Thoughts about it,
• I'm glad the founding of Valdemar trilogy is done, because how does a writer write that many books but they get worse over time??
• Rick Riordan on the other hand gets better and better, even while still writing middle-grade-accessible books, and
• this is from 2022, strictly speaking, but I read it after my last day of work that year and anyway, did you know there's an autistic character in The Other Miss Bridgerton?

I can't remember what my resolutions were for 2023 - it's been 3 years since I wrote a New Year's post. whoops.

For 2024, I am focusing on incrementalism - how to get a little better every day because compounding. I understand it intellectually, but I suck at things that require consistent effort. I'm trying to get there through measuring the little things, but also better routines, creating rituals, driving simplicity/fewer decisions.

I'm also aiming to read one quality book per quarter (I have a list!) and of course, journaling more.

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

Always good to see you here.

Sorry your year sucked. The medical things you wrote about here were very scary indeed.