Author: Doris

Let’s see how we did:

• Mental – I’m happy with how this year went mentally. I do struggle sometimes with controlling negative thoughts or fixating on things which I can’t control, so I went back on Effexor in April, I think? I feel very lucky that these meds work pretty well for me and I can regain firm footing mentally and deal with things with equanimity and humor which is really my goal. I can tell that my brain is aging, not in a terrible way, but in a regular way. Some short-term memory issues like more frequently going upstairs and then promptly forgetting why I went upstairs or not quite remembering if I packed a certain thing in Edda’s backpack.
  • Physical – this year, I really change from running a lot to lifting a lot. I focused on gaining weight (hopefully muscle) so I put on about 10 pounds this year which is probably the heaviest I’ve been since I’ve been pregnant. I feel…big. But I’m trying to work with it. I still am maintenance running, about 4 miles three times a week. For the first time in about a decade, I’ve cut back the time on exercising – I try to aim for about 45 minutes a day whereas in the last decade, I’ve easily done 10 hours of exercise a week. I just have other priorities. I’ve really enjoyed getting more into Olympic weightlifting, I love the folks at the gym and enjoy lifting improving my technique.
• Marriage – Jeremy and I are doing well in our “half empty nest” phase. We continue to learn to work with each other and really enjoy spending time with each other. The marriage is calm and fun. We continue to improve on “working together”, home improvements, kid issues, car buying snafus, I feel like we really know each other well and are patient with each other. We also have very different interests, and with Edda always needing someone with her, we are figuring out how to spend our time apart as well.
• Family – Vince did so great this year, we helped him through a really rough patch in the first half of the year, but he carried through that with flying colors and is now figuring out young adulthood well. Edda graduated from high school and we found an adult program that we love and they seem to love her, setting that up took up a lot of my time this year. We also hosted Felix for about 7-8 months, which was both fun and a little bit stressful because for the first four months, it wasn’t going that well, but it ended up being a great success in the end and my house still smells a little like spray sunscreen. I’m happy that I got to spend time with my parents – we had a vacation to Arizona that went well and I also helped them travel to LA for a funeral, both were meaningful to me. I love that I’m back in touch with my cousins. I’m also very happy that my brother is back in touch with my parents, even though he may not be in touch with me.
• Work – work has been challenging this year with the new administration. I won’t go into too much, but mainly I’m grateful I have my job and that I still get to work from home. Jeremy and I did spend a little bit of time thinking about what would happen if I had to report to the office everyday (I would have done that – 90 minutes each way), but thankfully, that did not happen. I met my newish boss in person this year which was lovely, I really like her. There are many new requirements for her regarding us and she’s implementing them with as much fairness as can be expected given the current climate. I’m implementing some new-to-me process checks to help me improve my performance at work which is what I always want to do.
• House – We worked really hard on decluttering this year, and Jeremy got really into it – diving into his office and our mountain of electronic waste which was not really my domain. We are constantly evolving our systems – laundry, cooking, cleaning, dog walking, and I think we are doing things more efficiently than ever. I think we really got into “resetting” the house each night, so we walk downstairs to a clean and organized house. So much easier without kids! Lol. We really went electric this year – heat pump dryer and we got an all electric car which I’m enjoying. We are using every last inch of the house all the time and are continually moving stuff around to optimize things for our life. I’m still thrilled that the basement apartment remains rented and that we are able to provide housing to a young adult. Our yard is still a work in progress, I really started planting trees and spending some money and learning how to stop deer from eating the baby plants.
• Relationships – this year was a big year for friends, I’m more social this year than I’ve been since the pandemic. This is a big reason why my exercise time has gone down. I went to a yoga retreat this year with a friend and will do it again next year. I hosted a Missoula trip with my godchild and another family. And I have weekly things at the church and gym and am spending lots of time with other people. This is certainly a priority for me right now.
• Hobbies – I’m also spending a lot of time on hobbies – guitar, baking, singing, olympic weightlifting. All fun things. I’m adding sharpshooting to it next year, I’m going to try to add 15 minutes of reading next year as well. I’m always always trying to spend less time on my phone, this year – towards the end of the year, I uninstalled youtube from my phone and installed Opal – an app time limiter on my phone. It’s going well so far, we’ll see how it goes in the future.

Mostly it was a good year!

On Boxing day, we drove up to Philly to see Bob and Katherine. Elka came along and here are the three doggies – each in their own bed.

It was a nice time, quiet meals together – chatting.

There was music both days we were there, the first night had interesting instruments including bagpipes and recorders. The second night was a sing-a-long which started with Christmas songs and ended with Yellow Submarine.

There was an ice storm the night we stayed over, it was very slippery, but Elka enjoyed herself and was steady with four paws on the ground.

Here is Bunter stealing Elka’s bed. We also managed a lovely lunch with Caleb in Philly.

Here’s Edda walking to the sing-a-long.

Sunday we were back and I was very social – went weightlifting with Lexy, saw Tom with Steve and Charlie, then Sunday night dinner with the Martins. And then finally back in bed with my beloved Elka. lol. This is how I end each day.

We had a lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Jeremy took a long bike ride on Christmas Eve after almost 2 or 3 weeks of shaking off a bad cold. We took Elka to the dog park.

While Jeremy was riding, I made his favorite cookie flavor – ginger molasses cookie. This was a good recipe with crystallized ginger. My Christmas gift to Jeremy.

He played with his gifts from Loanne/Dani (coffee maker thing-y) and from Secret Santa (a scale that goes to 0.1 grams).

Christmas day – Jeremy made us the delicious bacon breakfast.

We opened gifts – this towel from Eliana.

Beautiful scarf with hand sewn(!) absorbent layer from Loanne – she is a very good gift giver.

And Nat gave Edda this beautiful lilac set.

In the evening, we celebrated my father’s birthday with a lovely lamb dinner.

Edda came home ill on Monday which was the same day we were having the Martin Secret Santa. Jeremy and I had a back-and-forth about who should go and who should stay home with Edda. In the end, I went – I had baked the desserts and I was more invested in the gifts that I had bought – it was a really nice evening, esp since Jane was in town and we got to hear a lot about her job. I did bake a “main dessert” – these chocolate chip brookies which are …fine but not amazing.

My fruitcake – which I started in October ended up…ok. The last layer of royal frosting on the outside dried to a plaster-like consistency and cracked severely when the knife went through it to slice. I was hoping that I would end up liking fruitcake – but really, I ended up deciding that a chocolate cake is much much better. I’m disappointed because I have a lot of fruitcake, but I’m happy I tried this recipe.

Jeremy, unlike me, has two weeks off of work. The office just closed down, no need to use vacation time. He’s been busy as a bee at home, organizing the battery drawer, sorting through our electronic trash. He’s going faster than I can deal, because I usually do the final getting it out of the house, but I’m behind.

I’ve been thinking a lot about houseplants in our house. I think we are at the maximum number (about 30) and now it has to be one-in one-out. I’m a little worried that I’ve crossed over to too many plants, but Jeremy assures me that that is not the case.

This tree stands at alert in our stairwell, it’s from Gene – well over a decade old. I unbraided it a long time ago, and it never looks fantastically happy, but it keeps on going and the trunk is surprisingly thick.

This is a pineapple plant from a grocery store. I think someday it’s suppose to pop out a pineapple and then die. But I think it’s never going to get enough light to do that. I got this from my friend Hiroko who did successfully grow a pineapple in her front yard.

This fiddle leaf fig tree I found on the side of the road with one leaf. I’ve had it now about 3 years and it grew really tall and then I chopped it back. It needs a lot of light which is why I think my neighbor tossed it, it lives for the summer on my porch. In the winter, I try to just have it not die.

So I ended up taking three days off of work to nap and putter around and cough phlegm up from the depths of my lungs. I skipped choir rehearsal on Thursday, I went to guitar lesson on Friday and on Friday night, I went to orientation to the Izaak Walton League Rockville Chapter. That was fun, I’m hoping to learn to actually target precision shoot air pistols – I met the instructor on Friday night and the board of directors and got approved to join. On Saturday, I spent the day sealing my fruitcakes in jam, marzipan and royal icing with hopefully enough sugar and alcohol to preserve the entire thing. One for this year and I’m saving the other one for next year.

On Sunday I went to weightlifting, there is a meet in January, we’ll see if I make it, I’m trying still to work on my technique – now the extension to get the bar to fly up from my thighs before I get under it. Elka went to the doggie park with Jeremy.

Sunday night was also alumni night for the fire department and their neighborhood Santa brigade and it was slated to run through our neighborhood – I had NO IDEA (I know they do this every year, but never did I know there was a schedule and a route! This is a 70 year old tradition and we’ve been in our house almost more than 15 years). Sharon texted and asked if she could park at our house to watch the festivities – there is a gps tracker on Santa now, so you can predict when he’ll pass by your house. We had what seemed like a lot of kids at our house for about 15 minutes. Elka was so excited running around with the boys, sometimes I feel a little bad that Elka didn’t end up in a house with 8 kids.

Merry Christmas! There were about 2 dozen trucks!

And we celebrated the last night of Chanukah. I think we got nights 3, 4 and 8. This was not my best batch of candles, they wouldn’t stay put in the menorah, so the tall ones Jeremy put in after the other ones were almost burned down. Now Edda just got send home sick, poor thing. We’ll have to figure it all out.

We went to Edda’s day program’s holiday party yesterday – I guess I can call it a Christmas party since it’s run by the Catholic Charities. I didn’t quite know what the party was going to be like – it was scheduled for three hours which I thought was…long, but it was really lovely. They had games, a photo booth, an incredibly delicious catered lunch with chicken and salmon. I would say there were about 75 people in attendance, the kiddos (I guess they are not kids anymore) – parents, staff, alumni staff.

Everyone wore red and it was tremendously festive. We met some old friends and made some new ones.

Edda’s main staff person has been out this week because she’s been sick, but it was nice to meet the all the other staff members. They really do seem to enjoy working with each other and taking care of all the folks. As it goes, sometimes I’m sad at these things, but today, mostly happy and tremendously grateful to have found this for Edda.

I’m a *little* bit sick. Not too bad, but not super great. I took a few days off work and napped. I’m excited for the holidays – I got a few gifts for myself this season. I got a wreath from Pottery Barn with Dani’s employee discount. I thought I could hang it outside, but I could not, so its spot is on the stairwell.

I also bought myself these technique weights for training. I needed light weights which were the right size, but weighed nothing. lol.

Jeremy’s been taking walks with Elka all bundled up. I think sometimes it takes them 10 minutes to get dressed (all those booties) and then after a quick pee/poo, Elka’s like – it’s too cold, let’s go home.

But sometimes they make it to the neighborhood coffee place. We are like….very good customers of the place.

Our new car can apparently drive itself a lot of the time. Here’s Jeremy not driving at about 60 mph.

It took this turn just fine. Incredible.

Happy birthday Ginny! She turned 42, you get the candles? four and then 2? Hahaha. We had a great beef barley stew which was perfect for a chilly day and celebratory and I made a raspberry swirl poundcake.

I had a very social weekend, lots of celebrating. I’m grateful for the friends I have and continue to make. I went to this gorgeous Indian restaurant on Friday night in Fulton Maryland to celebrate Kristen’s birthday earlier in the week. The only person I really know is the birthday girl – but what conversation topic did we open with? Menopause. Lol. And there was lots of talk about cat poop.

Then I went out on Saturday to catch a matinee showing of the Gay Men’s Chorus which was a fun outing. This was at the Lincoln theater which I had not been to before and we ate at Poets and Busboys afterwards. This was our Alto Outing – we are mostly altos in the choir and it was nice getting to know these folks more. The theater was very warm (I might have dozed off… – warm, dark, sitting still and sometimes very lovely lullaby songs), and the performance was nice – there are over 200 members of the choir and there was a dance troupe. It was a very strange mix of lots of songs with the word “God” and “Jesus” and also…raunchy (not in the same song!!!)? It was weird. I mean, the singing was fantastic, but thematically, it was a bit all over the place.

While I was out and about, a big shout out to Jeremy who took care of the ailing fridge. He emptied the entire thing out, let it defrost (I suspect it was ice clogging a drain hole, but I couldn’t really find it) and then plugged it back in and IT WORKED.

All the food went into the drink fridge, all the frozen stuff went into the chest fridge (I know, we are very lucky to have back up refrigeration). Then Jeremy cleaned the entire fridge and we got rid of 10,000 condiments that we didn’t use. And now we are back in business. It is a nice week to have the fridge fail, because you could just put your stuff outside in the freezing cold and it would be OK.

We had dinner with my parents last night. My mother has been cooking for us this year and I’m so happy. Last year, they had decided that it was too much work for my mother to cook anymore, so we were doing takeout and/or Jeremy was cooking, and I kind of lamented that I had eaten the last home cooked meal from my mother – sometimes you don’t know when you are doing something for the last time – and I was very sad. But this year, my mother started cooking again, but now each time, I think it might be the last time because they are good at CHANGING THEIR MINDS. haha. Anyways, it was delicious and Elka, terrible dog that she is -spent the entire time pestering my mother.

Because she knows….if she looks into my mother’s eyes with literal sad puppy dog eyes, she gets not only one, but two, TWO! homecooked dinners. My mother is delighted.

I’m so proud of my parents, they are decluttering! Gone are some old clothes, old books, I’m hoping old DVDs or even VCDs or maybe even VHSes! They pulled Donald’s childhood Transformers from the basement and are mailing them to him. They got rid of the original IBM PC and the IBM selectric typewriter. My mother is also downsizing her plants – I took home this one which will go on my new dresser when I get it.

I have many houseplants, I think I’m still at less or just about 20 which is where I’ll stay. I’m watching a lot of houseplant influencers on youtube and they have well over 100, in special lighting and cabinets with humidity – too much! I can’t do that of plants or room of plants – plants are strictly decor for me, so I can’t have too many plants that depend on specialized treatment. I’m at the point where I think no more plants can come into the house and if I want a new plant, it has to take over the spot of an existing plant. This year, I’m going to switch from plant collecting to container collecting. I want to upgrade the plastic planters to ceramic ones and I want big ones, which are in the weird space of being not really thrift-able and not really on-line-orderable because they are often heavy and unwieldy. The ones in thrift stores are the small ones for table sized plants which I have gotten lots of – but strangely the thrifted prices are very close to the new-prices you might find at TJ Maxx or Home Goods.

My mother gave me this plant which I remember from my youth (she gave me this one a few years ago).

Also…our fridge is dying. It was at 55F this morning saying…I…can’t….stay…cold. This fridge has been threatening to go for many years now, I wonder if we can save it..