October:
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. I had high expectations for this book, as it had been so praised, and I felt let down by it. Still enjoyable, but needed more octopus.
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. Read as part of Banned Books week.
The Romance Rx by Kathryn Riya. I wanted more medicine and medicine-related residency drama.
Unraveling: What I Learned about Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater by Peggy Orenstein. Just a really lovely memoir about life changing and feeling present in the world.
The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic by Breanne Randall. Such a disappointing book.
Deerskin by Robin Mckinley. Reread. Not my favorite book of hers, but it’s still a great retelling.
November:
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel. A retelling of an old Hindu religious myth, a story I was only passingly familiar with. I enjoyed the world building, I had trouble with some of the motivations of the characters. And I think it’s hard to write a retelling of a story that a major religion is based on.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. This is such a wonderful book, with the mystery and characters slowly being revealed.
The Halcyon Fairy Book by T. Kingfisher. Just witty retellings of fairy tales with a lot of humor and grim.
The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green. I really loved this collection of essays on our world.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Audiobook. A beautiful exploration of our connection with the world and how we can heal that relationship.
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abby Waxman. Library find. Cute light book, (although if I had a boss who didn’t pay the rent for 6 months straight and I was threatened with losing my job because of it, I wouldn’t be all “oh she’s just that way”) but one that I probably won’t remember in a year or two.
The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher. The atmosphere in this book is almost its own character. I loved the secondary characters, but the middle sagged a lot.
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. I struggled so much with the beginning, because the set up was so ridiculous. It picked up after that and ended strongly. I don’t know how she’s going to write a 5 book series though.
The Magical Language of Others by E.J. Koh. NPR did a write up on her debut novel, but it wasn’t available at the library. It was a quick read but I found the writing to be confusing in places and lacking in emotional growth.
Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood. Charming, nerdy, engaging. Just a fun new adult book.
Sweet Like Jasmine: Finding Identity in a Culture of Loneliness by Bonnie Gray. This book was not for me. Ugh.
The Ladies of Grace Adieu, and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke. Audiobook. Just a lot of fun going back into the world of Jonathan Strange. I really want her to write a prequel with The Raven King.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I loved Rocky and the ending.
Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez. Still on the lookout for the perfect doctor romance. This one was enjoyable and mostly accurate.
December:
Mister Magic by Kiersten White.
Payback’s a Witch by Lana Harper.
Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher.
Paladin’s Grace, Paladin’s Strength, Paladin’s Hope by T. Kingfisher. Reread these in anticipation of the release of her latest Saints of Steel’s book. Just excellent world building and romance and humor.
Know My Name by Chanel Miller. Book club book. Harrowing memoir, but what I really appreciated was the description of how the justice system is so awful for victims.
Paladin’s Faith by T. Kingfisher. I cannot wait for the other 3 books.
Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez, the sequel to Part of Your World. I liked this one better and it was almost the doctor romance that I’ve been craving.
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. I’d read it if you like dystopian novels, but I’m still grousing about how the villains were single, childless women.
A Restless Truth by Freya Marske. Reread. I liked it better than the first time, maybe because I skipped over a lot of the romance (it’s a trope that I just don’t like).
Carry on by Rainbow Rowell. Reread, audiobook. The audiobook was a lot of fun and I’ve forgotten a lot of details in the last 5+ years.
A Power Unbound by Freya Marske. A satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, but the first book was definitely the best of them all.
Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree. The prequel to Legends & Lattes, which I adored last year, and I think I liked this one even better.
Places visited: Hawaii in February with my parents and sister; Yellowstone and Grand Tetons in July with my whole family, with a few days down in Utah; Iceland in September with J; Arizona a couple of times to see my niblings; Seattle for a few weekends.
Games played: Settlers of Catan, Dutch Blitz, Cover Your Assets, Codenames, Exploding Kittens, Zombie Kittens, Happy Salmon, Trails, and Dragonwood. Abandon All Artichokes was also very shortly abandoned and Tacocat was not as entertaining as hoped.
Puzzles completed: 2 (one Karin mostly did, and I just threw down a few pieces).
Movies watched: Wakanda Forever; Return of the King (in the theater in April); Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (terrible movie); Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (excellent movie); Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (stop making want to give up chicken!); Red, White, and Royal Blue.
TV shows watched: Battlestar Galactica (all but the last season because I don’t want it to end), Shadow and Bone season 2 (I am so mad that it was canceled), Doctor Who specials, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Great British Bake-Off, Heartstopper season 2 (and let’s be real, lots of season 1 again as well), Lockwood & Co (I think I still have the last episode to watch), Tom Jones (PBS), Good Omens season 2, Schmicago (so so good).
TV shows watched with K: The Mandalorian; Ted Lasso season 3; Star Trek: Picard; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Loki season 2; Fringe (we’re on season 4 and I love it so much). We started to watch the second season of Our Flag Means Death, but it was taking us away from Fringe, so it’s on the back burner.
Books read: 128 (!!!). Here’s a link to my storygraph account. I’ll do a separate sum up.
Audiobooks listened to: 13.5. My hope had been to do one per month, and Jonathan Strange took at least 3 months to finish, so I’m surprised I made it, but I did have a long road trip to Yellowstone, where I listened to 3 different books on the way there and back. (Carry On is the 0.5 – I listened to 2/3rd of it on the plane ride down and wanted to finish it by Christmas so switched over to the ebook).
Musicals/Plays watched: Moulin Rouge: the Musical (the movie is so much better); Ain’t Too Proud; My Fair Lady; Choir Boy; Hairspray; A Midsummer’s Night Dream; Six; Tina: The Tina Turner Musical; Les Miserables; Waitress (in the movie theater).
Concerts attended: Theo Katzman in April; Vienna Teng at The Triple Door in Seattle in August.
Music listened to: The Riversitter by Vienna Teng, Prayer for the Broken by Naya Rivera, multiple hours of classical music while visiting my parents.
Medical conferences attended: 2, one virtually, one in Phoenix, in August in 115 heat.
Medical conferences where I gave a presentation. 1 on a specific consideration on organ donation (the reason why I was in Phoenix in August).
Number of lectures given: 5 including to the NW Internal Medicine Society.
Nights spent in the hospital because my driveway too icy/snowy to get home: only 3!
Knitted projects: Wisteria scarf (a Christmas present that I finished in January); Anne, Diana, and Gilbert dolls were finished in the spring(only took me 2 years); Orchid and Gold Poppins scarf, Grandpa sweater (my first real sweater!), 3 scarves for Christmas (which are in various stages of finished and need to be mailed).
Number of skeins of yarn bought: … Just enough for a few more dolls and a sweater or two, and some Icelandic yarn and some yarn for my mom…
Notable fails: the annular solar eclipse (too cloudy), parenting succulent plants (3 needed the Plant Hospital, 1 is still in the Plant ICU), summer flirtations.
House repairs: every board on my 32×24 foot deck was replaced. I still have the two lower decks and the back stairs to tackle.
Visits to the beach: only once in June. Must be rectified in the new year.
]]>Here’s some of the pics of my knitting projects for the year:
Anne/Diana/Gilbert dolls (from Anne of Green Gables):
These took me nearly two years to complete – I basically knit Anne twice because my knitting gauge had changed so much in that time. I have to redo Gilbert’s hair (the mohair I bought was poorly dyed and not all of it is black), but I love them so much. I knit all of the bodies and knit all of the clothes (except for the petticoats and the buttons).
I added a “petticoat” of lace to her dress because her dress was so short. Her hair has already lost the curls.
Aren’t those braids the sweetest? I’ve started making Kurt and Blaine dolls (from glee) and have visions of Mulder and Scully and all of the hobbits and ….
Orchid and Gold Poppins scarf:
This was knit from a yummy alpaca/tencel/linen blend and it’s so soft. I love how the colors migrated over the scarf. I gave this one to my mom for Mother’s Day. I’m tempted to buy more and make one for me because it is so lovely.
Grandpa sweater:
Super bulky, soft warm yarn – I’ve bought several skeins of it over the last few years when stores have gone out of business and decided to destash and make my first sweater – I used 8 skeins, plus some remnants. It knit up pretty quickly, because it was so bulky and it’s very warm. If I were to redo it, I would extend the sleeves a few more rows and shift the pockets over.
Christmas scarves:
I’ve been slowly making scarves for my Plethora girlfriends. Made again with Rasta, because it’s so soft and luxurious, and I’ve been trying out different stitches and patterns for each one.
The blue and purple ones have been blocked, I just need to sew in the ends; the red one has not. I have yarn for 2 more scarves.
]]>I’ve been listening to Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which a beautiful book written by an indigenous ecologist, examining how we interact with nature. I’m also reading Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel as a buddy read and a friend recommendation and The Halcyon Fairy Book by T. Kingfisher (which is a collection of weird fairy tales and her hilarious commentary).
2. What have you recently finished reading?
I did not read a lot of books in October – I’ve read a bunch of duds recently and it’s put me off of my reading streak. The most recent read was a reread of Deerskin by Robin McKinley (not my favorite book of hers).
3. What will you be reading next?
I got Project Hail Mary from the library and I’m hoping that it’s going to be a good one. I also got Sweet Like Jasmine, another friend recommendation.
]]>August:
Strange Planet by Nathan Pye. I really like his comics so this was a fun quick read from the library.
In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune (audio). The book on the drive back from Yellowstone. I didn’t really like the voice actor, which is surprising because I loved his voices in The House in the Cerulean Sea. The rhythm of his voice was off-putting.
Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman. Second book of the Arc of the Scythe series. A very solid second book.
Nottingham: The True Story of Robyn Hood by Anna Burke. A gender swapped Robin Hood story – fast read and fun.
The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson. Friend recommendation. My first Brandon Sanderson read. This was a well developed little novella and an ending that surprised me and yet fit quite well.
The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap by Mehrsa Baradaran (audio). Truly depressing but important look at how systemic racism and blatant racism lead to the wealth gap.
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. Lovely book, with interwoven characters, and plenty of gray humor.
The Moon by Night by Madeleine L’Engle. I had a hankering to reread this after my failed to launch summer romances. Definitely felt the age of this book (written in the 1960s) and the pacing is much different than I remembered, but still some sweet parts.
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. I don’t even know how to describe this book. Space opera meets Faust?
Foster by Claire Keegan. So much atmosphere packed in this short story.
Beach Read by Emily Henry. Not quite as good as Book Lovers, but a close second. They just never read on a beach…
Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land by Toni Jensen. Book club. This was unexpectedly powerful and the theme of gun violence through was subtle but important.
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry. This was definitely a “you are my story had I had done what I could not do” for me so it probably hit me a little differently than others. It worked well as a When Harry Meets Sally rewrite.
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher. A short Sleeping Beauty retelling of a sort. I adored Toadling.
Meet the Austins by Madeleine L’Engle. Went back to read book 1 since I felt like I had missed things with the Moon at Night. I don’t know if I’ll read the whole series again.
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. I keep expecting really terrible things to happen to her characters so I’m on edge when reading, but it’s never as bad as I fear.
September:
Happy Place by Emily Henry. I was quite in my unhappy place by the end of this book and could grumble about it for hours.
The Toll by Neal Shusterman. I can understand why there was some disappointment with the ending of the trilogy but I thought it was quite fitting and I loved the last chapter.
Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships by Nina Totenberg. Made me really miss Ruth Bater Ginsberg, but I also liked the focus on how friendships enrich adults lives (I’m liking this theme of friendship much better than the problems with mothers of the first half of the year).
A Deadly Education, The Last Graduate, and The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik. Friend recommendation. I found the 1st person narrative to be claustrophobic as it was all stream of consciousness and the world-building a little too pretentious, but the story was still enjoyable.
Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall. His books are always hit or miss for me and this one fell into more of the miss bucket – the mystery solved itself halfway through, the next quarter was my least favorite romance trope, and then it was off for another mystery.
Currently reading: Firekeeper’s Daughter (tried this one on audio and it was too much teenager angst, so reading it instead, Braiding Sweetgrass (audio), The Romance Rx (I’m so determined to find a good doctors in training story. I’m a quarter of the way through and can tell you that this won’t be it).
Friend recommendations still to go: The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan, Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel, Sweet Like Jasmine by Bonnie Gray, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt.
]]>2) I’m going to have to confront my boss about something that she is wrong about tomorrow. It’s something that is affecting the care that I provide my patients, so I have to do it, but I hate confrontation and I’m not looking forward to it.
3) I went camping with my family in Yellowstone last week. There was a man camped a couple of spots down and the two of us exchanged conversations every night that we were there. He was good-looking with a warm smile. I haven’t had a crush or an inkling of anything for more than 10 years on anybody. I blame reading The Moon At Night when I was 12 and impressionable for the lowering of my defenses because I always get romantic when camping. My dad ended up cock-blocking me from getting any contact information and he did not follow after me.
4) At the end of my vacation, I met up with my college friends for an evening – one of them was somebody that I hadn’t seen in person for nearly 20 years. We had been friendly in college, I thought he was cute, but he had a long-term girlfriend, whom he married two weeks after graduating. They got divorced several years ago, I’m facebook friends with him, and I find him funny. I invited him to this party. He accepted. He’s still cute. And divorced. And post-Mormon.
5) This old friend. His mom died last week, unexpectedly. I texted our group of friends (we call ourselves the Plethora) and arranged for succulents to be delivered to his house and a gift card to his favorite fast food place from college (I did not remember that this was his favorite. I’m not that creepy. I think.). None of this was under my name, it’s all labeled from the Pleth.
6) I’ve thought about sending something from just me. A box of cookies. Some soup and bread (dealing with death as a single person just sucks). Test the waters maybe.
7) I might have until I heard about my old coworker being friendly with everybody but me.
8) I haven’t had a crush in 10 years because hope devastates me.
]]>I’ve stretched my goal to read 120 books this year (10 books per month). We’ll see if I make it.
April (10 books):
May (13 books):
June: It’s Pride Month! (12 books)
Currently reading:
Next up: Book Lovers, When Women were Dragons, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Thunderhead, and A House of Good Bones. Still on my “friend recommendations for 2023” to-read list: The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan, Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zavin, Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson, Sweet Like Jasmine by Bonnie Gray, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, Dinners with Ruth by Nina Totenberg.
]]>January
– The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness by Joel Ben Izzy. FB recommendation. I was really hesitant to read this book, as it sounded very much like “all things happen for a reason” and “God has a purpose for all suffering” which is one of the things that I left behind even before leaving my religion. I’m glad I read it, as it’s been one of my favorites of the year. Beautiful interweaving of story-telling and grief.
– The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson. Friend recommendation. A story of a time in history that I knew little of (the last sultan in the Iberian peninsula). It started out so good – the first 3rd was fantastic, the second 3rd was mediocre, and the last 3rd painful. So disappointing.
– The White Allies Handbook: 4 Weeks to Join the Racial Justice Fight for Black Women by Lecia Michelle. A finish up from last year. I was really hoping for an anti-racism 201 type book and this was not it. Still some good points.
– Flying Solo by Linda Holmes. I saw this on a friend’s end of year list and thought it sounded good (plus I really love Linda Holmes’s writing for NPR). For being written by a happily single woman, there was a lot of emphasis placed on dating relationships.
– Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko. Friend recommendation. I have never read a book like this. Creepy and mind blowing in a philosophical way. It’s so very Russian (or rather Ukranian) and the whole thing felt foreign. I’m on the waiting list for the sequel.
– Scales and Sensibility by Stephanie Burgis. Jane Austen meets pet dragons. Recommended in one of my fantasy groups as cozy fantasy.
– A Charmed Christmas by Alison Cochrun. A short-story epilogue to The Charmed Offensive. I could have done without it.
– Woman on Fire by Lisa Barr. Started reading this in November of 2022 for a book club that I couldn’t attend, so it kept getting bumped. It was a good thriller, but I didn’t buy the antagonist’s motivations.
– Twitter Crush: A Gen-X Medical Romance by Em S A’Cor. I got this as an ARC from a physician writing group I’m part of. The writing was fine. There were several subplots that I had issues with, including the guy getting black out drunk on their first date, a “shrill” ex-wife, and a “romance” between the vixen chief fellow and the chair department, which was gross and lecherous and blamed entirely on the fellow. And while I really do appreciate writing from one’s own experiences, descriptions of vaginal dryness from menopause and impotence from antidepressants do not fit well with a romance novel.
– I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston. Much better than One Last Stop.
– The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, read by Andy Serkis. I’ve read the LOTR trilogy countless times – but I will admit to being guilty to skimming over Books 3 and 5 and getting to Sam and Frodo climb to Mount Doom. So there was a part in the beginning of Book 5 that I had to listen to twice because I’m pretty sure I’ve never registered it before. Anyway, Andy’s voice was amazing as always and I almost want to listen to the whole thing again. (He’s recording the Silmarillion right now, so maybe I’ll be finally about to get through that book).
– And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. My first Christie. It was a good murder mystery and I hadn’t quite figured it out by the end.
– All Systems Red by Martha Wells. An enjoyable read, although I think I need to read the rest of the series in order to properly judge it.
– They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera. Pretty much as it advertises on the tin. The premise gave me anxiety.
February
– Moloka’i by Alan Brennert. Friend recommendation. Read this on my way back from a vacation in Hawai’i. Lovely story of perseverance and a good picture into old Hawaiian culture and the perfect cap to a wonderful vacation.
– Healer and Witch by Nancy Werlin. A young healer tries to find a teach while navigating investigations by the Inquisition. Reminded me of T Kingfisher’s A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking. Not fond of romances between 15 and 24 year olds though.
-* Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. Loved this one. Emily’s a professor in the study of fairies exploring a small village trying to figure out their secrets and she can’t get along with the villagers and her too charming colleague sweeps in. I can’t wait for the sequel.
– I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. Audiobook. Friend recommendation. This one has been circulating my social groups because she was raised Mormon. That ended up making up very little of her memoir, rather it was more focused on her eating disorder and her relationship with her mom. It was an abrupt ending though and felt incomplete. An easy listen – each chapter was ~ 2-5 minutes.
– Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion by Gabrielle Stanley Blair. Like everyone else, I was completely taken by her viral twitter thread about how men bear all of the responsibility of unwanted pregnancies. This was a meatier exploration and well worth the read.
March
-* Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. Book club read. A beautiful book exploring mother-daughter relationships, grief, and culture. One of my favorites that I’ve read so far this year.
– Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent by Katharine Angel. Book club read. It’s been a while since I read a book where “feminism” was flung around like a dirty word (and yet, I think if you asked the author, she would tell you that she’s a feminist). The last part, exploring vulnerability, was great, but there was absolutely no discussion about how it was as unrealistic in sex as consent culture, which she chided for pages.
– Autoboyography by Christina Lauren. Friend recommendation. Two boys fall in love in a high school in Provo, UT – the setting was so perfectly Provo that I was transported back there, but there were inconsistencies in the depiction of Mormonism that I’m pretty sure other fans wouldn’t have picked up on.
– Fairy Tale by Stephen King. Friend recommendation. Also my first King book read. There was so much that I loved about it – the world setting was fantastic. It started to drag and become formulaic towards the middle end. I did nearly throw the book in disgust at the ending, because we couldn’t possibly have a 17 year old boy go back to the Real World without losing his virginity to a random character he never interacted with, right? Bah.
– This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley. Friend recommendation. I’m not sure that I am the right audience for this book as I no longer see myself as Christian or really believe in God or Christ at all anything, but, the storytelling was gorgeous and poetic, and some parts resonated deeply. It certainly is a brand of Christianity that I wish more would get behind.
– The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna. Very much enjoyed this story. Had a lot of the same charm as The House in the Cerulean Sea.
– The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper. I was expecting a weightier book, something like The Darkness Outside Us. It was okay for what it was.
– The Queer Principles of Kit Webb by Cat Sebastian. I walked into the book thinking it was a sapphic romance – nope! A fun little gay highwayman romantic romp, but was left a little unfinished.
– The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian. The sequel to above. The questions were mostly answered here and it was a good conclusion to the series.
– The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older. A friend and I tried out the “Buddy Read” function on StoryGraph for this and it was like a virtual book club where we could make comment and respond to each other. The mystery sort of fell apart for me, but it was an enjoyable novella.
Currently reading:
– The Ten Thousand Doors of January. Picked this one up in January and just haven’t gotten into it.
– Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde. I’ve realized that I’ve read very little in terms of classic feminist works. It’s just a slog for me to get through nonfiction works.
– Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clark (audiobook). I started to read JS shortly after it was published but I didn’t get more than half way through before it was due back to the library. It’s a slooooooow going book. Over 32 hours. It’ll be my commute book for the next 2 months at least.
– A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. Book club read
Other friend recommendations for the year:
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
What My Bones Knew: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo
Frogs in A Pot by K.D. Kinz (written by a nurse I used to work with.)
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zavin
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson
Sweet Like Jasmine by Bonnie Gray
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelk
(What would you all recommend? I’d like to round it out to 24 books).
Books picked up from the library: Glitterland by Alexis Hall, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green, The Rose That Grew From Concrete: a collection of poetry by Tupac Shakur.
]]>I gathered together all of my Plethora friends for a surprise birthday celebration for me – for once, they knew I was coming into town, but they hadn’t remembered that it was my birthday. Liz made an apple cake, because I couldn’t find a last minute piñata, and had a candle left over from one of her kids’ birthdays.
We’ve been friends for over 20 years now and it was so great to be with them all. I stayed the night with Liz, talking until way too late, visited with AnnaJune who braided my hair:
I then stayed the night at Laura and James’s and helped their oldest daughter get ready for prom and listened to their youngest coax beautiful music from her violin before driving to Manila for the week.
My parents and sister and I celebrated my birthday on its actual day by having pumpkin pie.
I drove home to Utah for Thanksgiving. The way there, the wind was gusting until to 70-100 mph in the gorge, so we detoured and went south across the Oregon high desert. But on the way back, we had a more leisurely drive and stopped at Maryhill, WA. It’s a Stonehenge replica, the same height as the one in England, made of stone and cement (the stone here isn’t sturdy enough), as a WWI memorial.
It’s pretty awesome. I would love to come back for a solstice celebration, but alas, it was oriented to the astronomical horizon, so it doesn’t line up.