2023: The Year in Books

Hey 2023, you were a great reading year!

As I've said many times, reading is the last priority in my life right now.  I don't have reading goals but I love to read and I love to blab about it on the internets, so here we are.  Here is an all-in-one list of everything that I read in 2023 and some stats for funsies.  The way that I have (dis)organized this post is to blab and drop stats in the first part, and the second part is a cut n'paste from the book page with the notes that I jotted down as I was reading them.

TL&DR for the first part of this post - all that the numbers show is that this was a great year for books.  But it makes me happy to run it all through Excel.

Weekly Round Up: Christmas Recap 2023

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition I'll tell you about our Christmas eats, a new-to-me workout that I've started doing, the Christmas classic that I finally watched, and some book stuff.

Let's Go Places: The Rust Belt Travel Guide!!!

 

Friends, I got you something for Christmas.  It's a dedicated page on the blog that is a one stop shop listing of all of the cool places that I've found on my home turf.  Announcing: The Rust Belt Travel Guide.  I'll keep it updated in real time as I continue to go places.

Week in the Life: Sunday December 17

Hey friends, we're doing a one week experiment where we hang out each day and I'll tell you everything that's going on in my life (inspired by Stephany's Week in the Life series).  

Somehow a full week has gone by already and our time of hanging out together daily is at an end.  But that doesn't mean that you're SOL if you want more week in the life...because YES YES YES YES KIM IS DOING IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!

Week in the Life: Saturday December 16

 

Hey friends, we're doing a one week experiment where we hang out each day and I'll tell you everything that's going on in my life (inspired by Stephany's Week in the Life series).  Happy Saturday everyone!!!

Week in the Life: Friday December 15

 

Hey friends, we're doing a one week experiment where we hang out each day and I'll tell you everything that's going on in my life (inspired by Stephany's Week in the Life series).  TGIF!

Week in the Life: Thursday December 14

Hey friends, we're doing a one week experiment where we hang out each day and I'll tell you everything that's going on in my life (inspired by Stephany's Week in the Life series).  It's Thursday already???

Week in the Life: Wednesday December 13

 

Hey friends, we're doing a one week experiment where we hang out each day and I'll tell you everything that's going on in my life (inspired by Stephany's Week in the Life series).  Happy Wednesday!

Week in the Life: Tuesday December 12

Hey friends, we're doing a one week experiment where we hang out each day and I'll tell you everything that's going on in my life (inspired by Stephany's Week in the Life series).  Happy Tuesday!

Week in the Life: Monday. December 11

Hey friends, let's do something a little different this week.

I'm a huge fan of "day in the life" posts but every time that I sit down to write one I quickly become horrified by the mundanity of my life and think "I don't want to write this and no one wants to read it". 

But during NaBloPo I was very taken with Stephany's Week in the Life series, and now I find myself motivated to try again. Sometimes you just need to sit down and write the kind of content that you want to see, so we're going to take another stab at this and see what happens.  The worst case is that this will be incredibly boring, the best case is that I might learn something, and the ultimate best case is that some of the other Cool Bloggers might do this themselves (HINT!  HINT!).  In any case, there's not a lot happening this week so I might as well spend my free time doing a bit of extra blogging.

I'm giving myself a bit of a head start by not posting Monday's recap until Wednesday, so hopefully I'll be able to keep up with tracking my fascinating life.

Weekly Round Up: The Leftovers

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition we revived our leftover Thanksgiving turkey, I tried a book series that I'd previously had on my "no" list, and I found a good podcast.

Weekly Round Up: a Birthday and a Kitchen Mystery

 

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week we celebrated a Very Special Birthday with a tiny cake and solved a kitchen mystery.  In my downtime, I hit the Christmas movies.  I predicted a wow, a dud, and a huh, and ended up with a wow, a WOWWWWW WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THIS WAS SUCH A GOOD MOVIE, and as predicted, a huh.

Weekly Round Up: Thanksgiving

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  ICYMI, last week was very sad with the passing of Stepdog.  It was also a time of happiness, gratitude, and family shenanigans.

On Losing A Pet

TL&DR: Stepdog passed away last Friday after a brief illness.  

I'm here to spill my guts out, which I will then try edit into something coherent.  I'll tell you what happened, the things that helped our family to get through it, the decision to use a home euthanasia vet, and a few wonderful stories of her last days.  This is one of two posts that I will be writing about her.  Today's post is the hard part, and the next post (to be written at some future date much further along in the grieving process) will be a tribute to her and stories of the great joy that she brought to us.

I am not always in the right headspace to read a "my pet died" post, so you absolutely have my blessing to skip this one.  The only reason to ever read a blog post is because you want to, and no one is taking "blogger attendance".  Nothing bad or graphic happened, apart from the fact that the dog died.  Here's a happier dog post as an alternative.

Looking for Me? You Came to the Wrong Place

 I'm hanging out with my girl Elisabeth today.  Come join the party!

Weekly Round Up: I Wanted More

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  A theme of this week is that I tried some things on the food and book front that left me...well, see title of post.  But I also found some goodies to make up for it.

Weekly Round Up: There's no school like the old school

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This weekend I kicked it old school and had a girls weekend with the dog while the boys were at Boy Scout camp.

Diary of a First Grader: The Sixth Annual Weekly Eats Roundup

Hey Friends, it's that time again!  Six years ago today I had an impulse to write a weekly recap post of my meals, workouts, TV watching, and reading.  After a year of weekly recaps I wrote an annual recap which I've come to think of as "Birchwood New Year".  Now that these posts are old enough to start first grade, let's take a look back at the best of the best things that we've talked about this year.

Let's Go Places: Malabar Farm State Park, Ohio

 

Friends, I'd like to take you to a very special place today.  Can I interest you in a trip to a farm that's a state park in the middle of nowhere?

I guess that doesn't really sell it.  Let me up the ante by telling you that Malabar Farm State Park is a one stop shop for:

• State park stuff.  Nature and hiking (OK, I'm mildly interested)
• The farm is historically important for promoting sustainable agriculture (OK, that's somewhat interesting.  If I had another reason to go there I'd be open to learning more)
• Was the home of a Pulitzer Prize Winning Big Deal 20th Century Novelist who might not be a household name now but was in the same league as Fitzgerald and Hemmingway back in the day (that's more like it!  But in Ohio?)
• Some of the exterior scenes for a Big Deal 90s movie were filmed here (Hmm, depending on the movie I might be interested)
• Was a hangout for Everybody Who Was Anybody in Hollywood in the 40s (Now you've really got my attention!  But why were big movie stars coming out to Ohio of all places?)
• Was the scene of a Big Hollywood Wedding (hey you already sold me!  WHO?????)

Weekly Round Up: Dark Clock

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition I'm going to tell you about a new lunch obsession, some workout chatter, a 1970s cult TV series that I just learned about, and some book stuff.

Weekly Round Up: A Family Shenanigan

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  We have A LOT of stuff to talk about: I'll start with our family shenanigan, then talk a little food and workout stuff, and then I HAVE A BOOK THAT I NEED TO TALK ABOUT - for both good reasons and bad.

Let's Go Places: A Leaf Peep Trip!

I don't believe that I ever heard the term "leaf peeping" before last year, but that just means that I've been living under a rock.  Wikipedia says the term was used in the West Wing and the Sopranos, so it's been around for a while.

I wasn't intending for my October trip to be a Leaf Peep activity, but that's what ended up happening.  And given that it was the anniversary of that time when I persuaded my family to do a girls trip on Scout Camp weekend, I'm now officially declaring that the third weekend in October is Leaf Peep Weekend.

Weekly Round Up: a Movie and a Lotta Books

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  Things are slow here on the food and workout front, so just means we'll have to talk about movies and books this week.  Plus I tried something that I heard about on the internet IRL.

Let's Go Places: Columbus, Ohio

 

It's travel time again!  Instead of taking a long weekend trip in September, I made a quick overnight trip to Grand Rapids, hung out with family on Boy Scout camp weekend, and then something came up that had me leaving home again the week after that.  Our destination this time is Columbus, Ohio.

Let's Go Places: A Quick Sweep of Toledo, Ann Arbor, and Grand Rapids

It's travel time again!  If you're new here, the rest of my family is heavily involved in Boy Scouts, and I'm not.  That means a lot of time on my hands while they're off doing Scout Things, which I've channeled into local tourism.  When they go away I go away - far enough from home to justify staying overnight, but not so far away that I can't get back in case of emergency.

Normally I do a long weekend trip during their monthly camp outs, but September didn't work for a few reasons.  For the September camp out, we had family coming in from out of town, so home was where I wanted to be that weekend.  Then something unexpected came up that had me making a during-the-week-trip in early October (story coming soon).

But I still wanted to "go somewhere" in September.  I didn't have a long weekend, but I did have something that I wanted to squeeze into this year's travels that required an overnight stay.

So a few weeks ago I made a very rushed trip to Toledo, Ann Arbor, and Grand Rapids.

Weekly Round Up: Still In It

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  I know I've been absent for a few weeks, but I'm still in it.  Lemme catch you up.

Weekly Round Up: The Sellout

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  Yes, I know I'm a bit off schedule but bear with me and we'll catch up on all the things.  Today lemme tell you the latest in food, workouts, my Nora Ephron binge, and how the jobby job thing worked out.  In a few days I'll come back to tell you about my latest trip.  

Let's start off with a picture of stepdog in my office in her best "Zoom pose".  We brought in the white mat so that she has a comfy place to rest that's not right behind my desk chair, and that spot just so happens to be visible when I'm on camera.  I had a lot of on-camera meetings yesterday and she faithfully attended them all.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: Read the Book or See the Movie?

 

This summer I had the great pleasure of rereading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  It's a book that I've read at least twice before and I might have gotten around to reading it again someday, but Engie made that day now by launching The Cool Bloggers Book Club. 

My first encounter with ATGIB was the 1945 movie, which I saw sometime in my early teens.  Later on I found the book at a library book sale which is how I came to read it and the rest is history.  I remembered the movie as being OK but not great and wouldn't have been interested in rewatching it except that I wanted to get a little more juice out of the ATGIB squeeze.

I'm going to tell you what I remembered about the movie going in, how the movie is different from the book, what I thought about the actors, and what I thought of the movie.

Full spoilers ahead, so don't click past the jump unless you want in on the deets.  It's totally OK to pause and come back after you've read the book and/or seen the movie.

Weekly Round Up: Long Weekend Report

 

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  Plus job musings and a long weekend report.

Operation Endgame: A Werk Update

TL&DR - I told my boss how I really feel about my job during my performance review yesterday.  The response I was expecting was "don't let the door hit you on the way out."  The response that I got was "what can we do to make you stay?"  

Current status: waiting to see what shakes out.

Weekly Round Up: Back to School Edition

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week we had possibly the Best Ever first week of school, I went on a nacho spree for lunch, saw an epic movie with the fam, went on a Little House podcast binge, and shored up my plan for Operation Endgame.

Weekly Round Up: The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week I'm here to brag about some stepkid cooking, gush about The Maltese Falcon, and go back and forth over quitting my job.

Weekly Round Up: Stay Classy

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, reads (🚨🚨🚨good book alert🚨🚨🚨), the countdown to quitting my job, and a stepmom brag

Weekly Round Up: Send Noods

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week I ate lots of noodles, picked a direction for my workouts, and oh yes, thought a lot about Operation Endgame.

Operation Endgame

Hey friends, let's pick it up where we left off from the last post.  As you may be aware from my many rants about it on the blog, for the past few years my work situation has felt like this.  Sure I've been looking for a new job and sure I've gotten lots of interviews and one job offer but nothing that really looks any different.

Life Updates

Hey friends, I'm here to give some updates on my experiences with therapy and my job sitch.

Weekly Round Up: Vacay Everyday

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week was Mega Family Vacation week, and the TL&DR version is that it did not suck.

Before I start, I need to tell you that I have in-law issues.  Specifically my issue with my in-laws is that I don't see them enough.  My husband's parents are sadly no longer with us, so that leaves the families of the five siblings.  It's a major feat that we got someone from four out of the five families to Chicago two weeks ago and now we got almost everyone from a different set of four of the five families out to St. Augustine FL this past week.  There's a good reason why there was one missing family from each event - one person was shy on PTO so that's why they couldn't make Chicago trip, and there's a new grandbaby in SIL#2's family, so that's why they didn't make it to FL.

A Crazy Good Weekend

 

Hey friends, I've been busier/crazier than normal so I've got to drop the weekly posts for a bit.  For the next few weeks I'll just be popping in randomly to talk about this n'that.  Case in point: this post.  Lemme tell you about last weekend.  I went places!  It's a Tale of Two Great Lakes, Family Mayhem, and some FLW on the side.

Let's Go Places: Kelleys Island

 

Sigh, the last day of vacation is finally here.  It's very sad but at least we have one last island to explore.  It's time for island #4 of 4 on The Great Island Bender of 2023.

When we started our island journey, I could confidently rank Kelleys as my 3rd favorite of the three US islands that I'd visited.  If you ask around, people will tell you that Kelleys is superior to Put in Bay, specifically because it has less of a party vibe.  My take is that sure Kelleys is nice, but it has less stuff to do with just as many bars.

This was my third visit, so did I confirm what I'd seen before or was the third time the charm?

TL&DR - the third time was the charm.  Let's go to Kelleys Island!

Let's Go Places: Put in Bay

Hey friends, it's time for Island #3 of 4 on The Great Island Bender of 2023.  For context, we're in Ohio about 40 miles east of Toledo.

I mentioned last time that Put in Bay is also called South Bass Island.  The technicalities are that Put in Bay is a village and South Bass is the island where Put in Bay is located.  The village takes up so much of the island that the most common name for this place is Put in Bay, so you're not wrong to call it that.  The year round population is 150, and this is the island with all of the city services.  Fun fact, if you're a kid on North or Middle Bass, you don't catch the bus, you catch the PLANE to go to school on South Bass.  The main road of the island is about three and a half miles long, so we're on slightly bigger turf than Middle Bass.

The next thing to talk about is that if you say "Put in Bay" the odds are very high that someone will say "the party island" but not in a fun way.  If I had a nickel for every time I've heard someone say "party island" with either a great deal of concern or in an outright nasty tone...hey I could stop at one of the Put in Bay bars and get a drink!

I don't want to discourage anyone - I'm sure that if you're looking for things to do that fall under the nasty "party island" label you can find them on Put in Bay - but I have an issue with the 'tude.  Let me show you the other side of the story.

Weekly Round Up: All Over the Place

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  The holiday had me feeling all disoriented this week, so my recap is all over the place. 

Let's Go Places: Middle Bass Island

 

It's time for the next stop on The Great Island Bender of 2023.  We're going to hit island #2 of 4, and it's one of my personal favorites - I mean all of these islands are my favorites but today I'm going to make the case for Middle Bass.

Let's Go Places: Pelee Island

It's time for our second stop on The Great Island Bender of 2023 and our first of four islands of the trip.  I'm very excited to take you to Pelee Island.

Weekly Round Up: Freebie Edition

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition I had success with a vegan steak recipe, and I have a freebie from my therapist to pass on.

Let's Go Places: Point Pelee National Park

Let's pick it up where we left off from last time.  My first stop on The Great Island Bender of 2023 was the mainland in Leamington, Ontario.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Friends, I just got back from a one week long solo vacation.  I grabbed my passport and went on an island bender.  Four islands in seven days!

Hmmm...you know that I don't like to fly and that I keep an eye on my budget, so where could this exotic locale be?

I'm so glad that you asked.

Weekly Round Up: Empty Nest

A weekly roundup: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week the hubs and I had an empty nest, I tried two new recipes, I'm considering some changes on the workout front, and I started a new TV show that's just as good as the book.

Weekly Roundup: Back at it

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  Sigh, the problem with taking blogging PTO is that things do tend to pile up. 

It's going to take me a hot minute to get my solo week long vacation on the blog, but it was everything that I hoped that it would be.  For right now I'll drop a hint on one of the places that I went when we get to talking about movies and books, and I'll come back a bit later and take you along with a series of blog posts.  We've got a lot of stuff to talk about in the meantime!

Weekly Round Up: OOO

Hi Friends, as of right now I am OOO - out of office.  Let's chat before I get on the road.

Weekly Round Up: A Big Deal

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition I'm going to tell you why this week was a VERY BIG DEAL for our family, share some food stuff, and an epic movie.

Let's Go Places: Marietta, Ohio

I had the pleasure of spending last weekend in Marietta, Ohio.  On the first day it was just a pretty town.  On the second day I encountered something profound that made me step back and say "Whoa!  Why isn't everyone talking about this????"

If you're new here, the rest of my family is heavily involved in Boy Scouts, which means that they go camping one weekend every month.  My mission is that when they get out of the house, I get out of the house and go somewhere cool.  "Somewhere cool" is far enough away from home that I need to stay overnight, but not so far that it's a pain to get to. 

Just a note, I took a ton of pictures but I don't feel that I got the definitive "this is what Marietta is" shot.  I'll just have to get that on my next visit.

Weekly Round Up: Catching Up

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This weekend was Boy Scout camp weekend, which means that the menfolk went to the woods and I went on an out of town adventure!

Weekly Round Up: Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.

The men in my life have brought home a lot of inspirational sayings from Boy Scouts.  One of my favorites is "improvise, adapt, and overcome".  In this week's edition I'm going to show you how that played out in our meals this week, plus another round of "movies that I remember incorrectly from the 1980's".

Heads up: there's gonna be some weight/diet talk in the books section this week, so bail after the movie discussion if that's not your thing.

The Good Fish Co - Reel 'Em in or Throw 'Em Back?

 

Hey friends, after a long hiatus, I'm back with a job interview story!  The purpose of this post is to keep myself honest about making a good decision for my next work gig and to show what goes on behind the closed doors of the job search process.

TL&DR: I don't think that The Good Fish Co is Mr. Right but I'm tempted to make them Mr. Right Now.

Weekly Round Up: Messy but Good

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week I experimented with two new to me recipes that were very messy but oh so good.