Happy New Year, dear friends. I thought I would be back to blogging way earlier than now. However, the holidays really wore me out this year. And when I become this tired, I can't think or be creative or articulate thoughts very well.
Here's a brief recap of my holidays.
I didn't have as much help leading up to Christmas as I have in past years. One daughter was sick and in bed the week prior to Christmas, and the other daughter was working on a big deadline for a client. Despite less help, I baked, cooked, cleaned, decorated, shopped, wrapped. and hosted day after day. I counted the number of batches of cookies that I baked these past 2 weeks --I baked 10 batches of cookies! Most of these cookies were given away to neighbors, friends, and family. We have some mini gingerbread men and a couple of peppermint swirls remaining from my baking. We also were on the receiving end of cookies and candies from some of these neighbors and family. I have frozen most of the cookies and will thaw them a few at a time over the coming weeks.
Whilst in baking mode, I revived my sourdough starter which had been dormant in the fridge for a couple of years. I made one very poor batch of sourdough pancakes, followed by a much improved batch of pancakes. After several mornings of pancakes, I made a poor loaf of long-fermented sourdough bread. This afternoon I began another loaf of long-ferment bread, tweaking the measurements a bit, in hopes of producing a much improved loaf this next time. I'll know later this week if my changes made a difference.
Christmas Eve was lovely, but a bit lonely. One daughter was still sick in bed. The other spent the afternoon with her boyfriend, then went to church in the evening by herself. My husband and I attended an early afternoon church service. This was the very first Christmas Eve that just my husband and I attended services together in literally decades. We have had kids with us every other Christmas since the first was born.
We had a wonderful family Christmas Day with our son and daughter-in-law. I may have been tired, but I really enjoyed spending the day with both of them.
As one daughter had been sick on actual Christmas Eve, we postponed our family Christmas Eve traditional dinner and movie until the 27th. Every year after Christmas Eve church, we watch It's a Wonderful Life while eating Chinese. I make the Chinese meal using a bunch of frozen foods. A convenience food Chinese meal made at home is about half the cost of getting Chinese take-out.
A couple of days after Christmas we hosted a dinner with friends that we hadn't seen in several years, staying up far later than we normally do. Then the very next day, we had more guests at our dinner table.
New Year's Eve, we watched another movie and enjoyed taco salad bowls for dinner (made by one daughter). Afterward, we watched the countdown to the ball drop in NYC, then all hit the hay.
I think my other daughter could see I was running out of steam as the week progressed. She and her boyfriend made New Year's Day dinner for us.
And here we are today, 2 days into the new year already. I'm still finding it hard to believe that it's 2025. The days between Thanksgiving and New Year's flew by.
January has historically been my quiet month. This year will be something of an aberration to that. We have a couple of family gatherings this month, with both my side of the family and my husband's. I also have my last dental surgery later this month. This one shouldn't have the long recovery time as the last one. But I'm not looking forward to it, nonetheless.
One last thing -- I began physical therapy for my shoulder (the injury when I fell while painting the deck railing). My shoulder has healed, but it's lost a lot of strength. So the exercises have begun, and I hope to regain this lost strength over the next couple of months.
That about catches you up on my life since I last blogged. How have your past 2 weeks been? I hope that you have all enjoyed beautiful holidays spent with loved ones. Fill us in on the highlights of your Christmas and New Years. If you're still here reading this blog, say hey.
I'll have lots more to talk about tomorrow afternoon. Have a good one!
