Life Lately

Really, I already wrote the best way to sum up “life lately”. Lately meaning all of 2020. When I started it I wasn’t sure that I was actually going to share it. Then I finished it and thought, I might have written this for me but in so many ways it’s all of our story. It’s long: you’ve been warned. But if you get what can only be called nostalgic at the end of the year, and if it feels stronger this year than others, then it’s for you.

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Take Action

Let’s wrap up the last few days before January 4th by resting. Before we’re really back to work, before the kids are back to school and any activities they might have left, before returning to whatever semblance of “real life” we have these days. I haven’t rested near as much as I’ve meant to. (That could be the title of my memoir. #EnneagramOne) I read a book for an hour during a blizzard and it was delightful. On Christmas Day, we never took off our pajamas, and spent the day building LEGO and playing Apples to Apples Jr. and eating pizza. It was the best. Let’s take care and give ourselves more of that before 2021 begins for real.

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Around the Internet

• Pour yourself a cup of tea, light a candle, and sit with the NYT Year in Photos. It feels holy. I was unprepared and began scrolling, and sat for what felt like a while before I realized I was only in April. Take your time. Breathe it all in. Feel what you need to feel. Exhale.

• “It’s just a photo, after all, but it’s so, so much more than that. Presents are more than presents, meals are more than meals, decorations are more than decorations. They become so through labor, so much of it invisible, and so much of it performed by women.”

• If I wrote a manifesto about Christmas cookies, this would be it.

• “I must let him escape into his room, behind the door still adorned with the cactus drawing he made for art class eight months ago when he was still a child.”

• “Feel consumed by the thought of how many are hurting in how many ways. Donate to schools. Get books to kids who need them. Order local takeout even though you have 2 weeks worth of pasta. Recognize you cannot save everyone. Remember you can only do what you can.”

• “I’ve made hundreds of dishes for hundreds of meals. And I am so bored. I am so tired. In theory, I love to cook. But I am so, so sick of cooking.”

• It’s about a Christmas tree but it’s not about the Christmas tree.

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Eating

• I’ve discovered rugelach. And then I ate 12 in a single day. It’s all fine. Even though the recipe calls them “Unfussy Rugelach” I still find them, well, fussy. But it’s worth it. I try to make them a bit less fussy by simplifying the fillings: I like to make half the dough with Nutella spread inside and the other half spread with raspberry jam and raisins or dried cranberries. Eat 2 or 12 while you drink a cup of tea.

• I’ve also discovered my local grocery store sells what’s marketed as shaved beef for Philly cheesesteaks. I haven’t been using it for cheesesteaks, but stir-fries. Between not having to slice up the beef and the fact that it’s so thin it cooks in only a minute or two, dinner comes together in less than twenty minutes. Usually, I’m waiting on the rice to cook. Beef with snow peas and sesame beef and broccoli have been two favorites.

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Fun Things

• Take a peek at my Favorites of 2020 post to see my round-up of 2020 fun things. Clothes, things for the kids, books I read, things I wrote…if I loved it this year, it’s on that list. Except for the new Taylor Swift album, which you should absolutely be listening to. My preferred way to listen is to play Lover followed by Folklore followed by Evermore which is * chef’s kiss * (It’s also something I’ve done approximately 1.5 times because: children.)

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The only way I can think to close this out for the year is with the last paragraph of my 2020 summary post:

But in December, we also put up Christmas decorations and it felt like hope. We may have gone overboard on the gifts this year but wrapping those up felt like hope, too. We began to administer vaccines and that felt so hopeful our collective hearts might burst. And we looked forward to 2021. Though we knew the calendar flipping over wouldn’t magically change everything, still, we pinned our hopes on that number, that year. Knowing, hoping, feeling in our bones that it would be sooner, rather than later, that we could emerge into a new and better normal.

Battered, bruised, and frayed around the edges, but we made it. See you on the other side of 2020.