Another year of radio silence then popping in for an annual birthday post. Maybe I’ll start posting again to share house updates. Because we bought a house! And it needs to be updated! Or maybe I’ll just do that on Instagram and I’ll be back next June. Yeah…probably that. Let’s not make any promises either way.
How are you spending your birthday?
Getting new tires for my minivan, which feels like the biggest middle-aged-mom cliché ever. Also swimming and eating takeout from my favorite Indian restaurant. Feels like a good balance of practical and indulgent.
Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
a) It has been such a weird year, I don’t even know how to answer this.
b) About the same but things have shifted. Again. Bodies are so much fun!
c) This is also a hard question to answer. I have more in my bank account AND more expenses.
What did you do last year that you’ve never done before?
Sold our house! It was the first one we ever bought, so selling it was also a first. Turns out I do not enjoy that process!
What was your favorite discovery last year?
I found a ton of new-to-me music! Sometime in the fall I realized what a difference it made in my overall mental health to listen to good (aka not specifically made for children) music on a regular basis. I started making a point of listening to artists I’d never heard of and albums I hadn’t spent time with, and it has been LOVELY.
To keep track of favorites, I started a new Spotify playlist at the beginning of the year and just add any song that I really like and am listening to for the first time. Even if it’s really old, if it’s new to me and I dig it, onto the playlist it goes. It’s such a fun little practice and I really enjoy listening to the growing playlist every month or two to remember
What do you hope to learn this coming year?
I want to learn more about outside plants. The house we bought has a beautiful back yard (and a front yard that is just fine but has potential) but I don’t know how to take care of half the plants in it. My goal is to make a map of the yard and identify what’s growing in it so I can do a few different things. If I like the plants we have, I want to tend to them well. For the plants I don’t like (or that are invasive or too thirsty for the desert or whatever) I want to replace them with native species. I’d like our front yard to be a desert pollinator garden and our back yard to provide us with shade and food where possible. Which means I have some reading and experimenting to do.
What would you like to have this year that you didn’t have last year?
Dinner parties! One of the reasons we wanted a bigger house was so we could have more people over more often. We have the space, so now we need to invite the friends over!
What was your biggest achievement of this year?
Finding and buying a house that met all our ridiculously picky criteria. It felt like we’d been dreaming an impossible dream for too long, but we FINALLY found a place. And while the process was stressful and at times incredibly frustrating, we moved in two weeks ago. It’s such a weight off my mind and feels like a major accomplishment.
What was your biggest failure?
Not prioritizing exercise. I started a program I really liked over a year ago, and then life got hectic and I made a lot of excuses and stopped. My body hurts and I lost most of the progress I had made.
Where did you travel this year?
The whole family went to visit my parents last summer. David and I took a trip to Chicago in the fall to celebrate our anniversary. We spent a quick weekend in Flagstaff in November, and a rainy few days in San Diego in March, and I think that was it.
Do you have a destination in mind for next year?
David and I will spend a couple days in Utah this summer, as well as a day or two at my parents’ house. We’re planning on a road trip through the Four Corners area over fall break. The original plans to be in Kenya for David’s 40th birthday did not work out, so we are hoping to go this year instead. We’ll probably make another trip to a beach in southern California at some point, just because it’s close and we got rained out last time. If we’re dreaming big, I’d love to get to Spain or Italy or France or any number of places, but this is probably not the year for that.
What did you get really excited about?
The Nick Cave exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Daniel Popper installations at the Morton Arboretum. I 100% convinced David to go to Chicago when we did because I wanted to see those two things. And they totally delivered.
What do you wish you’d done more of?
Walking in nature.
What do you wish you’d done less of?
Driving in my car.
What was the best book you read?
Looking at my Story Graph data, I have read a lot of really good books in the last year! Here are some of my 5 star reads in different genres:
Novels: Piranesi by Susanna Clark was a weird, lovely, quick read. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee was a tender, thoughtful, slow read. Loved them both, but I think Pachinko might be in my top 5 of all time.
Memoir: Finding Me by Viola Davis. Listened to the audiobook of this one for my book club and it was incredible. Absolutely worthy of the Grammy it received. Also I totally understand now why everyone was raving about Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. Plus it made me want to eat all the Korean food.
Short Stories: The Hidden Girl and Other Stories by Ken Liu. Listen. This one will make you paranoid about a technologic dystopian future, but with very few exceptions, every story in it is brilliant.
Poetry: Good Bones by Maggie Smith. She’s everyone’s favorite for a reason.
Misc Nonfiction: The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St Clair was such a fun read! It’s essentially mini essays/histories of over a hundred different colors, which sounds weird and boring but I promise it was not. I would read a couple colors every night before bed and had to restrain myself from reading most of it aloud to David.
What did you want and get?
A new house WITH A POOL! Dreams do come true, folks!
What did you want and not get?
A reasonable interest rate and a smaller mortgage payment than what we ended up with. Looking forward to refinancing down the road.
What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More predictability and certainty. I felt like a spent a lot of time flailing around, not really knowing what was going on or what was happening next, or when, or how, or any of it. It was a good exercise in flexibility and expectations and all that, but not an exercise I enjoyed much.
What kept you sane?
A routine, many calendars, and countless lists. But also, to be cliché again, therapy. I’ve tried it a couple times with minimal positive impact, but now that I’ve found a therapist I really click with, I can see a huge difference.
(That said, I had a session just yesterday that was super discouraging. Progress is not linear, though, and the things she asked me to practice will be helpful eventually.)
What political issue stirred you the most?
The rule of law. I can’t tell you how delighted I am by so many people facing consequences for their illegal actions. The American justice system itself is a hot mess, but to see some sort of justice being meted out–especially to people who thought they were above the law–is immensely satisfying.
Did you fall in love?
No. (Honestly, this feels like a silly question every year but I guess you never know.)
Who did you miss?
My husband. David and I have always been great teammates and co-parents. We are so good together. We are also living a very full life that has pulled us in a lot of different directions. I’m looking forward to spending more time together, just the two of us, now that our house-selling-and-buying saga is over.
Did you learn a valuable life lesson this year?
I am a perfectionist. For a long time I told myself I had let go of black and white thinking, that I had gotten really good at giving myself grace in my limitations and failures. But I think that might have been another manifestation of the problem: either I’m a perfectionist or I’m not. In reality, it’s not that clear cut. I’m a perfectionist AND I try to be more nuanced and less critical in my thinking.
It’s not something I’m proud of or especially happy to embrace. Much of my anxiety is rooted in it, one way or another. And I would really like to just…not be anxious anymore. For now, though, it feels helpful to acknowledge that my brain will probably always have perfectionist tendencies. Knowing that, I can practice trying on other mindsets when perfectionism is not serving me well.
Here’s to a new decade of practicing being perfectly imperfect!
(Photos 1/3/4 by Kylie Pond Photography; photo 2 by Alexis Kaye Photography)
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