Looking Back on 2023

This has been a horrible decade for me thus far and this year proved to be the most challenging and difficult. Lots of anxiety attacks and feeling a depression darker than anything I've ever dealt with before. That said, I was able to cobble together a list of 12 good things from 2023; the best moments of each month that made this year bearable.

January: Spending time with Lucy! - Especially taking her to Night Forms on the 7th and seeing her a total of seven times all in one month!

February: FaceTime with Natalia - She introduced me to the Good Reads app and we spend two hours catching one another up and discussing our fave topic - books!

March: Marlee book is signed! - I ordered a copy of Marlee Matlin's memoir, I'll Scream Later, for $6.39 and when it arrived I was blown away to see that it was a signed copy. Score!!

April: Wed nights with Emily!!! - After work I would drive down to Emily's place to hang out, just us two, and we'd watch movies together. In April we watched Long Shot, Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, and the third episode of The Last of Us.

May: Seeing Autumn and Maureen!!

June: Snap Pizza with Jackson - On one of our visits Jax took an instant liking to Dan, a gregarious and fun fella who worked there. Jax always looks forward to going to Snap Pizza in the hopes that Dan will be working. The bonus was getting to MOM's across the way and mistaking a bag of garbage for the world's largest potato. Ha!!

July: Orchard House with Natalia!

August: Losing 15 pounds! - All due to limiting junk food plus loads of anxiety knowing that Henry Rollins Day was approaching.

September: Jax's gig! - I was absolutely blown away by this kid's skill. He was incredible.

October: Time with Lucy! - I was lucky enough to spend six days taking care of our favourite little lady while her mother was away on a girls' weekend. We played tons of games, did homework, crafted, talked, watched Hart to Hart (which Lucy really liked!!!) and went with Jackson up to Amy's farm to meet the toddler chickies. It was a blast!

November: Roomie Louise! - Most of this month was spent with me laid up with tooth pain at Mama Rosie's while fab family friend Louise, who was recovering from shoulder surgery, crashed on the couch. It was so nice just having her around because even in pain, she brought a new dynamic into the house and was great to be around. 

December: Lucy’s surgery was a success! - Our wee lassie needed her tonsils out and I was very nervous and worried. Thankfully everything went swimmingly and she recovered in record time!

September 2023 Books

* Sure I'll Join Your Cult ¹ by Maria Bamford - Maria's honest take on her experiences with mental illness was completely refreshing and unlike anything else. Who knew I could love her more than I did before reading this?!

* The Prophet ¹ by Kahlil Gibran - Absolutely gorgeous and Riz Ahmed's voice was like a dream.

Little Women ¹ by Louisa May Alcott

♥ King of the Weeds ¹ by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins - Oh this was such a fantastic Hammer book with a real scumbag baddie. But like always, I knew Mike would get him in the end!

♥ All in All ¹ by Stacy Keach - Even better the second time around.

** The Message in the Hollow Oak by Carolyn Keene

♥ Tales of the City ¹ by Armistead Maupin

* More Tales of the City ¹ by Armistead Maupin 

♥ Further Tales of the City ¹ by Armistead Maupin - Without question one of the best of the series. It had been years since I read it (in Dublin 2018) and so much of it had slipped from my mind. The whole Jim Jones plot-line made this a mega page turner. Frances McDormand did a fab job of narrating and made me LOL every time she, as Prue Giroux, hollered for Vuitton. 

* Babycakes ¹ by Armistead Maupin - Alan Cumming's narration actually made it possible for me to stomach the bits about that horrid Mary Ann Singleton. He was excellent.

¹ - audiobook
² - abridged version
* - liked
♥ - loved
Any unmarked titles were, in my opinion, so-so.

The Little Women Texts

Natalia and I checked out the audiobook version of Little Women this month and I just finished it. The narrator was less than I'd hoped. She wasn't awful, she just wasn't Susie Berneis, who read Anne of Green Gables and The Secret Garden. 

The next day:

Literary Tour of Concord

Our tour of all things literature continued today with a pit stop to Walden Pond in the late morning. Then we headed over to Emerson House, the Concord Museum, Nathaniel Hawthorne's home The Wayside, and ended up back at Orchard House so Natalia could get those key earrings she loved so much. I didn't snap many photos but the few I did are below. Another fab day!

Thoreau statue with replica cabin

Ralph Waldo Emerson's House

Emerson's Study

Lincoln sculpture by Daniel Chester French

The Wayside - home to many over the years, but notably, Nathaniel Hawthorne

Selfie with Nate!

And back to the lovely Orchard House