Books read January 2022

 I am a bit early, but I do not think I will be finishing another book in the next day so I think I am ready to report on 10 books read this month.

But first things first! Josie got our family birthday wall hanging thing up to date! Hurray!

You can see that we need more birthdays in January, February, and July. So let's plan for that! Nothing in October, please!

Now about those books:

1. Love Lies and Hocus Pocus 2: Revelations by Lydia Sherrer - More about the wizard, the witch and the talking cat named Kipling. In this book, Lily meets her father, which is not necessarily that great. 

2. Paradoxical Glory by Nancy Heiss - I actually read this through completely twice, but will only count it once. It made me laugh, made me cry, sometimes made me embarrassed (since I am mentioned a few times, sometimes by name!) and it also made me really proud of my daughter for having the courage to write these beautiful poems and then share them in a publication.

3. Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool - This was our book club assignment for January, but we didn't meet because some of us didn't want to meet in person due to COVID, and the hostess and her family had COVID, so...we didn't meet. But I liked the book about a young girl during the great depression who discovers her father's youth through the people she meets and talks to in Manifest, the town her dad sends her to for the summer while he is working elsewhere.

4. The girl they left behind by Roxanne Veletzos - I forgot that I had this ILL book until it was almost due, no renewals allowed, so I had to read like mad before I turned it in. The author based it on her mother, who was abandoned by her parents in Romania during WWII. The people who adopt the abandoned child in the book are based on Roxanne's grandparents who adopted her mother in a similar situation, but in the book, the girl meets her birth parents, when in real life Roxanne's mother did not.

5. The woman in blue by Elly Griffiths - This time, the Ruth Galloway story is based in Walsingham in England, and the passion plays that take place there. Only in real life, I hope there are not a bunch of murders or missing pieces of relics that lead to who is behind the murders!

6. Tokyo ever after by Emiko Jean - one of the books I grabbed to read in the car, as I am prone to do, this time about a teen in California who discovers that her father is the crown prince of Japan. When her father takes her to Japan to meet the rest of the family, you can bet that there is a bit of culture shock!

7. Everything, everything by Nicola Yoon - my friend Diana recommended this book, and since I had read Nicola Yoon before and liked it, I decided to read this. It was a beautiful book about Madeline, whose doctor mother diagnosed her with SCID, which is basically allergic to everything. But is it true?

8. The party crasher by Sophie Kinsella - had to get this through ILL, just looking for newer Sophie Kinsellas to read, and our library didn't have this one. It was actually really good. Started out kind of fluffy like Kinsella books often do, but some depth is revealed as Effie crashes the family party secretively instead of actually attending, and overhears a lot of things--learning about others but also herself, in ways that end up making a difference.

9. Love Lies and Hocus Pocus 3: Allies - in which Lily goes back home to see the family she left seven years ago when she started university, and makes amends. And then goes back to Atlanta where a whole lot of mischief is going on, thanks to her rather terrible father. 

10. The chalk pit by Ellie Griffiths - in which Ruth Galloway digs up a body that was found under the city when a soil sample has human bone fragments. The body looks old, but carbon dating says it isn't. Then rough sleepers go missing or turn up dead, and then a few women go missing, too. Are the crimes related? If so, what are the connections, and how do we find the missing women while they are still alive?

There are the ten books of January 2022!

And just for fun, Josie was sitting by me while I was typing, holding her cat Cleo, and Cleo would do this head-arching thing back toward Josie hoping for a kiss on the top of her head. I had to get my camera ready and just wait for it, because it was so cute!

PS: Still walking, still planking. Had my friend Angela here for a visit from Paris this week. I stayed with her in Paris for a very short visit in 2014, and I thought I posted about it on my blog, but apparently I did not. That is so strange. I think I mentioned her, but did not post any of the pictures. Angela still lives in her fifth floor walk up, no elevator, teeny tiny studio apartment. I hope she enjoyed her visit in our home, which is spacious compared to hers. 

Since I did not post then, here is a picture of Angela and I, from November 2014, in front of Notre Dame, just because--it really did happen. I was there. And now she was here, but on a plane winging her way to Paris at the moment.

Third Week Report

 Three weeks of 2022 have zipped by so quickly.

Speaking of zipping, this happened to me on Thursday (Jan. 20): After dropping Josie at work, I was driving back to BYU. I was thinking about parking in the underground parking, but it was such a lovely day, and I was planning to do my daily walk as soon as I parked, so after the little security booth, I decided to turn left into the parking lot instead of proceeding straight to underground parking. The light was red, so the traffic was stopped, and the light was green for the pedestrians. That meant that I could turn left easily, right?

But I was driving very slowly because pedestrians do weird, unexpected things sometimes, and there were a lot of pedestrians at 12:20 in the afternoon. So I am slowly turning, and suddenly-bam! I was hit just in front of my tire by an electric scooter, and the kid on it went flying over the hood of my car! That was scary!

I immediately stopped and shut off my car, by which time he was already jumping up from the ground. There was no damage to him, no damage to his scooter, and only two dings in my car (which is how I know where he hit me.) He was wearing a helmet and was fully clothed, and didn't even have a scratch on him. No scrapes, no blood. He was embarrassed. I was a little bit shaken up, but I knew that he hit me, but I don't know where he came from. He told me that he was going too fast. I am glad I was going slow!!

I almost forgot to go on my walk today, but phew!! I remembered, walking from 4:15-4:35. I almost got lost, too, because I walked an unfamiliar path, but then I figured out where I was, so here I am!! 

Two weeks of 2022

 Two weeks in:

1. I am still walking for 20 minutes every day. I impressed one of my co-workers because I was doing stairs as a part of my walk--I wouldn't stop to talk, but said I would walk with him because I needed to walk for 20 minutes straight. We happened to meet up on level one, and we walked up to level five before I veered off to do some level walking before going back to my office on four.

2. I am learning so much as a department chair. Last year I learned that it was not the end of the world if a faculty member turned in their annual report late!!!! (Who knew? I always felt it was a firm deadline, and while that sometimes caused some stress, I always turned mine in on time.) I thought that it MUST be in on time! And yet, no. Weird.  Now this year, I just learned yesterday that faculty members can spend more than their budget!!!!! What?!!! Another thing I have never done, but three of the people I am responsible for DID. Shocking. (To me!) Apparently two of them do this ALL THE TIME!!!! One is retiring soon, so I won't have to reign them in, but the other one--I do. This was another thing that I thought, in my naïveté, was just something a person could NEVER do. The one for whom it was the first time only overspent by $264, which when you are working with a couple of million dollars is just a small flash in the pan--easy to happen, since books that are on Title Standing Order come whenever they want, and cost whatever they want. (These books, from sets, are often pricey. Sometimes surprisingly so.) But the others!! By thousands of dollars. I was completely gobsmacked. I had no clue that anybody would do that, because with that much money--you kind of have to be aware that you are doing it.

Me checking up on me

 Well, one week into this new year, and how am I doing?

Work has been stressful! I have left a bunch of things hanging, waiting for Monday. It was a busy week, and this COVID thing--we were down by four students; I personally know three full-time staff members who were out with it; the shelving crew was down by three. Today I got an email telling me about some bad service a professor got because the experiential zone was short staffed and security was short staffed. It is hard to run a library (or anything) when people are getting sick. And other people have to quarantine until they either get sick or the all-clear.

As for my walking goal, I have done it. A twenty minute (or longer) walk every day. Every walk has been different--different route, different time of day. Rain or snow or sun or wind. 

Still planking. Those are still the two longest minutes in the day! 

In other news, I had a follow-up appointment with the opthalmologist. Dr. Nelson sent me to his partner who specializes in cornea surgery. My corneas have scar tissue.

As seems to be normal for me, if I need medical attention ever it is because of some random mistake another doctor made OR the doctor will make a mistake on me. 

So. When I was young and vain, I wanted to look beautiful. And I thought that contacts would help. My glasses were thick, and I thought contacts would improve my appearance. And they did--at least, judging by male attention. (Which I did receive before glasses as a child, and never received during glasses, but did receive while wearing contacts.) So that was nice for my vanity, but not so nice for my eyes.

Giving the eye doctor of the time his due, I am sure they knew less 40 years ago than they know now. Now, I think an eye doctor would say, "Contacts for you? Not a good idea. Your eyes are very dry, and this is a very dry climate. Not a good combination." So, I wore contacts pretty consistently for maybe three years, but they became painful, and they would stick to my eyeball, and I started wearing them less, until I finally stopped. I did try to wear them again when I lived somewhere wetter. Was it San Diego? Vancouver? I can't remember. I tried. Same problems. I stopped.

By then, the eye doctor was saying "You have holes in your corneas. You probably should not wear contacts." But I didn't know that the holes would develop scar tissue, and so my corneas are bumpy. They are so bumpy that, as the opthalmologist told me on Thursday "we usually see this in people who have worn hard contacts for many years." And I only wore soft contacts for a few years, but I damaged my corneas. Not BLAMING the eye doctor of my youth; just wishing that I had not relied on him saying "Sure! Let's get you some contacts." Wishing he had cautioned me. (Though I don't know if I would have listened!)

So I need Superficial Keratectomy Surgery. I will wait until the Spring, I think. 

Happy New Year

 Here it is 2022. Let's see what can be made out of this year. Like all years, it will have challenges, but I am going to try to be faithful, hopeful and courageous this year.

I have a few goals for this year. One is to take a 20 minute walk every day, and let me tell you, I was tempted not to start today, because by the time it warmed up to 21 F it was lightly snowing. But I did it anyway! 20 minute walk at -6 C. (Seriously, it was not that cold. Like, I have felt worse.) So, go me!

I also plan to continue with planking. I have been planking almost daily (missing only due to illness or shoveling snow and running out of time in the morning, and then forgetting later) for two years, and wow! It is still hard!! I thought by now two minutes would be easy, and I would be adding so many minutes, but nope. Two minutes still feels a whole lot like work.

And listening to scriptures while I exercise.

Those are pretty much my life goals. (Of course, I have a whole five pages of work goals, so don't worry, I have plenty to keep me busy this year!)