It was a busy year with work and on the home front. I started baking sourdough bread earlier this year and I now religiously bake two loaves each week (two different starters - Seymour and Harry). I've perfected a softer crust (adding ice cubes under parchment sling before lid on to create more steam), experimented with flours (bread, wheat and rye mix is my current fave) and searched methods of scoring for the perfect "ear" or interesting design.
Almost two years into a pandemic. No one would have thought it would last this long (ok someone probably did), but I think we're pivoting to figure out how to live WITH this virus. Hubby and I were vaxed in March/April, yet we still got COVID in September. It was surprisingly easy to get and though we only had a mild case (I lost my sense of taste and smell, hubby had more of a flu), we're not anxious to repeat as we don't know the long-term effects. I'm still dealing with shoulder joint pain, though 95% better than when it first started, that has no other explanation than COVID side effect.
In the spirit of living, we took a few trips in a variety of modes. We were in Arizona twice - my husband's adult sons have settled there with their families and we were blessed with two granddaughters this year. There were also side trips to Flagstaff and Vegas. We went camping twice - a long weekend two hours away in an Airstream and a week-long trip to WI/UP Michigan in a TAB (hello COVID). And we made it back to our home away from home in Puerto Vallarta Mexico for a week.
I started the only book I read in December while in Mexico - The Girls in the Stilt House by Kelly Mustian. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either. A hundred years ago Ada and Mathilda form an uneasy and unlikely friendship out of circumstance and convenience in Mississippi. Ada is a lost soul who dreams of belonging - hard to do with an abusive father and an unexpected pregnancy. Matilda dreams of making a new life in the North with the promise of greater opportunity and independence; however, her knowledge of secrets and the killing Ada's father puts a hamper on those plans. The two teens face bias, racism and poverty, luck, kindness and mutual perseverance.
Following are my top 5 of the 21 books I read this year - they either stayed with me, giving mind something to continue chewing on, or simply delighted. How interesting that they're in the order I read them.
- Anxious People* by Fredrik Backman (February)
- The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal (June)
- Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult (July)
- Our Italian Summer by Jennifer Probst (August)
- The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi (November)
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