Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.)
- Weather
Pretty cool this week, maybe unseasonably cold. The high temperatures ranged from 47.8°F to 32.4°F, with an average high of 39.2°F. The lows ranged from 32.4°F to 25.5°F, averaging 28.5°F. We got .95 inches inch of rain/freezing rain/wintry mix plus a dusting of snow this week. On the coldest day of the week, Tuesday, light snow fell all day and it was very blustery — wind chills that day hovered around 17°F.
- Beginnings/Firsts
We tagged a live tree at a friend’s small tree farm — never done that before, though we have cut down plenty of live trees for Christmas. Also, I got a pneumonia vaccine this week, which I’ve never had before (and should never need again).
- Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi) in addition to others elsewhere in this post
One wild thing! Caught on one of our motion cameras tonight.
- Wandering
I didn’t wander too far this week. Walked in town every day except Saturday, when my husband and I walked around the lake. Walked with a friend in town on Wednesday.
in town
lake
- Curiosity & Discoveries
Another odd Google Opinion Rewards survey this week. I don’t know why it felt so sure I was planning a trip to China. Although it says this was question 1 of 9, no more questions were asked. Maybe Google or one of its clients want to plant the idea in my mind to go to China? Now that I’ve typed the word China three four times, I’ll probably be asked again about my China trip planning process.
- Creating
As usual this time of year, I’m decorating a Christmas cottage and Christmas trees, making snowflakes, and doing other virtual creativity-adjacent activities in the world of the Jacquie Lawson Advent calendar. (This collage shows the outside landscape and part of the inside of the cottage.)
- Repairing and Maintaining the human(s), the cat, and the cars
Body/Mind: I worked out four times (4 hours) with weights and doing stretching this week. I walked more than 10,000 steps every day, more than 12,000 on four days, and a high of 15,899 on Monday. I walked on the treadmill on Tuesday for 17 minutes (1.2 miles). I got my hair cut early on Monday morning and walked to a small local pharmacy for a pneumonia vaccine (recommended by my PCP since I’m over 50) on Wednesday afternoon.
Cars: On Wed., my husband put snow tires on one of the vehicles and changed its oil.
- Gardening/Yard
No real garden work for me this week. My husband brought in the patio furniture and the wheelbarrows (after collecting a few weed/brush piles from the yard in one) on Thursday, and on Friday he blocked off the brick front walkway for the winter and staked the driveway for snow plowing.
garden this week
- Nesting
Cleaning/Maintenance: I did a load of clothes laundry on Monday and Saturday and towel laundry on Sunday. I vacuumed the kitchen on Thursday. I cleaned the windows between the kitchen and the sunroom, inside and outside, on Saturday, something I don’t do often. My husband went to the dump/recycling on Thursday.
Financial/Admin: I changed our bank password on Monday. On Thursday I had to call the water district about glitchy bill payment which I think is now rectified.
Food:
Monday I made cream of celeriac soup which we ate with homemade sourdough toasts and raw veggies with more of the homemade guacamole. We enjoyed that soup again on Tuesday, as well as radishes, carrots, and peppers with the last of the guac.
Wednesday I made roasted root veggies (all local beets, parsnips, fingerling potatoes, and carrots) and onions and our garlic (and our rosemary and thyme, + store-bought sage), and we had that as a side dish with veggie burgers (and lots of local arugula). I had leftover roasted root veggies on Thursday on egg noodles with shrimp and my husband had his chicken soup (adding noodles or rice to it, can’t recall). And beet+carrot hummus with carrots, peppers, and pear tomatoes.
I roasted cod on Friday (recipe using capers, kalamata or Greek olives, and local yellow pear tomatoes), which we ate with a wild rice blend and sautéed broccoli and cauliflower with soy sauce. Finished the cod on Saturday, with roasted Brussels sprouts with fig balsamic vinegar and pine nut couscous (Near East brand).
Sunday I made Pasta with Tuna & Capers in White Wine Sauce (which has been in my rotation since January 2015 and to which I always add kalamata olives & garlic and sometimes other things, and I use water-packed tuna), served with hummus and raw carrots, peppers, and radishes.
My husband made yogurt on Tuesday and he also cooked up a rotisserie chicken carcass with herbs and veggies to make stock/soup.
- Sleeping & Dreaming
Sleep was pretty good this week, though time asleep ranged widely from 5 hours 50 mins to 8-1/2 hours. My average sleep time per night was 7 hours 27 mins, and my average Samsung Fit 3 sleep score was 93.6. REM sleep accounted for 13 hours 25 mins and deep sleep for 6 hours 7 minutes.
- Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching
Reading
BOOKS
This week I finished The Spy Coast (2023, The Martini Club #1) by Tess Gerritsen. This first book in a new series features ex-CIA spy Maggie Bird and several of her friends who have also retired from the CIA, living in Purity (think Camden) Maine. Maggie is happily tending her chickens when a woman arrives at her house to tell her that a Russian hack into Agency files has revealed her name, among others, as part of an operation involving a Russian sleeper cell sixteen years ago in Malta, an event whose unfolding led to Maggie’s early retirement and keeps her wary of others even decades later. That night, the woman’s tortured body is left in Maggie’s driveway, prompting her quick flight from what she thought was her safe little community. From there we move back and forth in time from the past to the present, mostly hearing Maggie’s point of view but we also get the perspectives of Diana, another woman involved in the operation, and Jo Thibodeau, Purity’s acting police chief, who is puzzled by Maggie’s actions and that of her friends. A gripping plot with an authentic and engaging portrayal of the characters and their relationships. I’m reading the second one (and so far last one) next.
OTHER
These articles/essays caught my attention this week:
Gastrodome: E Is For Egg: Monday’s Child Is Fair of Face by Timothy Burke at Eight by Seven. All about eggs and eating them. I tend to be a bit squeamish about eating even chicken eggs, so this resonated for me:
“Eggs … do provoke a lot of strong gustatory reactions in many eaters, and in many cultures, for that matter. I think on some level the issue isn’t just textual and it’s not just taste. The egg is something that invites you to forget what it is, which is really the most incredible thing about it: it’s one of the most amazing strategies that animals worked out at an early evolutionary moment, though shelled eggs came along quite a bit later. … As with a lot of our food, we are sometimes so distant from what it is in biological terms that we forget what every egg thief knows: it’s food and home for a baby. Maybe as mammals that’s especially easy for us to forget because it’s not the way we roll.”
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A death in the family: The royal Clares by Scott Sumner at The Pursuit of Happiness. I appreciated several aspects of this essay, including the comments on travel, the photos of his brother’s house, and his ruminations on death and dying (and on euthanasia), including this:
“The title of this post is borrowed from volume one of Knausgaard’s My Struggle. He brilliantly describes the uncanny feeling of seeing animate life transition to inanimate life. I wonder if this confusion reflects the fact that even fairly rational people like me instinctively see life as being supernatural, and our minds have trouble seeing a loved one gradually lose the spark of life.”
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Finally, this. Can we teach students to spot misinformation? Does the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus exist? by Daisy Christodoulou at No More Marking. An interesting essay on a complex topic in its own right, but please do not forget to learn more about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.
Watching
We watched mostly “Death in Paradise” (end of season 9, start of season 10) and started the second (and so far last) season of “Pirie,” based on the Val McDermid novel A Darker Domain. Also a “House Hunters” or two. And football at the weekend.
Listening
some music Shazam’d this week
- Connections & Community
Local Support: Shopped at the farmstand a few times this week (for beets, parsnips, arugula, carrots, shallots, and other items I forgot to note). My husband and I had coffee and pastry at a local bakery on Tuesday afternoon. I had coffee and pastry on Thursday morning with a friend (JS) at a local bakery/café and my husband and I tried to eat there again on Sunday but there were no seats (got something small to bring home).
Relationships: I ran into a friend (JS) on a walk on Monday, chatted for about 10 mins and made a plan to get together later in the week (Thursday, as it happens). Also on Monday ordered a Christmas wreath from a neighbour’s (WD’s) granddaughter who came by. We gave Covid tests to friends (ED/SD) on Wednesday (also walked with her that day) and on Saturday they replaced the tests and we gave them passes to a local historic house & gardens. On Sat. I ordered flowers for my cousin to arrive on Monday, the day before my Uncle’s memorial service. On Sat. late afternoon we went to a friend’s (JS again) to tag one of his Christmas trees for future delivery and after that we stopped at friends’ (ND/TD) to pick up newspaper they save for us (for the woodstove) and chatted with them for an hour. Salon met for about two hours with six of us on Friday. My sister and I talked by phone for 1/2 hour on Thursday, I emailed KKT and exchanged a couple of emails with RVN this week, chatted briefly with neighbours throughout the week on walks, and caught up with my hair stylist/friend (GV) on Monday morning.
- Endings
The sun now sets before 4:30pm, as of Monday the 10th. From what I gather online, it won’t set after 4:30 p.m. again until 7 January 2026.
- All This Useless Beauty
something about the texture of the reflected clouds in water but also the daydreamy shoreline
aspen leaf with raindrops on pine needles
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