The first weekend of 2013 will hopefully include a variety of tasks, such as:

• Finish mailing out my Christmas cards
• Mail out the Christmas packages (this will only be possible if one of the post offices is open on Sundays still — Tenleytown’s automatic lobby machine is a possibility)
• Return library books to Virginia (hopefully to D.C., too, but that may be Monday’s task)
• Do laundry
• Wash socks
• Go to the farmers market
• Complete a sock
• Assemble a cabinet
• Vacuum
• Take a walk
• Stop in at the local museum/gallery’s Three Kings Day party
• Write thank you notes
• Review some books
• Hang out with Julia
• Drink eggnog in front of the tree while watching a Christmas movie

How about you? What do you have planned this weekend?

Happy 2013! As it’s Thursday, it’s time to look back at three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Rudi and I stop at Modern for pizza on our way back to D.C. Eating there would have required at least an hour’s wait out in the cold, so instead we called in a take-out order (and drove over to the New Haven Green to see the tree while we waited). We ate our fresh-out-of-the-oven, can’t-be-beaten pies in the car sitting outside the pizzeria.

2. I have knit much of a sock in the last week. The yarn is bright and self-striping in a colorway called Fruitcake, and the only constant through it all is the strand of sparkly red stellina that makes me feel so cheery when I look at it.

3. I have been sleep-deprived for months. The last week has been filled with sleeping late, going to bed at (by my standards) reasonable hours, and lots of naps on the sofa.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week as the calendar changed months and years?

Happy New Year! I hope you rang out all the negative and welcomed in the positive.

We finished the year strong with our annual movie marathon, concluding 2012 with pizza and potential Oscar contenders and friends (the most important of the three). We came home to tea and cupcakes, and as today has progressed we both have dabbled in a variety of things we hope 2013 will possess.

I, for one, am planning to reconnect with my blog. December marked a period filled with hours and hours AND HOURS of reading young adult fiction and any time that used to be spent on other recreational activities had to be reapportioned in order to finish my obligations. That paid off, however, because the Cybils shortlist came out today. I was lucky enough to write the blurb for Endangered, which was a stellar addition to the field of fiction that is science-themed. (I don’t want you to misunderstand if I say it’s science fiction.) The other shortlisted books in our category (young adult realistic fiction) are equally good, and several of them were among the very best of what I read for the year. I highly recommend you check them out. I’ll be diving into the middle grade fiction and the fantasy lists in the next few weeks.

However, those are not the only things I’ll be reading, as my choices are now my own again. Here are a few of the other things I’m excited to read in 2013:

Ten Books I Resolve Want to Read in 2013

1. Jasper Fforde’s The Woman Who Died (the latest Thursday Next installment)
2. Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior (I know I still have (my signed, hardcover copy of) The Lacuna to read, but I may just skip ahead and come back, as her newest appeals more right now.)
3. Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore
4. Bill Bryson’s At Home
5. William Kuhn’s Mrs Queen Takes the Train
6. Jacqueline Winspear’s Messenger of Truth (the 4th Maisie Dobbs novel)
7. Laurie King’s A Monstrous Regiment of Women (the 2nd Mary Russell book)
8. Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey
9. William Alexander’s Goblin Secrets
10. The Odyssey (this is the year!)

(Hat tip to raidergirl3 for sharing today’s topic and to Broke and Bookish for hosting.)

I will share some summaries of and thoughts about my Cybils reading (and the 2012 reading that preceded it way back when), as well as my own personal top ten list, in the days to come. Please do stop back.