Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Starbucks got my order wrong and after mulling just drinking a green tea latte that tasted like rotten grass, I went back and told them there had been a mix-up. The barista apologized for the counter guy mishearing my drink.

2. Making plans to see people in person this weekend.

3. The weather, which earlier in the day had been chilly and raining, cooperated so some of us could meet before volleyball and stand outside with our drinks.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

How the day began:

Potomac Phil predicted six more weeks of winter and six more months of political gridlock. Neither is surprising, since the spring solstice doesn’t show up for another six weeks and no one gets along anymore anyway.

How the day ended:

Hot chocolate bombs in front of the Christmas tree before undecorating it and putting the ornaments away. (I haven’t actually done that last step since 2019, so getting everything boxed up felt pretty good.)

It will surprise no one who’s read this blog over the years to hear that winters are hard for me. Combine early sunsets, a night owl personality, a 9-5 job, and a below-ground apartment, and you’ve got a recipe for someone who’s struggling with Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Over the years, I developed a number of coping techniques that would take me from the post-holiday blues through the end of February. But I’ll admit that since COVID, a lot of those have gone out the window. I no longer leave the house for work, which means I’m not walking or riding my bike at Mach-1 first thing in the morning trying to get to the office on time. I used to have a couple nights of playing volleyball each week, but I scaled it back to just one for safety reasons and haven’t added a second night back in. All indoor activities are back to being potential super spreader events, which means if it’s too cold to sit outside (which it has been this week), I just don’t bother stopping at cafes or restaurants.

The good news is that as of this evening, the sun is back to setting after 5:30. And it will just get later and later. And after years of living with this, I know that if I’m just patient and wait it out, there will come a day that doesn’t seem bleak and exhausting.

In the meantime, I do have a variety of lights that are supposed to help with this time of year. None of them are currently plugged in, which probably feels like a step I could tackle this week. The Christmas tree should come down in the next couple days, but I could put some fairy lights up around the perimeter of the room to give it a pinky glow and replace the batteries on the ones that live in jars.

And tomorrow morning, we’re getting up a little early to go and see a taxidermied whistle pig prognosticate the state of our weather and political gridlock. It probably won’t cure the winter blues, but maybe he’ll offer the hope of an early spring.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share books with character names in the title. Here are the last ten I read:

1. Faith: Taking Flight by Julie Murphy
2. Bruno and the Carol Singer by Martin Walker
3. Nancy Drew: The Palace of Wisdom by Kelly Thompson
4. Aurora Burning by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
5. Becoming Duchess Goldblatt by Anonymous
6. Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert
7. Jo and Laurie by Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz
8. Serena Singh Flips the Script by Sonya Lalli
9. Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez
10. Bandette, Vol. 3: The House of the Green Mask by Paul Tobin and Colleen Hoover

Have you read any books recently with a character’s name in the title? Would you recommend them?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Meeting up in person to work with a colleague at the library.

2. Rudi and I both came home from Salt Lake.

3. Because we both left so early in the month, it’s still Christmas in the Burrow. My tree weathered our absence surprisingly well. We may celebrate Russian Christmas (redux) this weekend.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday at That Artsy Reader Girl asks us to share new author discoveries from the past year. Here are ten new-to-me authors I discovered in 2021 (in no particular order):

1. Evie Dunmore
2. Carlos Hernandez
3. Abby Jimenez
4. Sonya Lalli
5. Jackie Fraser
6. S.J. Bennett
7. Elizabeth Everett
8. Kelly Thompson
9. Farah Heron
10. Tirzah Price

Conveniently, many of these authors already had series in progress or in the works when I stumbled across them, which makes finding the next read from them super easy!

How about you? Did you discover any authors last year you’ll be reading again?