Yes, yes, I know we already had a weekend this year. But I was still on vacation, so it didn’t count.

But this weekend it does, and after the exhausting events of this week — a full week of work and an attempted political coup in my city (seriously, who offered to hold 2021’s beer?) — I really feel like I deserve to suck out all the marrow of life over the next 48 hours:

Here’s what I’m thinking:

• Go for a bike ride.
• Read outside. (It’s supposed to be nearly 50 and mostly sunny.)
• Knit. (I’m hoping to finish a project this weekend.)
• Send some mail.
• Bake.
• Watch the new version of All Creatures Great and Small.
• Take part in the Bout of Books Twitter chat. (Note to self: set your alarm now!)
• Figure out if there’s some useful action I can take to help alleviate feelings of horror about this week’s insurrection. (If you’ve found one, please share it in the comments. I know I’m not the only one looking.)
• Wash handknits. (It’s always my prettiest laundry day.)
• Work on my best-of-2020 reads post.

How about you? How are you going to spend your weekend? Jamming in activities or resting up from them?

Like everything else this holiday season, New Year’s Eve & Day were a little off, but otherwise fine. Usually, we spend the afternoon and evening of the last day of the year with our friend Sarah running between cinemas for a movie marathon and squeezing in a pizza dinner downtown.

Time with friends, dinners out, and movie theaters all being disallowed this year, we stayed in. We ate Christmas Eve leftovers (crepes and the last of the baked brie), watched a couple films (Die Hard and The Last Dragonslayer), and counted down the New Year by toasting with bubbly drinks and special French desserts I picked up on my way back from the eye doctor earlier in the day.

The traditional way to spend the first day of the year normally involves watching the Rose Parade and getting outside (Rudi usually rides with friends) before whipping up a traditional Southern New Year’s Day supper of greens, black-eyed peas, and cornbread.

The parade was canceled, so I slept in, but we did eat the rest of the Christmas morning cinnamon rolls once I got up. It was raining heavily all day, so neither of us felt especially motivated to get outside, and I never got out of my pajamas. And then, although I’d bought the ingredients for the usual supper, I forgot about it until we’d decided on something else and had it reheating in the microwave. We decided it would be no less lucky to have it this weekend, instead.

So, there we have it. I’m glad to see the year switch over, but apparently not so much that I was willing to make a fuss over it. A low-key greeting seemed best; I’d hate for 2021 to think it needed to outdo last year in terms of memorability.

The year is rapidly running out of hours, which is great, to be honest. Very few people won’t be thrilled to see 2020 disappearing in their rearview mirror later this week.

However, there are still a few things that I want to take care of before I close out the year:

• Make some year-end donations. I’m lucky enough to be able to make charitable donations throughout the year, but I know a lot of nonprofits are really hurting this year. I want to do what I can, particularly for my local aid organizations directly helping those stressed by the pandemic (particularly since our government apparently remains unconcerned about everyone’s welfare).
• Spend down my transit and flex spending accounts. Again, I was lucky in that my h.r. person was able to get us the ability to stop putting money into our transit accounts we stopped commuting, but because I did so much work travel at the start of the year, I built up a little buffer I need to distribute.
• Write the last handful of holiday letters. We sent out most of our holiday cards on Christmas day, but I saved a few that I wanted to write actual letters in. I did a few yesterday and should write the last three tomorrow.
• Clean the kitchen and bathroom floors. Let’s be honest: While starting the year with a neat apartment would be great, it’s just not going to happen. But I absolutely can (and should) wash the floors in my two smallest spaces.
• Eat lunch outside tomorrow. I’ll admit eating my midday meal al fresco has been more enjoyable on some days than others this week, but I definitely think it’s been good for me to spend time outside. My time off is going to end on a rainy note (precipitation is predicted for at least three of the next five days), so I definitely need to be outside tomorrow, regardless of the temperature.
• Bake cookies. I haven’t done it for the first week of my vacation and I’d hate to spend the last five days without homemade treats.
• Finish one more book. For the first time in years, I’m not going to average a book a week for the year. I intended to really work on getting to 52 books during my time off, but at some point it stopped being a stretch goal and just became ridiculous. However, if I can wrap up one more book, that will put me at 40 for the year.

What are you hoping to wrap up before 2020 hits the road?

One day left to salvage all my time off, which seems to have devolved to an awful lot of napping on the couch.

I’m planning to see if they have any trees at the farmers market. Going and cutting down a tree by myself just sounds depressing, I have a work event all next weekend, and Rudi’s thinking he’s gone until the middle of December, so finding an urban solution is my best hope. But if I don’t, there are tree lots open during the week.

Of course, my apartment isn’t ready for a tree, so I’ll also need to work on that. If they’ve sold out of trees in the appropriate size by the time I get to the market, that will be my one solace.

I’m a third of the way into one book and two thirds into two others.

Tomorrow is the last day of operation of one of my favorite restaurants, my local popsicle shop (which also serves other things). Their landlord is a jerk and notified them he wasn’t renewing their lease, but when I stopped by Friday for a pumpkin spice chai latte they said they had a lead on a new location. Fingers crossed, but I’d like to get over there for one last lunch order, which I can then take to the park for a bit with a book and soak up some sunlight before the rain moves in Monday.

And I would like to get over to Capitol Hill. The aforementioned work event is going to put a cramp in my local shopping, and since I didn’t time today properly, I didn’t get over there like I’d planned. But there is today.

So that’s today’s plan — farmers market, popsicle stand, park, shopping, and cleaning the apartment. (If the tree thing doesn’t work out, I reserve the right to switch out baking for cleaning.)

As long as I do not nap, it will all work out.

Okay, so apparently I was still in a food coma today (when you eat supper right before midnight, you have to carry it over to Friday), even though I only managed to make four of the ten items on my original Thanksgiving menu.

Above are stuffing, cranberry jelly, and the weird looking mashed potatoes that happen when you forget you only made one person’s worth of potatoes and add four people’s worth of milk to the pot. The shiny nature is because eventually I just wanted to eat, so I added tapioca to dry it out some. I’ll cook another potato and mix it in when I heat up the leftovers.

Not pictured is the corn pudding, which was also a little wetter than I’d hoped it would be, probably because my corn was frozen, rather than fresh. I’m keeping my fingers crossed it will dry out a little more when I reheat it in the oven. My cranberry and my stuffing were excellent, so at least I had that going for me.

I’ll be making a couple more of my menu items over the weekend and will let you know how those culinary misadventures go.

Also over the weekend, I’ll get to the things that I was supposed to cross off my list today, including contacting folks about the Virtual Advent Tour. I will definitely send emails today. If any of you want to proactively volunteer to give me a post for the 5th (Saturday) or 7th (Monday), that would be really helpful, since I have a work event all next weekend. But I’ll be in touch either way.

Finally, before I go, let me put in a plug for Small Business Saturday. Local economies are hurting this year in unprecedented ways and small business owners are struggling to keep up with increased safety requirements and decreased foot traffic. If you have the ability to support your local shops, please do. They pay taxes in your town (and, hell, your country), employ local workers at decent wages, and put their dollars back into your community. (Remind me to show you a picture of Jeff Bezos’ guest mansion one of these days. It’s just up the road.) If you don’t have a local bookshop or yarn shop, the internet can help you buy small elsewhere. Many small businesses are offering specials today (including sometimes free shipping), and that gift card or small purchase you make could end up being the sale that keeps someone in business another month. You could be a hero today and get your holiday shopping done!

I lean heavily vegetarian, which means that when I decided going home for Thanksgiving wasn’t going to be an option this year, I decided to forgo the turkey and gravy. Instead, my (coffee) table will be piled high with side dishes, including:

• Stuffing
• Mashed potatoes
• Sweet potato medallions (Mum & I won’t have to squabble over my desire to leave the skin on)
• Squash (possibly stuffed) or maybe pumpkin pasties
• Corn pudding
• Cranberry
• Carrots and peppers
• Broccoli or maybe green beans
• Salad
• Cheese and crackers
• Pie

I’m aiming for 2 servings of everything except the stuffing, the cranberry, and the pie. I’ll be very happy if those linger on for a few more days.

Wow. That’s a lot of cooking I need to do over the next 40 hours. I guess I’d better get moving early tomorrow.