national parks, snark & occasional feelings
As I looked around at my life’s recent additions this week I realized most of them are things I’ve resisted, things I’ve even sassed and snarked about.
“I don’t need that,” I’d say, scowling like almost always. Or I’d declare I just simply can’t, can’t wake up early enough to go to the gym before work, can’t keep additional things alive in my house. Can’t, with a side of don’t fucking wanna.
I didn’t originally plan to exclusively read books written by women in 2018, at least not in the beginning. In the beginning, I just started reading. Then it was February, I was dutifully logging my latest reads on Goodreads, as I’ve done for past decade or so, and I realized all seven of the books I’d read in 2018 were written by women.
It’s not a new year unless I use my blog to shame myself into accomplishing things this year, right?
Last year I said I wanted to run 1,000 miles and then, less than three weeks after setting that goal, I hurt myself. And that was it. I knew almost immediately there was no way I’d be able to hit 1,000 miles and I was right. Last year was a real shitty year for running and while I don’t even know how many miles I ran last year, I do know it’s much less than 1,000.
Last week was the week I almost cried at work, you guys. It was not great, not even a little bit, plus it’s the holiday season and you know how I feel about that. This week was better, a little less chaotic, a little less daunting, but damn if I’m not really looking forward to a little escape into the woods next week.
I’m the person who says, ok, I have friends coming to visit in two months, lets undertake a room renovation in the midst of a super stressful job situation while taking a demanding online class, raising three pets, training for a winter race, getting really into trivia at my favorite brewery on Thursday nights while also trying to feed myself real dinners, brush my teeth and wash my face before bed and keep my house from descending into absolute chaos.
“Especially this time of year,” is the tag I add to the end to my December sentences about the shit I don’t need. The stress, the bullshit, the drama. I don’t need it. Especially this time of year.
I listen to people complain about the families they’re going home to, about all the eccentricities inherent to their family dynamic and I smile, nod, apologize for things beyond my control, say, “Ugh, that sucks,” or, “Ugh, that must be tough.” But what I want to say is, “Must be nice. At least you have a place to go.”
I gave up sugar. Kind of.
Mostly, I gave up dessert that’s not a square of dark as fuck chocolate. I stopped with the cake and the cookies and, most especially, the chocolate candy, to include my most beloved addiction, the peanut butter cup.
It’s vanity-based, this dessert desertion. I’m not on any sort of SUGAR IS THE DEVIL bandwagon or trying a new diet or even trying to lose weight. It’s not about any of that. It’s about the zits.
What the hell happened to 2018, y’all? I’m feeling woefully unprepared for the colder temperatures, the holiday season and the end of another year, but here’s a few delights that have helped downgrade my grump level.
I know I’m living in the future because I don’t have to go looking for neat shit to buy on the internet anymore, it just presents itself to me on my Instagram feed.
My reading definitely slowed down in the third quarter, probably because work keeps me very, very busy in the summer months. Then there was summer travel and by the time August ended, I realized I’d been reading the same book for multiple weeks, which almost never happens.
Still, I’m averaging around five books a month and I managed to read 15 books throughout July, August & September. Fingers crossed I can maintain or exceed that pace in the next few months and hit my goal to read 70 books.
I spent the weekend in Philadelphia visiting my friend, Tara, and a grand total of FOUR national park sites. I’d visited her before, always with a group of friends, and Philly is always, always a great time, but after perusing the National Park Service map of park units and talking to Tara the last time we were together, I realized I needed to get myself on a Philly-centric National Park Adventure. It was exactly the sort of escape I needed, Tara is an A+, top-notch tour guide and I never get tired of the two of us introducing ourselves together.
I bought these sandals at the end of summer last year because I wanted a stylish sandal that still had some support and OMG, I love these shoes so much. They’re sold out, they are so good. I wore them all day on Saturday, walking actual miles with Tara around Philly and my feet didn’t complain once. Fingers crossed they’re not gone forever.
Years ago, back when I first started giving a shit about my personal fitness, I used MyFitnessPal to track calories and drop a few extra pounds. I eventually stopped tracking my food and stopped weighing myself and started focusing on how I felt instead of what the scale said, but every so often it’s helpful for me to do a check-in and track my food for a week or a month, just to make sure I’m still making smart choices. So I’m doing that and I really do love MyFitnessPal. It’s easy to use and I get a little obsessive about plotting and tracking all my calories.
Hanover tomatoes are a thing around Richmond. They are so good and so perfect and there’s even a festival dedicated to them and while I didn’t get to go this year, some friends still got me a giant pile of tomatoes and for a while, I was on a tomato-eating rampage. I’ll probably finish out my tomato stash in the next day or two with one more BLT, but damn if I don’t love this time of year and those tomatoes.
I’d read 10 books in 2018 before I realized they were all by women and then I was like, ok, maybe I’ll do this for a quarter, but now it’s July, I’ve read 42 books and each and every one of them was written by a woman. Stephany inspired me to diversify my reading portfolio, so I’ve made a conscious effort to read books not just by women of color, but also by women from backgrounds that are different from my own. So far, it’s been great. I’ve read some truly incredible books this year, most recently The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya, about the violence in Rawanda and Wamariya’s attempts to escape it, attempts that eventually led her to the United States. It’s a heartbreaking read, of course, put important and powerful.