I have struggled with my “N” topic as anything that is N-related fits elsewhere.
Like Novelty…I want to do some things that are “new to me”, experiences I don’t normally do. Like maybe axe-throwing or archery. Or renting a houseboat. Something “different” from the norm. But the first two would likely go with health and fitness, the second with travel.
I considered Nurture. Taking care of myself, stepping back, meditation, more fresh air experiences. Except they kind of already fall under health.
No? Like I need to practice saying no to stuff? Not really, I’m already doing that. It started with my mom about a year after my dad died. I started saying no to being a default response for some things. I said no to being the automatic peacemaker in the family. On social stuff, I say no all the time — probably too much. I’ve said no to RASC involvement. I don’t have a problem saying no right now. Well, maybe I should say no to some of my own ideas, but that’s a different issue. I think.
I wondered about Navigation in the sense of a specific topic. Like AI. Or law studies. Or education or astronomy. Or retirement. But well, again, I already have those elements covered.
I could consider Nostalgia. It would incorporate some photos of my mom’s, a large scanning project, but again, that is going to go into retirement, not something I’ll get into much in the next year.
I could consider N is for Purging. Hehehe Technically, N would be for Needless i.e., a bunch of things in the house that I no longer need. That includes some electronics, clothes, and books in particular. I’ll purge after retirement. I might get rid of some stuff before then, but it’s not urgent.
And lastly, I have N is for networking? It’s possible. If I decide to do a legacy project before I exit the public service, I could use the networking to make that happen. It would however generally stop me from doing alternation, the HR “box” that I would be in wouldn’t be a great one for potential alternation, more of a temporary one until I exited. Not impossible, but unlikely.
So I’ll probably stick with N is for nostalgia. Maybe it doesn’t have to go that far back. Maybe I’ll just curate some of the stuff from Andrea, Jacob and I.
Are you doing anything for nostalgia this year? A special trip or scrapbooking project?
I thought I knew what this item would be about up until today. I was going to write about board games. Andrea, Jacob and I play board or card games almost every night after dinner, sometimes even at lunch if we need a break from work, and sometimes during the day on the weekend.
We have even done a “tournament of games” this past year where I tracked who won all the games we played so we could see who was the grandmaster for the year (I have to still total up Q4 — Jacob won 2 of the first quarters, Andrea won 1, and I was equivalent of a “ball return” in bowling, I passed the cards back to the next dealer). And we’ll do it again this year.
I’ll also add some Lego activities, some video games with Jacob, etc. and some more activities outside the house with Andrea (more walking, most likely). Plus whatever comes if I retire this year.
But then today happened.
We got some really good news on one of Jacob’s health-related issues. I’d love to brag about it, but well, it’s not really my story to tell. And it isn’t necessarily amazing to anyone who doesn’t know Jacob’s story. The average person would think it was no big deal. But it was huge for Jacob, and one of the rare occasions I have seen him almost bubbling over in the last few difficult years. He’s not the most emotional of kids outwardly, but he was tickled pink today at his own performance.
And so I wonder if I need to think more about the family item and related goals. Most of the time since 2020, we’ve been looking for an “absence of bad news”, or some form of manageable normalcy. Actual good news has been rare.
That sounds a bit harsh, I know. We had good times in 2025, for example, I’m not saying we didn’t. We took a great trip to BC and saw some amazing things. And Jacob had a great time in the mountains, as expected. Switchbacks weren’t much fun for me, but the rest of the trip “worked” most of the time.
But I realized today that almost all of our family life comes with an asterisk. And while there is still an asterisk on the stuff today with Jacob, it’s a small asterisk and likely to disappear. It may not, but we’re taking the win for now.
How do I harness more of THAT awesome sauce than the “absence of bad” that we’ve been dealing with? We need more of those moments to celebrate. And it doesn’t have to be big wins.
Yesterday, Andrea had an appointment late in the morning, I drove over to pick her up, and we were both free together at lunch. So we stopped at Kettleman’s for a bagel lunch, BLT for her and club for me. Just a nice leisurely lunch, no kid, no appointments to get to, not rushed to get back to work, no work to talk about, just chatting. It was really nice, something we haven’t done in a while. Unrushed. Kind of the type of lunch or outings I would like more of in my retirement, although Andrea likely won’t retire quite yet.
Is it too simplistic to just say that I want “bigger”? More positive oomph in our lives?
I confess, I committed cultural appropriation; I stole a Christmas tradition from Iceland.
Most avid readers have probably heard of Iceland’s Christmas Eve tradition, Jólabókaflóð. Well, okay, they probably don’t know it’s called that. Nor even that it translates as “Christmas Book Flood”. But the idea is that people exchange books on Christmas Eve, and then spend the night curled up reading. Often combined with a hot beverage (like hot chocolate). Apparently, it is tied to WWII when lots of things were rationed or unavailable but paper was easily found, so books were a go-to choice. Equally interesting, the publishing industry in Iceland even gears up for it with new releases every year.
So did I write and release a book in Iceland? No.
Did I go to Iceland and get adopted by a book-giving family? Also, no.
Did I gift or read books by Icelandic authors? Wait, wait…oh. Also, no.
Okay, fine. All I did was buy a bunch of books for my usual shopping targets, give the books to them all wrapped up, and say they were from “Book Santa”. It’s a start. More like lazy cultural inspiration, I suppose.
The books I chose
I was inspired, in part, by the idea that the books themselves should be ones I, as the giver, should choose, not ones they asked for or were on their reading list. It should be “new” to them, perhaps.
Which means I failed entirely for Andrea. She had the book The Testingby Joelle Charbonneau on her “to be read” list on GoodReads, so I went for it. The book is set in the Great Lakes region, as a dystopian future, and is reminiscent of the series Divergent. The main character, Cia, is about to be tested for a Commonwealth graduate program of future leaders. The first of a trilogy, I went for it simply as one I knew she would like.
For Jacob, it’s a bit harder. If Jacob wants a book, we normally just get it. He often asks for certain books as gifts, which often as not are also part of series that he’s already reading. I didn’t want to do that though. I wanted the “surprise”. But he doesn’t have a large ongoing list like Andrea, so I went searching for something a bit more fantasy-like that had good buzz. Legendbornby Tracy Deonn is the first of a trilogy called The Legendborn Cycle, with books 1 and 2 out with good buzz / reviews and book 3 coming out in March. Add in the fact that it has ties to the King Arthur legend, and it was an easy “yes” from me.
After that, things got tough fast. I don’t have much experience buying books for other people, not even the remaining five on my short buying list.
I have some insights into my brother-in-law Dean from his TV and movie watching, and The Compound by Aisling Rawle seemed like it might interest him. It was another favourite of the year on some lists for contemporary / pop culture, and was even a Good Morning America book club pick, too. It’s a story about a young woman, Lily, who lives in a dystopian future (natch) and goes on a reality show for fame and fortune. The premise is a blend of Big Brother (living in a compound) and the typical Survivor twist (doing tasks to earn rewards for your team or yourself). Plus, of course, people get voted off the island out of the compound to whittle it down to the finalists. I snagged an ebook version for myself too and actually read it while I was in Peterborough. I don’t know if he has started it yet, but it’s quite good. It’s the first book by the 27-year-old author, and I’ll read more from her. Dean would probably have preferred it on his Kobo, but it’s not clear how easy that would be to gift to him electronically, nor how to wrap it on Christmas Eve. 🙂 Paper it was!
For my sister-in-law, Becky, it was a bit easier. She, Andrea and their mother frequently share and trade the same books, often with a historical bent plus some romance and/or mystery. Kate Quinn and other authors figure prominently in the swaps, as does WWII, women in non-traditional roles, etc. I chose Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry as it has all three in spades, although perhaps with a bit more romance than they would typically choose. The main characters are two authors vying to write a biography of a former-tabloid-star-turned-recluse, now in her 80s. The mystery is what happened back in the day, plus the romance between two very different authors. It was on many year-end lists, which seemed promising.
For my niece, Grace, she’s into fantasy, and I know some of the other books she is reading. I wanted something a bit different, and I fear I might have gone TOO different. I chose Bury Our Bones In The Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab, who also wrote The Invisible Life of Addie Larue which was excellent. So why do I think it was too different? Well…it advertises itself as being about immortality and hunger and involves a woman in Spain in 1532, another in London in 1827, and another in Boston in 2019. Part character drama, part feminist critique, part horror thriller? I’m not completely crazy, as Schwab is a great writer, and the book did make a lot of year-end lists too! But a feminist horror drama? We’ll see how she likes it. It’ll definitely be different. Heck, even the publisher calls it genre-defying. Hah!
For my mother-in-law, Marney, I mentioned above that I know some of her reading tastes from the books she shares with her daughters. Historical, mystery, romance. I had three reasons for choosing My Friends by Fredrik Backman. First and foremost, it has this intriguing-sounding storyline about a famous painting that has three little figures in the corner of it that nobody ever notices. But the main character, Louisa, wants to find out the backstory of those three figures so she drives across the country to try and figure it out. History, art, mystery, it sounds cool. Second, you’ll notice a theme: it made several end-of-year lists for 2025. But thirdly? I tripped over Fredrik Backman as an author about 18 months ago when a video of him giving a speech at a writing convention went semi-viral. I’ve been intrigued by him ever since, and have other books of his on my reading list, just haven’t made it to them yet.
Of course, if you want to see the original video that sparked my interest, here it is. Not super polished, but still engaging and funny. “Being a writer is the best way to get paid for being insane.” Yep, I hear ya.
The “last” on my list was my father-in-law, Ron, and his was perhaps the easiest of all. He reads a lot of crime novels, as do I, as well as legal thrillers/procedurals. That made choosing The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose relatively easy, I just looked for one that I might enjoy myself! I don’t remember the author, but this is a re-release and re-edit of a book about a female trial attorney defending her husband on the charge of murdering his mistress. It got some surprising buzz, despite being a re-issue, and showed up well in a recent list I was looking at of legal thrillers on Amazon, seeing if there were other writers whose names weren’t Grisham, Turow or Bernhardt that I should consider. I do worry that the premise sounds a bit like Presumed Innocent, by Scott Turow, played by Harrison Ford in the movie. Except in that one, he was the main character, a prosecutor now on trial and his wife was supportive, not defending him. I’ll see if I can snag a copy from the library to read too. Apparently, a sequel is coming out called The Perfect Divorce.
Now, here’s an interesting quirk. I said Ron’s was the last book, but that isn’t exactly true. I didn’t know who else might be there for dinner on Christmas Eve or over the holidays, when we might be opening the presents from Book Santa (Becky, Dean, and Grace didn’t arrive until Boxing Day). I needed one more book as the “extra” in case someone else arrived, so I could include them. Which in and of itself is a challenge. How do you pick a book for no one and everyone? Well, it wasn’t exactly no one, I did have SOMEONE who was a likely candidate, so I went with something I thought might appeal to them.
I’ll confess that I really like Jeffrey Archer’s writing style. I’ve read probably 20 of his books over the years, and always enjoy the fast pace and the breezy narrative. They are highly accessible, certainly never flag with pacing issues, and well, they’re not exactly heavy trodding. They’re relatively light and fun. I hadn’t realized that he had a series of detective novels for a character named William Warwick, but hey, why not get the first one? Nothing Ventured by Jeffrey Archer seemed like a good compromise. As it turned out, we didn’t need an extra gift for a surprise guest. But I figure that books should NOT return to sender, ever, and Book Santa only exists one day a year anyway in this realm (hey, it’s my cultural appropriation slash inspiration, I can make up new rules on the fly!). So I gifted that one to Ron, too, as I know he has read other Jeffrey Archer books.
Wait, there’s one more book
Andrea got me a book, too, so I could be part of the book flood. Except, like Jacob, I don’t really have much of a “book acquisition” list. If I want a book, I usually just get it. But we had both seen a book advertised on Facebook videos: Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson. Funny enough, I had thought it sounded like a great idea for a book, and I wanted it, but never actually ordered it. The book is awesome. It has a wicked style in it, told by a narrator in first person past tense but who openly breaks the fourth wall every couple of pages in a fantastic way. I’ll do a full review, but I’m giving it five stars. There is a serious plot hole that the book glosses over in one spot, which the narrator kind of admits is not a great answer to the obvious question, but I didn’t even care. The rest of the pieces tie together in obvious and not so obvious ways, with callbacks, and misdirections reminiscent of a great magician. He does something with one line that he repeats in two places and while you’re looking for the trick, he does it right in front of your face, and you still miss it. It’s brilliant. In any other book, the plot point would be deadly; here it’s a minor sin. And yes, like the tradition is supposed to unfold, I read it over the holidays, staying up late to finish it. Even though I had a cold and was nursing an abscessed tooth.
I talked about the “new tradition” with Andrea, we’ll see if the books for others resonated with anyone. If not, maybe Andrea, Jacob and I can do it still, just the three of us. I like the idea of doing it almost like drawing names, though, that each person would have to get someone’s name and perhaps a suggested genre, but would have to find a book on their own aka no “lists” or suggestions. I suppose they would have to rule out authors they have everything by or something, I don’t know. Or again, maybe just the three of us.
I liked doing it, even if Icelanders might come for me.
So, some years ago, we had some problems with our smoke detectors. They were getting close to a due date to replace them all, particularly as we had changed the batteries on one or two a couple of times in the previous year, but they were still prone to regular chirping. They were draining the batteries too quickly, but well, it was batteries, not a huge expense.
While we were doing some other work, we decided to replace all the smoke detectors in the house. The new ones would be directly wired to the electrical grid, come with battery backups, of course, and be linked together so that if one went off, they all went off. It was VERY convenient.
Now with our old stove (yes, I’m still on the same story), any time we used the broiler, it was easy to end up having some extra smoke come out of the oven when we were done, and the alarms would go off like crazy. So we knew they always worked. I checked the batteries for the first year, but with the convenience of direct wiring and the fact that they went off a couple of times a year, I knew they worked, so I stopped checking the batteries regularly.
Last week, there was a power outage in the middle of the night. This is kind of weird, as this has NEVER happened to me before — my CPAP machine had no power so it stopped, of course. Which woke me up. Okay, no biggie, take the mask off, roll over, verify power is out all over, back to sleep.
About 20 minutes later, the smoke detector chirped. Low battery. Ugh.
The power isn’t off for long stretches, sooooo I tried to tough it out. Nope, about 5 minutes later, chirp. It seemed to be happening at faster intervals, and it took me a while to figure out that it was ALL three detectors chirping at different intervals. I have zero desire to be climbing a ladder at 3 in the morning myself while holding my phone as a flashlight. Everybody else was still asleep.
I tried going to the basement only to realize that my incoherent comprehension of the chirping was all three chirping, with the one in the basement the loudest by far. I gave a shot at trying to remove the battery from that one, as it was easy to reach, but I couldn’t figure it out with limited light. I also couldn’t figure out a shush button, although I was pretty sure there was one somewhere. I went back to bed, finally dozed off when the batteries stopped even chirping upstairs, but my sleep was destroyed.
I woke up around 6:00 or 6:30 and the power was back on, but I never managed to recover.
So I added it to our list — put new batteries in the smoke detectors. Which, of course, means I have to take one down to confirm WHAT type/size battery it is — 9 volts. Great, guess which ones we’re out of? Oh yeah, 9 volts. So another day goes by. And the detectors start chirping. I have power, I get that I need to replace it, but we have other stuff going on. Yes, I found out there’s a shush button that keeps it quiet for about 12 hours and then it starts chirping again.
It took me a day or two, but yes, I got them, and yes, we replaced the batteries. Of course, two are one style and one is different, cuz why not add to the fun of figuring out to get them down and change the batteries? I was sure I bought them at the same time with all three being the same, but who knows, maybe I didn’t. Or maybe that was one where we had the contractor buy them. I don’t remember at this point.
But it was interesting. The convenience of having them directly wired led to the problem that I stopped checking them, they always had power. The inconvenience of the chirping led to the solution of updating them.
Now I just need to remember in 6 months to check them again when we change the clocks. Although now I have a question…if I do the check, and it sounds like it’s supposed to, how do I know that’s not just the wired part working but that the batteries are okay too? I assume as is the case with these ones, if it’s too low, it will chirp again but the “test” may not necessarily tell me that, I guess.
Andrea, Jacob and I play a lot of games after dinner. We don’t really keep track of who wins what or how many times, but I’ve always wondered if we could create a pseudo-tournament idea by keeping track over the course of a year. We started the year while on vacation, so we didn’t capture EVERYTHING, but we did keep track each week on a calendar near our kitchen table.
I didn’t think it through in advance…while MOST of our games are the three of us, there are also lots of 2-player events where Jacob and I will play some cribbage during the day, or a Scrabble game that is usually just Jacob and Andrea (I don’t do well at word combination games).
Over the first three months of 2025, we played 12 different games:
Jeopardy — We have a calendar and do the questions each week, trying to beat each other by Sunday…Jacob won 5 weeks, Andrea won 4, I won 3, and Andrea and Jacob tied one game;
Alleys — Andrea won 10 games but always feels like she never wins, while Jacob and I won 5 each;
UnoFlip — only 1 game, with my winning;
Moonshot Euchre — 1 game/win for each of us;
SuperQuiz Trivia — 1 game that Jacob won;
Abduction — 1 game that Jacob won;
Scrabble — 1 game that Jacob won;
Epic Galaxies — 1 game that I think Andrea won;
Labyrinth — Not sure who won that one;
Catan — 1 game that Andrea won;
Cribbage — We have played a LOT of cribbage in the first three months, combining normal 5-card cribbage (with 3 players); 6-card cribbage (with 2 players); a variation with 8 cards (with 3 players); a variation with 9 cards (with 2 players); and a complicated cribbage board called Crib Wars…I lumped them all together, and as I said, Jacob and I played a lot of games just the two of us, but the end of the quarter has Andrea with 9 wins, Jacob with 24 wins, and me with 16 wins; and,
Backgammon — Mostly just Jacob and I, with Jacob winning 9 and me winning 11.
The end result was 113 games with Jacob winning 51, my winning 37, Andrea winning 27 (but again she didn’t play most of the cribbage games), and Andrea and Jacob tied one game.
If I count just the games that were predominantly three people playing:
Jeopardy: A 4, J 5, P 3, tied AJ 1
Alleys: A 10, J 5, P 5
UnoFlip: A 0, J 0, P 1
Trivia: A 0, J 1, P 0
Abduction: A 0, J 1, P 0
Epic Galaxies: A 1, J 0, P 0
Catan: A 1, J 0, P 0
Total: A 16, J 12, P 9 plus AJ 1
So it looks like Andrea is leading the First Quarter and sits as Queen of Games.
