End of the year recap

 Let's attempt a return to blogging, shall we? I know I've tried this before, particularly at this time of year, but perhaps it will stick this time.

I'm dividing this post into four parts because most of the past year, outside work, fall into these areas.

Reading

I spent so much time at the end of 2023 compiling lists and organizing books so that I could have a meaningful reading year. I intended to participate in several slow community reads of books I already owned but had never gotten around to (or needed to revisit). Alas, I fell behind before the first week of 2024 had ended, abandoned lengthy books throughout the year, whenever I felt particularly panicked about falling so woefully behind on my Goodreads goal, and told myself I'd have time for these books once I retire. I bought too many and left them to languish while I read library books and galleys.  

My favorites, the books I finished feeling that I would happily read them again:

I am Homeless if This is Not My Home. Lorrie Moore

James. Percival Everett

Julia. Sandra Newman (I recommend interleaving its chapter with those of 1984 for an incredible reading experience)

During the Reign of the Queen of Sheba. Joan Chase

The Sum of Trifles. Julia Ridley Smith

Three Days in June. Anne Tyler

Orbital. Samantha Harvey

Enlightenment. Sarah Perry

Chouette. Claire Oshetsky

The Ministry of Time. Kaliane Bradley

The first time I pulled even with my Goodreads goal was on December 15. I finished my 101th book for the year earlier this morning--David W. Blight's bio of Frederick Douglass, which I started back in June!

Renovating

We started with the basement windows in my childhood home and the fascia and soffits outside in September 2023. In November, our contractor suffered a brain bleed, and no one knew if he'd recover. He did, and on January 1, 2024, he started demo in the basement so that we could transform space there into a studio apartment and bathroom, with a long, wide hallway that's going to serve as the home library once L.'s built the shelves. I spent too much of the year being told I had to make a decision NOW and actually believing it. The bathroom counter was finally templated yesterday and will be installed next Monday. That will mean the bathroom will be finished one complete year after work started. We still don't have the floor installed in the studio and hallway although we've had the planks on site since the summer. Because we are idiots, we decided to start another project before the basement was finished: enclosing the carport into a sun room, a half bath, and a tiny pantry/scullery. The contractor convinced us we needed a deck before the windows were installed because labor would be easier/less expensive than using scaffolding. Despite being told several times since late May that the windows are on order, we still don't have them and feel confident the contractor used our money to pay other bills (he had "Christian" insurance when he had the brain bleed; I am sure he didn't receive much help beyond a few thoughts, prayers, and casseroles). So in theory we have rudimentary walls that can't be finished until someone else pays the contractor for their project and he uses their money to order our windows. And Trump's tariffs are on the horizon! Whee! I suppose we will wind up ordering the windows ourselves to avoid the tariffs and trust we can get enough labor out of the contractor to pay back what we've given him. 

We have two to three more years of renovations to go. Plus all the work to get our current house ready to go on the market. I'm very much tired of it all.

Rescuing

In the past five years we've adopted three abandoned cats who've shown up in our back yard and lucked into rehoming a fourth. Our established cats (five of them) refused to accept any of the newcomers and L. keeps them at the house under renovation where they're happy to be inside but not confined to a bedroom. In January this year I took in a young female who we bonded with over the last month of her pregnancy. We are so so fortunate that we were able to get her and her five adorable babies into an actual rescue and that they were all placed in good homes. A month later another female cat started showing up for meals and since she was feral, not abandoned, I attempted to trap her and failed. It was the end of the summer before she brought two tortie kittens around to show them where the meals come from. These feral kittens I've had tnr'ed. They sleep in the crawl space and hang out on some shelves outside the patio doors most evenings, where they observe us and play with us through the glass. Right now we have a pseudo colony of five regulars and a couple of others who come and go. I spend way too much time fretting over these cats but who else is going to do it? 

Retiring 

Not from the library, but after 32 years of working at the polls, I've had enough. I'm tired of the insomnia of worrying over staffing. And I'm tired of feeling that my efforts to provide the precinct with a smooth-running experience are all for naught. We had a good turnout for November's election, but I don't understand why so many of our voters, voters who didn't vote for their party's candidate, threw their votes away on third party candidates or write-ins. One curbside voter filled in every bubble on her ballot in the president's race except Trump's. Anybody but Trump, right? But the tabulator won't count over votes, so she effectively didn't vote for president. A mentally handicapped man who couldn't wait for me to exit the voting panel pushed the button for Trump: why? Has his mother never told him what Trump thinks about the handicapped? A woman in a Christian tee shirt came in crying and saying she was afraid the candidates were demonic. She wanted me in the booth with her as she voted. Actually, she wanted me to vote for her, but I demurred. She calmed down after I told her she didn't have to tell anyone who she voted for. And then she voted for Harris.