Twitterpated, part one

Like most of us who use social media, I have a love-hate relationship with it. I've written about this plenty before, it's not a new topic. My goal has been to "get a handle on" my usage, learn how to steel myself against the addictive qualities of The Scroll, and have a healthier relationship with my phone. Um, yeah. 

In the meantime, while I was figuring out how to be a Social Media Superwoman, I fell into a pattern. I would find myself doom-scrolling Twitter at 11pm, unable to stop. So I would delete it. For a few days, it would be such a relief. Then for a few days, I would miss the interaction, but not much. Then after a few more days, I would re-install the app, and think, why did I delete this? It's so much fun! I love these people! And for a week or two, I would healthily manage my social media interactions and everything would be great. And then after a few more days, I'd be doom-scrolling at midnight again. Repeat.

A few weeks ago it occurred to me, wait, maybe this is the way I healthily manage social media. I don't have to be all-in, I don't have to be all-out. I don't have to figure out what way smarter, more savvy people than me have been unable to figure out (how to resist the addictive qualities of The Scroll, which are purposely programmed in by evil geniuses). Maybe if I reframe the way I think about the cycle, this is how I do it.

So I've been through it a couple more times, and you know what? It works pretty well. I use my social media apps (mainly Twitter), making judicious use of iOS 15's productivity features (more about that another time). When I get to the point where it feels unhealthy, I delete it for a few days or a week. When I start to miss it, I reinstall it and start over. It doesn't seem right to manage it that way-- it seems like I should totally conquer my unhealthy habits, or if I can't, I should abstain 100%. And maybe that's the way it works for some people, and maybe that's the way it will work for me at some later date. But for now, this is the way I "manage" my social media. 

This was going to be a lot longer, but I'm out of time, and I always say I'm going to start writing shorter posts, right? So here you go. A short one. 

p.s. I remember my mom used to use the word "twitterpated," but I had no idea where it came from until I just googled. It is a song from the old Disney movie Bambi. Who knew? And since I didn't, that can't be this week's nostalgia listen, so hmmm.

OK, this week's nostalgia listen: "Jazzman" by Carole King. Listen here. She is a goddess. For extra amazingness, click here for "So Far Away." I wonder if I could find my Tapestry CD.

ch ch ch ch changes

When I have my occasional a-ha!! moments, after they're over, they often seem so obvious that I'm a little embarrassed it took me so long to figure it out. Surely everyone else already knew this.

That's how I felt about my realization that at age 59, I am no longer in the same demographic that I was at age 49 (the original posts are here and here). Well, DUH, as we used to say when I was in junior high. How could I possibly have thought that I was? 

But I've continued to read and listen to people and podcasts, and you know what? I'm not alone. I'm not the only woman in her 50s who is having trouble making this mental switch. It's not so much that we mind our encroaching age. After all, by the time we've reached this age, we've lost friends and loved ones and we know how lucky we are to make it to 60. 

It's that we don't feel old, at least not the way our youth-obsessed culture defines old. We don't feel irrelevant, and that's how our society views "old" people. And my friends who have already turned 60 don't seem like senior citizens, at least not the way I thought seniors were when I was 40. I think that is more about my misunderstanding of what a senior is like than it is about 62-year-olds being different than they used to be. Our society really is remarkably stupid about aging.

I think the key is that we have to change how we think about age. We can't do much about changing how young people think-- I can remember being that younger woman who rolled her eyes when someone in her 50s would enthusiastically tell me that "50 is the new 30." That younger me was not convinced. 

But we can change what we believe about ourselves, and about age. We've internalized this idea that if you're not at the center of making things happen, your usefulness as a human being is gone. So we keep chasing after that feeling of being in the "maker" stage, the influencer stage, the making a difference stage. I want to feel like I matter.

But you know what? We do matter. We just do. We don't have to manufacture this, or change our culture, or convince anyone, we just have to believe it ourselves. Instead of trying (unsuccessfully) to continue to shoehorn ourselves into the mid-life category, we need to change how we think about people in their 60s. Yup, I'm old. Yup, I'm no longer on the center stage of what is happening in our world. But I am still a badass.

What if we just move forward? Instead of accepting what our culture tells us--that if you're not in that cultural sweet spot of mid-thirties to mid-forties, you don't matter-- how about if we dump our own anti-age prejudice and know down to our core that american culture is wrong about aging?

Because if we don't do this, if we continue to try to pretend that are in that center stage phase, that's exactly when we become ridiculous. To be clear: Do what you want, wear what you want. Ignore the YouTube tutorials about "seven things women over fifty should never wear" and "six makeup tips for looking 35 again." That's not what I mean. 

What I mean is: recognize that the generations have shifted. The women who are in their 30s to 40s have a different cultural context than we did. They have a different set of priorities and a different set of challenges. We can't talk down to them as if the things we did at their age were important, and theirs are just window dressing. We can't tell younger women that their a-ha moments are unnecessary because our generation already did that (not kidding, I came so close to actually saying that a couple of months ago).

Every generation has to figure out certain things for themselves. Their generation is being forced to manage their kids' online education while figuring out how to organize their homes during lockdown and track their Instagram feed and monitor their kids' use of TikTok and Snapchat. It's a whole different world out there. 

Our lives currently include aching knees, unrestful sleep, chin hairs, and not understanding why anyone would want four social media apps. Own it, my friends. We got this.

****** a blog note ******

Last week we spent the entire week smothered in a thick fog that was actually smoke, blown in from forest fires on the west coast. Like many people with allergies and smoke sensitivity, it was a miserable week for me. But-- of course -- not even close to as miserable for us as it is for the people who are actually experiencing the fires.

It finally rained a bit over the weekend, which at least temporarily cleared out the smoke and let my brain start working again. And when it did, I remembered the post I accidentally published last Monday. It wasn't supposed to go up until Tuesday, but it's easier than you would expect to screw that up. I quickly figured out my mistake and "unpublished" it, and for the first time ever, I managed to delete it before it went to the RSS feed so it never appeared in my reader. But then the smoke descended and I forgot about it until yesterday, so that is why a post that is dated last week was just published yesterday, and why those of you who are email subscribed received at least two copies of it (three?). Oops.

Don't Make Me Come In There

So much has happened in the last two weeks. So much. But that's not why I'm typing today. Today I just want to say that I am so disgusted with our leaders for not being able to negotiate a middle way. It doesn't have to be shutdown vs. party in the USA, you know.

It would be so simple to do this in a way that isn't divisive-- to recognize that different regions of the country are at different places; that the need to reopen the economy and restore people's paychecks can go hand in hand with cautious practices like social distancing, wearing a mask, washing your hands, avoiding large public gatherings-- and being prepared to shutdown again if the virus starts to surge.

But we are so in love with being angry at each other. Apparently, we can't give it up. Of course, I blame this on our current president, who can't even be bothered to wear a mask while he's in a hospital. If you like him, you blame it on the Democrats. Whatever.

Could we just get over it already? For awhile, at the beginning of the shutdown, it looked like we had finally found something that would unite us. But now, at least around here, it's just been turned into another thing that polarizes us. The people who wear masks feel persecuted by the people that don't. The people who don't wear a mask feel bullied by the people that do. I've heard friends of mine on both sides of this issue say that they've been approached in public by someone criticizing them for their choice, and each side is convinced that they are the victim here.

*deep cleansing breath* I'm getting wound up, because I'm just so damned tired of it. I'm tired of us letting a TV news station control our minds and opinions. I'm tired of feeling bitter, angry resentment everywhere, among people I know and love on both sides. I want someone to be the mom and shout sternly go to your rooms until you can come out and be civil to each other. NOW.

Be smart, people, and be kind. And to those who say we never needed a shutdown in the first place (which is quite common around here where the virus has never really gained a foothold), I'd like to say this: our hospital is prepared now. If we'd had a surge in cases two months ago, they wouldn't have been. The shutdown did its job. Now it's up to us to make sure we don't undo it.

Attention span strategies: things to listen to

Presumably, we're all at home, and looking for things to do. (And if you have an essential job, and you're not at home, thank you. I hope the people you're helping are grateful, too.) I have plenty of things that I could be doing around the house, but there's my ADD problem. I work hard on a task for about ten or fifteen minutes, then I get distracted and drift off to check on (fill in the blank), and then I pick up my phone because someone texted me, and an hour later I remember I was working on that task, which is now a glaring reminder of how I supposedly never finish anything.

I will tell you my one life lesson for dealing with this. And if you're not ADD, this won't apply, so you can skip down a couple of paragraphs. In the past, before I knew about adult ADD, I would go through this cycle (start a task--drift away--cringe), and I would feel like a failure. I would compare myself with someone who could sit down and work with focus until they were finished, and I would--just below the level of conscious thought--start to berate myself. You're so dumb. You didn't even finish that task. You can't finish anything. You're a mess. You FAIL at everything. And I would feel bad, and the unfinished project would remind me that I felt bad, so I would quit.

But now that I understand how this works, the plan is to dump the judgment, remind myself that this is just the way my brain works, and go back to the unfinished project. I can't claim I'm 100% at this. Sometimes I still get into the failure mindset. But I'm way better.

Now I even build it into my plans--OK, I've got about 20-30 minutes of attention time here that I can split it up into two or three tasks. Ten minutes to unload the dishwasher. Ten minutes to start a load of laundry. Ten minutes to straighten up the living room. Then I get a break-- twenty minutes of reading, or instagram, or whatever. If you're the type that can blast through things without faltering, that will sound like such a waste of time. But if you're like me, you can get a whole hell of a lot done by breaking your work into 10-15 minute intervals, and circling back to complete things that take longer than that.

And also, make lists. That way you can keep track of what you're supposed to be doing.

OK, so no surprise here, that was a tangent. This post is supposed to be about things to listen to while you're doing mindless chores, another great strategy for staying on task. Things like folding laundry, or standing six feet apart from people in line at the post office, or walking the dog, are considerably less boring if you're listening to something. And if I'm not bored, I have an easier time staying with what I'm doing.

I have these bluetooth earphones which I bought before I was avoiding amazon, and they work great. You can tap the button on the right earbud to pause what you're listening to so when you get to the front of the line at the post office, you don't have to dig out your phone.

Audiobooks work sometimes for me, but honestly, I mainly listen to audiobooks on road trips--and again, it's that attention span thing. Listening to an audiobook requires more of an investment in keeping up with a plot and characters, whereas listening to a podcast can be a lot like eavesdropping on the people behind you in line, or next to you at the coffee shop.

I just did a search to see when was the last time I talked about this, and I was a little embarrassed to see how many times I've told you about my favorite podcasts. So I will skip that this time, because for the most part I'm still listening to the same ones. But I have listened to some individual episodes of podcasts that aren't on my usual rotation that were super interesting to me. Here you go:

Ten Things to Tell You, episode #57, Is it anxiety or intuition?    (not usually a fan of this podcast, but someone recommended this episode and it is good)
Without Fail, Feb 17 2020, The Church of John Green (starts slowly)
Reply All podcast, episode #158, The Case of the Missing Hit
Throughline podcast, "Apocalypse Now" 6/12/19
    (fascinating history of evangelicalism in the US)
Without Fail, Oct 7 2019 "The Cyclist Who Blew the Whistle on Doping"

And in case you haven't heard, Brené Brown has just started a podcast called Unlocking Us. I've only listened to the first episode so far, but it was good.

Stay healthy, stay safe, and as much as you can, stay home. And pass along any podcast recommendations you have.

mental health at midlife, "one" more thing

At the end of my last post on midlife mental health (there's another one here), I said there was one more piece I wanted to tell you about but I had run out of room. And then life intervened, as it so persistently does, and I never got around to it.

But that "one more piece" continues to come up, and the first thing to say is that it is laughable that I said there was "one" more piece. There are a million more pieces. But that piece I was thinking about has been important, so here you go.

My family was pretty garden variety dysfunctional. I'm pretty sure my dad was a narcissist, and my mom an experienced enabler, but I've heard a lot of stories over the years from other people, and our particular mess was not out of the ordinary. And I say that with some sadness, because in the sixties, there were a whole lot of family dynamics that were weird and stifling and maiming, but it was just the way things were. My parents had their problems, but they also did a pretty dang good job considering the times and their own histories.

In the eighties, when I was in my twenties and psychotherapy was relatively new (at least to me), I was all about blaming my parents. I was so angry at them. I could tell you inside out how awful they had been, especially my dad. Some of it was necessary stuff that I need to process, but a lot of it was just me being young and self-obsessed. I'm not knocking therapy-- it helped, it helped lots. I'm just rolling my eyes at my youth, and my ability to think that my own pain was the most important thing. Maybe that's what a lot of us do in our twenties.

Anyway. Then I had kids, and once you have kids, it doesn't take long to realize that no parent is able to be the parent they wish they were. I was simultaneously developing the ability to protect myself better from my parents' ability to wound me,  and also becoming willing to cut them a whole lot more slack. They were doing the best they could. So I gradually dumped the whole digging-into-my-family-of-origin schtick because I just couldn't do it anymore.

I spent the next twenty-ish years aware that there had been some difficult issues in my family of origin, but not thinking about them, because I didn't know any way to do that without coming down on my parents with an attitude of self-righteous fury, and I knew that wasn't where I wanted to go. So I stopped (not overnight, but still a pretty thorough stop). And honestly, I had been pretty obsessed with it for awhile, so it was probably a good move at the time.

But recently, some things have resurfaced, and as I've become a student of my own brain and ego through meditation and whatever other tools I can find, I've realized that I still have a lot to learn from looking back and trying to understand some things from my childhood.

Not to sound like I'm overly wise or anything, but just to acknowledge the truth: if you let yourself, you do learn some things as you get older. I am wiser than I used to be, at least on this front. Because now I can look back and do it without blame. I can feel compassion for all of us, my parents, the community we lived in, the world we lived in, and see how we were all trying so hard to do things right, to do the things we thought we were supposed to do. And yet we were wounded, and we did some wounding. We muddled through, just like everybody does.

This is also turning into a muddled mess, and I'm not even sure why I'm writing it, because I don't know if anyone else is going through it, and if you're not, that makes this an exceptionally boring bit of navel-gazing.

But if you are, just this: it can help to let yourself go back and re-experience some old hurts. Sometimes when I'm meditating (my current meditating theme is to let myself feel what I'm feeling), it hurts so bad it's almost overwhelming. But it's not happening right now, it happened a long time ago. And if I can sit for five minutes, one minute, and let the feelings wash through me, it feels awful at that moment, but then later it feels better. It really does. I don't know if this will make any sense, but I feel more clear-eyed than I have in a long time. Maybe ever.

p.s. the book that was helpful in thinking this through is Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb. I had some problems with that book, but I still learned lots. Gottlieb, a therapist, says: "The purpose of inquiring about people's parents isn't to join them in blaming, judging, or criticizing their parents. In fact, it's not about their parents at all. It's about understanding how their early experiences inform who they are as adults so that they can separate the past from the present (and not wear psychological clothing that no longer fits)."

Yup. Have a great weekend.

Last-minute gifts and other minor things

Drummer snowperson!

I meant to post my favorite gift ideas a couple of weeks ago, but you know what they say about good intentions. For the record, although I have no problem with affiliate links and use them all the time on other sites, these are not affiliate links. I am unassociated with these products in any way, they're just things I like. 

1. Jelt Belts, for men and women, the no-show belt I've been looking for. If you, like me, have wondered why no one has continued to make those striped elastic belts with the d-ring metal clasp that we all wore in junior high, here you go, because the woman who came up with these thought the same thing. They are even one better, because the clasp is not metal, so you can keep it on when you go through airport screening. Also, Montana made.

2. Another Montana made product: compression socks from Vim & Vigr. These are adorable, not those horrible beige things that our grandparents used to wear. If you've never worn compression socks before, you will be surprised. I wear them on the plane, and those crazy "young people today" wear them for post-workout recovery, so any millenial athletes on your list will be appreciative, in addition to those of us with lagging circulation.

3. Highly recommend a trip to the hardware store or NAPA auto parts store for stocking stuffers. I just went by Ace Hardware this morning and wandered around until I had half a dozen things. The woman who checked me out commiserated with me that presents for the men in our lives are the worst, and she even suggested a couple of other things that I immediately went back and picked up (flares for auto emergencies-$2.99 each- and a lock de-icer for sleety weather, which I think was $3.99). You can always throw in a 2-pack of sharpies and a couple of bungee cords, too.

4. Spotify gift cards for the under-30s in your life (see previous discussion about spotify, #5 and 6 in this post). Unless you are already paying for their Spotify account anyway.

5. Buying a stack of books (meaning 3 or 4) for each of my family members has been a long-time tradition, and one of my favorite parts of Christmas shopping. In fact (who am I kidding) it is hands-down my favorite part of christmas shopping, and one that I happily devote hours to, sometimes to the point where I'm neglecting a whole lot of other shopping I need to do. But we now have our kids' significant others in the family Christmas scene, and they are not readers. I love them dearly, but *despair*, they are not readers. And I don't want them to feel bad about that. So this year, I'm ditching the traditional stack of books, and of course I'm doing it cheerfully, it's only here that I'm confessing to my sadness. But if you do have readers, a bookstore gift card is always an option. Or a book subscription from Page1 or The Bookshelf or Bas Bleu or any number of other similar sites.

6. Moment of sadness: I made my annual Small Business Saturday trip to the independent bookstore about fifteen miles north of here, the only retail bookstore in our area. I had a list of a dozen books I wanted, and because I'm increasingly concerned about amazon's dominance (more about that in another post), I was prepared to pay full price and buy all the ones I could find. They had exactly one of them. And this was not an obscure list. They just don't carry the kind of books I like to read. Of course, they would order them for me, but they are such snobs about it (admittedly, my biased perspective), I can never bring myself to do it. So I got online and ordered them from Powells and The Bookshelf. Also, what a world we live in when giving a Barnes & Noble gift card feels like a subversive act.

7. And lastly, this is not a gift idea but a recommendation for surviving the holiday rush, which is Harry Connick Jr's song "I Pray on Christmas"-- all of his Christmas albums are great, but that song is on When My Heart Finds Christmas, which I think was his first one. Here is Harry singing it (still the best), and here is a cover by an a cappela group, here is and here is a cover with a Norwegian gospel choir (under the heading: It Takes All Sorts). It's the perfect song for when you're dragging and feel like you just cannot do another holiday-themed thing. I pray on Christmas, you'll get me through another day, with full whoop-whoop gospel choir background. Sing it loud.

7ToT: Bouchercon trip report

1. Bouchercon 2019 was fun. In fact, if you're a book lover, there's probably not much that's more fun than going to a book convention. Everyone around you is as big a nerd as you are. Bouchercon is devoted to the world of mysteries, which they define broadly as anything that involves a crime. So there were authors and readers of everything from thrillers to cozies, and a broad array of panels to match.

Convention Pro Tip #1: Know how to pronounce the convention name. The "boucher" in Bouchercon rhymes with "voucher." It is named after a devoted mystery writer, editor, and critic named Anthony Boucher. Fortunately, I heard someone else say it before I embarrassed myself too badly.

2. It was in Dallas this year, so I spent the first half of the week in East Texas with my mom and sister, and then drove to Dallas on Thursday (because, like a dummy, I didn't read the schedule ahead of time, so I didn't realize there was a full day of activities on Wednesday). 

Convention Pro Tip #2: Look over the schedule before you go. Duh.

3. It was really remarkably well-run, especially since it is done entirely by volunteers. My only complaint is that there was no way you could get to all the panels you wanted to hear. There were seven or eight going on at any given time, and you can only go to one at a time. I think my favorite was the one with a retired trauma surgeon, a forensic scientist, a molecular biologist, and a cop, who talked about things that writers get wrong in books and movies/TV. They were great--very funny, very talkative. That one could have gone on for a couple of hours, easy.

4. Book conventions are great if you want to meet authors. Sandra Brown was there, and Charlaine Harris, Elizabeth George, Rhys Bowen, Laurie R. King, Sherry Thomas, Kellye Garrett, Julia Spencer-Fleming, and dozens more. Of course, you already know I'm way too shy to approach an author on my own, so I only met two.* My friend Karen introduced me to Laurie R. King, author of the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series, who is just as lovely in person as I expected from reading her books (I'm on #8). And I bolstered my courage and stood in line to meet Christine Carbo, who lives one town over here in Montana. I don't know why I'm so scared to walk up and introduce myself, because both of them were very nice.

* three, if you count Julia Spencer-Fleming, who struck up a conversation with several of us in the elevator while I tried not to hyperventilate. I managed not to squee until I got back to my room. But we didn't exchange names, I only knew who she was because I could see her nametag.

part of my #bookhaul

5. At Bouchercon, you get four coupons when you check in, and then you get to go to the Book Bazaar and pick out FOUR FREE BOOKS. Pro Tip #3: get there early on the first day. I didn't get there until late afternoon the second day, so it was a little picked over. But even then there were two books that I really did want, and somehow I managed to pick out two more. Then I bought three more at the paid book area, and bought three more at Half-Price Books (the flagship Half-Price Books is in Dallas, and it is huge). I could barely get my suitcase shut, even with the extension unzipped.

6. Which means that all that good work that I did at the beginning of the year with not buying new books is now shot to hell. Especially because I bought two before I even made it to Dallas, and three a couple of weeks ago in Phoenix that I haven't found shelf space for yet. Oh, well. I'm not feeling particularly upset about it, as you can tell.

Most Memorable Line of the Weekend: Sherry Thomas, in a panel on Women in Sherlock: "Let's face it, the original Sherlock stories are competence porn." 

7. There were plenty of breaks in the schedule, including an hour-long lunch break, so it wasn't nearly as exhausting as it could have been. But at lunch time, everyone wants lunch, and the restaurants in the convention center were packed. This particular hotel only had one nearby restaurant, and everybody knew about it, so it wasn't much better. Next time I do this, because I definitely want to do this again, I need a better supply of snacks. I ran out by my second day. In fact, since there was a fridge in my room, I should have just brought some food. Pro Tip #4: Bring snacks, more than you think you need.

That's everything I can think of about Bouchercon. Hope you get to go some day!

What's Working, 2018 edition

I know I should write something thoughtful and inspiring since this will go up on Christmas day. Something about gratitude and the birth of the light in the midst of great darkness, yadda yadda yadda. But I can't quite get there today.

I had plenty of Christmas spirit this year-- more than I've had in four or five years now. It's just that we did our family Christmas when PellMel and her boyfriend were here ten days ago, so I've had this strange feeling that Christmas is over even though it hasn't happened yet.

We don't even have any presents left to open. It will be a strange Christmas day for us, since we're not doing our traditional Christmas brunch with our neighbors, either. Maybe we will go to a movie or clean the bathrooms or something equally non-traditional.

I sincerely hope that you've got something more exciting to do on Christmas Day than to read my drivel anyway, so it's probably after Christmas as you're reading this. Ergo: I'm not going to write about Christmas. So there.

Which means I have to think of something to write about. OK. Anne Bogel does a list she calls "what's working for me, and what's not" on her blog at the end of the year. Maybe I will try something similar. (later: this got way too long. Like Anne, I'm dividing it up into two parts.)

What's working for me right now:

(note-- I started clicking around and reading other people's similar posts while I was working on this, and for two of the following things that are working for me, I found someone else who said the exact opposite was working for them. ymmv, as always.)

- I'm still doing squats and stretches in the shower. It's still helping me feel stronger and more fit.

- Taking a shower as soon as I get up. When I stopped working last spring, I got into the leisurely habit of waiting to take my shower until I was getting ready to leave the house. That --first of all-- meant that I would frequently be late to wherever I was going because I would underestimate how much time I needed to get ready. It also meant that I was losing a lot of the benefit of a daily shower (waking up, steaming my sinuses open, doing my stretches, etc). Heading for the shower as soon as I get out of bed works much better.

- Carrying a real pen-and-paper weekly planner in my purse (i.e., non-digital). I need to see my week laid out in front of me, and I've always benefited from writing things down and making lists. Carrying a real calendar instead of trying to keep it in my head or on my phone has been a game changer for me. (Although I do make extensive use of phone reminders.)

- Breaking big tasks down into small, manageable chunks. And by manageable, I mean an amount of work that I can get done in 5-10 minutes. I'm a little bit ADD, and I can have trouble sometimes with starting projects, getting overwhelmed, and giving up. Breaking it up into do-able pieces has helped me get more things done.

- Limiting my sugar intake to the afternoon (i.e., no sweets in the morning or evening). Mid-afternoon is when I usually want something sweet, anyway. And also, it gives my body time to metabolize the carbs before I go to bed. I am really happy with this one, although it admittedly has been difficult to be strict about it during the holidays.

- Writing book reviews on Goodreads. I always thought that it was kind of pretentious to think that people wanted to know your opinion about a book. But I realized this year that you don't do it for other people, you do it for yourself. I doubt anyone else ever reads them (with the possible exception of my brother-in-law). It only takes 5-10 minutes to write a quick review when I finish a book, and it really helps me remember what the book is about, when I read it, and what I thought of it.

So there you have it. I'll combine what's not working with my Seven Things on Friday. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Joyeux Noel, Happy Kwanzaa, Feliz Navidad, Happy Festivus, or whatever works for you. Have a good day.

Nov 18 Day 8: when the weather outside is frightful

Suddenly it is cold here (the high today was 34), which reminds me of the best bits of cold weather advice I've collected over the years. Some of you will never need this, and then there are some of you who could probably contribute more.