M. Suzanne Terry

This was a weird month.  It’s the first time I’ve been at a church that observes the liturgical year.  It’s the first time I’ve really “done” Advent (does one do Advent?  Is that something that’s done?  Or experienced?  Or watched?  I’m not sure which verb goes there.).

I’ve also been sick most of the month, so food choices have been limited.  It also limited my coffee consumption – I went completely without for a week and a half – which, as you might imagine, put me in a fantastic mood.

And let’s not forget North Texas’s little Icetember adventure. Because large quantities of ice are so rare in Texas, it’s not really cost effective to keep the resources to deal with it.  It’s cheaper to just shut everything down until it passes.  So we did.  Happy 4-day Icecation to me! I got home at about 4:00 on Thursday, and I did not even walk out the door to get the mail until the following Wednesday morning. Ah, introvert bliss.

One might think that, between being iced in and having to stay home sick and getting two weeks off from work for regular holiday vacation, I would have gotten a lot of writing/reading/TV watching done.

Heh. Not really.  Not any more than usual.  My house is pretty clean, though.

Here’s what I was into this month, besides deep, leisurely cleaning.

To write:

I wrote a lot of poetry this month.  I participated in Story Sessions’s 40 Days of Poetry. I guess it wouldn’t be a lot to people who usually write poetry, but for me, the nine or ten poems I wrote is more poetry than I wrote the rest of the year combined.  So for me, that’s a lot.

I also ranted about freedom of speech, which a couple of friends picked up and shared on Facebook without my sharing it first.  I didn’t have to point it out to them.  Translation: my friends read my blog and like what I write.  Sweet!  Thanks, friends.  That made my week.

To read:

As inspiration, I also read a lot of poetry this month.  I reacquainted myself with the likes of Neruda and Donne, and I reread Adrienne Rich’s Fox collection.

I mentioned last month that I jumped on the Divergent bandwagon, and during Christmas, I finished the last two of the trilogy.   In a day and a half.  I haven’t been sucked into something that completely in a while.  I have a confession, though.  Unpopular opinion #427 – I liked the ending.  I’ll try to tell you why without giving anything away to anyone who inexplicably has not read it yet.  Any other ending would have been, at best, a contrived mess.  I would even go so far as to say that the ending that a lot of people wanted would have been a betrayal of the craft, because when an author foreshadows something so blatantly, she ought to make good on it.  I mean, I read a lot of YA fiction, so I have a pretty high tolerance for teenage angst, but if I had sat through three books of it and ended up with no learning curve or subsequent resolution, that might have merited a nice, healthy tossing of the book across the room.  And that would have been problematic, as the book was large (hardback), and I was at my mother’s house, and she has many breakable knick-knacks.  So, for knick-knack’s sake, I am glad that it ended the way it did.

To watch:

This month that has meant reruns of Gilmore Girls, How I Met Your Mother, and The Office.  This month has also meant made-for-TV Christmas movies, because that’s what Mom likes, and Pawn Stars, because that’s what Dad likes.  I’m not opposed to either choice, but the hours upon hours spent…let’s just say that, while the trip to their house was lovely in many ways, I’m really happy to be home, where I’ve spent the last two days watching the second season of Castle.

To hear:

I have been obsessed with The Bangles this month.  You know how you wake up with a song in your head every day, and it stays with you for most of the day (no?  Just me?  Okay, then)?  At least half the month, that song for me has been a Bangles song.  You’d think I would be sick of it, but no.  I blame Lorelai Gilmore and growing up in the 80s.

To taste:

The Sickness put a bit of a damper on my meal choices this month.  I’ve apparently been really into vegetable broth, potatoes, applesauce, and peppermint tea.  I had to cancel Supper Club one night, because I wasn’t sure I could even take the smell of the meal I had planned.

But around the 20th, I started to feel better, so I got brave and had some toast, then some peaches, and by the 25th, I was able to enjoy my dad’s crock-pot turkey, roasted in a citrus gravy, which was either the most delicious thing I’ve eaten all year, or I was just really happy that it wasn’t broth.

So that’s how 2013 ends for me.  What are you into?

I’m linking up with Leigh Kramer – follow me over there!