Ringing in the Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. Share a favorite memory/moment from the week of Christmas.

Listening to this poem and this song. Which I did, several times.

Eating artichoke-spinach dip and spring rolls after church on Christmas Eve, with all the Squirrelings home.

Unwrapping my Mother Goose book. It took me years to identify it, for various reasons (one was that we had put a paper cover on our copy, so I didn't remember the cover very well). Just before Christmas, I saw a photo of this edition and and thought "yes...I think so...could be?" I asked Mr. Fixit to order one so we could check, but he said that none of the copies were reasonable enough when you added in shipping...he got one secretly so I could have it to open on Christmas.

2.  If someone wrote a book about your life based on the past year, what genre would it fall under? What would the title be?

An Anne Tyler novel called A Bag of Polyester Craft Stuffing.

3. What made you feel patriotic this year?

Walking through Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto during the Pan-Am games. Not that I cared all that much about the games, but there was a feeling there like the whole world was arriving for a big party.

4. What experience from this past year would you like to do all over again?

You might think I would say the trip to Indiana in July, but actually it was the double eightieth birthday party in May (for my dad and my uncle). There are very few times we get to have so many friends and family, old and young, in one spot, and I wish we could have a big party like that every year. 

Also I read quite a few books. I am a few cantos away from finishing The Divine Comedy--if I get enough time today, I might get done. Done!

5...7  Skipping these. One through Four have been enough work already.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

I thought I would enjoy writing a year's roundup, especially since this is the year I got my very own Amazon page...I have a few leftover copies of my books sitting in a box in my bedroom, want to buy one? (I also joined GoodReads and Pinterest--welcome to the 21st century.)  Half the problem is that I don't want to say goodbye to this year (although there are good things planned for 2016), and the rest of the problem is that there were also parts of it that were difficult, things that remain unresolved. So do we say we hope for such a good year, or a better one? It's like one of those multi-faceted things you turn in your hands to see the light reflect...or like one of the puzzle boxes in All the Light We Cannot See, something you keep turning over in your hands, sliding one little door at a time until suddenly the whole thing opens.

I'm still working on it.

Linked from Ringing in the Hodgepodge at From This Side of the Pond.