A Month in Summary - December 2022

 

Little Whale Cove

Depoe Bay, Oregon

December 2022

Well, that was a busy, yet fun month! We started off with Rod's book launch party, which was so much fun. The following weekend, we attended our neighborhood Christmas party. After two years of cancellations due to Covid, it was great to celebrate the season with friends & neighbors. The celebrating continued the following week when I turned 61 (!) and had a lovely dinner at a favorite restaurant with Rod and some good friends. Later in the week, we hosted a small cocktail party, and everyone brought either an appetizer or dessert, which is my kind of entertaining. :) We attended a Christmas chorale concert and then had another birthday dinner out with my mom. None of our family came out for Christmas, so we invited some friends to join us for Christmas Eve dinner. It was a lovely evening and the following day we opened our gifts, then relaxed for the remainder of the day, watching movies, eating popcorn, and sipping hot cocoa. The weather (ice & snow in the valley) wasn't the best for travel, so I'm glad nobody tried to come out to spend the holidays with us! Plus, we had a couple of power outages (one day it was out for over 6 hours), which is always annoying and stressful. We wrapped up the month by joining our friends for a New Year's Eve party, which began at 8pm. Yes, we actually stayed up until after Midnight (PST). Haven't done that in decades!

With all the happenings and excitement, I still managed to finish six books. I loved two, enjoyed two, and liked two. I'm in the middle of a 900+page saga, so January may be pretty light in the way of book news. I may start posting travel essays from our Glacier NP trip in order to keep things active on the blog. 

Books Read (click on the title for my review):

The Guncle by Steve Rowley (4/5)

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett (4.5/5)

Garden of Lamentations by Deborah Crombie (4/5)

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell (5/5)

Morningside Heights by Joshua Henkin (3.5/5)

Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl (3/5)

Movies & TV Series:

Three Pines - Lots to love about this series! It's definitely an adaptation of Louse Penny's books, but we enjoyed it nonetheless, and hope for a second season.

Knives Out - We rewatched this one on Christmas Day. It was just as good as the first viewing!

The Glass Onion - After watching Knives Out, we watched this one, which really isn't a sequel. I might have liked it even more than Knives Out. The cast is marvelous, but I especially like Daniel Craig.

Slow Horses (Season 2) - This is a wonderful series, but I got so confused trying to keep the bad guys straight. We were happy to hear that there is going to be at least one, if not two, more seasons. 

Blue Murder (Season 3 & 4) - This series is pretty light as far as detective series go, but I still enjoy it.

Puzzlemania

Holiday Party:

Prepping the risotto cakes. So good!

The table before everyone arrived and added their goodies.

Stormy Weather:

Love our Rocksolar Power Station!

High winds (75-80mph) on the

 Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport, Oregon

Power outage snacks!

I'm working on my Best of 2022 list and should have it posted in the next few days. 

Thanks for reading this far and for all your comments. I love hearing from everyone! Happy New Year!

Wordless Wednesday {more or less}

The Calm Before the Storm

  Eight hours later, a storm moved 

in with pea-sized hail.

Starting to fall pretty heavily now.

Torrential downpour and flooding.

Looks like snow!

Thankful it's only this size. 

Softball-sized hail just to the east of us!

If this was a video,

 you'd be able to hear the tornado sirens

 (and the hail!)

This lasted for over 3 hours!

Two tornadoes touched down in Lincoln. 

Almost 5 inches of rain.

The roof and siding are fine. 

The basement is dry. 

The flowers will rebound.

We got lucky.

For more Wordless Wednesday photos, go here.