{"id":2528,"date":"2016-12-31T14:21:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-31T20:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/2016\/12\/31\/retrospective-8\/"},"modified":"2022-07-23T19:20:44","modified_gmt":"2022-07-23T17:20:44","slug":"retrospective-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/2016\/12\/31\/retrospective-8\/","title":{"rendered":"RETROSPECTIVE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/T-4-cap.png\" title=\"Daily Drop Cap by Jessica Hische\" align=\"left\" alt=\"T\" \/>he last day of 2016, hurrah! Normally, I would be a bit sad about the end of the year, but I am really hoping that, despite the orange-frosted muffin going into office in my native country, things will get better *pastes bright smile into place* instead of getting worse. After all, things are going well for me and my family, so despite the debacle of the US election, and the loss of so many people I admired: Gene Wilder, Carrie Fisher, Alan Rickman, David Bowie, Harper Lee, Richard Adams, George Michael, Anton Yelchin, Prince,&#8230;(oof) among many many others, I am looking forward to a new year full of promise. <\/p>\n<p><b>Family &#038; Personal Highlights of 2016<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Spending the <i>mellandagarna<\/i> and New Year&#8217;s in Germany with John &#038; Simone and the boys<\/li>\n<li>Anders&#8217; long weekend skiing in Czech Republic<\/li>\n<li>Getting started singing again, by joining Esl\u00f6v&#8217;s pop choir<\/li>\n<li>Collecting and creating a family recipe book<\/li>\n<li>Being declared diabetes-free by January after losing as much as 15 kilos<\/li>\n<li>Going to see <i>Billy Elliot, Kinky Boots<\/i> and <i>Turandot<\/i> at the Malm\u00f6 Opera<\/li>\n<li>Karin acting in a short film and an Axis product launch video<\/li>\n<li>Martin passing his exams and graduating from IB and high school!<\/li>\n<li>Hosting a big graduation party to celebrate Martin&#8217;s Studenten<\/li>\n<li>Karin finally getting her ears pierced<\/li>\n<li>Finally getting rid of the fish tank (haha!)<\/li>\n<li>A month-long trip to the US which included all kinds of family, celebrations and travel, including a day each in NYC and Boston<\/li>\n<li>Liz&#8217;s sister turning 50, mom turning 75 and grandma turning 100<\/li>\n<li>A 3-day family reunion with 63 relatives<\/li>\n<li>Martin&#8217;s first 2 part-time paying jobs<\/li>\n<li>Karin getting a job as a telemarketer<\/li>\n<li>Martin&#8217;s 7.5 week trip to Peru (with 9 days in Michigan at the end)<\/li>\n<li>Long weekend trip to Berlin during fall break<\/li>\n<li>Going to see Elton John in concert, with Karin<\/li>\n<li>Getting back on the board of the AWC<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I read at least 89 books this past year, according to GoodReads, but it doesn&#8217;t seem to always count books that I read earlier and then read again, so I&#8217;m not sure the total is completely accurate.<\/p>\n<p><b>Best Books of 2016<\/b> (in no particular order and not including re-reads)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><i>Unquiet Land<\/i> by Sharon Shinn<\/li>\n<li><i>The Invisible Library<\/i> by Genevieve Cogman<\/li>\n<li><i>The Ocean at the End of the Lane<\/i> by Neil Gaiman<\/li>\n<li><i>The Blood Curse<\/i> by Emily Gee<\/li>\n<li><i>A Thousand Pieces of You<\/i> by Claudia Gray<\/li>\n<li><i>Maphead<\/i> by Ken Jennings<\/li>\n<li><i>At the Edge of the Orchard<\/i> by Tracy Chevalier<\/li>\n<li><i>Brooklyn<\/i> by Colm Toibin<\/li>\n<li><i>The Kitchen Daughter<\/i> by Jael McHenry<\/li>\n<li><i>Grunt<\/i> by Mary Roach<\/li>\n<li><i>Ink and Bone<\/i> by Rachel Caine<\/li>\n<li><i>At the Water&#8217;s Edge<\/i> by Sara Gruen<\/li>\n<li><i>The Opposite of Everyone<\/i> by Joshilyn Jackson<\/li>\n<li><i>A Grown-up Kind of Pretty<\/i> by Joshilyn Jackson<\/li>\n<li><i>The Goldfinch<\/i> by Donna Tartt<\/li>\n<li><i>Goldenhand<\/i> by Garth Nix<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Movies I enjoyed this year? <i>Rogue One, Kung Fu Panda 3, The Jungle Book, Arrival, Finding Dory, Zootropolis, Ghostbusters<\/i> and <i>Ex Machina<\/i>. I&#8217;m sure there were more. And TV shows we watched and enjoyed? <i>Bron\/Broen, Historie\u00e4tarna, Orphan Black, Westworld, Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver<\/i> and <i>Elementary<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>It seems like I spent more time this year on Instagram, finding, admiring and following various artists, so that I didn&#8217;t spend as much time on Spotify finding new music. I would make a list of Best Artist Discoveries but it would be twice as long as this post, I fear.<\/p>\n<p><b>Best Musical Discoveries of 2016<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>King Floyd<\/li>\n<li>Saint Motel<\/li>\n<li>Laura Tesoro<\/li>\n<li>Sheppard<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Some manageable goals for 2017<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Walk walk walk!<\/li>\n<li>Continue with WW, get weight back down again<\/li>\n<li>Encourage Martin in job hunting and college applications<\/li>\n<li>Get both kids into driving school<\/li>\n<li>Find and buy a new bed<\/li>\n<li>Be more regular about posting here!<\/ul>\n<p>I have the rest of this afternoon to relax before we have to leave for dinner and New Year&#8217;s celebrations with our good friends Barbara &#038; Paul. Both kids are coming for dinner, but then leaving for their own parties with friends, which I am a little sad about&#8230;harbinger of an empty-nesting future trend that I am not looking forward to. But good food, company and fireworks on the agenda for tonight anyway, and tomorrow is the last day of vacation, so I plan to spend it being a total slug! Happy New Year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>he last day of 2016, hurrah! Normally, I would be a bit sad about the end of the year, but I am really hoping that, despite the orange-frosted muffin going into office in my native country, things will get better *pastes bright smile into place* instead of getting worse. After all, things are going well for me and my family, so despite the debacle of the US election, and the loss of so many people I admired: Gene Wilder, Carrie Fisher, Alan Rickman, David Bowie, Harper Lee, Richard Adams, George Michael, Anton Yelchin, Prince,&#8230;(oof) among many many others, I am&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,14,27,5],"class_list":["post-2528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-famdamily","tag-goodthings","tag-holidaze","tag-puttingwordstogether"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3436,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2528\/revisions\/3436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}