{"id":2699,"date":"2019-12-30T21:40:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T03:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/12\/30\/retrospective-12\/"},"modified":"2022-07-15T15:26:07","modified_gmt":"2022-07-15T13:26:07","slug":"retrospective-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/12\/30\/retrospective-12\/","title":{"rendered":"RETROSPECTIVE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/A-8-cap.png\" title=\"Daily Drop Cap by Jessica Hische\" align=\"left\" alt=\"A\" \/> new decade commences! Tomorrow is the last day of 2019 and then we are heading into science-fiction year numbering. 2020 sounds so very futuristic! This past year wasn&#8217;t exactly as calm as I anticipated but we&#8217;ve made it through, anyway. Here&#8217;s to the Twenties: may they be progressive, innovative, nurturing, and full of good things, including (from my heart to God&#8217;s ear) a new President.<\/p>\n<p><b>Family &#038; Personal Highlights of 2019<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>New Year&#8217;s with our friends Kathey &#038; Russell and my mom in Michigan<\/li>\n<li>Keeping myself diabetes-free<\/li>\n<li>Trip to Lisbon with Debbie<\/li>\n<li>Karin&#8217;s 2-month trip to Costa Rica and S. America<\/li>\n<li>Martin&#8217;s 5-week visit home in the spring<\/li>\n<li>Trip to Stockholm to spend <i>midsommar<\/i> with Russell, Geir &#038; Ann Sofie<\/li>\n<li>Adobe Conference in Seattle, with added bonus of seeing my mom, Becky and my friend Chuck and his wife Julie Kae<\/li>\n<li>Martin celebrating his 1-year anniversary with Malachi<\/li>\n<li>Martin finding an apartment in downtown Detroit<\/li>\n<li>A week in the Netherlands with my brother and his family<\/li>\n<li>Karin starting her college career with a course in Malm\u00f6<\/li>\n<li>Joining a choir again<\/li>\n<li>Bedroom and bedroom closet renovation<\/li>\n<li>Martin getting a job!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I only read 79 books this year, the lowest amount since I started keeping track on Goodreads back in 2011 (might have been lower some years before that but I&#8217;d have to go count and I can&#8217;t be <i>orked<\/i>). It certainly makes me call into question the time I spend playing stupid games on the iPad.<\/p>\n<p><b>Best Books of 2019<\/b> (in no particular order and not including re-reads)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><i>Nothing to See Here<\/i> by Kevin Watson<\/li>\n<li><i>The Book of M<\/i> by Peng Shepherd<\/li>\n<li><i>The Expanse<\/i> by James S.A. Corey<\/li>\n<li><i>America For Beginners<\/i> by Leah Franqui<\/li>\n<li><i>The Ten Thousand Doors of January<\/i> by Alix E. Harrow<\/li>\n<li><i>Talking to Strangers<\/i> by Malcolm Gladwell<\/li>\n<li><i>The Reckless Oath We Made<\/i> by Bryn Greenwood<\/li>\n<li><i>Never Have I Ever<\/i> by Joshilyn Jackson<\/li>\n<li><i>Light From Other Stars<\/i> by Erika Swyler<\/li>\n<li><i>The Nordic Theory of Everything<\/i> by Anu Partanen<\/li>\n<li><i>The Overstory<\/i> by Richard Powers<\/li>\n<li><i>Muse of Nightmares<\/i> by Laini Taylor<\/li>\n<li><i>The Winternight Trilogy<\/i> by Katherine Arden<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Once again, I spent far more time on Instagram this year, enjoying beautiful art from all different kinds of artists, than I did finding new music on Spotify. I love my Spotify playlist and listen to it every day but this year was definitely not devoted to finding new music.<\/p>\n<p><b>Best New Artists of 2019<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ava Max<\/li>\n<li>MUNA<\/li>\n<li>Joe &#038; The Anchor<\/li>\n<li>Rachel Platten<\/li>\n<li>All Angels<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is the second year I kept tracks of what movies I saw, using the Letterboxed app. I watched 48 films and the ones that stuck with me were: <i>Avengers: End Game, Rocketman, Can You Ever Forgive Me, Klaus, Passengers, Yesterday<\/i>, and <i>Once Upon a Time in Hollywood<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>The TV shows I&#8217;ve watched and enjoyed this year were: <i>Game of Thrones, The Handmaid&#8217;s Tale, His Dark Materials, Queer Eye, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Outlander, Dips, Watership Down, Call the Midwife, Russian Doll, Fleabag, V\u00e5r Tid \u00c4r Nu, Little Women, Last Week Tonight<\/i> with John Oliver and <i>Love Death &#038; Robots<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><b>Some manageable goals for 2020<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Eat better (and less) and get a new treadmill<\/li>\n<li>Recover dining room chairs<\/li>\n<li>Put the iPad down, pick more books up<\/li>\n<li>Vacation in the US<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I have lots of room for improvement in the coming year&#8230;personal, healthwise, home improvements, and working on learning to be a couple again with Anders in our empty nest, as Karin is planning to start university in V\u00e4xjo in the fall. Tomorrow is New Year&#8217;s Eve, and then it&#8217;s back to work, real life and a new decade. Happy New Year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>new decade commences! Tomorrow is the last day of 2019 and then we are heading into science-fiction year numbering. 2020 sounds so very futuristic! This past year wasn&#8217;t exactly as calm as I anticipated but we&#8217;ve made it through, anyway. Here&#8217;s to the Twenties: may they be progressive, innovative, nurturing, and full of good things, including (from my heart to God&#8217;s ear) a new President. Family &#038; Personal Highlights of 2019 New Year&#8217;s with our friends Kathey &#038; Russell and my mom in Michigan Keeping myself diabetes-free Trip to Lisbon with Debbie Karin&#8217;s 2-month trip to Costa Rica and S.&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,14,27],"class_list":["post-2699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-beinglizardek","tag-goodthings","tag-holidaze"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699","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=2699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3168,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699\/revisions\/3168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}