{"id":9276,"date":"2024-12-30T17:07:41","date_gmt":"2024-12-30T16:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/?p=9276"},"modified":"2025-01-01T14:35:05","modified_gmt":"2025-01-01T13:35:05","slug":"retrospective-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/12\/30\/retrospective-17\/","title":{"rendered":"RETROSPECTIVE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/dailydropcap.com\/images\/E-1-cap.png\" title=\"Daily Drop Cap by Jessica Hische\" align=\"left\" alt=\"E\"\/>nd of the year retrospectives are fun to do. I&#8217;ve been writing them since 2008. I guess they appeal to the listmaker in me, and the OCD-me as well, because now that&#8217;s it been a tradition for 16 years, I can hardly stop now, can I? <\/p>\n<p>2024 was a good year in many ways, judging by the family Xmas letter that I wrote and posted last week. Lots of travel for all of us, and I DID make it to Ireland, after dithering for a very long time between it and the south of France for my birthday trip. Karin and I had a great trip to the US in the spring, and mom and Sarah deciding to come visit at the end of October for nearly 3 weeks was a huge bonus for the year. Looking back, I\/we managed several of the stated goals so that&#8217;s nice to see!<\/p>\n<p>Healthwise, 2024 was a little more of a mixed bag, with my knee accident weighing heavily for much of the year and increasing issues with my feet. The new medicine I started 2 weeks ago is helping with the nerve pain, but I&#8217;m still hoping to get it under control and see if what is causing it can be stopped or reversed. Fingers (and toes) crossed. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Family &#038; Personal Highlights of 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>getting to see my mom THREE times during the course of the year<\/li>\n<li>getting closer to my sister<\/li>\n<li>Martin and Theo moving in together<\/li>\n<li>3-week US trip with Karin<\/li>\n<li>bringing my favorite painting in the world home<\/li>\n<li>Karin&#8217;s 25th birthday party<\/li>\n<li>My 20-year anniversary at Axis<\/li>\n<li>Anders building the new swing patio<\/li>\n<li>visiting Ireland and Northern Ireland with the whole family<\/li>\n<li>turning 60, eesh!<\/li>\n<li>Karin moving to Copenhagen<\/li>\n<li>new jobs for both Martin and Karin<\/li>\n<li>3 weeks with Sarah and mom visiting<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I read 93 books in 2024, and might even manage another (though it would have to be a short one)! One of the better years, even though I waste so much time playing iPad games when I ought to be reading. If it weren&#8217;t for Two Dots, I might have beaten my high of a few years ago. Will have to try harder for 2025. This was also a very good year for books as evidenced by the long list below.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Best books of 2024<\/strong> (in no particular order and not including re-reads)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Alibi<\/em> by Sharon Shinn<\/li>\n<li><em>Starling House<\/em> by Alix E. Harrow<\/li>\n<li><em>The Other Valley<\/em> by Alexandar Scott Howard<\/li>\n<li><em>Loot<\/em> by Tania James<\/li>\n<li><em>There is a Door in This Darkness<\/em> by Kirstin Cashore<\/li>\n<li><em>Revenge of the Tipping Point<\/em> by Malcolm Gladwell<\/li>\n<li><em>Buried Deep and Other Stories<\/em> by Naomi Novik<\/li>\n<li><em>The Ballad of Smallhope and Pennyroyal<\/em> by Jodi Taylor<\/li>\n<li><em>The Raven and the Reindeer<\/em> by T. Kingfisher<\/li>\n<li><em>Illuminations<\/em> by T. Kingfisher<\/li>\n<li><em>The Greenhollow Duology<\/em> by Emily Tesh<\/li>\n<li><em>Some Desperate Glory<\/em> by Emily Tesh<\/li>\n<li><em>The Glassmaker<\/em> by Tracy Chevalier<\/li>\n<li><em>The Mars House<\/em> by Natasha Pulley<\/li>\n<li><em>The Watchmaker of Filigree Street<\/em> by Natasha Pulley<\/li>\n<li><em>The Lost Future of Pepperharrow<\/em> by Natasha Pulley<\/li>\n<li><em>The Half Life of Valery K<\/em> by Natasha Pulley<\/li>\n<li><em>The Bedlam Stacks<\/em> by Natasha Pulley<\/li>\n<li><em>The Cartographers<\/em> by Peng Shepherd<\/li>\n<li><em>I&#8217;m Afraid You&#8217;ve Got Dragons<\/em> by Peter S. Beagle<\/li>\n<li><em>The Waters<\/em> by Bonnie Jo Campbell<\/li>\n<li><em>No One is Here Except All of Us<\/em> by Ramona Asubel<\/li>\n<li><em>The Last Animal<\/em> by Ramona Asubel<\/li>\n<li><em>Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty<\/em> by Ramona Asubel<\/li>\n<li><em>The Book of Doors<\/em> by Gareth Brown<\/li>\n<li><em>A Short Walk Through a Wide World<\/em> by Douglas Westerbeke<\/li>\n<li><em>Right After the Weather<\/em> by Carol Anshaw<\/li>\n<li><em>We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky<\/em> by Emma Hooper<\/li>\n<li><em>Whispering Wood<\/em> by Sharon Shinn<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lots of good new music this past year, as I found a few songs nearly every week thanks to Spotify&#8217;s Discover Weekly, and Martin providing me with good recommendations as well. I did tend more toward single songs though, not so much adding lots of by any one artist, but nevertheless: <\/p>\n<p><strong>Best new music artists of 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Will Young<\/li>\n<li>Cultured Pearls<\/li>\n<li>Sabrina Carpenter<\/li>\n<li>Japanese Breakfast<\/li>\n<li>The Shires<\/li>\n<li>Dani Sylvia<\/li>\n<li>Jude Cole<\/li>\n<li>Laufey<\/li>\n<li>Des&#8217;ree<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I watched 59 movies this year, about average (since I started keeping track). The amount of series we watched was seriously down, though, and most of them were actually game shows of one kind or another. It&#8217;s hard to watch series when I want to watch WITH Anders and he&#8217;s gone so much. <\/p>\n<p>The movies I enjoyed the most in 2024 were: <em>Poor Things, Dune 2, Argylle, Kung Fu Panda 3, Finch, Pain Hustlers, The Fall Guy, Game Night, Deadpool &#038; Wolverine, Wicked Little Letters, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Drive, Quiz Lady, Wicked<\/em>, and <em>Safety Not Guaranteed.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The new (to me) series I enjoyed the most and recommend were:<em> Queen Charlotte, Shrinking, <\/em>and <em>Nobody Wants This<\/em>. I loved both<em> Queer Eye<\/em> (twice!) and <em>Blown Away<\/em>. And of course, we watched <em>B\u00e4st i Test, Fr\u00e5ga Lund<\/em>, and <em>P\u00e5 Sp\u00e5ret<\/em> on Swedish television.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Some manageable goals for 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Keep cutting out sugar!<\/li>\n<li>Start walking again, pending knee improvement<\/li>\n<li>New fridge and freezer<\/li>\n<li>Plant tree\/bush and move metal trellis around the swing patio<\/li>\n<li>USA trip in the spring<\/li>\n<li>Christmas in the US with the whole family<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We&#8217;re heading over to Mats and Annelott&#8217;s tomorrow for New Year&#8217;s Eve, and apparently it will be a larger party, with a bunch of their friends (some we know a bit, others are strangers, eek!), and more dressed up than usual. Anders bought a new blazer today, and I&#8217;m still debating what to wear that is both dressy and comfortable. \ud83d\ude42 It&#8217;s been a fun, relaxed, and quiet holiday so far, which is just what I needed, and I still have a whole week left (minus one day of work)! Happy New Year!<\/p>\n<p><em>Mood: relaxed<br \/>\nMusic: Stornaway\u2014Zorbing<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>nd of the year retrospectives are fun to do. I&#8217;ve been writing them since 2008. I guess they appeal to the listmaker in me, and the OCD-me as well, because now that&#8217;s it been a tradition for 16 years, I can hardly stop now, can I? 2024 was a good year in many ways, judging by the family Xmas letter that I wrote and posted last week. Lots of travel for all of us, and I DID make it to Ireland, after dithering for a very long time between it and the south of France for my birthday trip. Karin&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,8,14,27],"class_list":["post-9276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-beinglizardek","tag-blogalicious","tag-goodthings","tag-holidaze"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9276","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=9276"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9291,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9276\/revisions\/9291"}],"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=9276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}