I'm finally getting around to posting my book list and categories for last year. I used the same category list that I did for 2023, and I might keep using it for a while.

( Reading Goals of 2024 )

The first sentence of my first post for every month of 2024. I like posting these every year. 2024 was the first year since 2020 that I actually made at least one post every month!

January
I actually tried to participate in some holiday-type things this year, with mixed results.

February
Guess where Rebecca was at 6:45 this morning?

March
Sara ( Read more... )

I think I know how the Christmas-Hanukkah-New-Year's-Eve week of 2024 will be remembered in the future. It will be known as Law & Order week. My roommate recently discovered that Hulu uploaded all twenty seasons of the original L&O (it used to have just the last few), and since then, she's been watching it and talking about it nonstop ( Read more... )

Obviously this week is Thanksgiving, but it's also the anniversary of something else. One year ago this week, I'd just gotten home after flying to another state for Thanksgiving. (It was a pretty stressful trip, and I stayed home this year.) The pet-sitter had been leaving food outside for Pippa while I was gone, and as soon as I could after I got ( Read more... )

Lately my anxiety has been coming at me hard again. I really hate this turn-the-clocks-back time of year, and the election results haven't helped. My roommate has told me that she's tired of listening to me complain about things, and I can't blame her. I feel almost just like I did at this time of year back in 2019; right at six months after we ( Read more... )

Since the days started getting shorter, it's been harder for me to go on a walk everyday. Right now, I'm still squeezing it in between getting home from work and eating dinner, but sometimes it's challenging. I probably won't be able to do it at all after the time falls back (which is about to happen, ugh!), but at least it hasn't been too cold ( Read more... )

Today, in another state far away, my nephew is celebrating his birthday. He was born on this day eight years ago, in another state far away in the opposite direction. It's a little hard for this old aunt to believe. My cousin was able to visit here briefly before we went on vacation, and from what she said, she'll likely be settling in that far- ( Read more... )

Today, we had just one thing on the agenda: visiting Union Station. It's a repurposed historic train station containing a hotel and all sorts of restaurants and tourist attractions. It's also conveniently close to our hotel. It has a several-stories tall ferris wheel (called just the Wheel) that we can see from the hallway right outside our room; ( Read more... )

Today we did the tourist-obligatory thing in this city and set off to the see the Gateway Arch. It's at the far end of walking distance from our hotel. St. Louis built a chain of parks stretching west into the city from the Arch, and our hotel is almost right at the end of it. We started at the Meeting of the Waters Fountain across the street from ( Read more... )

Today we had just one thing on the agenda: visiting Forest Park. It's a huge, 1,300 acre park in the middle of the city containing a zoo, art museum, a theater, and a bunch of other cool stuff. It's basically the Central Park of St. Louis, except that it's even bigger than Central Park is -- too big to see all of it, but we tried. We had a nice, ( Read more... )