The holiday season is finally over and we’re now back to some kind of normality with our lives here. Mainly, our weekends are not as bloated like it was a month ago from the plans and trips we have made. Instead, it’ll be weekends spent home, with the occasional family visits up for the day, maybe once or twice a month at least.

We’re back home from a weekend of spending time with my family to celebrate our niece’s birthday. She turned one this month and wow — time took its sweet time for her birthday to come up. I was telling Yessica how it feels as she has to be three already, but it’s only been a year. It’s funny how time works.

Tired of This Weather…

For about a month, we have gotten three rainstorms, and two snowstorms. Two of the rainstorms were flood warnings, while the other was a flood watch. When we didn’t have either rain or snow, we were also getting hit with high winds, enough to pull down trees and potentially knock out some power.

From what I was reading from my weather app, the saturated grass and roots from the trees are soft and easy enough for the wind to push them over. Not instantly, just will be easier with the strong winds than normal. Thankfully none fell over near us; the trail though, there were some spots that had a few branches and trees.

The two snowstorms have easily surpassed the total snowfall in two out of the four years we have been living here combined. Both of those years, we got little to no snow at all. I believe those years combined, we only got a couple of inches, while the latest storm we had so far this year surpassed that alone.

Easy to say, this last month’s weather has overstayed its welcome here, now it’s time to leave!

Bloganuary

For anyone that’s unaware, January is Bloganuary, where bloggers post once a day on their blogs for the entire month. I’m not entirely sure if it’s just whatever post they want once per day, or you have to answer WordPress’s daily prompts, or it’s both. Me though, I’ve been doing a little bit of both. Answering daily prompts and occasionally throwing in a few posts that are stories, poems, or updates (like this one!).

It’s been a fun month so far; I have enjoyed writing out the prompts WordPress provided us and getting to read what others had to say. Next year, I want to participate again. Maybe take a new approach to the prompts, like writing in a story format or make it into a poem.

Reading Slump

It started around November, but I just have been having a hard time finding the time to sit down and read. I’m not reading any bad books, it’s more of burnout honestly. The total of books last year for me was probably more than the books I have read in twenty years combined. Maybe more than my entire life.

Writing has been taking over my time now whenever I’m free. Most of that was reading, and a little bit of writing. Now, it’s the complete opposite and I’m fine with that, I’ve been wanting to write a lot more.

I am reading something at the moment. I ended up putting down The Wager, by David Grann, and started Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, by David Sedaris. My first book that’s a collection of essays, and my first in the satire humor genre.

Thoughts on Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls is that this book is really good! I’m close to the end of the book, but there are some very funny pieces that David has written. Some of the essays can go off the rails but will reel you back in with a good message to finish it off. Once I finish this book, I’m planning on going back to a book series in the fantasy genre. Been wanting to read some more of that again.

It’s only January, so there’s enough time throughout this year that I can end up picking up a book and find that desire to read again.

Final Thoughts

Over the last few weeks, I have posted a few poems out on my site for everyone to read. This was something I wanted to do more with this blog, to give some variety of writing that anyone can enjoy reading.

More will come in the future, along with more microfiction and longer forms of stories.

Until then — let’s start 2024 right!

Brad