Welcome to 2018

How did I do with last year's resolutions? Well, the whole "more people less screens" resolution worked out so well that I've watched ZERO new TV shows this year, and barely kept up with my old ones. In fact, I felt like I was looking for excuses to drop shows.

Hawaii 5-O loses both its Asian leads? GONE.

Code Black cans Raza Jaffrey after the first season? BYE-BYE

Losing interest in NCIS? (but really, the interest had been fading ever since Cote de Pablo left the show in 2013) SO OVER IT.

I didn't particularly get healthier, but I don't think I got less healthy.

I read 211 books, tried 66 new recipes, and watched 26 movies.

This year's possible resolutions are to get savvier with technology, find a way to get more exercise, and make better use of my physical cookbooks. (I tend to work straight from cooking blogs.) Plus, of course, the usual trio of reading, movies, new recipes.

Day 3: Wrapping up 2016, TV

We are finally almost finished with Person of Interest, which is available on Netflix. It's seriously one of the best shows I've ever seen. Go watch it if you haven't already!

I've also been watching Bull, Conviction (already cancelled, alas), Pitch, Timeless, and Designated Survivor.

I've also continued watching Elementary and NCIS: New Orleans.

I spent a lovely 17 days glued to Olympics coverage.

Day 2: wrapping up 2016, MOVIES

I saw 50 movies last year, which was far above my original goal of 26, but just under my stretch-goal of 52. I enjoyed quite a lot of them, so this post may run a little long...

My favorite movie, hands down, was Arrival.

After that, in no particular order... (out of the new arrivals in 2016 or very late 2015)
Rogue One
Moana
Zootopia
Finding Dory
Captain America: Civil War
Kubo and the Two Strings
Florence Foster Jenkins
Money Monster
Hail, Caesar!
Whisky Tango Foxtrot
Star Trek: Beyond
Ghost Busters
Snowden

Watching things from previous years, I also really enjoyed
Ex Machina
Zoolander
Magic in the Moonlight
Spy

Day 1: wrapping up 2016, BOOKS

I had a screaming headache all yesterday, so I mostly wrote stuff, moped around on the couch, and went to bed before midnight.

I read 144 books and novellas last year. 67 of them were by new-to-me authors. 14 were rereads, so 130 of them were new-to-me works.

Here's the best of the new-to-me stuff that I read last year...

SF or FANTASY or SLIPSTREAM:
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Radiance by Catherine Valence
City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Fifth Season by N K Jemisin
The Obelisk Gate by N K Jemisin
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
Penric and the Shaman by Lois McMaster Bujold
Penric's Mission by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
The Dream Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson
Summerlong by Peter S Beagle
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Roses and Rot by Kat Howard
Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel
Kingfisher by Patricia Mckillop
The End of All Things by John Scalzi
Feedback by Mira Grant

TEEN or YA:
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Greenglass House by Kate Milford

Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon
If I Stay by Gail Forman 

MYSTERY:
Harbour Street by Ann Cleeves

ROMANCE:
Only Enchanting by Mary Balogh
Artistic License by Elle Pierson
In the Middle of Somewhere by Roan Parrish

OTHER:
Snobs by Julian Fellowes

The decade in review (2001)

The year started off badly, with a lot of stress surrounding our wedding plans and fights over guest lists and flowers for the altar and so on. DH's grandmother was also doing very badly, health-wise, so we ended up punting our Big Wedding Plans and having a small family ceremony in her living room on March 23rd. Ironically, his grandmother ended up hanging on for another 3+ years, but this was one of the last moments she was really mentally alert and taking things in.

We didn't live together immediately. DH was still working on his PhD and I had to teach, so we continued our commuter relationship for another 10 weeks. Then I moved up to NH for the summer and we lived in a crazy huge old house for three months, interrupted only by...

Our honeymoon! Three weeks in the Phillipines and Hong Kong. Pure magic.

Then DH moved south with me in late August. He would continue working on his PhD while I supported us. September 11th was the first day of classes... I will always remember that we thought Jason was pulling our leg when he came down after first period and said that a second plane had hit the WTC. While none of my students lost parents in the attacks, several lost relatives or neighbors.

I don't have any specific memories of that fall or winter.

The decade in review (2000)

In 2000, I was about four months into my first "real job" - as a math and physics teacher at Mercersburg Academy. Mercersburg is a small rural town in south-central Pennsylvania. I had moved there partially to please a boyfriend, who then promptly broke up with me. (He thought he might be in DC but ended up in Boston.) My favorite uncle died just a month after I started my job. I did have my beloved pooch, Penny, to keep me sane and prevent me from being too lonely.

I remember that I taught four classes: Conceptual Physics, Honors Algebra II, and two sections of PreCalculus. I had some wonderful students and some terrible ones. I coached tennis and played the carillon, and lived in Swank Hall with about forty 10th, 11th, and 12th grade girls.

That summer, I returned to Dartmouth to try to finish my PhD in experimental physics. What a joke! My advisor had washed his hands of me and was actually getting ready to quit, although we didn't know it yet. My mother was moving and trying to sell the house. I had a terrible time between dealing with my melt-down in my academic life and not knowing where I'd be living from week to week. And yet... it was also the most important summer of my life, because the DH and I started dating! We'd been friends for the previous four years but somehow never got the timing right, romantically. By the end of the summer we were unofficially engaged; we got the ring at Thanksgiving and finished meeting each other's extended families at Christmas.

I don't think I have any photos from that era; if I do, they're on paper in a box somewhere.