January.
2023.
Alright then.
Joe has been gone two months already. It still feels impossible. Maybe it always will.
In lieu of more depressing grief talk for the moment, I’m going to talk about snow and other innocuous things.
Hey, guess what?
… It has been blizzard-ing for two days. We are now far above average for snowfall so far this winter so that’s good news for the gawd-awful drought we’ve been in. However, it’s getting increasingly more difficult to discern between our driveway that has been plowed once so far this go-round (and needs another) and our yard that has multiple snow storms worth of snow already piled on it. It’s not so much a clear division but a smooth slope. I’m just glad we don’t have to go anywhere, nor do we have to shovel that mess ourselves. If we ever move, we’re not likely to have an HOA to cover snow removal so we’ll enjoy that luxury while it lasts.
… We’re back to routine today after our annual Christmas vacation of sitting at home, avoiding people, staying up too late, and all around enjoying little responsibility. I had no idea how much I needed that time with Bob. He’s been working from home for almost three years now, but at home working and at home not working are two very different things. He takes periodic days off throughout the year, but he hadn’t taken a solid week (or more) off since last Christmas. The reentry after vacation is always a little rough, but working from home does take a little bit of the edge off.
… It’s January, and that apparently means that my brain keeps trying to convince me I should be doing another Project 365. I have to keep reminding it how the last one three went and NO WE DON’T NEED TO DO THAT AGAIN. I did one in 2009/2010 (the years we got married and had our reception) and apparently stopped about a month short of finishing it. I did one in 2017 and collapsed at the end of it, saying NO MORE. I did one in 2021 and wanted to gouge my eyes out about two months in. I finished taking pictures, but the last three months of files are still unedited in RAW format. It always seems like a good idea to start. Something creative to challenge my brain when writing isn’t happening. And then I commit to it and quickly remember that even with daily prompts to give me something to take pictures of, it still starts to feel like torture far too early in the calendar.
… In that same vein, I feel like I need some other creative venture to bury my head in, but I have no idea what that might be. Writing has been all but nonexistent since before November. I’m not good at crafty things. And I certainly don’t want anything that has to involve other people. I should really focus that energy on cleaning my house, but that’s a whole other wall of text I’m not writing right now. I also want to somehow reorganize my desk—preferably without spending any more money on shit I don’t actually need. But that siren’s call from Amazon and its multitude of desk accessories doesn’t make that don’t spend money thing very easy. (Oh the wish lists I have filled.) I guess I’ll just go work on another house plan in my favorite video game.
… Speaking of video games, there’s a new content patch coming next week to Final Fantasy XIV. So at least I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice.
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Guess I’ll dig up December’s Last.fm stats out of the snow while I wait for that game update.
I still didn’t listen to much music in the month of December. I spent most of the month watching Christmas movies. I have about 40-some movies on DVD. Plus Boomerang has several that I don’t own yet. The music I did listen to (in iTunes at least) was almost entirely Christmas music. I wasn’t really feeling Christmas-y but it made for a good distraction in between getting unexpectedly wrecked by Stranger Things and the rest of the universe twisting the knife in ways that prior to November would not have had the same impact. YAY GRIEF.
The top 5 are artists that have full Christmas albums. The rest are from various compilations I amassed over time. I was surprised to find how much Christmas music I actually have. There was a lot I still didn’t listen to.
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Top 10 Most Played Artists for December 2022…
1.) Amy Grant … 39 plays
2.) The Killers … 22 plays
3.) Matt Nathanson … 15 plays
4.) NSYNC … 14 plays
5.) Hanson … 11 plays
6.) Darren Hayes … 5 plays
7.) Elliott Yamin … 4 plays
8.) Eric Hutchinson … 4 plays
9.) Band Aid … 3 plays
10.) Bing Crosby … 3 plays
Honorable mention: Bobby Helms, Brenda Lee, Bruce Springsteen, Burl Ives, Dean Martin, Donny Hathaway, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Gene Autry, Ingram Hill
Total of 193 plays of 97 tracks from 42 albums by 40 artists.
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I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues Elton John |