Last year I set my reading goal to 24 books and read 58, so this year I set my reading goal to 52, but I only read 39. However, I’m still proud of myself for reading even that much, and I’m even prouder of myself to simply be in the habit of reading. Furthermore, consider that I read 27 books in 2016 and 28 in 2015! If you, like me, didn’t reach your reading goal, do not see it as a failure; the only failure would be to not read at all.
Japan with my family was just eating whilst my dad went to see temples. I brought my camera and intended to create some kind of travel guide or fancy travel diary, but I came back from my trip, looked through my photos, and mostly just found photos of food taken with my iPhone. I didn’t take out my camera at all! I suppose I didn’t feel any urgency about it because I had visited the same areas in Japan three years ago (recap here). But anywho, here’s a little food diary of what I ate in Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto!
This post marks the second completed year of monthly recaps. Despite periods of inconsistent blogging this past year, I’ve always made sure to get my monthly recaps up, sometimes staying up until the early morning to do so. On top of that, I published 22 of 25 Blogmas posts this past month. It was almost more content than I could keep up with writing, and I imagine that it was more content than you could keep up with reading. If you fancy catching up on some, my favourites are: new apartment tour, ice skating adventures, a day at the museum, another way to build a habit. Anywho, from here on out, I hope to get back to my regular posting schedule of 2x/week; if I could keep up with [most of] Blogmas, this should be a walk in the park eh?
Watching Funny Face starring Audrey Hepburn in bed. Mom joining me halfway through. Danny coming in a little later, Lego Pokemon in hand, yet to be assembled. Dad waiting until exactly midnight to break out the grape cider. “It’s our champagne.” Missing midnight by exactly two minutes because we were watching Funny Face. Ken gaming in the room next door. Watching Funny Face again because Mom missed the beginning. Toasting bagels at 2AM because Danny got hungry. Finally tucking into bed for the first sleep of the year.
My favourite posts were all published during the second half of the year, post-grad. I suppose that it’s because I’ve had a lot more time to think, resulting in more posts that I’m proud of. Or perhaps I’m simply in a different headspace now than I was before, so the newer posts resonate more deeply with me.
I started my Christmas shopping the weekend before Thanksgiving when the Christmas Village and Dilworth Park Holiday Market in Philly opened. Admittedly, I ended up buying more things for myself than for other people that first weekend. But no worries, I still had plenty of time left in the holidays to do my shopping. The Friday after Thanksgiving, I checked out the Bryant Park Holiday Market in NYC, and when I got back to Philly the next day, I kept the momentum going in Old City for Small Business Saturday. Pretty much all my holiday shopping was done over those two weekends, and I’ve been dying to share what I bought ever since, but I held off until now because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise for my friends receiving the gifts. Although the timing of this post is too late to inspire your own holiday shopping, you can keep these businesses in mind for birthdays or other special occasions!