Happy New Year!

The next couple of days for me will be the gradual transition back to post-holiday "normal" time. I've got some fun planned for today but will also try to hit at least half of my targeted work goal for the day. I was surprised to find that some of the TV networks are going back to normal so soon after the holiday. There's a new Elementary on tonight and a new Grimm tomorrow night. And then Downton Abbey is back Sunday night. We'll see if I forgive them for the way they ended the last season. As I recall, Downton Abbey had a lot to do with the start of the knitting obsession because I needed some form of stress relief while watching.

I had a quiet start to the new year. I ended up skipping the annual party in part because I had a case of sniffles that I was afraid was the start of a possible cold and in part because I just plain didn't really want to go and was eager for the excuse. I needed quiet, and spending hours surrounded by people -- even people I like -- didn't appeal much to me. I rewatched the Doctor Who Christmas episode and rewatched the first Hobbit movie on HBO. Rewatching that movie has made me less interested in seeing the second part. These movies are so bloated that they've lost the original story. I found myself dozing off during the pointless (and endless) action scenes and perking up during the quieter moments that actually came from the book.

On New Year's Day, after watching the Rose Parade I got back into cleaning/organizing my office. I'd found out that they were re-airing the BBC Radio version of Neverwhere. I'd heard the first episode earlier last year, then got sidetracked, and the rest were gone from streaming by the time I went back to it. I cleaned and sorted around my desk while listening to the first couple of episodes and may make that a habit until I finish the series. I got my desk sort of cleaned off and organized the office supplies cart. Then I started sorting through boxes.

I found a big stash of pages I'd torn from magazines during what must have been a previous purge of said magazines. I subscribed to Glamour during my twenties and thirties, and it looks like I must have been looking to it as some kind of guide for life when I was in my 20s (though at the time I was writing contemporary romance novels, so I suspect a lot of the things I pulled were meant as research material). They used to have a feature at the end of each issue that was a list -- things like "things every woman should own" or "things you should get rid of." A lot of them were stuff like "things every woman should do before she's 30." I figure I passed the expiration date on those. Looking back at those lists, the "every woman" stuff irks me, because a lot of it was based on their idea of an ideal lifestyle that doesn't apply to everyone. In some respects, I guess I fell short (on just about everything to do with romantic relationships), but by 30 I'd had multiple books published and had bought a house and traveled abroad, so I think I did pretty well without having the requisite number of relationships, including one I'd be willing to go back to (I don't have any exes I want anything to do with -- that's why they're exes. I've run into a few former crushes, and that pretty much ended the crush).

Needless to say, that whole box got tipped into the recycling bin. Now I'm sorting through a box of recipes, and I'm finding some keepers there. I also found the instruction book for an appliance in there, so I definitely can't just toss the whole box. I need to force myself to try at least one new recipe every week or so to work through all these things I've saved. Most of them, I'll admit, fall into the category of "why did I save this?" but there have been a few where I remembered why it sounded good.

Now I need to get into a habit of shredding things because at least one box I found in the office was essentially a "stuff I need to shred" box. I have to remember to do that in small batches so I don't burn out the shredder. And I need to not lose interest in the project before it's done.