The January Little Letter Linkup

 

The second Friday of every month, Kristin hosts a Little Letters linkup on her blog. The idea is to write a series of letters to anyone or anything you’d like. They can be serious or silly, heartbreaking or hilarious. I thought it was a fun idea to participate and capture some of my thoughts this week in short letters. 

Dear Rules Of Civility,  You kept me up well past my bedtime last night. You were a real page turner.

Dear Canada Post,  It has been five days since my friend mailed an Xpresspost envelope back to me. You guarantee 1-2 days nationally. Get it together! And put it already in my mailbox. Gah! Please tell me I do not have to drive downtown, pay for parking, stand in line and put in a complaint.

Dear Juniper, Please stop pulling my hair. It really hurts. This phase has been going on too long and it's really starting to get annoying. Thank you for the dance party in the kitchen last night. It was fun to twirl around, hear your squeals of delight and laugh.

Dear iPhone4, You were so exciting when you were shiny and new six years ago and now you no longer update and your volume is a mess. Now every time anyone calls (which is an anomaly I know in our text savvy world) I'm straining to hear them or asking them to repeat what they last said. If a text comes in with cute fun emoticons all I see are alien faces and I have to guess at what they mean. And now I've reached my limit with your upteenth freeze when I attempted to search the Internet this afternoon. Why didn't you tell me you had a shelf life when I first laid eyes on you? I'm sorry we need to part ways. 

Dear Netflix,  I am so happy to be reunited. I forgot over the past few years you were so wonderful now that I have more than 24 hours to watch a movie that previously was costing me $4.99 to rent on the PlayStation and who often I abandoned not being able to finish in the allotted time frame.

Dear Mission Hill Winery,  Thank you for introducing me to the perfect pairing, Chardonnay and hot buttery popcorn, the perfect late night snack for watching television. 

Dear Dodge Ram,  You are fun to drive when L lets me take you for a spin but really what is up with your controls? This past week I engaged the emergency parking break because your parking sensors were freaking out on me with the snow and cold, I thought maybe my parking break was on until I realized it was just the parking sensors and that I could turn them off. But then I couldn't disengage the emergency parking break and sheepishly had to ask a man to help me. And the gear shift, a dial? 

Dear Steve,  I've never met you before and likely never will again, you really have crazy hair, but I appreciate your manly assistance with my vehicular ineptitude. 

Dear Starbucks, Thank you for opening up a location in my small city with a drive through. 

A Goal, An Invitation Set In Motion

 

New Years is often the time when many declare their resolutions for the new year. On New Years Eve I went to bed at 11. J had other plans and woke us all up at midnight. 

And yet without fail somehow in that interlude between New Years and my birthday I begin to think of goals. Perhaps it is because my blog feed suddenly begins to fill with goals for the new year but most likely it is my birthday creeping up on me and I am becoming ancient. Birthdays have a way of making us reflect and look forward. 

On Monday it was my birthday. It wasn't a milestone birthday, just a quiet affair. As always on my birthday I had carrot cake. I am a creature of habit. L baked it for me. He's fabulous. I like to think of a new year as one that begins with my birthday. 

I began drafting a list of goals on my birthday, but it was just that a draft. In one moment I thought I should make a goal for every year of my life but I ran out of ideas that I could realistically accomplish. Life has a way of foiling with my goals. And so now as a I eat my leftover birthday carrot cake I return to that drafted list of goals for the new year. I decide I'm going to pick one out of that list and really try to make that my focus for the year. 

This one goal, what is it? Friendship. 

I am grateful for the handful of friends that have hung onto me over the years when I have moved from city to city. I enjoy reading of all the antics of my online blogging friends. Sometimes I feel a little lonely however when I hear of all the fun everyone has been having without me. I've discovered where you are you also need friends. 

I find it difficult to cultivate friendship, my fears & insecurities get in the way, and sometimes I let time and inaction stifle the flame of what might be a new friendship. Or I sabotage myself by thinking why would they want to be friends with me? And I focus on all the things I think I am not. This year when someone says we should get together I'm going to stop right there and set a date, make plans. I'm going to follow up. I'm going to invite. I'm going to invest in cultivating friendships. Lord help me with my insecurities. 

Today I had what I hope will become a good friend over and we made cookies. She is quirky, smart, and creative. It was a delightful turn of events. Last year she had also come over, I think I had ordered something from one of her home based businesses, and I had made these cookies then as a snack. She had requested the recipe and I kept meaning to send her the recipe. Time marched on and my good intentions of writing out the recipe on a cute card stood in the way. Then in a Facebook exchange I bring up that silly recipe relaying I still intend to get it to her. Recipe? Oh right, yes she would still like the recipe. And then I thought really R just text a photo of the recipe don't be so precious with making up a pretty recipe card.  She replied back maybe we should hang out sometime and make them-- "hang out and food can't go wrong."See right there...that sometime is often an opportunity I don't take. This year though sometime is my invitation to set in motion a time to get together. Friendship I've read is often the result of three conditions that sociologists since the 1950s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other. 

Friendship is good. It is fun. It is worth the effort. 

What has been your experience with making new friends as an adult? Any tips? 

Do you have a goal for the new year? 

Korea House

I've been craving Korean food for sometime. L and I really enjoyed the hot stone bowls at Kim Chi House in Calgary.  I noted on a local blogger the Everyday Foodie blog a few mentions of Korean restaurants locally. She is much more adventurous than me and often cooks bibimbap. I left a comment on her blog asking for a recommendation of the best Korean food in Saskatchewan. She contacted me back that in Regina it was Korea House & Seoul in Saskatoon. I really was delighted for the recommendation. 

As we had a trip planned to Regina we decided lunch would be at Korea House.

 

We parked on a residential side street with two hour parking. Cutest little old houses ever. J lost her boot on the walk to the restaurant, luckily we noticed after taking this photo, and we were able to retrieve it.

 

There was only one other round table of 6 patrons when we came for lunch who were finishing up their lunch. As we had our lunch three other tables of couples also came in. It definitely was not as busy as Kim Chi House in Calgary. 

 

Please excuse my terrible photographs of the menu. My iPhone is really old.

 

There were clean high chairs for J. We had brought cut fruit along for J to tide her over while she waited. When our food came she also enjoyed some of our beef, rice, and side dish vegetables. She quite enjoyed lunch.

The washrooms were also clean if older.

We had the lunch special. L had the pork plate and I had the beef plate. L, my thrifty main squeeze, finds it beyond him to spend more than $10 on a lunch menu item. Many of the interesting menu items are well over $10. 

 

Overall it was fun to try a new restaurant and to have Korean food. L wasn't as impressed with his, but perhaps this was because we had just the lunch special. He felt like he was tasting it the rest of the afternoon. 

If your craving Korean in Regina try the Korea House and let me know what you think. Or if this is a favorite restaurant of yours let me know what I should order next time to have the best experience. 

Korea House

1427 11th Ave

Regina

A-Z Books I Read in 2016

Yay! I completed my Goodreads goal of 26 books and read 29. Haha! I know there are bloggers out there reading more than 100 books in a year and in previous years I might have read more than 29 books. But for me right now I am excited to have met this goal. Wherever you are in life, set your own goals, and don't beat yourself up or feel intimidated by others who are leapyears ahead of you. I aimed in 2016 to read through the alphabet.

I have become a huge fan of Goodreads  I have discovered some other readers and am fascinated to see what they are reading or want to read next. It is a fabulous sorce for book recommendations. I learned this morning I could sort books I read on Goodreads to various bookshelfs and then insert a widget in my blog from Goodreads that would show visually the books on that book shelf (in this instance 2016) and also each book is linked back to Goodreads. It was such a happy discovery!  I updated my Read page on my blog with this widget for both 2016 and 2015 and hope to add one for 2017 also. Adding the widget through HTML code makes me realize I'd like to learn a bit more HTML code as things tend to go a little wonky at times & it makes me realize I if I knew code how much more awesome would my blog be. Haha. Here it is below showing the books I read in 2016.

All the Light We Cannoth See by Anthony Doerr  
Big Little Lies by Liane Morianty
Chasing God by Angie Smith

Drifting House by Krys Lee 

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 

Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli 

Interrupted by Jen Hatmaker 

The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy 

July's People by Nadine Gordimer 

A Kiss for Maddalena by Christopher Castellani 

Looking for Lovely by Annie Downs

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist 

The Queen's Vow by C.W. Gortner 

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard 

Room by Emma Donoghue 

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson 

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Unless by Carol Shields

The Vacationers by Emma Straub

Wild & Free by Jess Connely and Hayley Morgan

XYZ by Anna Katharine Green 

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks 

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes 

As I neared the end in the last two weeks of December I didn't have titles for books starting with K and U in my que. I thought it would be challenging to find a book title that started with the letter U but instead K was a really difficult find. X was also really a challenge and while I found a book titled XYZ, a mystery by Anna Katharine Green published in 1923. XYZ almost felt like cheating as it was so short and could have qualified as a short story except that it did have chapters. According to Goodreads it is a novel even if there is no book cover associated with the entry. 

I really only started my challenge of reading 26 books after months had flown by and it was already mid year. I had lost the book, All the Light We Cannot See, I started at the beginning of the year and was stalled as I needed closure on that book before moving on. Finally I was able to request it and borrow it through the library.  Just last week I found the lost copy in question  looking pristine it's pages yet crisp, it's cover gleaming. It's a good thing I never waited until I found that copy or I would have never completed this reading challenge.

I love libraries. I also discovered this year my local library allows me to borrow eBooks and audiobooks from my iPad over the Internet (Hoopla & OverDrive)  from the comfort of my home. This discovery has revolutionized my ability to read and reduced my library fines significantly. I love that sometimes I can listen to a book while playing with J or doing housework where I couldn't have a book in hand before. Sometimes the individual reading the book makes the experience that much better. The narrators Fred Berman and Phoebe Strole  voices of The Time Travellers Wife for instance embodied the characters. 

Then I thought I needed to invest in my faith by reading inspiring books by Christian authors. Oh my word! There is a cult following for some of these authors and several in my estimation did not live up to the hype. It was as if they were just trying to put out a new book. Yawn. I actually scheduled how many pages a day I needed to read to finish one of the books. One I even resorted to underlining as if it were a text book as I kept getting sidetracked. Disappointing! Granted I did find two gems (One Thousand Gifts & Looking for Lovely) that made me think about faith & God and inspired me so I am glad I went on this journey. But I did give up on that list I had made for myself to read. 

Recap of what I read in 2016:

Top Books 

 

All the Light We Cannoth See by Anthony Doerr  

Looking for Lovely by Annie Downs 

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Unless by Carol Shields

Fabulous Reads for the Beach

 

Big Little Lies by Liane Morianty 

Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard 

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

The Vacationers by Emma Straub 

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes 

Books Reviewed this Year

 

The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy (a collaboreads review here)

July's People by Nadine Gordimer (a collaboreads review here)

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson (a collaboreads review here)

Looking for Lovely by Annie Downs (a quick mention here)

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp (related mention to current happenings of my life here)

I'd Rather Have Selected A Different Book to Read For My Challenge Than This Book

 

Drifting House by Krys Lee 

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes 

Chasing God by Angie Smith (the writer's asides were so annoying!)

Wild & Free by Jess Connely and Hayley Morgan (despite all the hype I couldn't get into this book)

Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli (I have mixed feelings about this book...it's weird but interesting in a hokey way)

These Endings...

 

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks 

July's People by Nadine Gordimer 

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy 

All the Light We Cannoth See by Anthony Doerr  (Overall great ending, I just wished a different fate for the one character.)

Is there one novel that you read in 2016 that you would highly recommend?

Do you finish all the books you start or do you find it easy to give up on a book if it is less than what you had hoped for? If you can abandon books do you have any criteria that helps you make this decision?