As of December 2024, I have been an official resident of Illinois, having bought our house at that time. Of course, we lived here longer than that, but we were house hunting and living with friends during that time. The time has gone by very quickly, surprisingly enough, probably because we were spending the past year trying to figure out how all our stuff fit into our new space. Some of it did, some of it didn’t, and we are still in the process of sorting through boxes.
Moving after spending years in the same location is hard because you’re forced to finally deal with all that stuff in the basement and in closets that was easy to ignore. Boxes of pictures, for instance, or sentimental items from high school. It seems inconceivable to throw all those things away, but I tell ya — when you are in the depths of moving and the truck is getting full, it’s mighty tempting to turn off the sentimentality and just chuck it all. I didn’t, of course (although I did throw an entire dumpster’s worth of stuff away), and that is why I find myself in the “too much stuff” predicament. We’ve already made one Goodwill haul and need to make another one soon.
The holidays presented an unwanted gift to my husband and me, as we both ended up with pneumonia. That made the actual holidays and New Year’s fly by, as I was struggling with just surviving while also trying to create the holiday magic for everyone. In spite of how I felt, I was able to create some delectable lasagna on Christmas Eve and prime rib on Christmas Day, so pneumonia lost and I won. Kind of.
When I turned 50 last year, I vowed that I was going to get healthier and stop putting things off that I needed to pay attention to.
Let’s just say that “year of 50” slid by and I most certainly did not stop putting things off, as moving provided a convenient excuse to be really, really busy, and once we lived in the new house, that trend continued. Now I am about to turn 51 and that nagging voice in my head finally got through to me. This WILL be the year that I get healthier — both mentally and physically — by taking care of things that I have neglected for too long and developing some new hobbies that I had avoided taking up because of the endless array of excuses that I tended to supply. I call the nagging voice in my head “Madge,” because I envision her to be kind of a rough-and-tumble OTR trucker with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. I could hear Madge say something derogatory every time I decided to put off a task, for instance, or do something lazy. “Yeah,” she’d cackle. “Let’s do that! Good choice all around!”
I hate Madge.
However, Madge started to get to me. I started to realize that Madge was actually the voice of reason that I should have been listening to this whole time. However, listening to a nice, nonconfrontational, sweet version of that VOR would have resulted in my ignoring her. My conscience knew that. So Madge was born, and Madge irritates the hell out of me, but she gets my attention. Whenever I feel like cutting corners or putting something off, there she is in the corner, cackling with cigarette smoke being snorted out of her nostrils as she watches me teeter on the cusp of doing something dumb. There’s nothing worse than being verbally bullied (in my imagination, anyway) by a woman who probably needs to work on herself as well. So, in an effort to shut Madge up and make my own soul happy, I’m going to delve back into my hobbies this year.
I want this year to be a year of reflection and introspection. The last few years I’ve been running with the wind and rarely taking a breather to enjoy downtime. This year I am simplifying for my own good. I want to read more — much more than I already do — and maybe start keeping track of what I’m reading. I want to write more as well, possibly developing a novel along the way. I have helped several people edit books over the years, and I’ve always been a bit jealous; seeing my name on a book cover would be a thrill for me, and I hope someday I am able to see that.
I also want to take the time to make some of the recipes out of the WNAX cookbooks that I’ve collected over the years. I get a kick out of reading those books (most of which I’ve scanned here for others to enjoy!). I’ll spare you the details of why I love these books because I have droned on and on about these for years, but they are gems. There is one particular book that amuses me because the design has a pin as a part of it, like this:
Well, one clever lady, Alice Johnson, decided to put a recipe for pfeffernusse cookies inside the front cover – and use a pin to secure it.
And I just. can’t. get. over. the THREE CUPS OF LARD. Yes, it makes a ton of cookies, but . . .
THREE CUPS OF LARD!!
I don’t care how good these cookies are . . . I just don’t think I could stomach dumping that much lard into a bowl and then proceeding to make something with it.
But hey, if you are braver than I, then go to it – the recipe is right there!
Cheers to 2025!
