I like to make calendars for my family for Christmas. They usually take a lot longer to make then I remember needing to complete them. Sometimes I curse myself for not starting earlier. But ultimately I am always glad that I make them.
For me, it is like a review of the year. I don’t usually make photo books and I only get my free prints from Snapfish about once a year so for some pictures this is the only way they will will ever be off of digital media.
When I was going through my pictures from this past year, I had so many times when I thought, “Wow, I sort of forgot that even happened.” So today I am writing this, partially as a reminder to myself for the future of all the things that happened in 2019.
January: Mr. Katie and I went to see David Sedaris at the Keswick theatre. He was funny and likable. I walked past him twice in the hall. On the way into the theatre he was sitting at the table, not signing autographs. On the way out of the theater he walked right past me across the isle walking to the autograph table. I was less than 5 feet away from him, twice. That night, he had a lucky person who opened for him reading her own story. The story was about her 4th grade son and the closeness between him and his friends. Specifically, it was about how her son was friends with a boy whose mother was a Trump supporter The boy’s mom made “goopey” keto dinners that she posted pictures about on Facebook. The woman would say hi to the other mother in public but at home she would shake her head. (It is funny the details that you remember). I hosted my first Quizzo match at the library Also in January, the Mr. Katie, the boys and I took our annual January trip to Hershey to visit the Hershey Zoo and go to Chocolate World. While in Hershey we relished our annual Fuddruckers lunch trip. (We don’t go to Fuddruckers very often because we don’t live near one but when we do, we live it up). I started my running regime.
February: Baby Nugget turned 1. We had a big party for him in my library’s community room. The night before the party I hosted my second Quizzo night and we had the highest attendance we had all year with 65 people attending. The party was nice with wonderful family and friends attending. The only part that was hard was my mom not being there since she was there the last time we had a big one year birthday party in the library community room, when the party was for Mr. Man. Mr. Katie joined the bookclub at my library that meets at a brewery.
March: In early March, we went to see a live performance of The Laurie Berkner Band, who to the uninitiated let me tell you, they are Kindie rock royalty. The concert was a Christmas gift from Mr. Katie’s parents. The concert was on the campus of Princeton University, which if you were to drive “as the crow flies” is not far away but driving there in practice is actually pretty far away, especially with small children on sort of an icey day. Mr. Man didn’t really like sitting and mostly wanted to stand in the isle during the concert. Baby Nugget was pretty relaxed and didn’t seem super interested in what was going in. I might have been the person in our family who liked the concert the most. In fact, tears welled up in my eyes when the band took the stage because as I told one of my sisters in a text later that day, “they were all so beautiful”.
April: It was a pretty standard month. We had Easter. After Easter I traveled by myself with the boys to visit my Dad. Aunt Liz bought light up Easter Eggs and we had an Easter Egg hunt in my Dad’s yard. Getting through holidays the first year after you lose a member of your family is always tricky. I remember the Easter season as being sort of emotional. After my trip to Berlin, I had my last Quizzo of the spring season. I continued my running habit.
May: During first weekend of May we traveled to Rhode Island to celebrate Cousin Charlotte’s First Communion. On the way home, we got in a second Fuddruckers trip of the year. This time it was somewhere in New Jersey but not withstanding that fact, it was still delicious (epic burn, New Jersey!) Mr. Katie and I celebrated our anniversary in mid-May and we celebrated by taking a family trip to Longwood Gardens, with free tickets Mr. Katie got from going to his April bookclub meeting. I ran in the 5K in Coopersburg. The whole family attended Mr. Man’s farm field trip to a farm that started right after we left the 5k (so basically I smelled a lot like the animals).
Come back soon to see the conclusion of my year.
