bits and bants vol.40
catching up in 2025
Happy New Year as I write for the first time in this flipped calendar situation. I made myself just reading endlessly good content on Substack to actually write something even though I have no fascinatingly, world changing ideas on which to write.
This week of getting back to normal has flown by and ended in three kids being very sick yet again, and so help me I think I’m going to scream I am just so tired of dealing with sickness and I haven’t even had to take anyone to the emergency room! I’m getting soft in my children’s old age. (My old age?!) I really think about five thousand pages could be written about the unique struggle it is to be a stay at home mom with sick kids because there’s just nothing that feels so unending. I am tempted to go apply for jobs just to get a break from sick kids. Again, haven’t even had to go to the emergency room, I am such a whiner. I know so many people who are/were much sicker and it’s the worst, and truly you have my prayers. We’ll be fine…by May, I’m sure.
I’ve gotten most of Christmas put away, and I have a general desire to get the house in better working order even though my intention is not to purge or completely organize, just maybe go through some closets that still have boxes in them. And hang more art on the walls. Just moving into a new house feels like you should have some magical power granted to help you make those decisions more quickly, like hang art. But alas, no such power has struck me. But even though I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, it’s just something on my list of things I’d like to chip away at.
Circling back to January has left me with a brain full of things that need to happen at some point, kids writing diploma exams and preparing to graduate and suddenly it feels real, a need to really do some garden planning and maybe even decide where the garden is actually going to go, and it feels as if the list grows everyday, and it’s only January 10. Why do things feel so much more pressing with the turn of a calendar? I’m sure you all have these thoughts.
bits:
I don’t really have great things for you. My mind has become a sieve recently, with everything that needed to be done for Christmas taking over, and I haven’t been actively saving things I like as much, and that’s a problem! Just add it to the list.
Obviously, I will say that seeing a new picture of Princess Catherine was a real treat!
The best best books of 2024 list I read was from Dominika at Gathering Light. I want to read everything on that list that I haven’t read yet!
reading, watching, what have you:
I got three new puzzles for Christmas and have spent a lot of time puttering with them. I’m able to fit my puzzle board onto my gigantic kitchen island and that helps me do more puzzles and scroll less. But what an exciting hobby! I laugh at how grandma it is, but at the same time—can’t stop, won’t stop.
I’ve been reading a bunch, catching up on the monthly mysteries from
which were stuck in the mail during the postal strike, and now reading Power and Glory by Alexander Larman which is a great history book on the post war period of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne. Larman has written a trilogy of sorts on the period so I’m obviously going to read them all now. I also received the new Queen Elizabeth biography for Christmas, Q: A Voyage Around the Queen by Craig Brown. Basically royal biographies can just be stuck straight in my veins. I am a bottomless royal biography sponge at this point.I’m also trudging away at Michael O’Brien’s The Father’s Tale for book club, but by audiobook because I am not a Michael O’Brien fan and could not find a million hours for his too many words to devout to the physical copy, but the audiobook is simply ghastly. I love Ignatius Press, you know I work with them and review their books often, but I do not understand how this production got made at all. It is literally the worst audiobook I’ve ever listened to, but I also refuse to give him that many hours of my time and physically read the book. I need to get this book done and I’m currently listening about two hours a day at 1.7 speed, and would love to get it over with. The book itself is fine, but I think his style is simply not my cup of tea. I understand if you like it though, don’t come for me.
I haven’t been watching much, and would love recommendations! Christmas holiday evenings have been busy with friends and/or driving kids places and then our family movie nights have been all Christmas movies which has been great. But if you’ve got a new show I need to watch tell me, I’m desperate.
Hope you’re having a good weekend, I know there are so many suffering such catastrophic events that basic sickness would be a welcome relief. Let’s all hope for normal, aim for normal, people!
from snowy Canada,
Christy
I would love to hear your thoughts about Michael O'Brien...he has such a following in my Catholic world, but I have always had an aversion to his books. I would love to hear a more thoughtful analysis of his work but someone like you who is Catholic and has good book taste.
Oh I'm secretly thrilled to find other people unenthused about Michael O'Brien. That's a terrible thing to say, but honestly the blurbs on the back of my copy are wild. Peter Kreeft, Thomas Howard, and other luminaries comparing his writing to Dickens, Austen, and Dostoevsky. I made it to page fifty and couldn't go any further.
Thank you so much for the shout out :)
Also, puzzles are the best. Have you seen the Laurence King series of literary puzzles? There's a World of Agatha Christie, World of Shakespeare, and so on. We got a couple last year and they made the holiday season so cozy.