I’m the only child of two highly educated parents, so you can imagine I spent a lot of time around adults when I was growing up. Well, adults, books, and imaginary friends. It wasn’t that I didn’t have any friends my own age, it was just that there was so much to be made up, so much to be read, so much to be discovered. I developed quite the precocious little vocabulary from listening to all of that adult conversation and reading all of those books, but I was embarrassed of it. In school I would think one word, then I would take a beat, and speak another, a dumbed-down synonym of what I had originally thought. I didn’t want to give anyone cause to think I was weird or to make fun of me.

That’s why I write.

Because when I write I own the words, and I can use the ones I want.

this year’s notebook and my current favorite pen

At swim meets people used to tell each other, “You did good!” and ask, “Did you swim good?” And so I said those things, too, because heaven forbid I say the correct “You did well!” and ask if they had swum well. (I’m pretty sure I even blapshemed grammar by saying I “had swam” because people looked at me askance when I tried the correct “swum.”)

That’s why I write.

Because I know the rules, and I love the rules, and I also love taking little liberties with those rules because when I write, I own the rules, and I can use the ones I want.

I always kept a journal as a kid, though intermittently, and I of course made little construction paper books. My most famous chronicled the course of the Olympic torch through Jackson, MS on its way to Atlanta in 1996. I also have a vivid memory of a page in my journal years later where I drew a special box, inside of which I exclaimed something along the lines of “OMG Matt Damon. So hawt.” (I had just watched Good Will Hunting.) I probably would have tweeted that thought if it were today, and I would have made connections with other people who also think Matt Damon is so hawt.

That’s why I write.

Because I care about building community, and when I write, I own the words, and I can use the ones I want to share myself & invite people into my story.

I write because sometimes the words in my own head are so loud that I can’t read anyone else’s until I get them out.

I write because the world is a broken place but I see beautiful things in it, and it’s my heart to point those out.

I write to make the corners of the world I touch a little softer.

That’s why I write.

Because I’m a keen observer, and an over-thinker, and when I write, I own the words, and I can bring into light what you might have missed otherwise.

I write because I can. I write because I can’t help it. That’s why I write.

The holidays are over. Today was the first Monday of the new year, the first year back to work, back to routines (though things look a little different for me this year).

December was like the Superbowl of Hospitality for me, as both my parents and my in-laws made trips to Atlanta to celebrate with us. It was different being the grownup and hosting Christmas! My parents and I are a great team in the kitchen, so it wasn’t like the entire onus of feeding us was on me (and we had a blast doing it), but I spent a lot of mental energy ahead of time planning shopping trips, thinking through fun things to do together, and preparing the house. And then every night when our guests departed, I realized that it would be nice to straighten up ahead of the next day’s fun, rather than just falling into bed. It was nice, just different from going to my parents’ house and kind of being the kid again.

None of our parentals stayed with us. We have a second bedroom, but since we live in a loft it doesn’t actually have doors. It’s set up as Andy’s office, and we have a daybed in it. It’s roughly twin-sized and can be set up as roughly king-sized. We just recently hung up curtains across the doorway to the room to give it a little more privacy, and it does have a bathroom attached. The week of new year’s, we had our inaugural guest bed sleepers who weren’t my mom and actually made it up at its biggest size for the first time. When it’s set up fully, the bed is low, like a mattress on the ground. It’s not luxurious. But it’s a space in my home that I offer from my heart. If it can save a friend some money and facilitate our spending time together, than it’s served its purpose.

That’s hospitality. Mi casa es su casa, etc. Pull up a seat at my table; I’ve got a chair waiting for you.

To me, hospitality isn’t about what you have to offer; rather, it’s about how you offer it. I mean, I have some nice things, and I love when people get to enjoy them with me. I recently bought a set of vintage coupe glasses, and they feel so delicate, and I’m sort of terrified of them. But Ima use ‘em, because I love them, and if you come over, I’ll let you use one too. And if you break it, you’ll still be my friend.

Because then again, sometimes I’ll buy you wings from Publix and we’ll eat them off of paper plates. And that’s hospitality too.

Men have a tendency to be hard to shop for, amiright? I know at least my husband, my dad, and my father-in-law all typically buy themselves things as soon as they want them, leaving the gift-giving pickin’s pretty slim when gift-giving times come around. My husband also tends not to like stuff that will take up space or go obsolete. His preferred gifts to give are consumables. So in trying to get creative with a Christmas gift for him this year, I came up with and packaged a year of dates.

I can’t take full credit for the idea. I found all kinds of inspiration from the results of a quick Google search and mostly drew from Lauren’s post at The Thinking Closet. We don’t have a color printer, though, so I was a little underwhelmed at the prospect of using her printables, cute though they may have been, because they would have just been plain and black and white. Instead, I crafted a set of twelve of my mini envelope and notecard sets, wrote out the dates, and packaged them up in a little box. If a woman had opened this gift she would have thought she was getting jewelry! (I’m not sure what my husband thought.) Simple enough!

The most fun part was coming up with the date ideas. My husband and I don’t really go on dates that often. We were long-distance for most of our pre-marriage relationship, so every time we saw each other carried a lot of weight. And often, we were getting together for a specific reason. So we did a lot of hanging out but not a whole lot of going on dates. I’m usually the planner-of-things in our marriage, so it felt natural to come up with ideas. I know a lot of folks encourage dating your spouse every week, and maybe we’ll get there. But these monthly outings seem like a good start. We’ll plan for them specifically every month when we’re drafting our budget, which is a natural time when we’re already together and thinking about the weeks ahead.

I tried to strike a balance with the dates between Big Deal Outings and smaller events, between going out and staying put, and between spending money and not. Obviously these are specific to Atlanta, but if you live somewhere else I bet you could tweak the concept.

It’s obviously only January, and Date 1 is still yet to happen! I’ll post the list here for reference and then link each date to a specific post after it’s been completed. Pictures and details of course to be included.

• January: Tourists in Our Own Town
  Ride the SkyView ferris wheel together, check out the CNN Center gift shop (who needs to spend an hour on a tour?), and grab a drink at the revolving Sun Dial restaurant!

• February: Freezin’ in February
  Turn up the heat, it’s ice cream night! Whatever flavors and toppings we want. Enjoy during game night at home—no devices tonight!

• March: Donut Date
  Morning walk to Revolution Donuts. We’re allowed to have two if we want!!

• April: Say cheese!
  Walk to The Mercantile for a bottle of wine and some nibblies, and we’ll sit on the rooftop deck at sunset to enjoy them.

• May: May’s for Mason Mill
  Explore the trails at South Peachtree Creek. Last time I was there I saw a heron, watched a train from a pedestrian bridge, and found the happiest graffiti.

• June: Leavin’ on a Jet Plane
  …or watching them, anyway, from Sunday brunch at the 57th Fighter Group restaurant at Peachtree-Dekalb Airport.

• July: Farmer’s Market Find
  Pick a weird vegetable or meat. We’ll find it at YDFM and then figure out what to do with it!

• August: Whiskey Wednesday
  Time to try some cocktails! We can experiment at home or go for half price at the Pinewood.

• September: Decatur Day
  Clue Town scavenger hunt in downtown Decatur. Who knows what we’ll find!

• October: Pumpkin Pickin’ and Moonshine Drinkin’
  Day trip to Dawsonville to pick a pumpkin from Burt’s Farm and check out a tour of the moonshine distillery.

• November: Festive Fall Colors
  Let’s take a walk to find the best tree in Candler Park!

• December: Spotify Hospitality Playlist
  Holidays are times for having people over. Let’s assemble an epic, eclectic, Andy&Laura playlist to set the mood!

What’s the best date you’ve ever been on? Do you have a standing date time with your spouse or significant other?

I live in a books bubble that makes me feel like I don’t read enough. Me, of the book club, of the Kindle-always-in-my-purse, not reading enough! I never really thought about tracking my books count until I entered the blogosphere. It’s mostly Book Riot’s fault, and Money Saving Mom does it too. I’ve used Good Reads intermittently to track my books, and thanks to their “Your Year in Books” feature I am now intimately acquainted with the number of books I’ve read. I knew it would be coming, and so I actually spent several hours on New Year’s Eve day finishing the last 28% of a book so that I could count it toward 2014.

But do I really care about the number of books I read? It sort of gets at the fundamental question of why I read in the first place, which is a good one that I’ve mused around periodically here before. I read for enjoyment. I read to escape. I read to broaden my horizons. So mostly I don’t think I do care. I have a pretty epic books wishlist on Amazon that I may or may not ever get to the end of. I mostly select my next books on whims–sometimes I’m in the mood for fluffy fiction, others headier nonfiction. I just go with it. And I think that’s fine.

But just for fun, this year I’m going to participate in Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge. It’s not a challenge based on the numbers. It works out to 2 books per month, which is more than I read some months this past year, but not an inordinate number. Rather, it’s more about the content of what you’re reading. The tasks aren’t time-bound, and you don’t even have to do them in any particular order.

Without further ado, the tasks and my picks:

• A book written by someone when they were under the age of 25
  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

• A book written by someone when they were over the age of 65
  Every Third Thought by John Barth

• A collection of short stories (either by one person or an anthology by many people)
  A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’ Connor (has been on my TBR for ages)

• A book published by an indie press

• A book by or about someone that identifies as LGBTQ
  Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan (I’ve loved the other things I’ve read by him.)

• A book by a person whose gender is different from your own
  The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (It was already on my wishlist and it fit the category, so shrug.)

• A book that takes place in Asia
  Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

• A book by an author from Africa
  Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

• A book that is by or about someone from an indigenous culture (Native Americans, Aboriginals, etc.)
  The Round House by Louise Erdrich

• A microhistory
  The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
  and/or
  The Search for God and Guinness: A Biography of the Beer that Changed the World by Stephen Mansfield

• A YA novel
  The Tragedy Paper by Elzabeth Laban

• A sci-fi novel
  The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
  and/or
  Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

• A romance novel
  The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks (I don’t think I’ve read this one.)

• A National Book Award, Man Booker Prize or Pulitzer Prize winner from the last decade
  The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

• A book that is a retelling of a classic story (fairytale, Shakespearian play, classic novel, etc.)
  Wicked by Gregory Maguire

• An audiobook
  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

• A collection of poetry
  Head Off & Split by Nikky Finney (I got it for Christmas one year but have never read the whole thing.)

• A book that someone else has recommended to you

• A book that was originally published in another language
  My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (originally written in Italian)

• A graphic novel, a graphic memoir or a collection of comics of any kind
  Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Trouble’s Began by Art Spiegelman (I read Maus I in college and it was great!)

• A book that you would consider a guilty pleasure
  50 Shades of Grey by E. L. James (Yep, Ima go there.)

• A book published before 1850
  The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

• A book published this year (this year being 2014, when the tasks were published)
  Landline by Rainbow Rowell
  and/or
  Delicious! by Ruth Reichl

• A self-improvement book
  All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Wealth by Laura Vanderkam (one of my favorite bloggers!)
  and/or
  The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris
  and/or
  The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Some of these will be NBD for me…a YA novel? Twist my arm, why dontcha?! A guilty pleasure? Woohoo! Others will be a little bit more, well, challenging, which is the whole point! An audiobook, a graphic novel–those are further outside my comfort zone. But it should be fun. There’s a Goodreads group for inspiration and accountability, though I haven’t copied anyone’s list suggestions verbatim.

I reserve the right to change my mind on any of these, but this is a starting point. I’m also open to recommendations (and, hello, Task #18: Recommended by Someone Else), especially in the audiobook and indie press categories. If I get really motivated I may even read multiples in some of the categories.

Half the fun of reading to me is picking whatever suits my fancy, so I’m a little nervous about embarking on such a structured list. But hey, since I’m not “working” full-time right now, I guess I should have more time to read!

Keep an eye out for periodic updates on my progress! I’ll be tweeting with the hashtag #ReadHarder, as will the other participants. Join us?

all links are Amazon affiliate links…any purchases help support my blogging habit

2014 went out with a bit of a whimper. I didn’t even stay awake until midnight. I don’t know, I often find New Year’s Eve to be a letdown. Let’s think about this: I don’t really do well at parties, I don’t love getting dressed up, don’t love crowded restaurants, and I don’t particularly like staying up late. So it’s not really the holiday for me. The main part I like about NYE is that it’s de rigeur to drink bubbly. I DO love bubbly. I try every year to make it fun for myself, and it’s usually just…fine. And that’s okay. I’m 26 years old and I think I can temper my expectations now.

But here we are and it’s New Year’s Day. (Whoda thunk it, that comes after New Year’s Eve!) A new year, a fresh start, etc, etc. I’ve had some moderately successful new year’s resolutions in recent years. 2012 saw me set out to run a 5K, which I did, and I’ve since run several others and even two 10Ks. Last year I said I wanted to continue cultivating my relationships, and I’ve been pleased with how my Atlanta sense of community has developed. (Plus, who can believe that my book club has been meeting for THREE years!)

I don’t have resolutions per se this year. It’s going to be different, though. Today’s the first day of the rest of my life. That’s super cheesy, and I know you could technically say it about any given day on the calendar. I mean it, though. I left my job at the end of December, and I’m giving this writing thing a go. I gave myself the holidays to cut loose. I spent time with my parents. I went shopping. I watched 8 episodes of Gilmore Girls on Monday. And today I am writing. Today I am working.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was 4 years old. You know how every week it seems like kids want to be something different? I had a few alternatives, including professional swimmer (yeah right), but writer has stuck. And yet I’ve never done it. I had all kinds of practical reasons why I wasn’t pursuing it: it’s hard to break into the industry, I don’t have anything to say, blah, blah, blah. Yet I’ve pecked away here on this blog for several years now, and every day at work that I got to string together some words I was reminded how happy it made me, how invigorating it was.

Someone told me once that if I wrote, I was a writer. The trappings are irrelevant. Where you write, how you write, what you’re writing. I’m constantly thinking words, thinking sentences, and I have a bad habit of self-censoring, of not putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. That ends today. Today I am writing, I am working, I am a writer.

There’s inertia to overcome, certainly. When I’m not writing, it’s much easier to keep not writing. Yet when I do write, writing begets writing. The hardest step is the first word. Once I break that blank slate syndrome it’s like a dam has burst. And I am a writer. The dam bursting is my bread and butter.

That’s cool and all, but it’s overwhelming to realize I don’t 100% know what that means. I’m sort of doing this backwards from how most people do it. Usually bloggers write, they write late at night and early in the morning and at strange intervals during the day, and they start to gain a following. Maybe they throw a few ads up on their site and start bringing in a few pennies. Maybe they eke out an e-book and it starts selling, and they think, “Hey, maybe I could do this thing.” So they crunch the numbers and they realize they can, they can quit their jobs, and be a writer. I don’t have the blog following yet, I don’t have the ads, I don’t have the e-book, but I’m being a writer, and I’m working to make the rest of it follow suit.

So what can you expect from my slice of the Internet? More content, that’s for sure. Actual regular posting. (How many times have bloggers promised that?!) More freezer cooking, more talking about books, more local color as I explore new workspaces. I’ll re-visit my failed attempt at October’s 31 Days series examining our finances. Travel planning, triathlon training (I guess I do have a resolution after all), personal reflection.

And what the heck, probably some more bubbly. Who says we can only drink it on New Year’s Eve?

Raise your glass–it’s going to be a wild ride.