Sunday Salon/Sunday Post - December 29, 2024: Just Cheese.

For those of you following along, last week at work was not as bad as it could have been, and this week is on track to be tolerable. Sometimes that's as good as it gets ;) The family has tried to get me to participate in all the things, but I'm a homebody with less free time than the rest of them. It's going okay. Christmas Eve they really wanted to go out ice skating like they did the night before Thanksgiving, but someone accidentally asked my opinion, so we stayed home, made personal pizzas, decorated cookies, and played family edition Cards Against Humanity. It was fun, and we all enjoyed ourselves. For New Years' Eve, one of the kids said they wanted to stay home, so I grabbed onto that. LOL I have to work during the day, but I'll give the kids my credit card to go get whatever appetizer ingredients they want, and we can stream a ball-drop from somewhere, play some more family games, and try to stay up until 2025. They both have the option of inviting a friend or two over, but I refuse to say I'm hosting a party. We're hanging low-key, and others may join us.

In the meantime, I'm posting my last Sunday Salon and Sunday Post for 2024, with Readerbuzz and Caffeinated Reviewer. Hope you'll play along and visit some of the other great sites that post regularly.

What I'm reading this week:

As intended,  I finished December Dread (4 stars) and This Book Won't Burn (5 stars) last week, and have now started A Grandmother Starts the Story (my last review book on kindle from 2023) and Love and Death in the Sunshine State (a print review book which is a bit older, but I received in a pile quite a while ago).

Three Good Things:

1. As I stated already last week, my kids are truly amazing. They really whipped the holidays into shape this year. I got more gifts than the last two years, and I highly suspect the kids were behind this. Of course, it isn't all about the gifts, but it sure is nice to feel noticed and appreciated. 
2. I got out and did things this week! Really, I prefer to be home, but it seems to make everyone else happy when I get out and visibly enjoy life. Friday was a work bestie's last day at the job, so we went to the bar across the parking lot for a bit after work, then hubby and I joined a couple other local adults for dinner. Last night, I went with hubby to his high school band reunion. Several of the band kids didn't necessarily want to re-visit people they'd graduated with, but definitely their band friends. So, they set up a multiple-year band kid reunion. It was fun.
3. I finished two of my holiday Lego sets already! I got three all together, and so far I finished the exclusive set-with-purchase bookshelf/reading nook that I may have started my shopping in November to make sure I got. I gifted the rest of the 'required' order to get my bookshelf, and gave it to the kids to wrap for me. I got it put together and displayed on my book shelf yesterday. They also picked out one of the three-in-one sets for me (the unicorn/seahorse/peacock), and I put the peacock together on Christmas Day. I still have the Wildflower Bouquet (and the Bonsai tree I got last year) to put together when I have a day to chill.
   

Three Goals for this week/month/whatever:

1. I've got a few holiday gifts still to put into use - my jelly-fish lamp will be displayed where my actual fish tank used to be in the dining room, and my new jeans need to be washed before I'll wear them. Hopefully I can wrap up these two tasks today and get to enjoying all my new goodies.
2. My daughter said she actually wants to make New Years' resolutions, so I think I'll try to see what I have around to make that an activity for all of us on New Years' Eve or New Years' Day. Vision board stuff, or the giant post-it note paper, or containers and slips to add to it. I dunno - I'll think of something that I most likely already have the crafty stuff for so we can make it fun.
3. I actually want to finish the last two books I'm reading. I will not meet my Goodreads goal (gonna adjust that down for next year), but in the short-term I should be able to finish up these last two.