While sort of reflecting on my goals and expectations for the new year, I just so happened to think about this little corner of the internet of mine, and in particular these monthly lookback posts. While I love them for a variety of reasons — they hold me accountable to blog at least once a month, they give me reason to really reflect on how much I have to be grateful for, & they log so many great things that I reference back to regularly — I found that I oftentimes dread writing them! They’re kind of a time-suck to be quite honest. I think because there is just so much dang writing. And then I found myself not wanting to write other posts because I had just dedicated so much time to these ones (I mean, we summited Half Dome in July and I still haven’t posted about it!!) So…in an effort to write more “other” posts in this year of 2020, I am cutting back on these Lookback posts. They’re not going anywhere! I’m just going to switch them to more of a shorter list format. I hope you don’t mind!
A JANUARY LOOKBACK LIST
Reading:
The Far Field, by Madhuri Vijay. I picked this book out from the library on a whim solely based on the cover art! This novel follows a twenty-something girl named Shalini, who is grieving the loss of her mother, as she journeys from her comfortable urban home in Bangalore, India, to a small mountain village in search for a man from her mother’s past life. I thought the writing was beautiful!
The Library Book, by Susan Orlean (author of The Orchid Thief) is a work of investigative journalism about the 1986 Los Angeles Central Library fire and the mystery revolving around how it was started. I found this book to be absolutely fascinating and I learned a ton along the way!
I also just wanted to note that we held our first Book Club this month! A bunch of gals — most of whom I was meeting for the first time — got together to discuss Daisy Jones & The Six over brunch at one of the girls’ places! It was only appropriate that there were exactly six of us meeting! It was a huge hit and we’ve already doubled our numbers for our second club meeting!
Watching:
Movies! The Last Black Man in San Fransisco, Marriage Story (Netflix), Rocketman, and Little Women. Of all of these, Little Women was my favorite!
Television! I am in the middle of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Season 3!
Making:
You’ve been following along on our Dewey progress, turning this old trailer into a shiny new weekend camper! If not, check out some of my recent posts!
For Christmas my brother, Jim, gifted me the opportunity to learn a new skill: embroidery! He gathered together all of the materials I would need, along with an instructional printout, and I went to town! After finishing the initial one, I designed two little patterns as gifts for friends. It’s a great and inexpensive activity to do while traveling!
Cooking:
This Easy Bolognese is true to it’s name and suuuuper delicious! I served over extra wide egg noodles and it was a hit amongst the neighbors. Served with a side salad and fresh bread. Always fresh bread 😉
We’re lucky enough to have our friend, Virgil, living with us for the time-being and the guy loves to cook! I told him I feel like I’m on vacation because I’m cooking so few meals over here! Although I really do enjoy cooking, I am always appreciative when someone else takes the reign on it!
Drinking:
This sour beer, brewed at a brewery near Anaheim, is super refreshing and will be on my summer rotation, I think! Adding the brewery itself to our list of places to check out this year!
Rach and Virgil took me to one of their favorite Natural Wine Shops — LOU — this month for a tasting event. Naturally (pardon the pun!), I went home with two bottles 😉 LOU is located in Los Feliz.
Local Explorations:
Marty and I started the year off with one of our favorite Palos Verdes hikes and a stop at a new coffee shop in town, HiFi Espresso in Redondo’s Riviera Village.
We made a pit stop at a new (to us) dog park in Palos Verdes.
We enjoyed some really beautiful beach sunsets this month with lots of different friends (although I am more than ready for later sunsets … come on daylight savings!)
Listening:
Al took us all to a local concert in downtown Hermosa to see The Iron Maidens — an all-female cover band of Iron Maiden. They were the most badass chicks I have ever seen shred on the guitar. I was insanely impressed with their skills.
Celebrating / Loving / Feeling:
We celebrated the New Year (!) and rang it in with our neighbors and some friends with good food and good wine!
^^note Marty staring lovingly at that slice of pizza in Al’s hand, HA!^^
Two of our favorite people — Julie and Jimmy — announced their engagement at the beginning of the year! Julie’s best friend, Lola, came down from Washington and she, myself, and Lauren, wrangled together some of their friends and threw together a surprise engagement party for Ju at one of our local breweries (CommonSpace)! It was a fantastic turnout and a night full of beer and hugs and love. Looking back on the month, this night is definitely one of my favorites.
Our boss had a birthday this month, and one of our Supervisors put together all of these awesome shirts with some of his “go-to-sayings” on them. Everyone showed up to work on his birthday wearing them and he really got a kick out of it!
We enjoyed hosting some friends this month — both Lola and Rachael. One of the greatest perks about having a two bedroom apartment is being able to have people come visit so easily. Our home just feels more complete when we have people to share it all with. We’re also super thankful for all of the hours they put into helping with our teardrop trailer! Who’s coming to help next!?!
And that’s a wrap on the first month of 2020! Wow.
Thanks for stopping by!
xo
LAUREN LIVES 