January 12, 2018

Happy New Everything

Happy new year, if it's not too far into January to express that, and welcome back to my blog posts. Please bear with me as I remember how to assemble words into paragraphs.

My life at the moment is all about navigating new things and restarting old habits so long neglected that they've acquired both the allure and awkwardness of new ones. At the end of 2017, we finally moved into our new house, and that's been wonderful and exhausting. A couple of hectic weeks were nothing but unpacking and dealing with challenges. Now we're settled enough that living here is beginning to feel natural.

It's a process, though. I'm more or less accustomed to assembling breakfast in the new kitchen, but our mugs are still in a temporary location. I've resumed my daily walks in our new neighborhood, but I haven't yet established a regular route. My new office is about three-quarters of the way toward being set up. Most of our books remain in boxes, awaiting new shelves. But every day, more things get put away somewhere and more house decisions are resolved, and it continues to be a thrill that we're in our new home at last.

Dealing with house tasks required most of my time in December, so I took a break from all my normal routines. It's no secret that I can be a little too eager to seize on excuses not to write, but I even went a week without reading somewhere in there, which is practically unprecedented. I dove back into reading as soon as I could, and I'll be catching up on various book-related posts soon.

I've been slower about the return to writing. Now that I've eased myself in with this post, it's really time to face the novel again. My hope is that the hiatus means I can approach the story with fresh eyes, new ideas, and renewed energy. Let me just unpack a couple more boxes first.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ Daniela Blei considers the invention of index cards and how they cataloged the world: "Linnaeus may have drawn inspiration from playing cards. Until the mid-19th century, the backs of playing cards were left blank by manufacturers, offering 'a practical writing surface,' where scholars scribbled notes... In 1791, France's revolutionary government issued the world's first national cataloging code, calling for playing cards to be used for bibliographical records." (Thanks, Louise!)