Carols about peace on earth and goodwill towards men still lingerng in the air, with the Christmas season not even over, our “Peace President” bombed Venezuela, reportedly killing both military personnel and civilians.
This morning, I downloaded a focusing app to help me avoid the news and social media for progressively longer periods of time each day and break my bad habit of checking my phone so often. (It’s only a 7-day free trial, which might not be long enough to break a habit and reduce stress, but maybe will give me a jumpstart so I can continue on my own or find another app.)
Current events keep intruding on my thoughts, though, despite my detox efforts! As we plan and pack for our 2026 cruise — the Caribbean in February – and 2027 European cruise – Athens to Venice, we know flights and cruises in the Caribbean are all currently canceled, and who even knows what travel from the U.S. to Europe will be like two years from now? As we celebrate the birth of our third grandchild, I’m worried for their parents as cost of living continues to rise with no relief in sight. Etc., etc.
Protests in the big cities this weekend revive my hope that change is coming in 2026. I just hope it’s not too late. Our local Indivisible group’s next protest against fascism (or, “authoritarianism”as I prefer to think of it, under the tutelage of Heather Cox Richardson) is planned for January 17th.
I’m really happy with my choice for First Book of the Year, and am already about halfway through Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger.
I shared this photo with Sheila at Book Journey for her 13th annual First Book of the Year photo collages, where I recognized a few familiar faces among the multitude of book bloggers, including Sue Jackson of Book by Book and our very own Sunday Salon host, Deb Nance of Readerbuzz.
Sheila’s chosen first book of 2026 was Theo of Golden by Allen Levi, which I had never heard of.
After reading Sheila’s post about it yesterday, I have it on my TBR list.
My Christmas Day bookish haul:
A nice mix of books and bookish games! Check out the Author Clock with a literary quote for every minute of the day, plus the box becomes a hiding spot for valuables that blends in with the books in your bookshelf! I’m going to bring it to my office at work, because that’s (unfortunately) where I end up spending most of my time.
I received two copies of Like Mother, Like Mother from my wish list, but otherwise, no duplicates. The two cozy mysteries were stocking stuffers and the two Caribbean mysteries are for cruise ship reading. (I had the same idea, and also gave my husband A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie, though a different edition with a different cover at least. haha). We can leave one of them in the ship’s library!
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner came from our family used book swap, which I was quite happy about, as it’s a contemporary classic which I’ve meant to read for a long time!
Batch Cocktails had been on my wish list for a few years, and since then several friends and family members have gone alcohol-free. Luckily, there is a section at the end of alcohol-free batch cocktails to try!
I got sick after our busy family Christmas, so I missed all the New Year’s parties and staying up till midnight, etc. Still spent most of today on the couch, but that’s better than the first few days spent entirely in bed! I’ll be heading back to work tomorrow.
Wishing everybody reading this a happy and healthy (as possible) New Year! (Still working on the whole positivity thing…)
Sunday Salon is to encourage conversations about books and book-ish things. The weekly link-up and Facebook group are hosted by Deb Nance of Readerbuzz.
Nice book haul for Christmas, and great picture for the first reads collage 🙂 Thanks for sharing, and happy new year!
we gave that guy a fifa peace prize and he turns around and bombs that crap out of an unsuspecting third world country that posed no serious national security threat to us just so we could steal their oil reserves…no one could have seen that coming.
It’s a good thing we have books.
we gave that guy a fifa peace prize and he turns around and bombs that crap out of an unsuspecting third world country that posed no serious national security threat to us just so we could steal their oil reserves…no one could have seen that coming.
It’s a good thing we have books.
What a great book haul!
It is hard to see the way of things in the world and not be affected by everything that is happening. I hope you get to go on your Caribbean cruise. We enjoyed ours when we went
This grunge that we’re all getting is absolutely no fun. I am glad you’re feeling better. I wish I had a trip coming up soon, I’ll probably wait until a little later in the year for anything major. Still pondering what to do…..
[…] I’m trying to get back to blogging more and doomscrolling less, so here I am, posting two days in a row! A weakly worded, half-hearted New Year’s resolution, for sure, but I’ve already taken some baby steps towards following through on it this week. (See yesterday’s Sunday Salon post.) […]
Like Mother, Like Mother does look good. Now I have a photo to put to 1st book of the year whick is great.
Love your first book and so fun to have you participate 🙂
Hear Hear about all the bad news, it’s scary. And the next protest can’t come soon enough. Nice pic with the first book of the year. And I’m curious about the Isola novel and might have to get to that — as it’s received many positive reviews. I hope you enjoy these reads.
I wavered a long time deciding between Isola and Like Mother, Like Mother for my First Book of 2026!
It’s the start of a brand new year, and we will all work together to change things and make things better this year. I am resolved to do this. It’s ridiculous that we have these people in charge doing things that nobody else in our whole country wants us to do. [end of speech]
I, too, got an author clock. My husband was so proud of finding it and getting it for me.
I love the writing of Wallace Stegner, and I want to read everything he has written.
Yes, Deb! Let’s do it! Silence is complicity at this point. I made calls to my reps today about Venezuela before hearing about the shooting in Minnesota.
On a happier note, I set up my author clock on my desk at work yesterday morning and I’ve been loving the quotations that pop up!
I hope you’re feeling better!
My husband and I have had to take breaks from our phones too. We completely disabled the “Google Discover” widget on our Androids because it had basically become a news feed. I’ve been cutting back on social media over the past couple of years but it’s finally slowed to a trickle recently. I use the OneSec app. On the free version, you can only use it on one app but that was really all I needed. When you try to open Facebook or whichever app you set it for, a screen comes up, guides you through a deep breath, then asks if you really want to continue. It only takes 2-3 seconds but that’s enough to help me. I also set an app timer through my phone settings. I’m not really using any of that right now because they’ve been successful. I’ll download OneSec again if I find myself backsliding. I’ve debated just deleting my Facebook app completely but I’m the admin of a fairly active group so I would need to find someone else to take over before I take that step.
Speaking of Facebook, I’ve seen that clock advertised on there (I didn’t say I’d managed to give it up completely yet!). I thought it was a really cool idea!
It’s funny that you and your husband got each other the same book. My husband and I bought each other the same gift for the first Christmas we ever spent together and chose to see that as a sign 🙂 We’ve bought each other the exact same holiday cards a few times since then.
Happy New Year!