A look back at 2012 (must I?)

I'm glad the year is over. This hasn't been the kindest year to our family, financially. In the first half of the year we suffered through months of agony when it looked like my husband would lose his job. Then the company decided they'd keep him, but lowered his pay and took away his company car. So we scrambled to find a decent used car and now have the increased insurance/gas/upkeep of a second car, as well as car payments on a reduced income. Fun and games. It meant that Todd had to get a second job at night to pay for the car so it wouldn't be such a financial burden, and it meant little sacrifices, like curtailing our out-and-abouts and not going West to visit family this year, which made us sad. Poor Todd sleeps a lot when he is home, but he's actually having fun at his second job (he works in a bowling alley.) He likes it because it's a job he can leave at the door when he leaves for the night, unlike his full-time, day job. And fortunately, we've all been relatively healthy, aside from two rounds of throwing-up flu that swept through the children in the Spring and Fall and a few colds.

Book-wise, you can see from our Book Log that we managed to get some reading done, even though I haven't been very consistent with blogging this year. I feel like the older girls are starting to branch out more in their reading choices, away from the comfort of series books and into books with more meat to them, which I'm LOVING! It also continues to be good strategy to leave non-fiction I'd like them to read strewn around, or faced outward on the bookshelf, like they do at the library. Susanna has also blossomed book-wise this year. Whereas before she would come listen to a story if I called her, now she initiates read aloud time. It was hard to be patient for that to happen. Now I'm just waiting for letter and phoneme recognition to click. It'll come. I can tell she's moving in the right direction.

For myself, I wish I could find some really great adult fiction, but I've bombed out quite badly in that area this year. I don't mind angst, and problems, and sticky issues, but I need a little hope tossed in too. Any suggestions for me? (And please, no Christian fiction suggestions! Everything I read in that genre this year based on recommendations was so poorly written I wanted to tear my hair out.)

In January I will have been blogging for two years, and it's still a love/hate activity for me. I still feel like I'm on the fringes of the book blogging world, (have you noticed how cliquish it can be?) but I have really enjoyed getting to know people better as we interact on each other's blogs. I need to get better at commenting on other's blogs on a more consistent basis. One of the down sides of subscribing by email is that it has made me lazy in that area. I love getting all the blogs in one place, but I really need to work on then clicking over and commenting. So that's a blogging goal for next year.

2013, I sure hope you're a better bargain than 2012.