I’ve stopped wishing time away (I turn 60 this year), even if it’s a Nova Scotia January. It flew by regardless and without much snow until this past week. Last Monday was a Snow Day and then this weekend we had a long-duration snow event* (it’s still snowing) that has dropped the most snow in a single storm in 20 years.
I didn’t make any New Year Resolutions but, at the end of December, I did consider: 1) my bin of unfinished sewing projects, 2) my overly-optimistic tote bag-making plans, 3) a niche if I want to sell at craft fairs next holiday season, and 4) the long list of people I had planned to make a tote for in 2023. Then, a realization: SURELY I can find the two hours that it takes to sew one tote bag in a week of 112 waking hours AND, if I do that, in a year I’ll have made 52 totes! Seems so simple put that way. In January, I was disciplined and made four lovely tote bags, including one with an MCM Christmas feel (yes, the other three have cats on them).
To balance crazy-cat lady tote production, I was all-in for the NFL playoffs. For the second year, I got a TSN subscription specifically for NFL season and streaming the games at home has upped my happy. I usually visit my dad and stepmom on Sunday afternoon and, because they are both big sports fans, we’ve had a fun routine for the past four months of watching a football game together. Fortunately for me, there haven’t been too many conflicts with curling or Toronto Blue Jays or Raptors games.
I’ve been trying to support the local independent movie theater more and got out to two excellent films plus the always-exciting Banff Film Festival (which generated warm memories of attending the fest with friends in Seattle and of being in big snow-covered mountains!). And, because it was January in Nova Scotia and I want to watch more Oscar-nominated films, I’m paying for a subscription for Netflix for the first time since 2017. I also continued to take advantage of the local university offerings and attended a free classical concert with professional musicians and another excellent $15 3-course meal offered by the Nutrition and Dietetics Department.
After a long three-week closure over the holidays, I was glad to be back to the routine of fitness classes 3-4 days/week in January. At a recent class, the instructor used a playlist of early 1990’s dance music which I thoroughly enjoyed. But it got me thinking … When I taught aerobics classes in the early 1990’s, I had a fitness music CASSETTE TAPE of “Golden Oldies” which I bought for older participants and which would have been mostly Motown songs from the 1960’s. Music that was 30 years old. The same as that 1990’s Spotify playlist I was singing along to. In other words, to those university students taking the fitness class, Golden Oldies.
* It’s difficult to know what to wish for re the weather these days. Last winter we had very little snow and then the biggest wildfire season on record.
References and related links:
- MCM: Mid-century modern, a design aesthetic from the 1950’s and 1960’s.
- so-solstice (post #193)
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