Hello, friends! Welcome to the first post of the new year. Maybe now that January is over, I’ll stop referencing everything as a “new year” moment. Let’s get into it.

to create

January was a pretty good month for writing. Thanks to my writing goals, I decided I wanted to finish rewriting Act 1 by the end of March. I broke that goal down into 5 chapters a month, meaning this month I wanted to be done with chapters 1-5. Since I started the year already a couple chapters in, I had a head start and got through chapter 6, to improve my odds for February. I feel like I’ve got a good momentum going with my second draft this year, so let’s hope that continues.

My posts from this past month were really just wrapping up 2020. We’ve got 3 blog posts, and y’all even got a video out of me.

to work

Work was not as exciting as last month, when we got 2 weeks off and lots of time to relax. I did, however, get quarantined after being back for one week. I worked from home for the following week, which was kind of nice to ease back into working after so much time off. Not that I want to be flippant about the unnerving need to quarantine, but we might as well find the positives while we can. We also got MLK Day off the week that I came back post-quarantine. I’ve been doing a mix of subbing and my regular schedule, as usual, so nothing exciting to report there.

Here’s me working from home:

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to live

January: Kitten moves in

Over winter break, my roommate’s girlfriend’s cat moved in. Her name is Hillary Kitten (named in 2016, don’t judge), and she is the best cat I have ever lived with. She’s visited before, so she and Pi are already familiar. She is constantly vibing with us and never causing any trouble, unlike many cats we have lived with (we all remember Charlie, and she wasn’t even the worst). Kitten is a blessing to our household.

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January 7: Pi’s teeth cleaning

This does not sound like an exciting event, but if you smelled my dog’s breath at anytime in the past year, you know this is the most important day of this month. Pi got his teeth cleaned, which included getting 3 teeth taken out, since they were barely hanging in there. His breath smelled amazing for the first time in a while. That lasted about a week, before he went back to being stinky.

The important thing is that the day he got his teeth cleaned, he could not keep his mouth shut for all the grogginess of the anesthetic. Take a look.

January 18: “Pompeii: The Immortal City” Exhibit

Since moving to Central Florida, Ray and I have been seeing ads about the traveling exhibit, “Pompeii: The Immortal City” at the Orlando Science Center, which opened in October. As it was ending this month, we got tickets to attend with Ray’s mom and sister, Sydney. The exhibit was really interesting, and surprisingly immersive. It was really neat to see Roman relics and recreations, as well as actual pieces of Pompeii history. There was 2000-year-old bread from the city and casts of the bodies that were recovered.

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Our admission to Pompeii also gave us access to the rest of the Orlando Science Museum. Even though we only had an hour until closing to see the museum, we had an excellent time in the dinosaur and weather sections.

After we left the museum, we went to the Glass Knife for dinner and dessert in celebration of Syd’s 18th birthday. Technically, her birthday was January 4, but due to my quarantining, we didn’t get a chance to celebrate until later. The Glass Knife was excellent; I had a tomato bisque and grilled cheese for dinner and a chocolate-covered red velvet cake wheel for dessert. To die for.

January 20: Inauguration Day

While this was a big moment for the whole country, I felt very personally affected by it. My fifth grade students watched the inauguration in class, which meant I watched it with them. This was my first time ever watching an inauguration, and it was a really cool moment. These kids got to watch history as the first woman, and woman of color, was sworn in as vice president. Seeing Joe Biden take the mantel of president and knowing that the US could finally take a step forward again was such a relief.

I know President Biden will not be the perfect president. As a progressive, I find many of his ideas to be far too moderate to be effective. I don’t believe in returning to the status quo or uniting with literal neo-Nazis to make all Americans friends again. There’s so much more to progress than moderation will allow. I do, however, believe in going the opposite direction of wherever the hell we’ve been headed the last 4 years. For the first time in a while, human rights have a chance, the planet has a chance, science has a chance. There’s a lot of work to do and a lot of pressure to put on our new administration. But at least there’s hope for the future.

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Stepping off my soapbox now to say I think 2021 is off to a good start. I’m really hoping that teachers and school staff will be put on the priority list for receiving the Covid-19 vaccine in Florida, but with our governor’s apparent position to just let everyone in the state get infected, I don’t want to get my hopes up too high.

Comment and let me know how your year began! Any resolutions to keep up with? Feel free to like and follow if you enjoyed this post.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!