• Reading aloud: Charlotte’s Web, Artemis Fowl, Santa Knows, Fox in Love and others from the giant Scholastic order that constituted our primary Christmas gift to our boys. (“A motherlode!” they called it.)
  • Simplifying: I have chopped my to-do list and calendar way, way back, at least for the next four months, until my Alan Lomax draft is done.
  • Learning about the domino effect: Who knew that my finally agreeing to purge most of my CD and LP collections would lead to a furniture-moving extravaganza involving three entire rooms and the garage (with especially fantastic results for my study)?
  • Noting statistically improbable phrases in the November/December Horn Book: “Lesbian raccoon innkeepers” has them all beat.
  • Being brief: I condensed a year’s worth of living into 100 words per family member in my much-salivated-over holiday missive to friends and relatives far and wide. (That’s 53 fewer than I’ve used here.)