From snowy snowy Flagstaff!
2022 has come to an end, and so has my Goodreads annual reading challenge!
I’m honestly really proud of myself. I read 49 total books this year – which is significantly more than my goal of 25 and WAY more than ANY year since I first started keeping track of my reading.
I get more excited about my Goodreads year-in-review than my Spotify Wrapped, to be honest.
Without further ado, here are the best books I read this year.
Ten books this December! I love holiday reading time.
I gave a little recap of my first week of my agency’s Middle Leader Program waaayyy back in September.
Middle Leader is a three-week leadership training program that Forest Service puts on for people at a certain GS level. Basically, for people seeking thrilling careers in middle management.
…And happy everything!
I can’t believe today is the first day of winter, because it feels like winter has been here for weeks at this point!
Gotta love Flagstaff!
Have I mentioned how grateful I am to live in the part of Arizona with seasons?
It’s been snowing on and off here since early November, so it feels weird that fall is officially over and winter is officially beginning.
OK, I’m a little late to the bread baking trend.
I didn’t really get into it when the pandemic first started, but over the past year, I’ve started getting a little more interested in making my own bread.
I’d like to formally thank inflation for that. I’m not about to spend $6 on a loaf of bread when I can buy a bag of flour for $1.50.
I’ve also really, really, been trying to live more sustainably. Being able to buy flour in bulk or in paper bags, honey in refillable glass jars from our local beekeeper and cardboard containers of salt is a lot better than buying bread loaves wrapped in plastic bags and tags.
Plus, fresh bread is WAY better.
At the start of this year, I picked a simple recipe to play around with: a no-knead crusty french bread recipe that used all-purpose flour.
(It’s the King Arthur No-Knead Crusty White Bread recipe.)
It took about six months to get the recipe to work for me, my oven and my 7,000-foot elevation, but I finally perfected it, and I wanted to share my modifications with you!
I’m here with a new feature-y type of post I suppose…
Shit I’ve been loving lately!
Every so often, like, a few times a month, I stumble upon some cool shit I want to share with friends. I usually post some of this stuff on Instagram and get questions about it, or if I REALLY love something, I annoy the absolute shit out of my friends and family with videos of it.
“LOOK! MOM! LOOK HOW COOL THIS IS!”
Like, for example, I bought a new bread box-slash-cutting board (keep on reading for details), and posted a video on Instagram of it (keep on reading for video, also), and had SIX people ask for details on it.
For a niche kitchen gadget? Seems like a lot.
So, I wanted to start a new little feature series detailing some of the shit I’ve been loving lately. It won’t all be things I’ve bought, but will also be random things I’ve been infatuated with as of late. Authors and artists, apps and websites, games, retailers, activities and hobbies… nothing’s off the table, really.
Mother Nature dumped, like, six inches of snow on us last night.
Which, yunno. Awesome, but a day late!
I spent this past weekend yurt camping with friends at Arizona Nordic Village. We got back yesterday morning, and we could have used the snow Friday instead of Monday!
Regardless, it was a great weekend.
