The Sunday Salon: At the end of this long week

This past week has felt like the longest week ever. I returned to work on Monday but it already feels like I never had the holidays in between. And just to stay in sync, the weekends seem to be ending very soon.

How have you all done on your New Year resolutions? I was surprised by how many I saw on weight-loss regimes and revisiting the gyms but then that's to be expected after the pigging-out hols. I didn't make any resolutions - I have a bad record with any such plans but the surge of healthy recipes I see all around is certainly encouraging me to shed some unhealthy eating habits I managed to pick up over the last few years. I'm also listening to The Story of the Human Body in the car, thanks to Jill's recommendation, and hearing about all the ways our human body is not adapted to certain "foods" helps a lot.

My reading this year has gotten off to a slow start. I did listen to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and am in between two books - Gail Tsukiyama's Night of Many Dreams and Rachel Joyce's new book, Perfect. After loving Joyce's first book, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, I have been waiting for her to write her next. Halfway through Perfect, I can say that Rachel Joyce is an author to look out for. Her writing in Perfect is as engaging as it was in Harold Fry and her characters are as dynamic as ever. I cannot wait to finish this one and discuss it with you.

Other than reading, I've been knitting an afghan and a winter scarf, reading the New Yorker magazine, and making plans to build a website for the guy who did our garden and landscaping last year. The new year feels great so far. Sure, it's just another day in the long scheme of things but there's something optimistic about this time of the year. The rest of today, I hope to make great progress on the website I'm building, and read more of Night of Many Dreams.