Happy February!

Somehow … I have a one-year-old daughter.

I’ve spent the last two weekends partying it up and celebrating Nora’s first birthday. When it comes to a baby’s first birthday, it’s also a celebration for the parents. You literally kept a little human alive for a year while simultaneously keeping yourselves alive, staying employed, feeding your pets, cleaning your house … jeesh. It’s really an accomplishment. I plan on writing a much longer year-in-review post where I talk about postpartum, what I’ve learned, etc., but let’s keep these musings posts for what they are intended for. Musings.

So. January was a blur and lasted forever all at once. We were winding down from the holiday season (we didn’t put away all of our Christmas decorations until last week .. oops) and just working and living our best mom and dad lives all January. I got to see a friend who was visiting from Germany (Hi, Cecilia!), and I went to Phoenix for work. OH! I got the worst stomach flu of my life … nothing too special.

Here’s what I read in January (I forgot two books in my wrap-up post)

• The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty (The Daevabad Trilogy #1)
• Adult Assembly Required (The Bookish Life of Nina Hill #2) by Abbi Waxman
• Have I Told You This Already?: Stories I Don’t Want to Forget to Remember by Lauren Graham
• The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy #1) by Katherine Arden
• Bloodmarked (The Legendborn Cycle #2) by Tracy Deonn
• The Winners (Beartown #3) by Fredrik Backman
• Felicity: Poems by Mary Oliver

What am I up to this month?

Nora turned one on the 3rd, and it was the best day ever. We took the day off, got breakfast, went to a bakery, and just enjoyed the day as a family of three. Then, on Saturday, we hosted a big family/friends party. It was chaotic and fun and amazing all at once.

February is going to fly by. No big work trips this month, but work will be very busy and we will continue our daily grind of daycare drop-off, coordinating schedules, meetings, work, daycare pick-up, exercising and meals and cleaning and repeat. Whew! Never gets old!

What I’m reading

• The Kingdom of Copper (by S.A. Chakraborty (The Daevabad Trilogy #2)
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (bookclub!)
• The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey Into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (another bookclub!)
• Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun (Finlay Donovan #3) by Elle Cosimano

What I’m watching

• Gilmore girls
• Love is Blind … apparently, a new season is coming out this Friday!

What I’m listening to

• I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy
• We Can Do Hard Things
• Midnights
• Anything by Phoebe Bridgers
• The Head and the Heart
• Miley Cyrus
• Metallica cover songs