Happy New Year!

I hope your New Year's Eve was as nice as ours! Ed made a tasty but Very buttery chicken dish which made the two of us who care about such things resolve not to eat anything so rich again. Ever. Our digestions are not what they used to be! But then we drank champagne and felt very cheerful and agreed that 2012 had been an excellent year!

Actually, Travis was feeling a little down about 2013, which, he says, can't possibly be as good a year as 2012. I assured him that he will undoubtedly make lots of videos and add YouTube subscribers in 2013, but he would still have preferred another round of 2012. He's definitely my kid!

Reservations aside, we had a fine evening, each doing what he/she likes to do. Ed and Katie watched New Year's performers on television, Travis played Minecraft, and I cross-stitched and listened to The Fellowship of the Ring (I got up to Tom Bombadil). I had no intention of staying up until midnight, but I did, accidentally, anyway. None of us wanted to wake up early this morning and make a good start on the new year! So we didn't. We slept late, then got to lessons in a very desultory sort of way. Which is why, at four o'clock, we still have a few things to finish. Sigh.

 However, I am now going to publicly announce my good intentions for the new year, and, as one of these involves getting an early start on the day, I'm sure that our days for the rest of this year will be more productive!

So, in no special order, here are my resolutions for 2013...

1. buckle down to work hard on Latin -- get through Wheelock
2. get up early instead of reading in bed 'til 7:30
3. finish Open Yale OT course, then watch Kagan's Ancient Greek History course
4. lose holiday weight
5. walk 750 miles (I think I was close this year, but this time I intend to keep track)
6. be more patient and kind
7. read the books I want to read but am intimidated by

There. I wanted five, but it turned out that I require improving in seven ways. Well, possibly more, but that is certainly enough of a project for one year!

And, because confession is good for the soul, I am also going to list the Hard Books I Mean to Tackle Enjoy  This Year. These really are all books I want to read, but, either because they are very long, very Classic, or very "science-y," I've found them intimidating and have picked up Something Else every time. But not this year! This is the year in which no book can intimidate me!

Here they are...

1. Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Undset
2. Inferno, by Dante
3. Purgatorio, by Dante
4. The Odyssey, by Homer
5. The Aeneid, by Virgil
6. David Copperfield, by Dickens
7. Middlemarch, by Eliot
8. Metamorphosis, by Ovid
9. The History, by Herodotus
10. The Fall of the Roman Empire, by Heather
11. The Rise of Western Christendom, by Brown
12. Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition, by Colish
13. The Moral Vision of the New Testament, by Hays
14. Pericles of Athens, by Kagan
15. The Fabric of the Cosmos, by Greene
16. Confessions, by St. Augustine
17. The Inheritance of Rome, by Wickham
18. The Quantum Universe, by Cox & Foreshaw
19. Religion and the Decline of Magic, by Thomas
20. Ethics, by Bonhoeffer

My list might seem a little heavy on Greeks and Romans, but the kids will be studying ancient history next school year and I want to be well prepared. And I do expect David Copperfield and Middlemarch to be fun, it is just that they are so long -- such a commitment!

Anyway, I set my Goodreads Challenge for just 70 books this year, to allow for long books (I might have done better to set it at 50, but we'll see how it goes!). And, of course, I also have lots of fun, easy books that I'm looking forward to! I'm listening to The Fellowship of the Rings now, and I have three Patrick O'Brian audio books all "lined up" for when I'm done with Tolkien, and I have a couple Connie Willis books in my stack, the last two of Trollope's Barchester books, and my new Sam Kean. All in all, I think 2013 is going to be a fine year!