Year in Numbers

15. Bike rides to campus.
9. Bike rides up Butler, all the way home.
6. Times my nice husband tossed my bike in the back of his car so I didn't have to ride all the way home on Butler.
3. Weddings attended.
3. Trips to fun places for 3 weddings.
2. Sisters who are turning 40 in a couple of weeks.
38. Blog posts in 2014.
30. Blog posts posted in August.
4. People who stayed at my house to help plan NonfictioNow Conference.
128,272. Meetings, emails, phone calls about NonfictioNow Conference.
0. Times sledding (no snow 2014. Went sledding today!)
8. Times ice-skating.
2. Bathrooms remodeled (one by Erik, one by the most expensive contractor in the land. (Not really, it just feels that way.))
5. Sentences written with more than one paranthetical per.
1. Camping trip to The White Pocket.
3. Trips to Salt Lake (not enough).
1. Pork terrine made without the blade on the meat grinder.
3. Turkeys smoked in the smoker.
1. Turkey roasted in the roaster.
47. Nights of turkey/green chile tacos.
123. Tacos eaten.
3. Smoked duck breasts procured from The Tourist Home.
2. Kittens procured and standing right now on my computer.
10. Essay collections read. See Essay Daily for long list (but really read other posts there for December. That last one is particularly excellent as is Dinah Lenney's tribute to Judith Kitchen).
1. Chapbook forthcoming from Black Warrior Review.
1. Agent procured.
10. Essays published.
15. Times I told my kids I wish they would stay home with me. I would home school them.
14. Times I told my kids to freaking go entertain themselves.
5. Books spread-eagled on my nightstand.
16. Novels I read in secret.
9. Poetry collections I read in public.
2. Visits to Coppa for dinner.
1. Visit to Coppa for their $165 per person truffle dinner that I'll have to miss because
1. Thermostat that broke on New Year's Day, precipitating an emergency visit from the most expensive furnace repair man in the world (not really, it just feels that way).
1. Dinner I probably really wasn't going to go to any way.
1. Denver Film Festival attended as a guest of a filmmaker husband.
1. Dog that's getting old but is hanging in there.
1. Visit by great friends from Los Angeles.
1. Mom who visited for Thanksgiving.
2. In-laws who have had us over for dinner every night this week because of the
1. more room to scrape, drywall, texture and paint.
1. Very, very seafoam green room. Come visit. Bring your snorkel.
1. Sister who teaches her brother how to count to 100 and by 10s.
2. Great visiting writer gigs--one thanks to Susan Goslee at Idaho State and one thanks to Peter Covino at the Ocean State Summer Writer's Conference.
1. Upcoming writing gig a Pima Writer's Conference.
7. Other things I should be doing besides blogging.
1. Resolution not to oversay "should."
1. Upcoming sabbatical for which I will write another list tomorrow!