18 Things About You at Age 18

18?! How is this possible?  At 7:49 pm and 7:50 pm on February 14 I will look at your first photo that is still hanging on the refrigerator and remember the 5 lb. 13 oz and 6 lb. 8.5 oz babies you were. And here you are now, grown into young men.  Wow.  It's a lot for a mama's heart to take in but I've loved - and will keep loving -  Every. Single. Millisecond.

1. You walk over to Spot Coffee just about every day. And then have a ramble around town.
2. You are an adventurous eater now, which you weren't as a kid.  Mexican?  Thai? Chinese? Japanese? Indian? You're game for it all. You'll pretty much eat anything except shellfish. Which is great for me because I love all that stuff too!  You gave me a gift certificate for high tea at Asa Ransom House and yes, of course I will take you with me. You're just super fun to hang out with.
3. You've tried your hand at cooking some of these things too, especially some things Uncle Denis taught you to make.  Your favorite Christmas gift this year was an Instant Pot and you're having fun making snacks late at night.  
4. In addition to cooking, you're doing your own laundry and doing stuff around the house without being asked.
5. Your fashion choices still lean towards shirts with hoods & anything soft in neutral colors like black, grey & navy.  With a colorful hoodie thrown over more often than not. You attempt not wearing a coat. 
6. You've got a hybrid beard/goatee thing happening.  At the moment you like your hair short.  
7. You like to go out into the garage and jump up to do pullups on the steel beam.  And hit the heavy bag.  I did have to ask you once not to do it in the middle of the night because the house shaking woke me up, which was a little unnerving!
8. Still doing driving lessons, next is learning how to drive stick shift on Dad's car.
9. You worked at Firehouse Subs last year.  We were proud of you for always being on time for work, washing your uniforms, taking extra shifts when your co-workers were in a bind and being overall very responsible.  The free food and steady cash didn't hurt either.  Ultimately you decided that food service isn't really your thing, so we'll see what's next.
10. The 2nd year attending Otakon in Washington D.C. was great.  Two cousins came along for twice the fun and you decided to cosplay as the Mii's from Nintendo Wii.  You haven't all decided yet if you're going again this summer or maybe try a different convention.
11. You graduated high school just about a year early, in August 2019.  You worked hard to do it and we're very proud of you.
12. So far your gap year is going well.  You spent some time in NJ with that side of the family and really enjoyed spending time with them and seeing their everyday life (as opposed to just seeing them for holidays and special occasions).  You're planning some travel with various family members on both sides.  You're also staying up late and sleeping in :-D  
13. You applied to and have been accepted at UB.  You want to look around at a few more places before you decide for sure though.  No planned major, just gonna see what seems interesting.  We think that is a smart choice.
14. You have a little side business going drawing avatars for people in one of your gaming communities.
15. Now that you're done with school, you started reading again for pleasure.  You recommend books to us and also podcasts.
16. You're pretty much always at your computer with your headphones on, singing away as you work on your art or game or talk to your friends.  You and Paul take turns telling each other to be quiet.  LOL
17. You're pretty excited that you can register to vote now and that the first election you get to participate in will be a Presidential one.
18. You don't seem to live on your phone.  Most of the time it's on the kitchen counter and you're somewhere else in the house.  That could be a totally different thing when you're out and about though.

1. You joined the Unified Basketball team at school last spring and while you only played a little bit, you really liked being part of the team and learning how to play.  Over the summer you played a lot with the kids next door and now you can make a basket! You're going to join up again this year.
2. This brings your activities to: dance, Special Olympics swim team, Special Olympics bowling team, unified bowling team and unified basketball.  
3. Last week you bowled a 75, your highest score ever.  Your average is 52.  You really get along with your Special Olympics team mates, especially R.  
4. You like coffee now, but only if you think you are "stealing" it.  If we give you a cup of your own, you won't drink it.  Except at bowling because the other guys come in with coffee so you want one too.
5. We were able to go to Disney World in December and you LOVED meeting all the characters.  It was a dream come true for both of us.  Except now you want Princesses to appear everywhere you go.  Which, come to think of it, would be pretty cool.  
6. Naturally we bought several hats as souvenirs :-D
7. And since that trip was so fun, you are talking even more about Hawaii.  Bucket List!
8. You still love going out to eat.  You're not even done with the meal before you're planning which restaurant we're going to go to next.  Like Mark, you have become a much more adventurous eater as you have gotten older.  Pasta is still your favorite, but you like trying all the different kinds of foods too.  You loved watching the chef at the Hibachi table!  You did tell him to be very careful with the fire though!
9. You've rediscovered High Five and are enjoying watching those videos and singing along.  You also love Crocodile Rock by Elton John.  You've found every version there is on YouTube.
10. You're still a lark, but don't get up quite as early as before on the weekends (but still earlier than the rest of us night owls!)  You say "no" when it's time to get up for school so some of that "teen wanting to sleep in" is hitting you a little later than most.
11. Your class read Harry Potter in school and you really enjoyed listening to the story.  You get more of it now than you did before.
12. You still like shirts with funny graphics of your favorite characters.  You like to get dressed up when there is a special occasion.
13. Sometimes choosing the hat of the day is difficult.  Especially if the bus is waiting. 
14. You don't mind shaving your beard when it gets too long but don't mess with the mustache! This past November you participated in your school's No Shave November Event - a six-week Tom Selleck Mustache contest. That was a lot of fun! And we got to see how fast your beard really grows. You got to choose a prize and you went with mustache-printed socks.
15. Your art teacher reports that you love to paint (which we knew) but that you also sing when you do it because it makes you so happy.  There is always some art coming home in your bookbag from when you have a free period.
16. You got to go to Kiwanis Camp this year.  We're hoping you get to go again this summer.  You're already looking forward to your respite weekend at Cradle Beach in the fall.
17. You are very independent at home.  You can do a lot of chores unassisted, you do the whole bedtime routine on your own, you know what you need for which activity and can get it all ready to go pretty much by yourself.
18. Your first internship at Tops doing re-shops was a great experience.  You knew when it was a work day and always remembered to wear your black shirt.  Last week you started your second internship at Santora's Pizza and you are SO EXCITED about working in a restaurant.  Right now you are working on rolling silverware and making crayon packs for the kids.  But you want to make pizza.  Maybe someday!  You really really love having a job.

Best Book of 2019

I read 63 books in 2019, 11 more than my target.  Yay me!  Most were good, some were ok.  Both book clubs kept me reading things I wouldn't normally.  However, there were only two that I'd give 5 stars to:

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.  Long, but worth it.  Beautiful language, beautiful enough to make you cry.  Characters that live with you long after the book is over... ahhhhh.  Read it with one book club and have convinced the other one to give it a go.  Just go read it, you won't be sorry.

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson.  Short, quick read but the imagery will stick with you.  Like the above, these characters will continue to live in your mind and you will be thinking deep thoughts after.

In anticipation of Book 9 in the Outlander series (Go Tell the Bees That I am Gone) coming out sometime this year, I'm re-reading the series again.  Just finishing Drums of Autumn now...

17 Things About You at Age 17

1. You have your driver's permit and have been practicing several times a week with Dad, who reports that you are a careful driver.
2. Kingdom Hearts IV was completed in 30h; Secret playthrough 34h
3. You also spent quite a bit of time in the midst of those 30 hours trying to teach your brother how to play because you knew he would like all the Disney characters.  You are a really great brother.
4. You even convinced me to have a go and didn't laugh when I couldn't push all the buttons at the same time.
5. You will be graduating high school early, in August 2019 if all goes according to plan.
6. You're taking your time figuring out what is next, wanting to make a good decision and one that is right for you.
7. Bananas disappear as soon as we bring them home, no matter how many we buy.  
8. Some days you walk home from school rather than take the bus, even though it takes longer.
9. You loved seeing Hamilton when it toured here recently (Thank You Dad!).
10. Your favorite Christmas gift this year was the Nintendo Switch.
11. Your fashion choices still lean towards shirts with hoods, colored sneakers, anything soft.
12. Your sweet tooth seems to have disappeared.  Unless tiramisu is on offer.
13. You still have the BEST laugh.  
14. You would like to get back into martial arts and are investigating the different types.
15. You are still a night owl and mornings are hard.
16. You almost always have your sketchbook with you.  Doodling, working out animations, just thinking through your fingers.
17. Dad took you and your cousin to Otakon this past summer and it was awesome!  You've already got reservations for this year and another cousin will also be joining in the fun.

1. You joined the Unified Bowling Team at school and you are really enjoying bowling with your school friends, and taking the bus back and forth to matches.
2. This brings your activities to: dance, special olympics swim team, special olympics bowling team and now unified bowling team.  
3. When you bowl well, you have to give EVERYONE a high five.
4. You really really really want to go to Hawaii.  And while you're there you want to drink a pineapple smoothie while wearing a hawaiian shirt, sunglasses and a straw hat.
5. You actually passed up a plate of pasta the other day in favor of a salad (I took your temperature!)
6. Going out to eat is still your favorite thing.  It doesn't matter where.
7. You really like the Muppet movies lately.  And Incredibles2.
8. You don't fuss too much when it's time to do homework.
9. You're still a lark and on the weekends you are the first one up.  You'll make your own breakfast and then settle in with your iPad.
10. Your fashion choices are still solid colored shirts or ones with funny graphics of your favorite characters.  Hawaiian shirt when you need to be a little more dressed up. And a different hat every day.
11. You got a fancy hat rack for Christmas which makes it so much easier to pick out the perfect one each morning.
12. You insisted that we buy a scarf loom and some yarn when we were at the craft store.  But so far you're not that interested in actually doing it.  You picked out some really nice yarn though!
13. When your brother sings too loud you tell him to be quiet.  Then you get up and give him a hug.
14. You're already talking about camp even though it is months and months away.
15. If anyone leaves a drink or snack unattended, you like to finish it off and then you turn yourself in and we have to make a big show of being annoyed.  So funny!
16. You love jokes now!  Miss M put a whole bunch of corny ones on your iPad and you put a plastic snake in your brother's water bottle.  
17. You did your first internship at the end of the school year last year, helping out at the food pantry.  You did great and felt really proud of yourself!  This year's rotations will be starting soon so we can't wait to see what you will be doing.

Books of 2018

The final count was 69 books read in 2018 - I am happy with that!  Here are the ones I really loved this year that will be added to the "highly recommended" list (in no particular order):

• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.  This is one of those sweeping family sagas that covers several generations. The story begins in Korea, with teenaged Sunja who finds herself pregnant by an (unbeknownst to her) married man.  Refusing to become a kept mistress, she marries a sickly minister on his way to Japan.  The story continues with her new family trying to make their way in Japan against prejudice, war and health crises.  Twists and turns, you never know exactly where things are going to end up for all of them.  The title refers to a mechanical gambling game that figures heavily in several characters lives.  This was a book club selection and I really enjoyed the audio version.  It took a little bit of time to get all the characters straight because of similar names, but after that, I was hooked.
• Circe by Madeline Miller.  I was enthralled by this book!  It's definitely on my list of "always recommended."  The goddess Circe is a puzzling child to her parents, god of the sun Helios and the nymph Perse.  She is neither powerful nor particularly beautiful and teased unmercifully for her strange voice.  She turns to mortals for companionship and discovers her powers of witchcraft.  Threatened by her power, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island where she spends eternity honing her powers and of course, meeting a who's who of greek mythology: the Minotaur, Daedalus and his son Icarus, Medea and of course Odysseus.   In the end, Circe must gather all her power and choose once and for all where she belongs: with the gods she was born to or with the mortals she has come to love.  I didn't know a lot about greek mythology beyond what M and I read in the Percy Jackson series but this swept me into all of it and I wanted to read more.  Again, I listened to the audio book and Perdita Weeks was the perfect reader.  There were many times I sat in the driveway finishing the chapter.
• The Book of M by Peng Shepherd.  This book is classified as Fantasy, but I think it could also fit under Thriller.  Set sometime in the future, the book begins when a man in India loses his shadow.  It just disappears.  And slowly his memories start to fade too until he doesn't remember anything - not where he is, not who he is, nothing. And since he can't remember his past reality, then he is able to make his own.  And then the Forgetting and its accompanying destructive magic starts to spread like a plague across the world causing havoc, distrust, war and the rise of a cult.  The book follows different people, coming from different parts of the world, heading towards New Orleans as they hear about a prophet who can fix people's memories.  Ory is tracking his wife, Max, who left him when her shadow did in order to protect him.  This book creeped me out but I couldn't put it down either.  
• Us Against You by Fredrik Backman.  The sequel to Beartown, we are back in the hockey-mad town, when the townspeople learn that their hockey team will be disbanded and all the best players have been lured to play for rival town Hed.  A surprising newcomer is picked to coach and bond the players left behind into a team.  But old grudges and new whispers escalate the decades-old rivalry.  By the time the final game is played, someone is dead and both towns are wondering if the game they love can ever be just a simple game anymore.  Fredrik Backman has a knack for building suspense and throwing in twists that you never see coming.  
• Matchmaking for Beginners by Maddie Dawson.  Marnie MacGraw just wants to marry her fiance, have kids, live in the suburbs, drive a minivan and fit in.  Her fiance's eccentric great-aunt Blix tells her at their engagement party that this is never going to happen.  When her marriage ends after only two weeks, she doesn't know what hit her.  And then she finds out that Blix has passed away and left her the Brooklyn brownstone full of unfinished projects and neighbors who need someone to rely on.  Why would somebody she only met for 10 minutes a year ago, do that?  On the condition that she live there for a year, Blix insists via letter and other posthumous winks that Marnie is the perfect person to carry on her magic and matchmaking.  And it turns out she was right.
• Longbourn by Jo Baker.    It's no secret that I love Jane Austen.  There have been an abundance of retellings and sequels and prequels.  Some of them are interesting, some are execrable, and very few are good.  Longbourn is a good one.  Here, the servants take center stage and there is as much romance, heartbreak and intrigue as there is upstairs.  And lots of laundering of muddy petticoats.  It's at once familiar and new.  I loved it.
• The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan.  Another book club choice, I really liked this one.  Anthony Peardew lost something precious the day his beloved fiance died.  He's since spent his life picking up lost things and cataloging them meticulously.  He writes stories about them.  But now near the end of his life, he worries that the items will never be reunited with their owners.  Recovering after a painful divorce, Laura takes a job as Anthony's assistant, unsuspecting that he is going to leave her his house, all the lost things and his mission.  With the help of the gardener, Freddy and delightful neighbor Sunshine, Laura struggles to do what Anthony wished and find the right home for all involved.  As we find out the stories behind all the lost things and how they became lost, we realize that nothing is ever lost, everything - and everyone - end up exactly where they are meant to be in their own time. 

16 Things About You at Age 16

16.  Wow.  I continue to be amazed by you both!  I am so blessed to be your Mom.

1. You seem to get taller by the minute!  I don't know where you will stop!
2. You started fencing last year and, as predicted, you love it.  Maybe not the Saturday morning practices.
3. You are teaching yourself computer animation and you are good!
4. You have a little business drawing avatars for people and they pay you in game currency.
5. You have a half-year class this year in Video Game Design so that's probably gonna be an easy A.
6. Your favorite class at school is still Global History.
7. Your favorite lunch now is Quorn chicken nuggets.  Or jalapeno tuna.  Your favorite snack is a whole pizza :-D
8. You still talk to your cousin on the phone a lot.
9. I recently started listening to audio books in the car and I torture you guys with listening to them when we're driving to and fro together.  You seem like you're not paying attention and focused on your phone, but every so often you call out something witty. "Brandon's the better man, Marianne!  Go with Brandon!"  I recently got Master and Commander mostly because I thought you would enjoy it and you did.  
10. Last night while watching Half-Pipe in the Olympics you said "Shaun White, the only role model we gingers have."  I said that wasn't true and you said ok, name some more.  I said Ed Sheeran, which you accepted.  Prince Harry, which you said was pushing it.  And then I couldn't think of any more.  So now it's down to you, bud.
11. When you were little, you'd take any excuse to stay home from school.  Hang nail?  Can I stay home?  Tiniest scratch?  Can I stay home?  Now you go to school no matter what, even on the days when I tell you can stay home if you want to.  
12. You are great about being in charge and keeping an eye on your brother when Dad and I have to be somewhere and you two would rather not go.
13. Your fashion choices lean towards athletic gear, shirts with hoods, a leather jacket with a hood, and sneakers with just a pop of color.
14. You have muscles!  That is still strange to me.  
15. Your face has started morphing into a man's face.  Also strange.  But also kinda cool.
16. You haven't shown a lot of interest in driving yet and that is fine with me right now.  

1. You are still growing but not as fast as your brother.  Your feet have stopped though.  
2. Your favorite lunch is still lunchmeat, pickles and craisins.  Spaghetti is still your favorite dinner with mashed potatoes being a close second.  And smoothies!
3. For your birthday celebration, you want to take everyone to the Skylon Tower for dinner.  And when I say everyone, I mean everyone.  Maybe we should just ask how much it is to rent out the whole place!
4. When we ask you what you want to be when you grow up, you always say a cook or a farmer.  But you don't actually want to ever help me cook or mess about in the garden.  But you do love food and you do love restaurants.  So maybe you need to be a restaurant critic.  I think that might be the perfect job for you!
5. Dad and Uncle Hugh took you to the car show last weekend.  You enjoyed sitting in the race car but meeting Wonder Woman was better.
6. You still wear a hat each and every day and right now you are not happy that I haven't managed to fix the ribbon on your top hat.  You have now added sunglasses worn over your prescription glasses.  
7. Your remaining fashion choices depend on the weather.  Hawaiian shirts in the summer, tuxedo vest and bow tie for formal occasions and fun tshirts with characters the rest of the time.  When it is cold outside you prefer the puffy coat you stole from Mark to the big parka.
8. You have appropriated Dad's chromebook and now prefer that to the ipads for the moment.
9. But I am not allowed to use any of the ipads even though you are not using them.  You literally take them away from me and put them back on the shelf.
10. You love going to a show whether it is the movies or something at Shea's.  You really enjoyed the Nutcracker and Lion King this year.  
11. When it is time to shave you tell us to leave the mustache alone!  
12. You started high school this year and have settled in well.  The 7 a.m. bus was an adjustment though.
13. You are still the first one up in the morning.
14. You still swim and dance and now are enjoying bowling a lot more.  You got a ball, shoes and bag for Christmas.  You love wearing the team shirt.  
15. You love to paint and draw.  We've asked that art be one of your electives next year.  
16. You like to tell me you are homesick and pretend cry.  Then you say "already home!" and laugh and laugh.  Silly.

2017's Best Books

This year I read 66 books or 19,813 pages.  Yay!  I was also part of 3 book clubs, so that led me to read a few things I wouldn't have normally but mostly it was nice just to have more local people to hang out with.  Sometimes we even talked about the books ;-D  There were a few clunkers (aren't there always?) but most of them were enjoyable.  Here are the ones I loved best this year and that have earned a place on my "always recommend" list.

• The Complete Works of Jane Austen.  I was pretty sure I'd read them all over the years, but it was possible that I'd just gotten tangled up in movie adaptations (hello, Colin Firth!).  So this year I decided to revisit all of her work.  I found a great audio book of Mansfield Park read by Juliet Stevenson (herself having acted in some of those movie adaptations) and to my delight she had read all the others as well.  Having the right reader makes all the difference to a good audio book!  Feeling the need to take a break from the constant news this year, I turned to audio books to save my sanity and that made life so much more enjoyable.  As I have found when I read all of a series again in one go, reading all of Austen's work in succession allowed me to pick up on little subtleties and similarities I missed the first time (all those men with "W" names for instance).  It also allowed me to see the growth of Austen as a writer.  I still can't pick a favorite, but Persuasion has moved up the list and Emma has moved down.  I know a lot of people didn't love Lady Susan (the film version is called Love and Friendship), finding it too mean-spirited, but I thought it was hilarious.  I'd like to think this was a more accurate depiction of Jane's inner monologues as she observed the world around her.  
• The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown.  I found this book when there was a lot of press about it being one of the books that entire communities were reading together.  It's the story of the 1936 U.S. Olympic Rowing Team and how they won gold against all odds.  But it goes into the history of rowing, the very difficult lives of the boys who grew up in the Depression and fought for everything they got and how rowing helped shape them.  Honestly, this is not the kind of book I normally read, preferring fiction.  But I ADORED this book.  It kept me on the edge of my seat and I'll admit I read the last chapters more than twice.  I also found the old newsreel footage on Youtube to see how it really happened.  It gave me some insight, too, to the era that my parents grew up in.  While they would always tell us stories about making do and hardships, for some reason this book really brought all that home and showed how their generation got their resiliency and their can-do attitude that as time passed served the world well in WWII.  I also got D. to read it and he loved it as well.
• The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker.   The story opens with Julia, arriving in Burma to search for her missing father.  The only clue she has is a love letter he wrote many years ago to a woman neither she nor her mother have ever heard of.  What she finds is yes, a love story and a mystery solved, but also a story of resilience, dedication and miracles.  The language in this book is so lyrical, so unbearably beautiful, I dare you not to be drawn in
• Beartown by Frederik Backman.  I've been a big fan of Backman's work ever since A Man Called Ove made the list last year.  This book isn't as quirky as his others, though there are some quirky characters.  It takes on much more serious themes that ended up being very timely for what is going on in the world right now.  It's about communities, how they're formed or not formed, how they stand together or not, and how they heal or not when tragedy strikes.  It's about the dangers of putting all your hopes and dreams into one thing and one thing only.  Faced with choices, both big and small, each character in this book slowly reveals who they are and what they stand for.  It's also just as much about place as it is people, the location is just as important a character as the others.  I also think he's quite good in depicting relationships, all those little nuances and actions that started out as nothing but added up over the years become important to a couple, a group of friends, a mentor and protegee.  In typical Backman style, the direction you think the book is going in isn't necessarily where you end up, which is one of the reasons why I love his work.  

Happy reading!  If you read any of these, let me know what you think and, as always, I'd love to hear what made your list of favorites this year.