Ten on Tuesday.

1. The family had a successful trip to Half Price Books on our Martin Luther King holiday. Successful in the year 2014 means that all four of us found a book. I am imagining that Success 50 and 60 years ago meant something else.

2. I believe I need to update my Photo-a-Day fun, but here's the last batch.

3. Alla starts an art class after school next week. She is delighted.

4. The family thoroughly enjoyed movie night at Daddy's work on Friday night. The movie of the month was Turbo, and the grown-ups were pleasantly surprised.

5. We are all about the Frozen soundtrack here. Goodness gracious.

6. We are sure hoping Idina Menzel will sing at the Oscar's.

7. We also love Pharrell's Happy but for us there is no contest, Frozen wins!

8. Yesterday Trader Joe's was out of shredded Brussels sprouts. Crisis.

9. I'm on book #5 so far in 2014 (I like to start out strong, I will surely meet a difficult or long book later in the year.), and 2 out of the 5 have been on my "Official 2014 To-Read List." Not sure if I should be proud of that or get myself back on track.

10. That said, the Newbery/Printz, etc awards are on Monday, which is a prime opportunity for me to add to my list!

Photo-a-Day: January 2014, Part Two.

Top to bottom:

Jan 6 Day one of cancelled school.
Jan 7 Day two of cancelled school.
Jan 8 Frozen eyelashes.
Jan 9 Citrus drink making.
Jan 10 Matching happy socks.
Jan 11 Tunneling.
Jan 12 This is a picture of an open window in January.

Ten on Tuesday.

1. I had a marvelous birthday yesterday and have been informed that I've now entered my late 30s. Not sure I like the sound of that, but moving on.

2. Fisher made sure to take a picture of me (with his V-Reader camera) at my birth time of 12:25 just as I do of them. Glad to see I'm rubbing off.

3. It was balmy yesterday in the upper 20s with sunshine, so this made for a very lovely morning run.

4. I got lots of reading material. Very exciting!

5. My husband woke up early to decorate with banners and streamers.

6. I made the most amazing brownies! No refined sugar or grain, awesome.

7. We woke up to fresh snow today, 3-4 inches, very pretty fresh white everywhere.

8. Not as fun to drive in, but provides a good workout when the plows come around and plow you in.

9. Looking forward to our birthday date this weekend at Butcher and The Boar!

10. The vegetable I'm obsessed with this week is butternut squash, already cubed from Costco, thank you, roasted and then put into my lunch salad. Delish!

Ten on Tuesday.

1. My delightful friend Erin introduced me to Meatza. Um, yes. Last Friday was therefore Meatza Friday for me!

2. I can't seem to keep carrots around. We seem to go through a 5-pound bag in as many days.

3. Have you heard about the cold weather here? We had two days of school cancelled! This is unheard of here in Minnesota, and in the 7 1/2 years we have lived here, there has only been one other cancellation, for snow. So we treated these two days as rare gifts and used them well.

4. Cold weather activities: domino course (me), Legos (kids), movies (kids), reading (everyone), beef stew, book-making (kids), and more rounds of Speed than I could possibly keep track of.

5. One of my favorite Christmas gifts was a jump rope from my mom. Also coming in handy in this cold weather.

6. We started an "Awesome Jar" for 2014 and are filling it with small slips of paper that list awesome things for this year.

7. Fisher is all about Lorde.

8. Ron is all about Hall & Oates.

9. Our whole family loved seeing Frozen over the holiday break.

10. The highlight of our day was when the temperature reached one degree (above zero), and we suited up for a walk on the frozen creek. Yes it was cold, but goodness was it beautiful out there.

Photo-a-day: January 2014.

I'm doing it again! It's been a very long time since I've tackled a January Photo-a-Day project, but it felt like it was time.

 You know what's fun? Looking back on old Photo-a-Day Januaries. Go ahead. See what I mean.

Lists With Friends: Books to Read in 2014.

Goodreads is just about the best thing to happen to readers, as it keeps track of all the books I've read and want to read, but I tend to get carried away and have ended up with over 500 books on my virtual to-read shelf. So at times I have to narrow the focus, keeping in mind that new books will come up and some how I will have to try and make room for them this year.

 

These are the books I most want to read this year.

Of course there are probably at least ten others I am thinking of right this moment that I would like to add, but I'm restraining myself because it's not a wish list, but rather I have prioritized, and this is the list I will actually read in 2014, among others, I hope, when I've finished these!

This is the first list in a series, part of a project with other list-minded friends.