Start how you mean to go on, right?

January 1st, 2023:

– I had everything prepared the night before, so that I could get a little extra sleep before I woke up to get ready for my hike. The group for this hike included three longtime friends, so it was nice to spend some time with both them and some folks I’d never met before. The hike itself was a four mile out-and-back that I’m pretty familiar with. It’s not strenuous, mostly level, which is why I chose it. I literally haven’t done more than four miles in a month, much less a day, since April last year. In good news, my back didn’t act up and I was able to complete the hike without an issue! In not-as-good news, I’m definitely feeling it this morning, especially in my feet and calves, heh.

– Post-hike (and post-hike shower, eating, etc), the first thing I did was download the audio and ebook files for the newest Brandon Sanderson book, Tress of the Emerald Sea. This book is part of the Year of Sanderson from the kickstarter last March. The physical copy should show up later this month (or perhaps a bit later than that, re: manufacturing and shipping delays) but obviously my media of choice for Sanderson is audio! It won’t be my first book of the year, but it will definitely be sometime this month!

– Most of the rest of the afternoon was spent editing the photos I took at my grandparents’ memorial on the 31st. I took a lot of care over these, because I not only wanted to capture those moments, but to capture the feel of the memorial – both the grief and the companionship. Some of the photos came out really, really well, and I’m so happy that I could spend part of the first day of the year working on a photo project.

– Halfway through the afternoon, I took a break to visit a friend with Jason. The visit was brief and the reasons were not particularly noteworthy (we were picking up some items she wanted out of her garage that we could use), but while the guys were loading up the stuff, I got to chat with my friend about her planned summer wedding, and it was a nice break to have mid-day!

– I began my first audiobook of the year in the afternoon, which was Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson. It’s an 11-hour audio, and I ended up listening to almost 7 hours of it, first while editing photos, then hanging out with my current foster kitten, Petunia. Jason and Laurence spent the evening out seeing a movie (Babylon – they both loved it, but I was not at all interested in that one!), so I had a quiet night in with my cats and my audiobook. It was perfect.

So yes, I spent my first day exactly as I hope the year goes on: active and social balanced by work on my art / passion, with some quiet time to spend with books and cats.