Well, happy 2022!!!! Seems impossible and I simply cannot wrap my head around it. How how HOW did we get here?! (Can you guys hear me yelling? I am yelling.) Hoping you’ve all made it through the holidays with the least amount of stress possible and are off to a lovely New Year. I personally am choosing to feel optimistic about 2022, despite the grim trajectory of things!!! Hoping against all hope that 2022 is gonna be a good one ❤️

things read

  • One Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong – I honestly hated this. Beautiful writing, but a total miss for me.
  • The Holiday Swap by Maggie Knox – read for QBC and it was a cute holiday read that I mostly hate-read LOL
  • The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country by Amanda Gorman – an apt December quickie
  • The Comfort Book by Matt Haig – this had some really great chapters, I highlighted a bunch
  • Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear – same here. Definitely got some great ideas for things I’d like to try in 2022!
  • The Rose Code by Kate Quinn – loved this. Had gotten it as part of my Page One subscription and finally got around to reading it this month. I am such a sucker for a WWII story.

things baked

  • Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies – for a lovely visit for some of our favorite Floridian’s!
  • Christmas Cookies this year included: the aforementioned salted chocolate chunk shortbread, classic Spritz, cranberry almond biscotti, lemon shortbread, snickerdoodles, raspberry almond thumbprint, marcona almond and pignoli cookies. I’ve eaten approximately one million, thank for asking.
  • Chocolate Cream Pie for Christmas Eve that I kinda feel like was a flop. But I will admit, after all the cookies I did not have much patience left for homemade pie crust.

things made

  • French Onion Soup – we’re on a soup kick over here and this was my first attempt at French Onion. Came out great, but I don’t think I’d use this exact recipe the next time. It felt like it was missing a little something to me.
  • Pasta with Pancetta, Shallots and Sage for a fairly quick and delish weeknight dinner
  • Copycat Taco Bell Spicy Potato Tacos – the effort/cost to taste/happiness ratio for these is next level. Absolutely love making these for dinner because they’re so quick and easy, and SO good. I’m still trying to perfect the potatoes, but we are getting closer every time!
  • Roasted Red Pepper Soup – like I said, soup kick. We super enjoyed this one. Would LOVE with some crostini on top!

things eaten

  • Mad Minis Ice Cream Sandwiches – love these a whole lot. The perfect little sweet treat for after dinner.
  • bagels – went on a bagel binge this month. Could not get enough bagels with cream cheese. Perhaps subconsciously because of this cream cheese shortage?! (And speaking of: we finally finally finally tried Bagel Pub and it was outrageously good)

things drank

  • Tea – so so so so SO much tea this month. Ry and I got into the habit of a cup almost every night on the couch watching tv. I personally am a big peppermint tea gal, while he prefers a pomegranate tea. Any fellow tea drinkers? Do you have any faves we should try?!

things loved

  • lots of yoga – took it easy on the bike this month for a few reasons, but really enjoyed the Peloton Slow Flow classes. Sometimes I don’t love the regular Flow Peloton classes because I feel like they don’t give you quite enough time in each pose, but these Slow Flow classes are a bit (shocker) slower and fit the bill for me.
  • Nordic Ware Cookie Stamps – immediately ordered these after seeing them on TikTok and used them to stamp my lemon cookies this year. I have to admit, I had so much fun using them, they were a total joy to work with.
  • Sidenote: I already want to tell you all how much I love some of the things I got for Christmas, but feel like that may be jumping the gun a bit. So I’ll save all that for January Things. Stay tuned!

things watched

  • Succession – WOW. That’s all I have to say. This show is amazing and if you haven’t watched, you must. I already cannot wait for Season 4.
  • Thelma and Louise – randomly watched this with the fam after Dad was baffled that I hadn’t seen it before. Loved it. If you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth a watch!
  • Love Hard – one hour and forty-five minutes of my life that I’ll never get back *happy tear*
  • Elf – approximately 27 times, as one should each December
  • The Pursuit of Happyness – this movie just absolutely rips your heart out in the worst/best way possible. I struggle through watching it every time and always cry. But it always leaves you with the most profound happiness it’s impossible not to love it.

things listened to

  • Sidney Bird – found her on TikTok and immediately downloaded a bunch of her songs. A+
  • J Cole – went on a bender this month and played a looot of this which is very out of character for me.
  • Billie Eilish – watched her on SNL and then could not get enough Billie after that. This performance of Male Fantasy absolutely blew me away and I’ve probably watched it 15 times since.

things done

  • we PAINTED! we’re moving! – it’s officially official, we are moving. I have super mixed emotions on the matter. Part of me is so excited to have more space and do the whole house thing, and part of me is devastated to be leaving Brooklyn. I never in a million years thought I would feel at “home” in the city, but Brooklyn really did become that for us and I’m so sad to be leaving. But on to bigger things (quite literally.) Baby steps!!
  • Dinner with my Loyola gals – whom I’ve missed svm! (ty to our glue, LC, for always getting us together LOL) had a delicious dinner in the city and so much catching up. If only we could seem to make it happen more often!
  • finished my goodreads challenge! – at 7:30 on NYE, of course. But felt accomplished about it nonetheless! Here’s to hoping for some mindblowing-ly amazing reads in 2022 because I was unimpressed with most of the 2021 books if I’m being completely honest.

things celebrated

  • Christmas – ’twas quiet again this year due to the recent COVID surge. We had our typical Christmas Eve fare and spent Christmas Day with Ryan’s family. For the first time in my life it was nearly dark out by the time we did Christmas at home! All in, it was a nice day but I for one am hopeful for a normal Christmas next year. Fingers (and toes) crossed.
  • DaSilva-Kirby Christmas – al fresco style, again. SIGH.
  • (The Last) Christmas in Brooklyn – our very last Christmas in our first apartment! Sooo bittersweet but we really tried our best to soak it all in. We exchanged our gifts, had pasta and a nice bottle of wine for dinner and broke out my brand new candlesticks which really elevated the mood. Kinda broke my heart to take the tree down on Thursday morning, but it feels GOOD to have a little empty space in there again!
  • New Years Eve – spent at home, with tequila and a poker game for five. *Cues ‘this is the life bo bo bo bo bo* We rang in the new year with champagne, midnight phone calls and a cheers to wedding year!!!

Cheers to 2022,

jak