Since January of 2010, when library patrons started asking me how they could read a library book on the new Kindle they got for Christmas, I've had "read an entire e-book" on my list of goals. 

Of course, I have done my professional duty. I learned how to use a Kindle, and then the Kindle app, and then the Overdrive system, and then the Overdrive app. I downloaded and listened to quite a few e-audiobooks, especially when I was training for my marathon. I helped patrons with their e-book issues. I never considered buying a Kindle or a Nook, but I did download e-books onto my phone.

I just never actually read any of them.

I tried books from multiple genres—literary fiction, science fiction, YA, nonfiction. But I couldn't ever seem to stay connected to the story. I got 10% finished with Mudbound by Hillary Jordan before my check out expired. Twenty percent through Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children; 18% through Behind the Beautiful Forevers and a dismal 3% through Scarlet. Picking up my phone to read didn't feel like reading, but like looking at something on my phone. Bookless, it was simply a story.

I am, I have discovered, a print purist.

The pleasure in reading, for me, isn't only about the story. It is also about the book itself. The book in my hand, and turning the pages. The physical presence of that object in my life at that moment (and its absence, as when I often wander through the house, trying to remember where I left my book). It is flipping back through pages to straighten out in my head a plot point or a character's history or how a particular idea lines up with something that happens later on. If I am reading a library book, the pleasure is in sticky notes or other little bits of paper to mark spots I want to come back to before I return it, and it is also in the actual returning. If I am reading my own book, it becomes a layered thing: the story itself, my notes on and underlining of the story, the other things I might write in the book (shopping lists; an appointment date and time; phone numbers; to-do items; ideas for an essay, scrapbook layout, quilt, blog post, poem), folded down corners and maybe a little spill here and there. Also, because the memories of reading are part of reading, the place I was when I read the book.

Also reading in the bathtub, which feels dicey with my cell phone.

When people extol the virtues of e-books—the portability, the availability, the general coolness—I have two simultaneous internal reaction. One is a sort of mental shrug: it just isn't my thing. (Embedded in the shrug is the thought of how printed books don't require any more technology than turning the page with your finger.) One is a little bit envious: if you can happily read e-books, you do get the portability and the availability. (Except in the bathtub.) You never have to wish you hadn't forgotten your book in the car when you're waiting in a long line at Starbucks. Part of me, in other words, would like to be able to read e-books while still maintaining all of the other pleasures of reading print books.

Which is just not really possible for me.

Recently, I've discovered Maggie Stiefvater's series The Raven Boys. I read the first one only reluctantly and to help out with a library project. And after I'd had it checked out for three weeks and had to renew it. I began reading the second one, The Dream Thieves, on the afternoon of the very same day I finished the first one, because I could. not. wait. to go back into that world. And then I realized: the hold list for Blue Lily, Lily Blue is really, really long. And one of the rules at my library is that staff members can only get a book on their hold shelf if no other library patrons are waiting for it. Which means I'd have to wait months before I read it.

So I put my name on the hold list anyway. I took a deep breath, logged on to the Overdrive app, and put my name on the hold list for the e-book. Then, just a few weeks later, I got the notification for the e-book copy in my email, when I was still miles down the list for the regular copy.

And then, dear readers, I did something I have never, ever managed: I read an entire e-book. Start to finish. On my phone.

I'm still analyzing how I feel about this experience. On one hand, I got to read the book I've been wanting to read. Maybe it was the anticipation itself that made me keep reading—I wanted to find out the next bit of the story no matter what. Or maybe I've just gotten so used to using my phone for almost everything else that reading on it doesn't feel as foreign. Maybe it was temporary January insanity. Whatever the reason, I got to read that book much sooner than I would have otherwise. I read it in the car while Kendell was driving. I read it at Nathan's basketball games (during the time he wasn't playing). I even, yes, read it in line at Starbucks.

I got to read it!

But on the other hand, I feel much less connected to the book. Like I read it through a dirty window, which is an image that might only make sense in my head. I feel like I got the gist of the story, but not its heart. It didn't feel spooky to me when it was trying to feel spooky, nor entirely sad at the should-be-sad bits. I can't tell if I feel that way because of the story itself or because of how I read the story.

I keep thinking about Anne Fadiman's essay, "Never Do That to a Book," which separates readers into two different types, the courtly or the carnal. Courtly readers are very careful with their books, because for them, the book itself is the important thing. Carnal readers see the book as only the delivery system for the story—the story, not the delivery system, being the important thing. Since reading that essay (more than a decade ago!) I've thought of myself as a carnal reader, because I don't have a problem messing up my books. (In fact, I wish all library books could have a sign-in page at the front and then space for each reader to write his/her reaction in the back. I've joked about this at librarian meetings but no one else seems to think this would be a good idea.) But maybe I am more courtly than I imagined. Reading (finally, actually finishing) an e-book has taught me (in a way I didn't understand before) that I do value books themselves, as well as stories.

Which of course begs the question: now that I know I can read an e-book, will I do it again? It depends. A book that was long and meaty and full of ideas and quotes I'd like to remember and pages I'd like to dog-ear: probably not. A book I was just reading for entertainment and story? Sure, if I could get the e-book faster. But I think I will continue on mostly reading what I've thought of, the entire time of writing this, as real books.

At heart, I will always be a print purist. 

My friend Sophia does this descending list thing on her blog quite often. I can't manage it very often, though, as I tend to get lost in all the details and start rambling. But, I thought it would be a good way to sum up 2014. (I know...it's January 15. I need to move past last year, but I still need a summary, even if it's late.) So! 2014 in review:

12 Favorite Photos:
I took the least amount of pictures this year that I ever have since going digital. I let myself get discouraged over the Teenage Resistance (one kid in particular hates getting his picture taken) and I just didn't feel excited about much photography. Then my camera started being wonky, so it was gone for repairs for more than a month (it still isn't working right. Sigh.) But I did take some good pictures:

1. My Mom and Nathan. This was at Jake's 16th birthday party. I love them working together.

2. Kaleb Reading. He discovered the Jedi Academy series and fell in love. He also read Coraline this year, along with miscellaneous other books he didn't love. He still doesn't love reading, but is liking it more. (Also: the bandaid on his toe is covering up an enormous wart he had removed last December. It was a huge wound and took forever to heal.)

3. Easter at My Mom's.  I love this for a lot of reasons. You can't see him, but my dad is in this picture! Also, that black "trellis" behind us? It is actually the old stair railing. When they replaced it twenty years ago, Dad just put it outside for flowers to grow around.

4. Our Family with Five. It is still so weird to me not to have Haley with us all the time. She is always in our family but not always in our family pictures! This was taken at my niece Torri's wedding.

5. All of the Kids. This is on Kaleb's 9th birthday. It captures so much about who they all are right now.

6. Haley at Chileno Bay. This is our third time in Cabo but our first time to go to this beach. It is the best one there! SO pretty!

7. Ragnar 2014. Just a few hours before one of the worst runs of my life. But...I love this picture.

8. Talking to Kaleb. I was outside taking pictures of flowers, and he wanted to tell me a story about something that happened at school. I took this right when I sat down across from him, and then we talked about our day. It was a sweet, good moment.

9. On Top of Half Dome. I didn't hike Half Dome just so I could take this picture. But it is the picture I most wanted. 

10. My four kids. Haley was home for a quick visit. I have this in a frame in my kitchen. 

11. So many boys! Jake playing soccer with all the little boys, at my mom's house for our autumn family meal.

12. Men at Madi's Wedding. My sister Suzette asked me to take some pictures at her daughter's wedding (forgetting that I don't photograph weddings). They turned out OK, but this is my favorite candid. Trying to get all of the men to smile.

11 Food-Related Memories:

1. May Lunch at Zupas. When Haley was at home for Kaleb’s baptism, we went to lunch with my mom and my sisters Becky and Suzette to celebrate my and Haley's birthdays. While I love Zupas (their mushroom bisque is an especial favorite), what I really loved about that meal was the people I ate with.
2. Eating in Mexico. Actually, there are quite a few good food memories from Mexico, and I still thoroughly intend to write about the three restaurants we love there. But the most Cabo-evocative food is the bag of mixed nuts I bought at Costco the first day we were there. It had pecans, almonds, and cashews mixed with dried apples and dried cranberries and a strong cinnamon flavor mixed with vanilla and something just a little bit spicy-hot. I'd eat a handful every morning when I came in from running and then, just a few weeks ago, they were a sample at my Costco. When I tasted them they took me right back to how those days felt: the freedom of running on the beach, the lovely, long lazy days, the scent and sound of the ocean just outside our door
3. Spiced pumpkin cookies with browned-butter frosting. I made this recipe four (or maybe) five times during the fall. We always love pumpkin anything, but these cookies. Oh my. The frosting takes them into cookie nirvana.
4. Watermelon in Yosemite. On our first day in Yosemite, we took what we thought would be a quick little hike to Lembert Dome. It was beautiful, but the trail was way longer than my guidebook said, and I didn’t realize there are two different spots you can start at. Which means that to make it into a loop, we had to walk right down the road from one parking spot and past a second before we got back to our car. It was hot and we were both thirsty (and Kendell was freaking out that we had just zapped every ounce of our energy that we might need for the next day’s neither quick nor little hike), so we drank some cold Propels while we drove along Tioga Pass road until we found a shady spot to pull over. Where we ate, with great delight, the cold, cubed watermelon I’d cut the day before. We took our hiking boots off and stretched out our legs and ate watermelon underneath some enormous lodge pole pines. It was so refreshing!
5. Midnight spaghetti. On principle, I can’t stand Ina Garten. (She’s just oh so very casual about her immense wealth and privilege.) But damn her, she makes some good food. This midnight spaghetti is easy and fast and delicious and everyone in my family but Nathan loves it. (Nathan will tolerate it, though.)
6. Anniversary dinner. We celebrated our 22^nd anniversary by pulling out all the stops and going to…Thai Village. OK, yes, totally not fancy. But it’s an us sort of place, and it makes us both happy, so who needs fancy when you can just have delicious?
7. Lunch with Chris. She is my very best, oldest friend and she understands almost everything about me. We know each other’s deepest, darkest secrets and also the funny stories. But we don’t see each other very often. I was determined to see her this year! We went to lunch one day during the Christmas break, at Los Hermanos in Pleasant Grove. The food was actually just sort of ehhh, but the conversation and the laughter and the soul-lifting was perfect!
8. Lunch at Texas Roadhouse in Logan. This fall, we needed to get some things up to Haley, and instead of mailing them we drove up to Logan. Everyone went, and we ate lunch together at Texas Roadhouse. My boys love this restaurant, Kaleb especially. They all got ribs, I got my usual chicken mushroom dish, Kendell got road kill, and Haley (who is a vegetarian) got a big salad. Again…the food was fine, but the company was perfect! Everyone was happy, talking and laughing together.
9. Dinner at Mi Ranchito. This is our favorite Mexican restaurant, but I had no idea that Becky and Shane also love it. In December, after we all met at the cemetery to decorate my dad’s grave, we went to dinner there: my family, Becky’s family, Suzette, and my mom. Delicious food, good conversations (my mom and Suzette are puzzled by Becky’s and my fear of traditional burial techniques, so we talked about it for quite a while), everyone happy. I loved that meal.
10. Summer breakfasts with Kaleb. We’d make hash browns and scrambled eggs (and sometimes hot chocolate), then eat together on the patio.
11. Candy cane cookies. I wanted to find something new and different and delicious to bring for dessert at our Sorensen family Christmas party. I made these candy cane cookies and they were one of my favorite things in December. The candy canes sprinkled on the fluffy frosting get just the tiniest bit softer, and the ones baked in the cookies get a little bit crispy, so it’s all sorts of texture at once.

10 Things that Happened:

1. Haley thrived in college. We got a letter from the dean about her excellent grades in May.
2. Jake survived 10^th grade and started (very reluctantly) 11^th grade. Despite his dislike of school and some other issues he’s struggled with, he’s managed to keep his grades at decent levels and is feeling much better about the second half of junior year.
3. Nathan made the high honor roll twice, finished 8^th grade, and started 9^th grade
4. Kaleb did not love school, but he did adore his 3^rd grade teacher and her aid. Fourth grade has been, well, OK.
5. Jake got his own car! He is paying for half, we are paying for the other half. He loves it!
6. Nathan earned a spot on student council and made the basketball team.
7. Kaleb started playing soccer (on a team, not just the back yard).
8. Jake cut his finger open lifting weights at the gym. Those were our only stitches this year, although…I did cut my forehead open. Glue though, not stitching.
9. I ran what is likely my last Ragnar. (Unless someone asks me to be on their team…)
10. Kendell and I saw and held actual, real, wild bear cubs.

9 Things We Bought a Lot Of:

1. Starbucks hot chocolate. Two years ago, Costco had this awesome tin of extra-dark Starbucks hot chocolate. Then they didn’t get it in 2013 and I was devastated. When I discovered they brought it back again this fall, I bought, I confess, six tins. I have enough to share except I won’t share it with anyone.
2. Legumes. Mostly black beans and garbanzos, but also refried and navy and butter beans. I think we’ve always eaten a lot of legumes, but this year I really noticed how often I buy them.
3. Cheese. Despite the fact that dairy products cost more this year than kidneys on the black market, we buy (and eat) a lot of cheese. Kendell gets a little panicky if there isn’t some in the fridge at all times.
4. Peaches from my niece’s in-laws.
5. Pumpkin spice cream frappuccinos. If you have them add chocolate chips it’s like a pumpkin spice cookie in a delicious beverage format. (I know…tons of sugar.)
6. Wheat bread, 1% milk, butter, and eggs: always on our Costco shopping list.
7. Fixins for hamburgers. After not using our grill once last year, we put it to good use this summer by grilling burgers nearly once a week. The secret to a delicious grilled burger: mix some dry buttermilk-ranch dressing mix into the raw meat. (Take your rings off first though!)
8. Peanut butter. Kaleb and Kendell have a PB&J or a PB&H (respectively) nearly every school day.
9. Berries. Even when they’re expensive. I decided it is a luxury I want to live with.

8 Book/Reading Experiences:

1. Discussing books with Jake. Jake, who used to be a great lover of books, has sort of stopped enjoying reading. (I am hoping this is an adolescent phase.) But when I told him about this book I was reading, The Martian, he thought it sounded good, so he read it right after I did. I loved talking about it with him! He also read The Scarlet Letter in his English class. Helping him write his essay was one of my year’s favorite moments. (By “helping him write his essay,” by the way, I mean this: I don’t write it. I’m not even present for the idea generation and the first draft. But once he’s worked out some ideas and direction and content, I’ll help him revise and shape. I don’t think this makes me a bad mom, either on the side of not writing the whole thing for him or on the other, helping him to make it better.)
2. Presenting at Life, the Universe, and Everything. I co-hosted a discussion about the year’s best fantasy and science fiction books. My fellow librarian discussed picture books and junior books, and I took the young adult books. I decided that presenting at literary conferences might be the best thing the world has to offer. I want to do it again!
3. Meeting Robert Pinksy. Seriously…I met Robert Pinsky.
4. Reading For Darkness Shows the Stars underneath my apple tree, which was buzzing with bees. That was a moment that changed something fundamental in me, in how I look at the world and my place in it.
5. Re-reading the Maddaddam trilogy while we were in Mexico. I brought all three books with me, despite the space they took up in my luggage, and I finished the last pages of the third book about ten minutes before our plane landed back home in Salt Lake City. The place where we stayed has a little restaurant by the pool, so nearly every day I sat outside in the sun, with a pool by my feet and the ocean a two-minute walk away, eating quesadillas with guacamole and reading. One day, an older man came over to talk to me. He said, “I’m from Canada, and I didn’t think any Americans were smart enough to read Margaret Atwood.” I’m still puzzling over that conversation. I hope I represented us surprisingly-intelligent Americans well!
6. Meeting Laini Taylor. She came to the SLC downtown library in October. She spoke in two different conference sessions and I went to both of them. I am still processing what she said, but it is pushing me to be more dedicated to my own writing.
7. Discussing books with Nathan. He read A Wrinkle in Time and was sort of puzzled by it. I don’t think he loved it, but it made him think. We also discussed The Little Prince. And, he read one of Jake’s favorite series, The Cry of the Icemark, and you know it made me happy to hear the two of them talk about books!
8. Meeting Shannon Hale. I brought my copy of Enna Burning for her to sign, because it’s my favorite book by her. I told her that, and she was surprised…she said most people think it’s too dark. Which just made me smile because of course I like the darker & edgier things. (Not a thing anyone might thing Shannon Hale really is.) We had a short but lovely conversation about why I like it, and she signed my book with “for Amy, who would be great friends with Enna.” 

 7 Songs that Will Always Remind Me of This Year:

1. Royals by Lorde
2. Stolen Dance by Milky Chance (Jake loved this song, too.)
3. Unbelievers by Vampire Weekend
4. Blue Monday (remake) by Orgy
5. Just Give Me a Reason by Pink
6. I Wanna Get Better by The Bleachers
7. The Wheel in the Sky by Journey (one of these things is not like the others…this is a story I need to tell!)

6 New Things We Bought:

1. We finally replaced our ancient HP laser printer with a new HP laser printer.
2. A Bosch mixer. Our old one wasn’t very old, but this was such a good deal on all! new! stuff! that I couldn’t resist. (We sold our old one.)
3. Sort-of a new computer. Kendell replaced a bunch of parts with newer and faster ones inside of our PC.
4. A laptop of my very own. I’ve wanted one for a long time, but it had to be just the right one (I’m pretty picky on keyboards!)
5. Tupperware. I got a set of four pink bowls (squee! pink Tupperware!) and some new canisters.
6. A Samsung Galaxy s5 for me (I passed my old S3 down to Nathan, who was previously using a battered old-fashioned texting phone, the kind with the slide-out keyboard).

5 Trips Someone Took:

1. Vegas for Spring Break: Haley
2. Florida for HOSA nationals: Jake (including Disneyworld and Harry Potter World, lucky boy!)
3. St. George for StuCo leadership conference: Nathan
4. Cabo San Lucas: Amy and Haley
5. Yosemite: Amy and Kendell

(looks like Kaleb really needs a vacation this year!)

4 Medical Issues:

1. sprained ankle (Nathan)
2. a whole lot of dermatological stuff (Jake)
3. cracked tooth (Kendell)
4. mysterious aching hamstrings (Amy)

3 Movies We Saw:
(It wasn’t a huge movie year for me. The kids saw more than I did. Nothing really grabbed my attention.)

1. Mockingjay part 1. (I honestly didn’t think they needed to make this book into two movies. I liked this, but I kept wondering what people who haven’t read the books would think of it.)
2. Interstellar (My favorite movie this year, although obviously that’s not saying much. I have a beef with some of the science, but overall I liked the concepts, especially how time could fold back on itself.)
3. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (A bloated monstrosity that entirely lost the feeling of the book.)

2 Things I Would Change:

1. More family stuff during the summer. We really didn’t do much all together.
2. Talk more. Communicate more. Connect more.

1 Lesson I Learned This Year:
(Really….there were many, but this is the most impactful, and maybe it is fairly obvious but I understood it on a deeper level.)

1. What I choose is the only thing I can control. I can encourage, cajole, rail, lecture, nag, discuss as much as I want, but I can’t choose anything but my own choices. This means that I am striving to really think about and understand exactly what I am choosing, rather than listening so much to other people’s ideas. 

After all of the previous night's drama, when we settled in to open presents I was pretty pessimistic. It felt…fake, somehow, to be trying to act like a happy, normal family on Christmas morning after all of what was said the night before. But it’s not like we could just skip Christmas. Once we stepped into the usual rhythm of it—putting the cinnamon rolls in to bake, pestering Kendell to get up and get the camcorder set up, recording the bit we always do on the stairs—tradition overcame reluctance. There were some very good moments I hope to always remember: 

• Kaleb’s excitement and happiness. OK, not really a moment. But still, a thing I want to remember. I can’t quite tell if he still believes or is only pretending he still believes, but for the morning of Christmas, he believed.
• All four kids opening their stockings. We always do this first at our house, because the kids always love their stockings. It settled some of my sadness, seeing them altogether in that moment.
• Jake’s “big present” was a PS4. (Does it count as a present if we made him pay for half of it?) (This was a debate all December, as he hardly needs more video-game-playing incentive. I finally caved when Kendell pointed out that all the new games will be developed for the PS4 from now on, instead of the PS3 we’ve had forever, and when we found one for a really. great. deal.) When he was opening it, he very
  carefully torn the seams open on the side, and then rustled the paper around, and left a flap covering the top because he wanted to make the anticipation last a little bit longer. Was it really the thing he’d been wanting the most? YES! (He’s my kid who rips through paper the fastest, usually, so this was especially sweet.)
• Nathan’s big gift was a new, fancy Invecta watch. It came in this complicated-to-open plastic box, which might’ve been cooler than the
  watch itself. Not really, of course, as it’s a pretty awesome watch, but the box was memorable in its own way.
• Kaleb had only the night before realized that the biggest from-the-parents gift under the tree had his name on it! He opened that last (the big gift is always last at our house), but was a little bit puzzled by what was in it. It was a soundbar speaker, which you’d think would be a little bit disappointing as a “big” gift for a 9-year-old, but as it meant we could move the little computer speakers from the TV to the computer he uses in the basement, he was so excited. (“Computer speakers” were on the top of his list…above even the beloved and coveted Legos.)
• We like puns in our family. So I was especially excited for Jake to open his new ornament, which was a “holy cow”: a bovine painted with a nativity scene. We all admired it, except Kendell who doesn’t really think our pun humor is very funny. Jake also has a chocolate moose ornament (get it?) so now I’m sort of hoping I can find another punny something next year for him.
• This is a tiny thing, but as it caused me to have a meltdown in Target a few days later, it's still important. Some of the chocolate in the kids' stockings this year was little peppermint bark bells. Haley opened and ate one, and said "Mom! Those are not what I expected but they are so delicious!" (The Target meltdown came when I was wandering through the Christmas clearance aisles—is there a more sad place than the Christmas clearance aisle?—wanting to find more because she liked them, and they were all gone, and right then it hit me with full ferocity that one more Christmas is gone. Entirely over. Life is so fleeting.)
• Instead of getting Haley many gifts this year, we bought her airplane tickets for the trip she took to Florida right before Christmas. I was
  worried she’d feel sort of sad about not having a whole lot to open, but it seemed ok. I was still pretty excited for her to open the shirt I got her, which is like one of mine that she’s admired, except a different color. Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a new something to wear, right?
• Giving Kendell his gifts. Every year, I make him a calendar using photos from the previous year. Usually they are of the kids, but as I took so few pictures this year I didn’t have enough that I loved. So I made his calendar with pictures from our trip to Yosemite. What
  cracks me up about the calendar is that every year he forgets I’m likely to make him one! I also got him a new mouse pad with a picture of the kids on it, since the one he’s been using at his office is one I made him in 2001.
• Haley brought me some coconut-sugar hand scrub from Florida, and the kids & Kendell conspired to get me a Bluetooth speaker. (It’s
  sometimes hard to keep secrets from me, since I’m the one who does all the credit card bills, but they managed!)
• Even without the wassail, Christmas breakfast was pretty delicious. I made cinnamon rolls and raspberry sweet rolls (the raspberry rolls were new this year), the breakfast casserole was perfect, and hot chocolate was an OK substitute.
• It snowed all morning. I took a few pictures of the house (my new Christmas tradition) and of Haley out in the snow. Christmas-day snow is such a rarity, it should be celebrated!
• In between opening gifts and leaving for my mom’s, I had the chance to take a much-needed nap. It was lovely.
• At my mom’s, when we were opening gifts, I started getting silly. I stuck the bow from my gift on my shirt and then tied the ribbon around my head. My sisters soon joined me. Aren’t we pretty?
• Just before we left, Becky and I stood outside. It was snowing. Our backyard is full of so many good memories, but at that moment it was evocative only of my dad. He was there with us, in a comforting and gentle spirit. I miss him.

This was a bittersweet Christmas. So many things could change over the next year that it might be a sort of touchstone Christmas, too. My contacts were cloudy all day from the previous night’s crying, and I was in that exhausted phase where you feel like you’re sort of floating along, and I was right on the edge of a headache. But it still held so many good moments. That is what I need to remember next year, when I am pushing myself and full of anxiety. The sweetness comes partly from all of the planning. But it also comes in entirely unpredictable experiences, and I just need to watch for those as December progresses, instead of worrying about perfection. Goodness over perfection is going to be my new holiday mantra.

Last Christmas and the year before that, I had sick kids—kids with the stomach flu, no less. I was feeling like there might be a Greek God of Holidays whom I’ve offended in some manner—is it my wrapping skills? Decorations? My mockery of Elf on the Shelf? (It couldn’t be a Greek Goddess of Holidays because if such an entity existed, she would have nothing but compassion for all mothers everywhere, especially in December.) It seemed like this deity was fairly annoyed with me and thus wrecking vengeance via the untimely presence of the rotavirus.

I wasn’t sure what to do to placate him. In fact, I wasn’t really holding out any hopes for a non-puking Christmas this year. Bad things come in threes and all that. And in all honesty, my excitement for Christmas this year was pretty lacking. I kept looking back at the Christmases when I had a houseful of tiny little believers and feeling nostalgic. Not even a good nostalgia, but the kind that makes it hard to appreciate anything right now because of remembering so fervently what used to be.

But then all three of my boys got the stomach flu—during the week before Christmas! Which meant there was a very good likelihood that no one would be throwing up, or recuperating from throwing up, on Christmas. And then I started looking at the weather report for December 25, and the chances for snow changed from 60% to 75% to 90% as the day got closer. And then I managed to get almost every little bit of wrapping finished way before Christmas Eve. We got Haley home from Florida without any problems, everyone was happy, and I let myself hope—not even a little bit, but hope hard and big and surely—for a perfect Christmas (finally!) I started letting go of that ugly nostalgia that was making me live in the past, and seeing what is good about right now.

And everything really was on track for a nearly-perfect Christmas. I couldn’t figure out what to cook on Christmas Eve. Usually we have sweet pork burritos with all of the extras, but Haley is a vegetarian now, and while she insisted that she didn’t need a special meal, I wanted something that everyone could eat together. I worried about this for a while, until I was desperate enough to ask Kendell for suggestions, and he said “why don’t we just go out to eat?” For a few minutes that sounded like heresy, like something that might anger that vengeful Greek god, but then I thought about the benefits: no dishes, less stress, everyone could pick something they loved. So instead of cooking, on Christmas Eve we went to Chili’s. (I know…not very fancy, but that’s OK. Choices for everyone!) We had a great time, eating and laughing together and playing rounds of Trivia Crack together on our phones.

It was a good choice.

When we got home, I sent the kids downstairs to pick up the basement and get the space ready while I got started on some of the food for the morning. I made pie dough, double-chocolate-chip cookie dough, cinnamon-roll dough, and the chocolate cake. Then I went downstairs, and that’s when everything got off track. The basement wasn’t finished, and instead of being patient, I snipped a little bit, and then I went upstairs to get Kendell and he snipped at me for something, and then we opened PJs and read the Christmas story from the Bible. But when I tucked Kaleb into bed, I was in tears, because no one was throwing up but everyone was tense and I was just full of this sort of empty frustration. I had let my hope take me to a place that was too full of anticipation, to certain that this year would be a perfect year.

Too connected to the idea of “perfect” in the first place, probably.

But I got Kaleb tucked in, and I started defrosting the sausage for the morning, and then Kendell discovered that I was upset. So he got mad at the kids (instead of just acknowledging that yes, he’d been a jerk, which would have completely diffused me) and then the kids got mad at him, and then I went downstairs to mediate our lovely Christmas Eve discussion.

Leaving all hopes for a sweet Christmas floating around the ceiling somewhere.

I suppose I should just take it as a sign that our kids are growing up, because it’s not unusual for Kendell and me to have a BUA (big ugly argument) sometime in December, brought on by the tension and the spending and the expectations. Now the kids are just old enough to be included! Isn’t that fabulous?

I’m not going to record all of the argument. Or any of it. I cannot say it was any one person’s fault (except for my tendency to say it was all my fault) so I’m not placing any blame. Maybe all of the recriminations and stinging words had been waiting to be flung for quite a while, and it was just, like the previous years’ stomach flu, untimely. But it was long and ugly and discouraging. I left it feeling raw and undone and in a fairly dark place, especially since it happened on Christmas Eve, which is lovely and sweet and fun (or it’s supposed to be) but is also the pinnacle of a mother’s busy-ness. To have such bitterness uncovered right then was just…it changed me. It confirmed all of my fears that yes, my efforts at being a good mother really have failed.

The only saving grace is that at least Kaleb was asleep.

When we finally came to a sort of uneasy peace, I still had so much to do. I went upstairs and finished the pie, baked the cookies, made the cinnamon rolls, made the breakfast casserole, and started the wassail simmering. Then I did my Santa work: gathered up the gifts from all of their hiding places, put the bows on (I always do the bows when I put the gifts under the tree, so that they don’t get smooshed), stuffed the stockings, ate some of the snacks on the Santa plate, cleaned up all the mess, and then fell into bed. It was 3:45 before I got there, and I was still upset so I couldn’t fall asleep even though I was so exhausted I couldn’t think straight.

I must have finally managed it, because I was dreaming, and something strange was troubling my dreams, and then all of a sudden I wasn’t asleep because the smoke alarm was blaring, and I realized that strange thing was the smell of something burning—cinnamon and cloves and allspice berries, apple juice and orange juice.

I forgot, it seems, the very last step of my usual Christmas-Eve preparations:  turning off the wassail.

It had simmered dry, and then the solids started burning, filling the kitchen with smoke. I raced down the hall into the kitchen, where the smoke looked just like it does in a movie: heavy and thick near the ceiling (where I’d left my hopes), gradually thinning towards the legs of the table. I ran to the stove, turned off the burner, grabbed the pan and filled it with water, burning my palms on the handles. Kaleb and Kendell weren’t far behind me. Kaleb was confused and excited. He said, “Is Santa here?” and then I had to just hug him because this Christmas Eve/early morning—it was 6:18—was so far from happy Christmas memories for him that I wanted to curl into a ball and die.

Of course, there’s no curling allowed on Christmas morning when your house is filled with smoke.

Kendell turned off the smoke alarm and we opened the kitchen and front room windows. Then he stood at the front door and Kaleb and I stood at the back door, fanning out the smoke. The promised snow had arrived—it hadn’t started falling yet when I went to bed—and with it a ferocious wind. It was so cold, and the snow was blowing in, so I sent Kaleb back to his bed to warm up, while Kendell and I kept fanning.

I didn’t want to know this, but I can tell you that the exact scent of a ruined Christmas is burned wassail. That specific smokiness, built of cinnamon and spices and sweetness but turned bitter and harsh and pungent—I might not ever smell it again. But it is what disappointment smells like.

What I wanted to do was just go back to bed. To actually sleep, and to just not be awake anymore. Feeling that feeling. But Christmas, especially with a nine-year-old, waits for no broken-down mom, so a couple of hours later—none of the teenagers having woken up for the fire—we went downstairs to see what Santa had brought. That is a story I will share tomorrow, but today I just want to share what I will take from that hard Christmas Eve:

Most of that argument really was my fault. I don’t say that as a martyr but because of what I have learned, thinking about it. I worked myself into a sort of mom-frenzy, wanting Christmas to be perfect. Part of this desire was for Kaleb, my last believer who really does deserve a few more years of childhood Christmas mornings. Of believing. But it was also for my Bigs. I wanted them to feel a little bit of the magic they used to feel when they were the believers. And I wanted us to be happy together. Who knows—maybe this is the last Christmas we will all spend together like this. Maybe in another year, Haley will want to do Christmas with friends, or a boyfriend, or something else entirely. Not too shortly, Jake will be graduated from high school and off to college and/or a mission, with Nathan following closely behind. I just, in my deepest part, wanted one more year. Together, with just us. With us happy together. So I built it up and I pushed myself to make it as perfect as I could, and I didn’t sleep enough during the days before, and despite not wanting to hope, I hoped. I let expectation push me, and then a small thing (the couch not being turned around, the floor not being vacuumed) was too much to bear. I snapped and that started the whole cascade of expectations, ending in me almost burning down my house.

So next Christmas, I am not going to do this. Not to myself or anyone else. I’m not going to build up the expectations. I’m not going to cling to wishing things could be like they used to be. I am not going to hope to make it perfect. I’m not going to try to make it perfect. I’m just going to do what I can, without making myself crazy from the pressure. I’m going to look for the small perfect moments—which were also there this Christmas, despite the drama—and savor them, and just breath. Just not build it up so much that I snap because someone didn’t pick up their socks. I’m going to shop earlier and perhaps bake less and definitely ask fewer things of myself, and remember that my deepest desire—the thing I built all of that stack of expectation on—wasn’t really about the kids loving their presents (although that’s part of it). It is really about just wanting us to be together in a good and happy way. I want to seek out the experiences that will help us do just that, and let go, somehow, of all the other desires.

Maybe then the Greek God of Holidays will finally be appeased.

(Coming tomorrow: the really good parts of Christmas 2014, because really: there were some)

One of my goals for 2014 was to write a book note for every book I read. I didn't quite manage it (more on those books in another post), but I did write about more than half. (27 out of 42.) Some books I wrote the post for but then just never actually posted it! Here's an alphabetical list of my 2014 reads, with links to the book notes I wrote.

reading by the pool in Mexico

And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke (wanted to love but it was just OK)

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian 

Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy #2: Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor 

Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy #3: Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor 

The Daylight Gate by Jeannette Winterson  

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey (about a woman with Alzheimer's; really good but too painful for me to revisit by writing about it)

The Fever by Megan Abbott 

For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund (the book I was reading on this day)

Get Happy by Mary Amato (So disappointing after I loved Guitar Notes so much)

Going Vintage by Lindsey Leavitt  

Guitar Notes by Mary Amato 

Hild by Nicola Griffith 

Invisibility by David Levithan and Andrea Cremer (I nearly always like David Levithan's books)

Longbourn by Jo Baker

The Maddaddam Trilogy #1: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood 

The Maddaddam Trilogy #2: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood 

The Maddaddam Trilogy #3: Maddaddam by Margaret Atwood (apparently I am afraid to write about books by my favorite author)

The Martian by Andy Weir (Jacob also loved this!)

My Mother, She Killed Me, My Father, He Ate Me, edited by  Kate Bernehimer 

The New Moon’s Arms by Nalo Hopkinson 

Orleans by Susan Smith (yet another YA post-apocalyptic novel; this one's pretty good!)

Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStephano (YA dystopia that feels a little bit steampunk)

Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement (I LOVED THIS BOOK! I wrote about it but didn't post it, only because I forgot to.)

The Raven Boys Cycle #1: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (Waiting to share until I've read the whole series)

The Raven Boys Cycle #2: The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

Safekeeping by Karen Hesse  

Sea Change by S. M. Wheeler 

Six Feet Over It by Jennifer Longo   

Slated Trilogy #1: Slated by Teri Terry 

Slated Trilogy #2: Fractured by Teri Terry 

Slated Trilogy #3: Shattered by Teri Terry 

The Southern Reach Trilogy #1: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (weird, amazing, strange, disturbing and hard-to-classify science fiction which I will write more about when I finish the trilogy)

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Martel  

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith 

Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood (more proof that I am too intimidated by all the goodness)

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin 

Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt   

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han  

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban   

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Frye  by Rachel Joyce 

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart  

XO Orpheus by Kate Bernehimer (it had a story about ogres in it that is still haunting me)

How many books did you read last year?

I know…it’s already 2015, and I’m still writing about stuff I did in 2014. But I had set myself a goal of writing about every book I read in 2014, and while I didn’t make that completely, I was pretty close. And to keep that goal, here are some thoughts about the last three books I finished in 2014. (The book I was actually reading when 2014 ended was All the Light We Cannot See, but since I didn’t finish it until January, I’m letting it stay with the 2015 book notes.)

The Dream Thieves

This is the second book in Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Boys series. I read the first book in the series only because a librarian friend needed me to, as I thought it broke my don’t-read-any-unfinished-trilogies rule. Then I was thrilled to discover that the third book, Blue Lily, Lily Blue is already written and published. Then I was crushed again to find that it’s not a trilogy after all—there’s still one more book to be written. I hate that. But while I didn’t love her book The Scorpio Races (I didn’t hate it…I just didn’t love it like everyone else seemed to), I nearly immediately, three pages in, adored The Raven Boys. I decided, though, that from now on I’m going to write one book note per series (rather than per book), so I’ll share more thoughts about The Dream Thieves when I finish all of the series…the unfinished series.

Sigh. How do I get myself into these messes?

Close your Eyes, Hold Hands

I always like (but not madly or furiously or ferociously love) Chris Bohjalian's novels. I think of him as a middle mainstream author...not fluffy tripe (like, say, Jodi Picoult), but not Serious Literature (like, say, Ian McEwan). (Am I giving away the fact that I really, really am disappointed by Jodi Picoult? When I finished My Sister's Keeper I threw it across the hotel room I was reading in, waking up one small child in the process. If an author sets up a situation wherein characters are gripped by difficult choices, someone should actually have to make a difficult choice, not be saved by a well-timed car accident.) He writes good, strong, interesting stories with compelling characters, but nothing that changes your life. (For what it's worth...Atonement by McEwan changed my life. Sweet Tooth did not.)

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands, his newest novel, also didn't change my life, but I did enjoy it more than his other books (except The Double Bind​, which I still think is his best). It tells the story of Emily Shepperd, whose alcoholic father is the director of a nuclear power plant in Maine—one that melts down. Both of her parents are killed in the melt down, and then they are blamed for the accident, so Emily is afraid to tell people who she is. Instead of reaching out for help, she goes underground: a few days at a homeless shelter, a month or so living with a drug addict who sends her down to the truck stop when they are running low on money, and then in an igloo she makes with garbage bags and old leaves. 

Emily has always been a writer; keeping a journal has been her way of figuring things out, and as the story progresses you start to see that the book itself is her journal of her experiences. That is what Bohjalian nails here: the voice of a teenage girl. It reminded me, sort of, of The Reapers are the Angels, even though they are nothing alike. Except for the creation of a voice. Emily comes across exactly as you'd expect a teenage girl keeping a journal of her harrowing, post-apocalyptic experiences would.

Which is an amazing thing, writing-wise. But sometimes a little bit draining, reading-wise. Sometimes I felt like I was stuck in one of my old students' writer's notebooks. I don't know how that could be changed, other than by making her supernally old, which is a writing thing I also dislike. 

This is starting to sound like I really didn't like it...but I did. I like books with characters who are writers. Throw in that she also likes poetry, and her favorite poet is Emily D., and yeah: a good book for me. Watching how Emily tries to cope with the situations she finds herself in (she becomes a cutter; she experiments with drugs; she finds another homeless kid to mother) was fascinating and heartbreaking and somehow entirely authentic. 

Another good, solid novel from a reliable writer.

Six Feet Over It
Quite often when I'm reading YA novels, I'll measure them by what my teenage self might have thought. (You know, back in the dinosaur days before the term YA was even invented.) I tend to read a lot of YA that that version of myself would've been drawn to. Amy of 1989 would've loved Six Feet Over It​ by Jennifer Longo. It is set in a cemetery (we goth girls love cemeteries), with a sarcastic, shuttered-down girl who is trying to grieve for the death of her best friend (my best friend never died, but I did have a sort of unhealthy fascination with death, thanks to Sylvia Plath) and an unattainable but eminently beautiful boy (it's sort of a long story).

Seventeen-year-old Amy might've stolen it from the library, in fact, and kept it for her own.

As a grown up, I liked it quite a bit, too. It tells the story of Leigh, whose father one day (after her sister has finally entered remission from her leukemia) decides to move their family from Orange County to an inland, Northern California town. Where he has purchased the local cemetery, which will be the new source of their family’s income. And Leigh, he decides, will contribute by selling cemetery plots.

She's not entirely thrilled with this situation. 

But it turns out that her bumbling father and apathetic mother bring her to the right place and the right people who eventually help her to figure out her place in the world. The new caretaker at the cemetery becomes her friend (and possible love interest), and the florist’s daughter tries to become her friend. (By the way: The florist is obsessed with Tolkein; he names his home Rivendell and all of his children are named after characters from The Lord of the Rings. How could I not love this book?) Leigh struggles, and reads a lot of Ovid and Homer and poetry, and tries to ignore her grief. And then she finally grieves, and has an adventure.

What was the last book you read in 2014? Or your favorite? 

Six Feet Over It is, in fact, a thing Teenage Amy and Grown Up Amy would agree on: we both love it. (I think I loved it even more just knowing that I would’ve loved it as a teenager. It felt like a little bit of honoring and nurturing that version of myself.) But here’s the deal: it’s the last book I finished in 2014 because I left it in Haley’s car, when I had only fifteen pages or so, and then she went back to Logan for almost four weeks. And then, when she came back here with the plan of leaving her car in Salt Lake City while she was in Florida, she locked her keys in her c.ar, before I got the book out, and then I had to wait another ten days before we went back to Salt Lake to reunite her with her car. (And me, finally, with my book.) (Luckily we had a spare key at home.) Right after she came home, however, I was caught up in all the busyness of getting ready for Christmas. So it was more than a month between when I almost finished and I actually did…and the story had stayed with me. I didn’t have to reread to put myself right back into the story, which I think says something about the quality of the writing. This is Longo’s debut, but I’ll be watching for her next book.

As of this writing, there are 6,193 reviews on Amazon of Anthony Doerr's novel All the Light We Cannot See. Nearly all of them are four or five star reviews. It's been on the NYTimes Best Seller List for 35 weeks, and its success has surprised even the author itself. In general, I think there are two types of NYT best selling books: those that are there because they appeal to the greatest common denominator—lots of people enjoy that kind of book—or because they are really, truly good.

Light, for me, is the second type.

In case you haven't read it (I only finally got my hands on a copy through possibly-frowned-upon librarian machinations), it tells the story of Marie, a blind girl growing up in France as World War II begins, and Werner, an orphan growing up in Germany during the same time. Marie's father is the locksmith at the Museum of Natural History; he creates keys and locks, and distributes them, to protect the museum's acquisitions. (I don't think it ever tells us what happened to her mother.) Werner lives in an orphanage in Essen, the mining district of Germany; his father was killed in a coal mine. Each character has a transition: Marie moves to St. Malo, an ancient city on the coast of France, after the invasion of Paris, while Werner's natural instinct for science, math, and specifically radio is discovered by a Nazi official, who arranges for him to be sent to the school at Schulpforta, where Nazis were created out of ordinary boys.

This is not a perfect book. (The more I read, the less I believe a "perfect book" can even exist.) The antagonist, Reinhold von Rumpel, is a German diamond expert who has been tasked with finding the most valuable item the Museum owned, a jewel that may or may not be cursed. But he is too flatly evil, too based on stereotypes, to be truly menacing to the reader. Also, I wanted Werner to have more of a moral conflict than he did. He is clearly uncomfortable with what he is being taught, but he doesn't make any waves. Finally, the structure might bother some readers. I happen to like books that move backward and forward through time, but I know that many readers like a more straightforward movement.

Still, I thoroughly loved this book. It has a gentle sort of approach to a brutal time, and in that sense it would be good for several of my friends, the ones who don't like reading books about the Holocaust or World War II because they're too depressing. Nearly all of the violence in the story happens off screen, so you know bad things are occurring but it isn't described so there are no images to linger in your memory. Again, that is not something that everyone will appreciate, and it isn't something I need, but the absence of detailed horrors made it easier for me to see the characters as ordinary people caught in an extraordinary time.

In fact, time itself almost seems to be its own character (another reason why the movement back and forth in time didn't bother me; it felt appropriate to the story's themes). This ties in with that jewel, which Marie's father may or may not have in his possession. All of the queens who might have danced with it strung as a pendant around their necks, and the princes or kings set in their crowns. But it also overlaps in the radio program that Marie's grandfather recorded and that Werner, years later, hears. And the end, which gathers up strings and tries to tie them off. As tied off as stories can be. As time is also one of my life's themes, this appealed to me especially.

If you haven't read the book, there are spoilers coming up in the next paragraph!

The book's weakness for me was Werner. He is never whole heartedly a Nazi, but it is not until the very, very end that he tries to resist what is happening. What is happening—that is the key. It happens to him, but he never happens to it. When he finally does, it cannot redeem him from the other things he let happen. Of course, maybe I am expecting too much from him. Maybe his not​ resisting is the point: this is how ordinary Germans became part of a monstrosity. Still, even if he hadn't externally resisted, his internal thoughts and ideas could have rebelled. I wanted a little bit more from him.

But that is a minor argument against a book I thoroughly enjoyed. 

Yesterday I had to run in to my favorite scrapbook store, Pebbles in My Pocket. Actually, I can’t even say “favorite” anymore, because it’s the only scrapbook store left in Utah County. I’ve shopped there since February of 1996, when I was a freshly-made stay-at-home mom. My friend Chris and I went to a scrapbooking class together one Friday night at Pebbles, and that was it: I was hooked. And while there’ve been many other scrapbook stores in my area, I’ve always shopped the most there.

Today while I was shopping, the owner of the store stopped to chat with me. She asked if I was working on anything—having scanned many of my layouts for me, for my Big Picture Classes workshops, she knows I've sort of been "in the industry.” We chatted for a bit about how things have changed in the scrapbooking world. No more magazines. Hardly any local scrapbook stores or people going to crops anymore. Even some of the largest on-line sites have shut down. She asked me what design teams I’m on, and was surprised when I told her that I’m on none. I tried to explain why, but it seemed like too long of a story. Even though the reason started right there in her very own store.

A recent favorite scrapbook layout, just for fun.

That night when I started scrapbooking, I made a layout about Haley petting one of my friend’s dogs. And while I it was fun to pick out that cute puppy-paw-print patterned paper, what I was really excited about was going home and writing down the story. I asked the crop leader’s permission to not write it during the crop, because I knew it would be a long story and I thought I could fit it on better if I printed the journaling at home instead of writing it by hand. (She hadn’t ever had that idea, which only illustrates just how long I’ve been scrapping!)

For me, it’s always been about writing our lives’ stories. The embellishments and papers and alphabet stickers and everything else you can buy to use on a scrapbook layout feed the part of my creativity that wishes it were artistic but really isn’t. Layout design, clever use of supplies, and hand-drawn anything are not my scrapbooking forte, nor are they my motivation (much as I love them). My motivation was always, and continues to be, the fact that scrapbooking gives me an excuse for writing about the people I love the most, in a format where it might be seen and appreciated somewhere down the line.

But that doesn’t sell a whole lot of scrapbook supplies, which is the point of being on a design team. I don't think I'd be a great fit in that role, because my motivation is to show how to use words well on layouts, not product. Plus, I'm fairly picky about what products I'll actually use​ on my layouts. I don't, for example, use chipboard or flair or enamel dots. I avoid thickness or bumpiness, but I would have to use whatever, were I on a design team.

The store owner then asked me why I wasn’t teaching for Big Picture anymore. And…another long story. The last class I taught at Big Picture, my Textuality class in 2013, is one of my favorites. I taught it as a re-run, but as it had been quite a while since the last time it had run, I nearly completely overhauled all of the visuals. I made almost forty new layouts and revised a chunk of the text, plus created the concepts for four new videos. All in less than a month. It was a ton​ of work, and I spent quite a bit on new supplies. There were lots of late nights and feeding my family easy meals and not a few fast-food dinners. Perhaps most difficult, there were some things said about me during this rush of preparation that did not make me feel like what I was contributing was valuable, or that I, myself, was worth the time being put into my class. The last part that entirely broke me, however, was that there weren't a lot of students who signed up, so in the end and after all that work, I barely made enough to cover what I'd spent on new supplies.

I finished up that class highly conflicted.

On one hand, I loved writing classes. I loved sharing my knowledge of and enthusiasm for scrapbooking in a space that wasn't bound by the need to sell supplies. What I was selling was story-telling and writing techniques, translated into the scrapbooking world. Sure, supplies matter. But for me, the stories matter so much more, and when I was creating and teaching classes, I could explore how to do that with other scrapbookers.

Creating class content was one of the most rewarding experiences of my creative life.

On the other hand, I'm not sure the time and expense I put into my classes was worth the return. Of course I never expected to become wealthy teaching about scrapbooking. But the hours I put into class creation, divided by how much I made, ended up being far less than minimum wage. Plus, so few students signing up for my class sort of dented my confidence; I was left feeling like the things that are important to me are not valuable. Toss in Distracted Mom and the problems that caused with my family, and I didn't see how I could continue on.

I did start some tentative plans for a class with another Big Picture Classes instructor. But it just never quite came together, and the other class I had an idea for just doesn't seem to fit into the current scrapbooking climate. In fact, maybe that's the problem: I'm not sure that I fit into the current scrapbooking climate. My layouts continue to be story-based, but if you look at galleries or scrapbook blogs, the majority of shared layouts are product-based. I'm not interested in Project Life. I have zero interest in signing up for monthly kit clubs.

I don't know that I have a place in this industry anymore. (If I ever did really have a "place." I'm hardly well-known.)

This fall, Big Picture Classes was sold to Studio Calico, and in the transition, some of the classes were carried over to the new platform. None of them, unfortunately, were mine. This was pretty devastating to me, as it so very clearly spelled out just how not-well-known I am, and how, yes, what I thought was important really, really wasn't. It banged up my already-dented confidence.

So, here I am. I've been a writer for Simple Scrapbooks. I've been a teacher for Big Picture Classes. (I'll continue writing for Write. Click. Scrapbook. for as long as they'll keep me around.) But I currently have zero scrapbooker-y work and no ambitions to find any. Is it too dramatic to say I am a scrapbooking has-been? Maybe it's more clear to say I feel like a shuttered-up scrapbook store.

This isn't a pity party, though. Of course, I wish I had been more successful, both so I could better provide for my family and so I didn't have this little sadness with me. But sometimes you have to let go of an ambition. I love scrapbooking and I will probably always do it. But my days of trying to supplement my income with it are over. (Unless some other possibility opened up—I'm just not expecting it to do so.) I'm trying to focus all of my efforts on writing, and I'm excited for what might come of it. But it is, definitely, the end of an era for me, and with that ending is sadness and this strange sort of regret. Sense of failure, really. Like I let writing itself down, but hopefully that's not exactly right. Hopefully I just was in the wrong little niche, and will someday (soon!) find the place where I feel like I (and my ideas) matter. Where I'm supposed to thrive.