As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts (see here and here and here and here and here and here), I’m drawn to certain words. The attraction is often a word’s meaning or spelling, but sometimes I just like the way the word rolls off my tongue.
These are more of my favorites:
Incendiary
Solemn
Mote
Aurora
Paradox
Skulk
Demi-monde
Elegance
Murmuration
Blasphemy
Tricksy
Eternity
Suave
Susurrus
Vichyssoise
What are some of yours?
Each December, I take the time to examine the ups and downs I experienced over the past year. What follows is my personal and professional review of 2024:
* Worked as the overnight curator of local news for Apple News (via Magnit) until my contract ended in July.
* I repeatedly revised my resume and cover letter, networked like crazy, applied for positions at 40 different companies, interviewed with more than a dozen recruiters/editors/managers — and still didn’t land a new job.
* Thanks to the kindness of my old boss, I returned to Apple News in October for a four-month gig to fill in for another editor who was on leave. This involved switching to the day shift, something I haven’t worked in decades. The contract ends at the beginning of February so the job hunt has begun again.
* Continued writing A Bit Of Good News and was featured on the Frogmore Stew podcast. Also managed to triple my readership.
* Launched two more newsletters: The End Files and The Moonlight Reader Society. I love writing these publications and appreciate all of my readers.
* Transferred The Written Word over to Substack after hitting paywall issues elsewhere.
* Joined Threads and BlueSky and enjoy them both, though for different reasons.
* Penned at least 32 journal entries.
* Occasionally posted to my two Instagram accounts: @thejadewalker and @catsofjade.
* Read 81 books and completed the 2024 GoodReads reading challenge.
* Subscribed and read numerous magazines, including Cook’s Country, Cooks Illustrated, Bake From Scratch, Smithsonian Magazine, Scientific American, The Saturday Evening Post, The Writer and TeaTime Magazine.
* Watched at least 60+ TV shows and 40+ movies, and listened to many podcasts.
* Participated in The Society of Professional Obituary Writers, the New Hampshire Writers Guild, the Authors Guild, the Writers Guild of America East and the Silent Book Club – Manchester, NH chapter.
* Participated in The Forgotten Books Project and helped to save more than 161 books.
* Nursed my husband through COVID-19. Was nursed in return for the same damn illness (first time too!)
* After we recovered, M and I took our newfound immunity for a spin by seeing two films in the theater (“Twisters” and “Deadpool & Wolverine”). Turns out if you go on a Sunday morning, weeks after a movie is released, you can enjoy a film without worrying about getting sick because very few people are in the audience.
* Also took two short weekend breaks away to Cape Cod for book crawls. That’s right, people. I was able to browse inside bookstores again, albeit briefly. And I bought a LOT of books.
* Hunkered in the basement during a New Hampshire tornado.
* Spent months searching for our next home, but between the interest rates, the lack of stock, an increase in prices, and my job, we had no luck. The search continues.
* Finally got my damn braces off and will soon have a full set of teeth.
* Suffered from at least 86 migraines and experienced 97 days of pain.
* Decorated the inside of our house for Halloween and dressed up as Belle from “Beauty and the Beast”
* Decorated the outside and inside of our house for Christmas and mailed 35 Christmas cards.
* Tried many new recipes. New favorites include: London Fog, peach crumble, cinnamon swirl banana crumb cake, pumpkin ice box cake and croque monsieur casserole.
* Worked my 34th year as a journalist.
* Celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary.
* Turned 51.
Goals for 2025
* Find a new job.
* Continue to grow my newsletters.
* Purchase a home with at least 5 acres of land.
* Improve my baking/cooking skills.
* Work on my fiction.
* Write more blog entries.
* Read at least 75 books.
* Win the lottery.
Ok, my friends. It’s time to share my annual list of pop culture wonders. Over the past year, I consumed 80+ books, 60+ TV shows, 40+ movies and many podcasts. These were my favorites.
(Note: Not all were released during the past 365 days.)
1. “Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop” by Hwang Bo-Reum
2. “Worst Case Scenario” by T.J. Newman
3. “Herding Cats” by Sarah Andersen
4. “You Like It Darker” by Stephen King
5. “Book of Doors” by Gareth Brown
6. “Target Zero” by Jack Mars
7. “Assassins Anonymous” by Rob Hart
8. “Lock In” by John Scalzi
9. “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt
10. “Out of Body” by Jeffrey Ford
(Honorable mentions: “The Tainted Cup” by Robert Jackson Bennett, “Leave No Trace” by A.J. Landau, “Split Second” by David Baldacci, “Stroke the Flame” by Elizabeth Briggs and “The City of Brass” by S.A. Chakraborty)
1. “The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore” by Evan Friss
2. “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder” by Salman Rushdie
3. “Notes From the Porch: Tiny True Stories to Make You Feel Better About the World” by Thomas Christopher Greene
4. “The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels” by Pamela Prickett
5. “Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime” by Val McDermid
6. “Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases” by Paul Holes
7. “Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World” by Christian Cooper
8. “I Will Find You: Solving Killer Cases from My Life Fighting Crime (Homicide Hunter)” by Joe Kenda
9. “All the Living and the Dead” by Hayley Campbell
10. “In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife” by Sebastian Junger
(Honorable mentions: “Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice” by David S. Tatel, “What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds” by Jennifer Ackerman, “The Salt Path” by Raynor Winn, “Other-Wordly: Words Both Strange and Lovely From Around the World” by Yee-Lum Mak and Kelsey Garrity-Riley and “The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading” by Dwight Garner)
Overall reading ratio: I read 26,238 pages. Books were split 58% fiction to 42% nonfiction and 36% female authors to 64% male authors.
1. The Great British Baking Show
2. Fall of the House of Usher
3. The Diplomat
4. Man on the Inside
5. Escape to the Country
6. The Repair Shop
7. Reluctant Traveler
8. Homicide Hunter: Joe Kenda
9. Cold Case Files
10. See No Evil
(Honorable mentions: Last Week With John Oliver, Reacher, Evil, Unforgotten, The Daily Show, Bodies, Ghosts, Elsbeth, Julia, Love Your Garden, Gardener’s World, Grand Designs, The Great British Baking Show: Holiday Edition, Manhunt, Grace, Agatha All Along, Shrinking, True Detective and Late Night Seth Meyers.)
1. The Lost King
2. Navalny
3. Rustin
4. Shirley
5. The Lost Letter
6. Oppenheimer
7. Steve!
8. Freud’s Last Session
9. Hitman
10. The Great Escape
(Honorable mentions: The Burial, The Midnight Sky, Idea of You, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, The Marvels, His Three Daughters, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Deadpool & Wolverine, Civil War and Leave the World Behind)
1. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe
2. Small Town Dicks
3. Break in the Case
4. Law & Order: Criminal Justice System
5. Detective
6. Cold Case Files
7. Criminal
8. Casefile
9. American Homicide
10. Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
(Honorable mentions: Naked Lunch, BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine, Fail Better With David Duchovny, Sue Perkins: An Hour or So With…, Choice Words with Samantha Bee, Christmas Past and Clear + Vivid with Alan Alda)
I once saw Pepper eat a small spider in a single gulp. She then walked around the house with the spider’s web entangled in her whiskers as though she was wearing an Olympic gold medal.
Like a velociraptor from “Jurassic Park,” Treacle can open doors. This is a very dangerous skill because Treacle also likes to eat cords — which we keep hidden behind closed doors.
Several times of the day, Chai will walk into a room, demand that I pat her booty and then flip over onto the carpet so I can do the job properly.
Trifle came to us when she was a wee kitten and has been raised with all three of her sisters. Yet she’s the only one who continues to suck a blanket and knead like she’s nursing her ghost mom.
Choux snores like a buzzsaw. It’s fantastic.
“Writers, remember: Never underestimate the power of just showing up every single day. I’ve been showing up at the N.Y. office of Penguin Random House every single day for the past three years demanding they give me a book deal. Has it worked? No. Do they have multiple restraining orders against me? Yes. Do I have to wear increasingly elaborate disguises to get into the building? Also yes. But will I give up? Never.” —Carlos Greaves
