Ladies & Gents:
Are you ready. ARE YOU READY?!
Ahem.
Not much to say this week except that the Big Day is approaching, and I am just about ready. This is the first year since 2009 that I will be at home: no travel the week before Christmas, no travel because of Christmas. It's a bit strange. I'm so used to being revved up about the holidays and a trip to some far flung place. It's nice to know I'm not really going anywhere.
Since I haven't been home for Christmas, I don't do a big decorating job at my house. Fortunately, my town is all dressed up for the occasion. On Saturday night, I took my mom out for her birthday, and after, we strolled around, looking at lights, stopping in at stores where the owners knew me by name, and listening to carolers. Look at the right hand side of that photo: that's our usual weekend night crossing guard. We have a weekend night crossing guard. Sometimes it feels like Mayberry, or maybe Star's Hollow. Either way, I'm lucky to live where I live.
Anyway, I usually take this holiday-adjacent time off, but I'm jetting down to Florida (and by that I mean driving the Jeep to Florida) at the end of January, so I'll be here, working on three longer term projects within the cocoon of my office and a quiet inbox. Ah, the holidays: when I can get some real work done.
But since it'll be a quiet week, I'm not sure if I'll be sending out a newsletter next Monday. So if you don't hear from me, never fear! I'll be back in the New Year…with some fun book things! I'm planning my first events, and also a little giveaway that we'll announce in January.
Oh and before I get into the newsletter's regular features: are you on Goodreads? I am. My book is. You can mark it "to-read!"
Recent Bylines
"Taking the first steps to becoming a runner" for The Philadelphia Inquirer
"The year in fraud: 2015 in 13 numbers" for CIO.com
What I'm Reading
The Know it All: One Man's Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs. Yet another buy from the Haddonfield Library book sale. I asked for a raft of books for Christmas, so I'm trying to work through the bedside table pile before then.
What I'm Watching
I finished the second season of Transparent, and it somehow was better that season 1. Beautiful, make you think deep thoughts show, as always. I watched the first episode of Amazon's The Man in the High Tower, which – yowsa! I'm intrigued! But it's also almost Christmas time, and I wanted something light, so I ripped through The Great British Baking Showon Netflix. Unbelievably charming thing, a reality show without the trappings that make American reality shows so nauseating (no fights, no commercial breaks, no product placement, just charm). I need to find more seasons of it ASAP (why so much screen time? Because I was sick as a dog Tuesday through Thursday of the week – and saying that is being unfair to dogs. It takes a lot for me to not work, and I did not work on Wednesday…except for taking two calls. But that's it. Germs are bad).
Now I'm onto the second season of Bored to Death. I saw the show before, back when I bought my house and HBO…appeared. But I'm an honest person, so I called and told the cable company I wasn't paying for it, and that was that. I've seen the second season (I jumped right in there on Sunday night), but it's nice to revisit it since it's very funny. It's a show about writing, and it back when the magazine world is imploding – and I say that knowing it is still imploding, but I feel like – at least for freelancers – to a much lesser degree. I touch on this a bit in my book (#pleasebuymybook) about how chaotic it was back then. I am thankful that things have smoothed out because, quite frankly, I'm otherwise unemployable.
On that note – happy holidays!
Jen A. Miller
jenamiller.com
twitter.com/byjenamiller
instagram.com/jenamillerrunner
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