The year is almost over, time for the annual wrap-up. Books, music, pictures, tattoos, and highlights.

Books

Starting with books. Muches of booksies.

• I read 82 books, a total of 31 185 pages
• I DNF’d (Did Not Finish) 3 books, which means that the page count there is lacking a bit, but not too much
  – Liam UiCearbhaill: Mother Rainbow’s Children: The Cave – I just could not with the way they spoke Yoda and recited tales like robots; made it maybe up to 10%
  – William Joseph Roberts: The Flux Runners – A cool idea of a book, but jumpy and scattered. I read maybe 20%, skipped and skimmed another 25% and finally gave up completely
  – Jordan J. Scavone: Night Warrior – Clumsy in the way that reminds you of the importance of editors. I read maybe 20% but simply could not go on.
• As the new year approaches, I am currently reading 2 books that I don’t expect to finish before New Year’s Day
  – James Patterson: 22 Seconds (Women’s Murder Club #22) in Kindle
  – Sophie Anderson: The House with Chicken Legs in paperback
• The shortest book of the year was a kids’ book by Astrid Lindgren: Lotta, Janne ja Minnamanna
• The longest book was a re-read, one of my alltime favorites, that I have read probably a dozen times already: The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
• The oddest book I read this year was The Winterset Hollow by Jonathan Edward Durham; it was a total wait, what?! Not bad, rather excellent in ways, but, well, disturbing
• My most read author of this year (too) was TJ Klune. I read a total of 11 wonderful books of his in three series:
  – Tales from Verania
  – The Extraordinaries
  – Bear, Otter, and the Kid
• Even though I mostly read fiction (and mostly fantasy at that), I also love (auto)bios and such, and read 11 of those this year:
  – Neil Peart: Traveling Music
  – Kersti Juva: Tolkienin tulkkina
  – Martha Teichner: When Harry Met Minnie
  – Johannes Lahtela: Samuli – pimeydestä valoon
  – Dave Mustaine: Mustaine – A Life in Metal
  – Virginia Hanlon Grohl: From Cradle to Stage
  – Betty White: If You Ask Me (and of course you won’t)
  – Michael J. Fox: No Time Like the Future
  – Madly, Deeply – The Diaries of Alan Rickman
  – Alvin Yudkoff: Gene Kelly – A Life of Dance and Dreams
  – Matthew Perry: Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing
• Even though I read mostly in English, this year I read a total of 18 books in Finnish, 4 of which were translations, rest of them Finnish lit. No, not gonna list all of them here separately

My Goodreads Year in Books looks like this:

Music

Nothing surprising in music. No new discoveries, though one new album by Muse (Will of the People). I actually listened to a lot of All Of [artist] lists, album by album, earning me the title The Fanclubber by Spotify. This year the top 5 artists list consisted of Rush, Foo Fighters, Muse, Bon Jovi, and Seether. Partly this list is just due to Spotify algorithms (sic!), as I loop through my Liked Songs list with shuffle, when not listening to a specific album list.

Tattoos

Once again, I also got a few new tattoos during the year:

• Flames on the side of the left calf, to accompany my Phoenix
• Vines on the right wrist, continuing from the old ones, and twisting aroujnnd the wrist
• Sun on the right hand
• Love She Wrote – a quill drawing a heart on the left hand
• Ravistettava Ennen Käyttöä – “shake before using” the title of an Apulanta song, theme song of my life

En usko että saa yleistä hyväksyntää Näkemykseni kieroon kasvaneet Voidaanko määritellä rajaa sellaista Kun hassusta tulee pelottavaa Ei saisi ajatella näin, näin, näin Mut se ei oo ainoo mitä teet väärin Minussa on ongelma Jokin virhe ohjelmoinnissa Puutteita koodissa Korvaan arvaamattomuudella Tuntuu että tekijät unohti otsaan kirjoittaa Ravistettava ennen käyttöä

I don’t think I’ll ever be commonly accepted My views all grown askew Can one determine such a line When funny becomes scary You shouldn’t think this way, way, way But that’s not the only thing that you’re doing wrong There’s a problem in me Some sort of bug in the programming The lackings of my code I substitute with unpredictability Feels like my creators forgot to write on my forehead Shake before using

Pictures & highlights, month by month

Sometimes I took more pictures, sometimes less. So, a pic for each month, and the highlights with them.

January: We visited the Strömfors foundry and Valkmusa national park on a rather cold day. There was lots of snow.

February: We stayed in a cabin in Nurmes for a week, visiting Koli one foggy day. Lots and lots of snow! H started in a new job. At the end of the month we spent a weekend in Barösund where H made a drum.

March: I guess the highlight of the month was Ace turning 2y old.

April: Nothing special went on in April, either, but Meggie turned 10yo and the youngest kid 19.

May: Spring got finally into full speed. We got a Panasonic Lumix S5 and went out taking photos with that and my few years old Canon PowerShot SX70, e.g visiting the Cherry Tree Park, Lauttasaari, and Häme Castle. Timmy turned 10yo. Our bathroom renovation started.

June: We spent a hot sunny day in Suomenlinna (Viapori Castle) and visited our summer place for Juhannus (Midsummer’s) Day. I turned 47yo. Old.

July: I was on vacation, H was not. Our bathroom renovation was going on all summer long, so we didn’t go anywhere. I watched movies and read books. Once H and I went out to eat at Restaurant Töölönranta for a “date night” to use a gift card I’d won in an FB lottery.

August: I visited Tallinn with a bunch of friends (the 20y anniversary for our group of moms).

September: FINALLY, our bathroom was ready (except not sauna). H and I went out to have dinner at Farouge one Friday evening and they actually had belly dancers there 👌 H turned 56yo, oldest one 22, middle kid 21. Lots of birthdays in September for us.

October: Bath. I really enjoyed having a bathtub. WE really enjoyed having a bathtub.

November: Lots of snow already in November. We visited Inkoo for a day, had some coffee and tea in the harbor coffee shop, and walked around the old manor area. I flew to Oslo, Norway, for a couple days’ business trip.

December: I was sick most of December, on antibiotics with a sinus infection at Christmas time, but our offspring came on day before Christmas Eve (midlle kid and oldest one) and Christmas Day (oldest and youngest ones, and the latter’s boyfriend) for some Christmas celebrations and food 💕

Wrap-up

All in all, 2022 really wasn’t too bad of a year, despite being pronounced 2020 too. Corona is still raging, but has lost most of its force and mostly can be treated as its cousins, the regular colds. Last bits of regulations were canceled in the spring and life is relatively normal. Most people who can, have stayed to work at home, and I hope companies won’t start trying to change that just because.

I fully expect 2023 to be good year, too. I don’t think I have any real reason to think differently, although life does have this annoying tendency to throw shit in your face when you least expect it.