It’s been a strange year. Actually, the last two and a half years have been strange, kicked off by a worldwide pandemic. My husband and I spend a lot of time at home, a habit we grew into when the Covid lockdown happened. Though it appears that everything around us is back to normal, we wonder what normal is now. I don’t like spending all this time at home, but every time we venture beyond our level of comfort and safety (a trip to Las Vegas in May, for example), a Covid surge happens and reminds us that the world is not yet “normal.”

Some things in my life have changed for the better. I’m not eating out as much, and as a result, my numbers were better at my last physical. The healthy meals I cook are keeping my husband and me healthy. I’m not reading more than usual, but I’m choosing my reading material more carefully. Before, I think I was choosing a title for the importance of its theme or because it was lauded by the critics. I tell myself now that life is too short to waste it reading something I feel I have to read as opposed to a book I want to read. Books that I recently read for sheer enjoyment are The Hacienda by Isabel Canas and The Last Chance Library by Freda Sampson. I read the latter for the second time and enjoyed it just as much as when I first read it.