I am totally fickle when it comes to "my favorite" anything but I must say, 24 is the best show ever and Kiefer Sutherland is the best (fake) agent ever. Previously, my favorite shows ever were Alias, Gilmore Girls and the Sopranos, but 24 is EVEN BETTER. We are totally addicted and working through Season 1 (almost done) on Netflix.

Somehow it’s February 10. January went by in a blur. Telfer worked really hard all month – was doing an inpatient rotation at Riverside County Hospital and was pretty much either working or sleeping all month. But February is a month of a different color. I am not even sure what Telfer’s doing this month (Nephrology??) – I do know he’s at the VA in Loma Linda – but he’s home every evening and every weekend day – so this makes me happy. We are doing various house projects as usual – scraping our side porch in order to paint, fun stuff.

It’s a bit lame to construct a "best of" list two+ months into the new year, but hey, I am feeling motivated. I keep a pretty detailed reading journal (yes, I am a librarian) and after looking through my entries over the last year, here are my top five favorite books of 2005.

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. J.K. Rowling

Why do I love Harry so much? I can’t really explain the power of Harry but I do know that these
books celebrate and articulate the power of love, human friendship,
wisdom – all in a richly created world that measures up to our own.

2. Gilead. Marilynne Robinson

A simple story – in 1950s, small-town Iowa, an elderly preacher writes
a long letter to his young son. The Reverend John Ames knows he is
going to die soon, and wants to tell his son what he knows about God
and what he knows about life.  I cannot stress how beautiful Gilead is
– how simple and precise the prose and story, but how powerful it is,
how much it resonates with me. Life is heartbreakingly beautiful and
our God is powerful, grace-giving, and mysterious. Winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize.

3. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. Amy Krause Rosenthal

My only non-fiction favorite, this book is just a bunch of random, encyclopedia-ized entries of Rosenthal’s
ordinary life – but add up to something so sweet and meaningful, I
can’t even tell you.  Anna Ganske loved this too.

4. On Beauty. Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith loves, respects, admires her
characters and *life* spills out onto the page. Written in mind of
Forster’s Howard’s End, On Beauty follow the Belsey
family in all of their glory: Howard is British and a professor of art
at a fictitious Ivy League college in the East; His wife, Kiki, is an
earthy, black woman from Florida; their high school and college-age
children, Jerome, Zora, and Levi. The novel is big and messy and full of life and
joy and beauty and betrayal.

5. Three Junes. Julia Glass

This barely counts, as I finished it on New Year’s Eve…Three Junes is just that: A
novel told in three parts, each set in the month of June. The first
part follows Paul MacLeod on a guided trip through Greece. Perfect
section – recently widowed and open to love with a young American
artist. The second June is in 1995 and centers on Fenno MacLeod, a gay
man living in New York but home (Scotland) for his father’s funeral.
The third section follows Fern, the American Artist, now herself
recently widowed and pregnant. Fern and Fenno, each afraid of love and
living full lives, connect and make sense of their lives in a poignant
yet understated way.

The drive home was pretty painful BUT the highlight came at 6:00 in the morning (way too early for the highlight of the entire day) when we stopped at a Vancouver Starbucks to see my very best friend RaChelle (poor Paul was working). We spent an hour talking and fueling up for the road before we had to leave again. It was definitely worth it though!

Our trip up to Washington for Christmas was great fun. We drove this year, leaving at 3:30 in the morning  and finally arriving in Richland at about 10:00 p.m. We trade drivers and listen raptly to audio (well, now, digital) books – we listened to Memoirs of a Geisha, The Traveler (really dumb I thought), and A Christmas Carol (sublime). 
Christmas at Mom & Dad’s was wonderful. Alyssa and Nate’s little girls make Christmas even more special. Eden actually knew it was Christmas this year and her excitement was infectious. On Christmas Eve, we attended the service at my parent’s church and witnessed/helped in Eric’s proposal to Elizabeth (the wedding is March 25!). On Christmas morning we ate our traditional Norwegian Christmas breakfast and spent the day hanging out and watching the girls.

At the end of our trip (it was a little shorter than in the past – but we are so thankful Telfer had ANY time off), we drove to Olympia to spend a day+ with Telfer’s family. Although Eleanor and Burton and Tracie were noticeably absent, we still had a good time with the fam. We went to see King Kong and luckily I had Claire next to me because it was scary!

Pictures 1: Eden opening presents with Auntie Andrea. Picture 2: Alyssa and Cora on Christmas Morning. Picture 3: Uncle Telfer and Eden. Picture 4: Eden opening Elmo-goodies. Picture 5: Elizabeth & Eric




. Picture 5: Chris & Mendy. Picture 7: Trees on Snoqualmie Pass.