This was my desk early this morning when I sat down to do my book order. I had to balance my laptop on a pile. It looks a little better tonight but mostly the piles have been distributed to other parts of my home office. Today was my designated dig out day, it may turn into more of a dig out week.

I attended the American Bookseller Association’s Winter Institute in Denver on a scholarship last week. I almost went last year and am so glad it did not work out. I was so not ready last year. Even now, it was like drinking from a firehose. I made good connections, learned so much and have actionable next steps. I brought (sent) home many advanced reading copies and bookish tote bags. Such fun. I love getting away from my daily life for a bit but after four days away I was more than ready to come home.

Anna came for a long weekend the day after I came home from Denver. We had planned many months ago to see Geraldine Brooks at Seattle Arts and Lectures. Such a great, inspiring talk. If you haven’t read any of Brooks’ novels, start with March (my favorite) or Year of Wonders (Anna’s favorite). We spent the rest of the weekend at the shop and stopping by the Bread Peddler. We also made my current favorite recipe (it’s delicious – I used boneless chicken thighs and cut off 10 minutes on the oven time) on Saturday night and invited Sherry over. Anna is one of my dearest ones and so anything we do is comfortable and fun. If you are wondering what we were doing in the photograph, of course we had to try on the kitchen goggles we found at my local grocery store.

Cate had an early release on Friday and stopped by the store with Telfer for a bit. She organized the coloring books and then draped her striped self on a chair to read a bit of comics. No one can rock a striped outfit like Cate (three stripes and red boots!).

2016 is starting off ridiculously well in terms of reading and books. First, there was my Kent Haruf moment, then When Breath Becomes Air. I picked up a signed copy of Elizabeth Strout’s new novel at the Tattered Cover, Denver’s famous independent bookstore and read about half of it on the plane home until I made myself stop (so good I didn’t want to read in one sitting). The opening paragraph page brought immediate tears of recognition:

There was a time, and it was many years ago now, when I had to stay in a hospital for almost nine weeks. This was in New York City, and at night a view of the Chrysler Building, with its geometric brilliance of lights, was directly visible from my bed…It was May, and then June, and I remember how I would stand and look out the window at the sidewalk below and watch the young women – my age – in their spring clothes, out on their lunch breaks; I could see their heads moving in conversation, their blouses rippling in the breeze. I thought how when I got out of the hospital I would never again walk down the sidewalk without giving thanks for being one of those people, and for many years I did that – I would remember the view from the hospital window and be glad for the sidewalk I was walking on.

I know something about this.

But the novel is much bigger than a hospital stay. It’s about never really escaping from childhood, about memory and writing and motherhood. I finished it days ago and can’t quite put it on a shelf. I loved it so.

It’s MLK Jr. day and the girls have the day off from school. Today is my usual work-from-home day and  I have done a highly enjoyable combination of bookshop details, futzing around in my kitchen, slowly but surely working through my laundry piles and facilitating the world’s best playdate. On these days off, all the girls want to do is stay home so we invited Henny, one of Cate’s friends from school to come over. Her birthday falls in between Cate and Jane’s birthdays and they play so well together. All three like to create complex play scenarios (the stairs were a mountain range and a great journey was undertaken). We took a break to bake the madeleine’s Cate and Jane and I made earlier in the morning and to have a tea party. Other than that the girls were upstairs, downstairs, outside. Jane moped hard for an hour after Henny left. “It’s just so hard when our friends have to leave.”

Many of my friends choose a word in the New Year to focus on rather than specific resolutions. As I usually have lists of resolutions, I was inspired to try it this year and I thought and thought about it and chose the word “open” as my word for 2016. My reasons were, I think, well considered. Open can be an action, as well as a reaction. I want to focus on creating community at the shop this year, I want to be open to new ideas and new possibilities both personally and professionally. In light of this, I decided to take a three-week yoga class this month that starts every morning, wait for it, at 5:10 AM. Which means I have to get up at 4:50. The class itself has been lovely. I feel myself getting stronger and well, more open. But I am so dang tired. Instead of engaging here and in other places, I am tired enough that all I have energy for at the end of the day is my book. Which isn’t all bad of course but not exactly what I pictured when I chose this word. It’s almost funny to me at this point.
*Note: late last week I realized I could just come home and sleep for another hour which has helped. I am SO not a person who can fully function on little sleep.

Already, in 2016 I have read essential books that will be with me for a long time. Somehow I have never read Kent Haruf. One of my favorite customers told me that I must read Plainsong. So, the week after Christmas I had a little time off to be with the girls and noodle around my house, I got it down from my shelf (this book has moved with us multiple times) and opened it. I fell down a Haruf-sized hole, reading Plainsong, Benediction, Eventide and the posthumously published, Our Souls at Night in ten days. All of Haruf’s novels take place in the fictional small town of Holt, Colorado. These are plain, small town novels but the characters and their families intersect with love and grace and connection. When the two cowboy brothers take in Victoria, a pregnant teenager and their lives are changed and their hearts are opened and they learn to love her, it’s life affirming and challenging at the same time. Read any of these novels, they will stick.

I read When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi this weekend, and I have to say, please read it. It’s an essential one. If you’re local, we have lots of copies at the shop. Kalanithi was in his final year of a neurosurgery residency at Stanford when he was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer. He died at 37, before he could finish the book. Janet Maslin, in her New York Times review says, “I guarantee that finishing this book and forgetting about it is simply not an option. There is so much here that lingers, and not just matters of life and death…”. I agree with Maslin. So much lingers and yes, it’s sad and difficult but there is an essential humanness that comes across in Paul’s writing.  I will come back to this book again and again. I have finished four books of nonfiction this weekend and am itching to get back to fiction. I am planning to start Anthony Marra’s The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories tonight.

One thing I will say about Christmas 2015 is I never really saw it coming. Business at the shop tripled between Christmas 2014 and Christmas 2015. I thought I was prepared but boy, I am looking forward to next year and being way more prepared. I made a lot of rookie mistakes on amounts of books ordered, staffing, and plans for Cate during the first week of Christmas vacation. By Christmas morning I felt like toast. We had such a good day though – just our family in the morning, breakfast with Telfer’s family a little later and then dinner with Luke and Sherry and Co. Telfer got called into work Christmas afternoon but made it home to finish his crab two ways – king crab legs AND crab cakes. I also learned that taking the week off between Christmas and New Year’s is a must. The girls and I had such a good time. Eleanor was here and it was all low-key and enjoyable. Telfer and I spent one perfect night in Seattle together at our favorite hotel on the first of January.

And obviously I plan to be here regularly in 2016. I hope this year is starting off well for all of you. Much love for reading and for nudging me to continue here.

Doesn’t it feel like November all of the sudden? A few leaves left over. It’s dark early and this year, I am all in. As soon as we get home, we light candles and turn on the fire, the girls tell us their highs and lows at the dinner table, and we snuggle in for the night. Yesterday I may have had my pajamas on at 4:00 PM. It was a particularly stormy day though and the girls and I were in for the evening at 3:45. We had a tea party with our pajamas on shortly thereafter.

A mid-week Veteran’s Day is actually pretty wonderful. A slightly weird but wonderful mid-week break. Telfer and I tagged-teamed the day. The girls just wanted to stay home. We made this gingerbread turkey from Trader Joe’s in the morning. SO cute! I almost texted my mom and sisters to say that we could forgo pumpkin pie this year and I could save this turkey for Thanksgiving dessert. Good idea? The girls so love this type of thing. I stayed with them in the morning and early afternoon until Telfer got home and then I closed the shop while he stayed home. Then I brought home Indian takeout to enjoy with Telfer after the girls went to bed. Pretty much a great day. I did manage to shear off my key in the shop door while pushing in our red carts. Not my finest moment. Those carts are heavy and the push in is on an incline. I could tell a cart was stuck on something but that didn’t stop me from pushing as hard as I could. My arm muscles are still sore! Had to call the locksmith the next morning. Classic me. Just keep pushing until *something* happens…

All I have to say here is how cute are Cate and Jane’s school pictures this year?

This last week I did a Pinterest project that actually turned out well. I used tie-dye on these tags. I plan to use them at the shop for our wrapping and at home for our personal Christmas presents. They turned out so pretty, maybe especially in person.

Telfer has been traveling again this week – he comes home tonight! I spent yesterday evening paying bills, doing paperwork and catching up on email and all the little detritus that comes back and forth from the shop to our house. My home office has a comfortable chair for reading and a desk area. It’s only a closet (with a window!) but it’s my favorite space in my whole house. Even an hour spent here makes my whole day better. George was sleeping on our bed, Jane on the sofa outside my room and Cate in her bed next to our room. Such a sweet couple of hours, to be quietly working with most of my loves nearby.

Confession: I am finished with my Shelf Project #2 except for these two books. Ann Patchett told me to read Independent People. She said it was her favorite and very brilliant and I tend to listen to Ann Patchett. I have actually fallen asleep in the BATHTUB trying to read Independent People as well asleep on so many nights in my actual bed. And I am on page 47. I am not saying Ann Patchett is wrong or that I am a useless reader but during this season of my life, Independent People may not be for me. As for the Penelope Fitzgerald biography, maybe I should have read the bio first and then the novels? I read the novels and my Penelope Fitzgerald moment has clearly passed. Again, maybe during a different season. It’s okay to postpone. Of course there will be a Shelf Project #3. Stay tuned.

This is such a cliche but this bookseller spent an evening this week watching You’ve Got Mail while messing about with boxes and boxes of books. The inventory project is going well. I would say overall, the shop is more than 70% inventoried but the online books are more like 90% inventoried. I think I have said this before but the previous owner used an extensive sticky note and handwritten notebook system to keep track of the online books. I could (can) barely deal. I am now on notebook #4 of #4 and my goal is to be done by Friday. I had to take down all the online books and start from scratch, finding each one of these books on the shelf, but I am happy to report the descriptions are better and sales are amazingly higher. It’s such a gratifying and concrete project. Next up: decorating the shop for the holidays. Such a busy and fun time of the year.