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Right here we’re on the finish of the yr! I’ve stated a lot about 2022 in my year-end recap posts that I received’t go on any longer. Let’s simply check out the month.
Greater than something, December was all about Christmas — and also you’ll see it within the photographs. I ended up celebrating Christmas unexpectedly throughout 4 international locations this month.
I additionally learn plenty of good books, discovered some kickass eating chairs, and welcomed a kitty to our residence briefly.
Let’s check out what went on in December 2022.
Table of Contents
Locations Visited
- Prague, Czech Republic
- Vienna, Austria
- London, Coulsdon, and Watford, England
- Studying, Revere, and Wakefield, Massachusetts
- Nashua, New Hampshire
Highlights
A unbelievable Christmas market journey to Vienna. Surprisingly, Charlie and I’ve by no means been to Austria collectively! We’ve each been to Vienna a number of occasions, and it’s by no means been one among our absolute favourite cities, however we determined to take a look at their legendary Christmas markets.
Nicely, they have been FANTASTIC. A number of the greatest I’ve ever visited in Europe. A very good quantity of range in markets (some extra adult-oriented, some higher for handmade presents, some extra art-oriented). Tons upon tons of flavors of gluhwein and punsch, making cities that serve one single taste of mulled wine appear to be a joke.
We additionally acquired to hang around with our Vienna associates, Becki and Markus, in addition to Becki’s dad, and revel in a market night, adopted by their favourite native Irish pub.
My greatest suggestion? Put on thermals. It was VERY chilly (temperatures hovered simply above freezing, which isn’t whilst chilly as it may be there). My Uniqlo thermal high and leggings stored me really having fun with the journey, and I’d have been depressing with out them.
The World Cup. I watched SOOOOO a lot of the World Cup, and the way extremely satisfying was it? A really wild match up till the tip, and I used to be so blissful for Argentina and Messi.
We purchased a cool retro eating desk and a few equally funky chairs. They’re mid-century trendy items initially designed for the 1958 Brussels Expo. Regardless of that, they have been all fairly inexpensive.
It’s so arduous to seek out secondhand furnishings within the Czech Republic that isn’t IKEA. I’m fairly happy about these.
A Friendsmas dinner at Kantyna. Kantyna is OUR PLACE in Prague — it’s half restaurant, half butcher store, dishing up outrageously good steaks and the very best burger on the earth. Kantyna additionally places on a butcher’s dinner known as Dinner Off the Bone, the place they serve you odd cuts.
They paused Dinner Off the Bone when COVID hit however FINALLY introduced it again! We determined to do it for Friendsmas and feasted on crispy pigs’ ears, tender pigs’ brains, and actually, essentially the most scrumptious tripe I’ve ever had.
(The one non-hit? The room-temperature meat in aspic. Ugh. However our associates’ nine-month-old child couldn’t get sufficient of it!)
Spending my first Christmas with Charlie’s household within the UK. Seeing how a lot his sister decorates her home and serving to Charlie cook dinner a very insane quantity of meals have been two of the highlights.
Lewis and Murray made a brand new furry good friend. Baliček, our associates’ cat, got here to stick with us for 10 days. We have been curious to see how our cats would react — they haven’t seen different cats since they have been of their foster residence.
It took about 5 days for them to heat up to one another, and required some partitioning and litter field jiujitsu, however they appeared to get alongside fairly properly by the tip! (I feel they’re glad to have us to themselves once more, although.)
Baliček is the sweetest, most loving cat on the earth, and it was good to look at a film with him purring away in your lap!
Challenges
I wasn’t planning to go to the US on the finish of the month, however unhappy information from residence had me reserving a same-day flight to be there for a good friend. I received’t go into element past that.
I’m grateful to have had miles stashed away so it price me $200 as a substitute of $1500. In the event you reside far-off from family members, you would possibly need to do the identical.
And for those who’re not into miles, simply having a sturdy emergency fund is so necessary. For terrible occasions like these, you don’t need to add monetary stress on high.
Weblog Posts of the Month
December is all about my Better of the 12 months posts — with a bit of further thrown in.
My Favourite New Locations of 2022 — Naples took the highest crown, however the place else received my coronary heart?
My Finest Journey Moments of 2022 — From getting engaged in Lake Como to crusing the bluest sea in Sardinia.
My Favourite Reads of 2022 — Simply 5 books this yr (and a much more digestible submit consequently).
My Worst Journey Moments of 2022 — Aaaaaand everybody’s favourite submit of the yr. Sure, poop is concerned.
A Customer’s Information to Winery Haven, Massachusetts — And a bit of information to a stunning, underrated city on Martha’s Winery.
This Month on Patreon
On the Adventurous Kate Patreon, I publish unique content material and never-told tales you can entry for $6 monthly. We even have a non-public Fb group and members get free entry to the E-book Membership every month.
This month on the Patreon, I did a submit about my favourite vacation spot of 2022: Naples, Italy. Naples completely blew me away and on this submit, I talked about what I really like most concerning the metropolis and the favourite issues I did.
I additionally wrote a submit concerning the posts that earned essentially the most on Adventurous Kate this yr — a deep dive into which all-time posts did the very best, and which posts revealed in 2022 did the very best, and why.
And I wrote a bit of observe on the finish of the yr about what was happening.
E-book Membership This Month
Our subsequent E-book Membership will happen on Sunday, January 29, 2023 at 1:00 PM ET. We can be studying and discussing Son of Elsewhere by Sudanese Canadian writer Elamin Abdelmahmoud.
“At twelve years outdated, Elamin Abdelmahmoud emigrates along with his household from his native Sudan to Kingston, Ontario, arguably some of the homogenous cities in North America. On the airport, he’s handed his Blackness like a passport, and realizes that he must study what this identification means in a brand new nation.
Like all teenagers, Abdelmahmoud spent his adolescence attempting to determine who he was, however he needed to do it whereas studying to steadiness a brand new racial identification and all of the false assumptions that got here with it. Abdelmahmoud realized to slot in, and ultimately turned ‘each liberal white dad’s favourite particular person within the room.’ However after a few years spent attempting on completely different personalities, he now should face the components of himself he’s stored suppressed all this time. He asks, ‘What occurs when these identities stage a jailbreak?’
In his debut assortment of essays, Abdelmahmoud provides full voice to every one among these conflicting selves. Whether or not reflecting on how The O.C. taught him about falling in love, why watching wrestling allowed him to reinvent himself, or what it was like being a Muslim teen within the aftermath of 9/11, Abdelmahmoud explores how our experiences and our environments assist us within the persevering with process of defining who we really are.”
You can sign up here. Hope to see you then!
New Hampshire Approach Replace
My huge achievement this month on my New Hampshire website, New Hampshire Way, was accumulating TONS of e-mail addresses for the e-newsletter. This was due to my new lead magnet, a downloadable calendar itemizing all of the Christmas and vacation actions in New Hampshire in 2022.
Guess what number of e-mail addresses it acquired me? 537. That’s large for a small website. I needed to go up a brand new stage on my ConvertKit plan!
Listed here are the brand new posts I revealed this month that I feel you would possibly take pleasure in: my submit concerning the Mount Washington Auto Road, which is among the coolest issues you are able to do in New Hampshire, and for those who’re a New Englander, you would possibly need to try the Jingle Bell Chocolate Tour in Jackson subsequent yr!
And I’m very excited for my first New Hampshire Approach Mediavine fee to return in at the moment or tomorrow! Lastly, I get to the touch the cash the positioning’s making!
What I Watched This Month
The White Lotus! GOD, I LOVE THIS SHOW! I hope Mike White retains making them for the subsequent decade! So properly written, such a fantastic solid, a wild satire of the wealthy, and the COSTUMES.
Each seasons have been good. I feel the primary was higher concerning the interactions between the completely different company. However the second was completely beautiful and I preferred that they confirmed an excellent quantity of Sicily past the resort, all in sun-dappled mild. (Additionally, enjoyable truth: the seashore scenes have been filmed in Cefalù, not Taormina.)
And guess what? Charlie and I booked a visit to Palermo in February earlier than watching the present! I’m much more excited now.
Past The White Lotus, I loved Glass Onion and Nope for movies and An Night You Will Overlook for the Remainder of Your Life, a Netflix comedy particular with Steve Martin and Martin Brief.
What I Learn This Month
I ended up ending 2022 with 33 books learn. The bottom variety of years, and that’s okay. I did end the yr with a number of fabulous reads.
Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional by Isaac Fitzgerald (2022) — “Isaac Fitzgerald has lived many lives. He’s been an altar boy, a bartender, a fats child, a smuggler, a biker, a prince of New England. However earlier than all that, he was a bomb that exploded his mother and father’ lives-or so he was instructed. In Dirtbag, Massachusetts, Fitzgerald, with heat and humor, recounts his ongoing seek for forgiveness, a extra far-reaching imaginative and prescient of masculinity, and a extra expansive definition of household and self.”
First off — I feel we are able to agree that is far and away the very best e-book title of the yr! Fitzgerald is my age and grew up poor in rural North Central Massachusetts (My dad: “Was he in Gardner?” Me: “No, Gardner was the place he went when he wanted a metropolis“). Unusually, I really feel like it is a perspective not shared fairly often — most New England-specific memoirs are about city life round Boston.
I really like Fitzgerald’s voice, and the way he makes the connections between the violence during which he grew up and a life that led him to bartending in San Francisco, smuggling provides into Myanmar, and finally discovering forgiveness for his mother and father. This can be a nice e-book and possibly ought to have been on my better of the yr record if I had completed it in time.
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (2022) — This novel tells the tales of three characters — a Nineteenth-century Englishman leaving for the Canadian wilderness, a Twenty third-century author dwelling on a Moon Colony, and a Twenty fifth-century detective utilizing time journey to unravel a thriller that includes all three of them.
I fell in love with Emily St. John Mandel’s writing the month earlier than with Station Eleven, and Sea of Tranquility is full of extra splendidly comforting optimism within the face of a scary future. And past that, what’s so good about this novel is how every thing regularly connects to one another, nesting doll-style, ultimately reaching a very satisfying conclusion.
This can be a good one.
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan (2022) — Frida is a single mom reeling from her husband leaving her for a youthful lady. However then she has a Very Dangerous Day — she leaves her 2-year-old daughter Harriet alone for a number of hours. When authorities discover out, they sentence her to a yr dwelling within the College for Good Moms, a prison-like setting that teaches girls how one can mum or dad.
What a freaky, bizarre e-book. The varsity itself jogged my memory of the film However I’m a Cheerleader — it’s an odd sanitized “how one can be” setting set on strict, nearly cartoon-like gender roles. And it was miserable. From the second Frida arrived, it was clear that it will take every thing she needed to attain their ridiculous expectations.
This e-book was half dystopian, half sci-fi, and far of it biting satirical commentary about girls’s rights and views on parenting. Price a learn for certain.
Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on Becoming an American by Wajahat Ali (2022) — “Rising up dwelling the suburban American dream, younger Wajahat devoured comedian books (devoid of Brown superheroes) and fielded well-intentioned recommendation from uncles and aunties. (“Change into a health care provider!”)
Now a middle-aged dad, Ali has grow to be one of many foremost and funniest public intellectuals in America. In Go Again to The place You Got here From, he tackles the risks of Islamophobia, white supremacy, and chocolate hummus, peppering private tales with astute insights into nationwide safety, immigration, and popular culture.”
I’ve adopted Ali on Twitter for awhile — he’s a great follow. And this story is in some methods the memoir of each little one of Pakistani immigrants who got here of age over 9/11, and in addition a novel story about his household’s “curse” that despatched his mother and father to jail, amongst different issues. It’s a wild learn, and properly value it.
I hope he will get on reveals speaking about extra issues moreover Islam-adjacent matters. He deserves to.
Rich as Fuck: More Money Than You Know What to Do With by Amanda Frances (2020) — “For too lengthy, the topic of cash has been shrouded in concern, secrecy, and nervousness. It’s time to look backstage at cash, whereas entering into the empowered monetary actuality that’s obtainable to you. Studying Wealthy As F*ck is certain to ignite an avalanche of change in an important areas of your life. When you lastly see cash for what it’s and understand your energy over your funds, life won’t ever be the identical.”
I learn this e-book primarily as a result of a number of folks I respect are large followers of Amanda Frances. The e-book was respectable, however nothing I hadn’t heard earlier than.
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon (2012) — “Nothing is authentic, so embrace affect, college your self by the work of others, remix and reimagine to find your individual path. Comply with pursuits wherever they take you—what appears like a pastime could flip into you life’s work. Overlook the outdated cliché about writing what you recognize: As an alternative, write the e-book you need to learn, make the film you need to watch.“
Principally — a cute e-book, a brief e-book, with a pleasant message. Take the work of others you like and use that to create into authentic work of your individual. Cease pressuring your self for those who don’t really feel authentic sufficient.
Coming Up in January 2023
Nothing deliberate this month! Final yr I got here to the conclusion that January is a month the place I’m impressed, goal-oriented, and able to set up good, arduous work habits for the yr forward.
In different phrases, it was a little bit of a waste being in Mexico final January after I was in tremendous hard-working mode. In order that’s one thing I’ll consider for the long run. Let’s save the winter getaways for February on the earliest.
I hope we get a pleasant, huge snowstorm and revel in it whereas being cozy indoors.
What are your plans for 2023? Share away!
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