December is the month when everybody goes into jolly holiday mode. To me, this means a sharp drop in social events around the city.
I understand that we are expected to go see our relatives, but my closest relatives are 2 days of drive away when the weather is “nice”, or at least 300 dollars in one way airplane tickets for each family member (coming to around 2K to see another family member as a family).
We had temperatures well below -20°C this month, with occasional over 0°C, causing snow to melt and freeze over better embedded into the roads. This made the Christmas period extra dangerous. Humidity in the air became hanging sharp ice pieces that you can feel stabbing you. That ice also means ever present fog on the roads. It was kind of amusing to see so many F150s driving at 50 to 60 on a highway with speed limit of 100, and keeping their indicators on the entire journey. Our driver wasn’t amused though as the wind pushed our car on the icy road like an airhockey puck. Winter tires don’t cut on this weather, we needed studded tires. There were cars in ditches maybe every 10 km. I don’t agree with the McDonald’s AI generated ad, so it hurts to admit that I find the message not completely wrong.
There are many new year shows around the city, but I attended to an ice skating club’s show in Sherwood Park. It was a great. There were many talented skaters, some are preparing to compete in national events, while others are 5 year olds with helmets (kinda like bobleheads :).
About monthly reviews
This month started out uneventful, and finished very active. I postponed publishing this to second half of January, because it didn’t feel enough to justify a blog. I kinda forced myself to publish it anyway as writing monthly reviews is supposed to be a sustainable alternative to the diaries.
Maybe the habit of writing a diary doesn’t stick because most days are simply not interesting enough to justify writing about. “Oh My GOD, did I waste today too? I went to work/school, I did everything that I was meant to do, still nothing happened that I would talk about?” was a constant feeling of mine when I was trying to write diaries. But monthly reviews are different since they are large enough timespan that it is easier to find something to talk about.
There is also the benefit of better readibility. Unlike diaries which would be filled with “Nothing but 24 hours happened” or “:)”, monthly reviews give me something to go back and read, and remember those times surprisingly well. And if a certain day was extra interesting or special, nothing stoping me from dropping a section dedicated to that day.
What you are reading here is public version of my monthly reviews as the personal one contains more private stuff, such as personal information of relatives, like birthdates.
By the way, this is not my new years resolution. My new years resolution is “Have nothing else as my new resolution except this statement”.