My book club thought it would be fun for everyone to share their five favorite books from 2021 at our next meeting. I finally whittled my list down to five. Here they are:

1. The Push: A Novel by Ashley Audrain.

I devoured this psychological thriller. My friend Adrian picked it for our book club during the first half of 2021, and we were still talking about it in December. If I ever make a list of books that are perfect for book clubs, this will be at the top of it.

2. Anxious People: A Novel by Fredrik Backman.

J’aime Fredrik Bakman. I would read his shopping list. As I write this post, Anxious People is the #1 Dark Humor book on Amazon but this is not simply a funny book. Backman’s characters and stories have a lot of depth, and this one is no exception.

3. The Book of Longings: A Novel by Sue Monk Kidd.

What if Jesus had a wife? What would her story be? As a former Catholic school girl, I was immediately hooked by this premise, and the book did not disappoint. I am now really interested in the stories of forgotten women of history.

4. How to Raise An Adult by Julie-Lythcott-Haims.

Damn, I wish I could make How to Raise An Adult mandatory reading for every parent. Or really, every human being – even if you don’t have kids, you will eventually become an adult! Oh my god, if you are at all intrigued by the subtitle, please read this book immediately if not sooner.

5. The Once and Favorite Witches, by Alix Harrow.

This was my absolute favorite book of 2021 – and I’m not just saying that because I picked it for my book club’s October read. Witches! Suffragists! Folklore! It’s the Mists of Avalon for the Salem witches but better.

I listened to the audiobooks for all of my picks, but the audio version of The Once and Future Witches gets an A+++. It involves music that really enhances the story. I hope whoever produced it wins a lot of awards.

Happy New Year! My kids went back to school today — but for how long? With the Omnicron variant here, I’m keeping low expectations for January. After all the holiday hootenanny, I suspect someone in my kids’ classes will test positive for Covid, leading to quarantining, etc.

I’m buying video games as an insurance policy on our January mental health.

In the meantime, I’m starting twenty-two projects to keep my momentum strong in 2022. Projects make me happy. I realized this when I read The How of Happiness: A New Approach To Getting The Life You Want by Sonja Lyubomirsky. (That’s the book whose name I could not remember during the episode!) I was inspired by Gretchen Rubin to pick twenty-two projects for ’22.

I’ve already listed my projects in an earlier blog post, but I love you so I’ll list them again here:

1. Knit Christmas stockings (this won’t happen if I wait until December!)
2. Catch up on family photos albums.
3. Set the kids up with their own bedrooms.
4. Paint the kitchen cupboards.
5. “Finish” decluttering (though I realize this will be a continuous work in progress).
6. Deep clean the house.
7. Publish my first novel.
8. Write the rough draft of my second room mom novel.
9. Go boogie boarding five times.
10. Get a ping pong table.
11. Read 100 books for myself.
12. Cook with mushrooms – try twelve new recipes that involve our favorite fungi!
13. Use my button maker. (Christmas gift I bought for myself.)
14. Get a new enamel pin every month.
15. Learn how to play the Super Mario Bros. theme on the piano.
16. Create another graphics heavy book in the tradition of The Distance Learning Activity Book For Parents Just Barely Holding On To Their Last Shred of Sanity
17. Learn a tap dance routine to Footloose.
18. Decorate with pompoms.
19. Go to Hogwarts at Universal Studios with Pippa.
20. Study Carl Jung.
21. Put family pictures in seasonal frames to rotate throughout the year.
22. Get a posh trash can for the kitchen.

Thanks for listening! And reading! Or both!

New Year’s Resolutions do not work for me. I have made my fair share of them — lose weight! quit caffeine! don’t eat refined sugar! — but they never seem to stick. I lose ten pounds and then gain thirty. I quit caffeine and then guzzle more than ever. I abstain from refined sugar for a few weeks only to go on a sugar bender that would make Willy Wonka blush. Then I feel like a failure and wallow in shame, guilt and self-loathing.

But projects? As I mentioned yesterday, I love projects!

I start more projects than I finish. Exhbit A: the projects I started at the beginning of 2021 to rebuild my momentum. But I never feel guilty when I abandon a project. If anything, I feel empowered by my decision to curtail something that is not working for me.

Maybe I am quibbling over semantics, but for me, a “resolution” feels foreboding and stern while a “project” is fun and joyful. That is why I do not make New Year’s Resolutions anymore. Instead, I choose some aspirational projects.

(Side note: I’m sure that for many of you, the word “project” conjures up intense nausea and the desire to hide under the nearest coffee table. Isn’t it amazing how the same word can make one person giddy and another violently ill?)

As I explained in yesterday’s post, I started a lot of projects at the beginning of 2021. And then, I forgot about or abandoned most of them. On paper, my 2021 New Year’s Projects look like an unmitigated failure, but I regard them as a huge triumph. I started my 2021 projects to ignite my momentum, and holy shit, I accomplished just that.

Did I maintain my soda fast? No, but I returned to the hot yoga studio and ended the year feeling healthier than ever.

Did I blog every day? Dear God, no. But I got our first pet hamster, expanded our veggie garden, and started mowing our lawn.

Did I French braid my hair 100 times? No, but I became our school’s Room Parent Coordinator, reclaimed my role as cookie czar for Pippa’s scout troop, and became an AYSO referee.

Did I tap dance? Only a few times, but I joined Obé and did a ton of fitness classes including cardio dance.

Did I go down 100 different slides? No, but I got boogie boards for the kids, caught many waves myself, and reconnected with a childhood passion.

Some might think that I should have picked and finished just one or two projects — but that’s not my style. I complete plenty of projects (hello, Adventures With Postpartum Depression) but magical things happen when I start more projects than I can ever hope to finish. That’s my process, and as a recovering perfectionist, it gives me the space to try, fail and keep on trying. Some things will stick. Some will not. Either way, starting lots of projects at the beginning of a new year builds my momentum; momentum boosts my mental health; and then I can be my best damn self.

That is exactly how I feel on the eve of 2022: like my best damn self.

Now if you will please excuse me, I need to finish planning some bitching projects for 2022. I want to keep my magical momentum moving!

Once upon a time, I was hospitalized for postpartum depression. During my stay in the psych ward, I attended three group sessions with three different therapists. (This is what happens when you stay over the weekend). All three therapists insisted on talking about MOMENTUM.

On the subject of momentum, each therapist preached that if we sit in a chair all the time, it is really difficult to summon the energy to get off of the chair. But if you get off of the chair once, the second time is easier. And if you keep getting off the damn chair, you build up momentum until it takes practically no effort to get up at all.

At the time, this sounded like horse shit.

Then again, when I was in the murky depths of depression, all the advice I received about my recovery sounded like horse shit.

But I digress.

About a month after my release from the hospital, I started realizing that maybe the therapists knew a thing or two about momentum. I took my baby on walks; then I took her to the mall; then I joined a mommy and me class; and before I knew it, I was taking my daughter to museums and botanical gardens and gasp, making mom friends. The more I went out with my baby, the easier it was until it became second nature.

Fast forward to 2020. Remember 2020? Yeah, me too. Those first shutdowns did a number on my momentum. And by “did a number,” I mean “dialed it back to zero and broke off the knob.” I lost all my momentum. Actually, that’s an exaggeration. I did keep writing and I managed to finish the first draft of a fantasy novel by the end of May 2020. But otherwise, I was in survival mode. I took a walk in the morning, let my husband take over the cooking, and fell into a deep rut. By July 2020, I was depressed and anxious. I went back on Zoloft but knew from my experience with postpartum depression that I needed to rebuild my momentum.

This called for some projects.

Oh my god, I love projects. When I tackle projects, I want to do more projects; and doing one project gives me the energy for five more. In October 2020, I created The Distance Learning Activity Book For Parents Just Barely Holding On To Their Last Shred Of Sanity. That project saved me. That’s why as I headed into 2021, I decided to embrace ALL THE PROJECTS and focus on MOMENTUM for an entire year.

I wrote all about it right here.

How did it go? Well, as I detail below, most of the projects I picked were technically a bust but I rebuilt my momentum and then some. So though most of the individual projects were an “F,” my 2021 Momentum Project was an effervescent success. Let’s look at the individual projects (because I crave closure, damnit):

My Soda Fast: [insert laugh track] I am in a fully committed relationship with Coke Zero.I abandoned this project with zest.

Blog every weekday: This last through March and then I went on a loooooong blogging hiatus.

Room Mom Novel: I worked on this all year and I am ready to send my first novel to an editor in January 2022 – woot woot!

Learn French: I did not make it through as many Duolingo lessons as I intended, but I practiced nearly every day and slowly but surely, I’m learning French.

Roller skating, tap dancing, playing the piano – no, no, no

Post on IG daily – not even close.

Walk an average of 12,000 steps a day: I stopped keeping track BUT I got back into Hot Yoga with a vengeance. I also went on some hikes and walked an ass shit ton.

Weekly tarot card reading: I did this for a few months and then lost interest. Probably because I put my deck in a drawer and forgot about it. Oops.

Read 100 books for myself – I’d like to write another post about the books I read in 2021. I definitely read 100+ books this year but that includes the Captain Underpants series with Julian. I’m going to try this one again in 2022.

25 craft projects: I did plenty of crochet and knitting and had a fling with punch needle but I stopped keeping track. And did not seek as much variety as I initially hoped.

100 new recipes: I doubt I hit this number BUT I tried a ton of new recipes and new cookbooks and seriously leveled up my cooking game.

Go down 100 slides: I totally forgot about this! But I went down a huge slide at an indoor playground yesterday, so there’s that.

Visit 50 different places: maybe? the problem here is that I kept track of my goals on paper, but the paper got messy, and I got annoyed and threw it out. Note to self: track goals on my computer as well!

French braid my hair 100 times: no, but I’m getting better and damnit, I am going to plug away at this project.

Okay, so that’s the scoop on my 2021 projects. Like I said, more Fs than As (though the work I did on the room mom novel was AMAZING). But the Fs do not matter because Courtney got her momentum back. I’ll explain more in my next blog post. (and yes! there will be another blog post! Because momentum!)

After three years of being the room parent for Pippa’s class, I agreed to become the Queen of the Room Moms. That is not my official PTA title — it’s something lame like “Room Parent Coordinator — but I would still like a crown.

In years past, our school had room dads. This year, however, every room parent is a mom. If a dad joins our ranks next year, I’m not sure how I will cope. “Queen of the Room Parents” does not have the same ring.

As Queen of the Room Moms, I send regular emails to my Room Mom Squad. These emails can get, well, a little zany. Why send dull tedious emails when you can spice up inboxes with a little snark?

Here’s my latest dispatch. But first, helpful background information: I scheduled a holiday gathering for the room moms, but thanks to Covid rules, we have to meet at our local park. Ah! The dramatic life of a Pasadena room mom.

Howdy Room Mom Squad,

The chance of rain on Thursday is 90% so alas, no holiday party. Next week, there is more rain and then it will be Cold AF, so let’s postpone our gathering until 2022. We can have a Valentine’s Day Party and exchange cards. i’m kidding! (Or am I? i’m kind of loving this idea. But that might just be the Coke Zero.) 

If you are organizing a class gift (which is optional), feel free to send another email to your parents. Most will appreciate a friendly nudge. (And those who don’t are Grinches who will be miserable no matter what you do.) While you are at it, remind your parents to donate to Annual Fund! 

Then I included an email for the room moms to copy and paste. They LOVE this. I am a writer so writing these emails is a relatively easy item on my To Do list. But not everyone is a writer, so I like to provide emails they can send to lighten their room mom load.

Hello! I just scrolled through my blog because I could not remember the last time I posted. found podcast show notes from October and August (they don’t count) and excerpts from my memoir during the summer (they also don’t count) but holy shit, I haven’t written a proper post since March 25, 2021.

That would explain why I feel so damn awkward writing this post.

And why it would be so easy to do something — anything — else.

But I was at hot yoga this morning — yes, I do hot yoga now — and I could not stop thinking that I should write a blog post. I had a hundred things I wanted to write about: hot yoga; Gretchen Rubin; my novel; the holidays; 2021 and 2022; Sim City; mom life; room mom life; my changing mindset; the button maker I bought myself for Christmas; and so much more but I feel like I have to start here with the awkwardness.

So this is me being awkward:

So very awkward:

But sometimes, being awkward is part of the journey. In fact, you have to accept feeling Awkward AF if you want to go on any sort of journey into the unknown.

Okay, yay, now that I got that out of the way, I can get back to blogging and see what magic transpires.