For the Dominican Republic, I read In the Time of the Butterflies: A Novel by Julia Alvarez. This book came with a ton of recommendations, but I hesitated picking it because Alvarez was born in New York City. If I picked Alvarez for the Dominican Republic, wasn’t I undermining the purpose of my own freaking quest?

But then I read more about Alvarez’s life. Yes, she was born in New York City in 1950, but her family moved back to the Dominican Republic when she was three months old and Julia grew up there until her family fled back to the United States in 1960 due to her father’s involvement in the underground resistance against Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship. Alvarez might have technically been born in the United States, but her life definitely fits the spirit of my quest.

In the Time of the Butterflies tells the story of the four Mirabel sisters. Three of these sisters, who were among the leaders of the resistance to the dictatorship, were found dead on November 25, 1960 in a wrecked jeep at the bottom of a cliff. The story beautifully moves between their four voices, the sisters each taking their turn to tell parts of the story, which was the perfect narrative choice. I fell in love with each of the sisters and even though I knew from page one that three of them would die, I still felt a profound loss when they were assassinated.

I recently created a video of my ten favorite books from my quest (so far!) and as I write this review, I’m struggling to remember why In the Time of the Butterflies did not make the list. It’s so extraordinary! Its omission is just a testament to how incredible the world’s literature is.

It’s February 20, 2025 and I finally managed to record my first episode of the year. We’ve been recovering from the insanity of the Palisades and Eaton Fires and to be honest, I still feel drained and raw, but it was very cathartic and healing to record this episode. Storytelling is so powerful.

Without further ado, here’s the transcript for Episode 54:

Hello, adventurers.

It has been a minute, hasn’t it?

This was meant to be an episode that I recorded in early January, and I would have been saying happy new year, but instead it is February 20th, 2025.

Episode 54, The Los Angeles Fires, or Hello Therapy, my old friend.

I guess we have some catching up to do, because the last time I recorded an episode, it was before the Christmas holidays. I fully planned to be back here in January, but then Los Angeles had an epic natural disaster with insane winds and a fire.

If you follow me on social media, you probably know by now that my parents lost their house, and my sister lost her condo in the Palisades fire at the beginning of January, and that my family, me and the kids and Nathan, we had to evacuate because of the Eaton fire, that two fires happening in Los Angeles same day.

So this episode, I thought I should tell the full story of my crazy January, 2025. It’s just one of those events I can already tell is going to affect me for a long time, which is probably why I decided it was a good time to go back to therapy. I think I’ve been back three weeks now, maybe four. I’ve lost track. It’s been, it’s all of this beginning of the year has been quite blurry.

But I have not done therapy since I want to see September 2020. And back then, it was because of the pandemic, it had to only be Zoom and, you know, online and just the chaos of that time. I felt like therapy was becoming a source of stress and not a helpful tool. So I decided to take a break and have been touching base with myself ever since.

Like, do I need to go back to therapy?

No.

Do I need to go back to therapy?

No.

The fires happened.

I was like, do I need to go back to therapy?

And my whole soul was like, YES.

So, all right, let’s do some catching up.

The kids, we had wonderful holidays.

We went to Nebraska for Christmas.

Oh, well, oh my gosh, I used the word “wonderful” lightly there.

We had good holidays.

Everyone was sick, though.

So, we got, we went to Nebraska. We went the day after school ended. So, it’s the Saturday before Christmas. And we land. We took two flights because of the time of year. Nathan wanted to avoid LAX. That’s Los Angeles’ major airport. And it’s just, it’s a situation you should avoid at all costs. And we decided it would be better to take a connecting flight. So, we flew through Phoenix from an airport closer to us. And we left the Los Angeles area with two healthy children. And by the time we landed in Phoenix, I had a sick daughter.

She had like, her cheeks were just like rosy red on fire, and she was irritable and I had to like find painkiller and fever reducer medicine for her. And, you know, I’m sure there were so many people looking at us as we get on the next flight. I mean, we had no choice. And looking at like, who is this, you know, evil one, bringing the sick child onto the plane? But it was like, I had a healthy child two hours ago.

So, here we are.

So, we each took turns getting sick in Nebraska.

So, the holidays were good, and it was, you know, nice to experience them Nebraska style. That was the first time the kids ever did Christmas there. But also, I’m not gonna be rushing to do it again, because I discovered that traveling for Christmas with kids, especially when you have a younger child who still wants to believe in Santa, I don’t know that he believes in Mr. Big Red, but he wants to. And it was just so much more work than I imagined, because we went for Thanksgiving two years ago, and it was great and easy. So I think Thanksgiving is the holiday I like to travel for. Not so much Christmas. Christmas, there’s a lot of magic to accomplish. And if you throw in a trip, it just becomes harder.

[hi, this is Courtney here. I’m learning how to create transcripts for my podcast. I thought I should clean things up and create paragraphs but wow. That takes forever. So I’ve learned my lesson and I’m just going to release my perfectionism — deep breaths, Courtney, deep breaths — and leave the transcripts in the format that Apple creates]

And then if everyone gets sick, oh my God.

So we, you know, the kids returned to school Monday, January 6, and everyone was once again healthy, so that was nice.

And then Tuesday, January 7, they go to school.

It was super windy.

It’s these winds that we call the Santa Anas.

They’re also sometimes referred to as the devil winds.

If you live in the LA area, you talk about the Santa Anas.

They’re these strong, extremely dry winds.

There’s a fancy word for it that I’ve learned.

I don’t know that I could pronounce it, katabotic winds.

And these are winds that happen, that they, wait, I looked it up.

What is a katabatic wind?

It’s a down slope wind caused by the flow of an elevated high density air mass.

Okay, that was a little more science than I think you guys signed up for when you listen to this episode.

Let’s just say it was super windy that Tuesday morning.

I played tennis on Tuesday morning.

I’ve been taking a tennis class for over a year now, and I actually called because it was so windy.

I was wondering, like, are they going to cancel?

And no, they were still doing lessons, but several people decided to skip, and I went and it was fun. [wow, reading a transcript of my podcast is some next level cringe]

I was there, and my friends and I, we were just cracking up, because you’d have a tennis ball, and it would be on, like, a normal trajectory coming towards you, and then, like, a gust would come, and it would just do a 90-degree turn, or there’d be a blast, and all the balls on the ground would just go, like, you know, like, skittling along the ground, and, like, they were all…

It was very easy to clean up balls, because, you know, the teacher has, like, probably a couple hundred balls, and then we have to clean them up whenever we finish using all of them.

And then, you know, they’re all around the courts.

They were all being blown into just one corner, like little sheep herded in there.

And so it was fun.

It was a cool memory.

And I remember thinking, like, I just, so long as there isn’t a fire, these winds will be okay.

People were nervous about the winds, though.

My mom sent a photo at some point in the morning of dark clouds to a bunch of, like, you know, a family group text, and said, I’m scared.

But it didn’t register with me that the photo she sent was of smoke, because January is not fire season in Los Angeles.

If she’d sent me that same photo in, like, September or October, I would have been like, oh my God, there’s a fire.

Where’s the fire?

Do you guys need to evacuate?

But I didn’t even respond, because I thought it was just like rainy storm clouds.

And I’m like, what’s the big deal?

Like, yes, it’s windy and clouds are moving around, but like, we can handle a little rain.

But they weren’t rain clouds, and it hadn’t rained yet here, which was also weird.

Like, the kids play soccer in the fall and early winter, and there’s usually one game each season, or a couple of practices that get canceled because of rain.

And we didn’t have any rain cancellations for anything, and it hadn’t rained over Christmas break, so everything was very dry.

And later that day, like early afternoon, I find out from people texting, like, have you heard about the fire?

That like, oh, I didn’t realize it was a fire.

But that there was a fire, and that what my mom had sent me was smoke, not rain clouds.

And that this fire had started in the Pacific Palisades, which is the town that I grew up in most of my childhood.

We moved there when I was like five years old, and then my parents stayed there until I was in college.

Then they moved for, no, they stayed there through college.

They just moved to a different place when I was in college.

When I was in law school, they moved to a different part of Los Angeles and lived there for four years.

And then they decided they missed the Palisades, so they moved back.

So since I was five, so for the past 41 years, my parents have lived in the Palisades, which was the exception of four years, a four-year stint.

But they had bought a house in the Palisades 20 years ago, and they’ve been living in that house for the past 20 years since I was about 25, 26.

How old am I now?

I think I’m 46.

I have to do the math sometimes.

So the fire had started in a part of the Palisades called the Highlands, which is a distant part from where my parents lived.

My parents live in like this, lived, oh my God, I still have to get used to this past tense.

Their house was in a very central part of the Palisades.

They call the village, it’s like their downtown area.

It’s not a downtown.

It’s like some shops and restaurants.

Not like, I think of downtown as downtown LA with skyscrapers.

It’s not like that.

It’s just like a town downtown.

And they lived in walking distance of that, a few blocks away.

And so the fire had started.

I’d have to look it up, but it was several, it was, I want to say multiple miles away, at such a distance that I was like, well, like, it’s going to burn like 10 houses there.

Because it’s a very secluded neighborhood that was built when I was a kid, after the main part of the Palisades had been born.

It was just like the town was expanding.

And so they built these more remote houses up on these, like, these highlands.

And they’re not part, they’re like a 10-minute drive from the main part of the Palisades.

So the fire had started there, and I didn’t think my parents were in any sort of danger.

They were so far away, there was no way the flames would reach them.

And when they told me they were getting ready to evacuate, I asked if it was mandatory or suggested because, and I thought there was a realistic possibility that it wasn’t either.

Because the tiers of evacuation here will go mandatory.

You have to evacuate or give up.

Like 911 will not help you.

And then there’s recommended, which usually comes with the explanation of, if you have young children or you have farm animals, like horses, you should start evacuating.

Don’t wait for the last minute.

And then there’s just no evacuation order.

You’re just deciding that you should evacuate.

So I thought there was a good chance that they were just really nervous and anxious.

And they were just evacuating because they’d heard of a few people evacuating.

Or maybe they were just meaning the highlands, the distant part of the Palisades was evacuating.

But they told me that, no, it was a mandatory evacuation.

And so I start watching the news.

Sorry, we’re going to do the obligatory chair adjustment, the mid, you know, can’t sit still in one position.

Okay.

So I start watching the news and I can just hear reports.

And the fire, people were leaving the highlands and there’s just one road to get out of there.

And people were getting out of their cars.

And because like branches on fire were like, the winds were so strong that people like their cars were setting on fire and they were getting out and running for their lives.

So that’s when my adrenaline kicked up a few notches and was like, oh, this is some real stuff going on.

And my parents and sister decided that they would evacuate with their dogs to Pasadena, because I’m on, you know, Pasadena is, and the Palisades are both in Los Angeles County, but on opposite sides of the county.

And that would be like really as far from the fires as you could get and stay within Los Angeles County.

And they, you know, were like, well, we could come near you and they can visit us.

And we’d just have a couple of, you know, silly day adventures before they could go home.

Except that’s not how it went.

So they left the Palisades in one car.

That’s how, to them, unserious it was.

They left my sister’s car at my parents’ house because they thought it was better for them all to stay together and for my sister to drive.

And I remember hearing where they, you know, them like sending a text or saying like, we’re at this part of the freeway and we’re just stuck in traffic.

And I remember like my whole body just relaxing because I knew like, okay, they are so far away.

Like they’re okay because the Palisades is, it’s a town built like right next to, it’s a beach town.

It’s built next to the Pacific Ocean.

So there’s only, and then, so on one side you have the ocean that’s on the west, and on the east side, you have mountains without roads.

Like there are these protected mountains, the Santa Monica Mountains.

So there’s really only one, like a couple of ways out of town.

You can get yourself down to PCH, the Pacific Coast Highway, and that will take you to like Santa Monica and the freeways.

Or you can take Sunset Boulevard, and that kind of is a long, curvy road that takes you past OJ.

Simpson’s house.

And Nathan and I were just watching an OJ.

Simpson documentary, so I have them on the mind.

And that takes you to another major freeway.

But it’s not like where we live, in our neighborhood in Pasadena, if we had to evacuate, we can go in so many different directions.

We do have mountains to the north of us, but every other direction, we can go, and there’s even still some room to the north.

So there’s just so many ways for us to leave this part, like our area.

There’s not a lot of ways for them to leave.

So once I knew that there were evacuations and they were mandatory, and people are getting out of their cars, running for their lives, that was a little scary, because I’m like, how fast can they evacuate this many people out of the Palisades?

But then I heard that they were out, and they were on their way to this nice hotel in Pasadena that was taking dogs.

So I was feeling a little like, okay, all right, we can get through this.

And then a little, I think about 6:30 PM.

So it’s fully dark at this point.

One of my good friends sends a photo of a fire that she could see from her son’s bedroom.

And it was, it was huge.

And I look up the, I’m like, that’s really close to my house, because this friend’s really close to me.

And I looked it up and I’m like, that is a fire like 1.1 and a half miles from my house.

And, you know, me and my few friends were all texting on this group chain and like, should I be packing in there?

And another friend’s like, I’m packing now.

Like you need to start.

And I felt like it was like I should, like I was just sort of panicking and like had adrenaline going because my parents had to evacuate.

But I started secretly packing so as not to alarm the kids.

I was dazed, only taking it like half seriously.

Like, this isn’t really happening, is it?

And then Nathan went outside to our front yard and he could see the fire in the distance.

And he came back inside, found me and said, we need to leave.

So I went from secretly packing to just really packing.

And I, our suitcases are kept.

And we have a basement, it’s called a California basement.

So it’s downstairs and it’s only accessible by an outside staircase.

And it’s dark and the wind, it is howling like Wizard of Oz, like a tornado is coming.

It was and I thought, like, should I go downstairs and get the suitcase?

And I didn’t feel safe doing it.

I was like, so I was just just grabbing plastic bags from the grocery store and stuffing two days of clothes for me, two days of clothes for each of the kids.

The kids went and packed a bag with like their iPads and then they each grabbed so many stuffed animals.

That’s that was their go to.

They’re like, are stuffed animals?

And, you know, I grabbed some prescription medicines and we packed all a bunch of pillows and stuff into both cars because we didn’t know if we were going to get a hotel room at that point because you already had the Palisades evacuating.

And that is a lot of people.

I should have looked up numbers before, but a lot of people had evacuated the Palisades like, okay, we’re just going to do this in real time.

Go into the, my old friend Google.

Oh, God, this is going to be dark.

Is it going to say what the population of the Palisades was?

Population of Pacific Palisades, because right now the population is like zero.

Okay, 23,159 in 2021.

That’s a lot of people who had, like, you know, were filling up hotel rooms.

So I didn’t know if we were going to find a hotel room.

So we were leaving with some pillows, and I think the kids grabbed, oh, they grabbed, like, their quilts that their great-grandma made them.

And I grabbed a few art pieces that the kids made.

There was not, I keep a lot of their art was in our garage, in like a bin, but our garage is not attached to the house.

And the wind was that bad, and it was hot.

Like, the heat from the wildfire was coming down to us, and stuff was flying through the air.

And I was taking stuff out to the car, and just doing that felt dangerous.

There was so much, like, chaff and grit, and, like, twigs and leaves and stuff, and it was getting in my eyes.

And my eyes hurt after this for days.

It felt like there was, like, stuff stuck under the eyelids.

So, Nathan has this idea that we should go to his office and hunker down there for a few hours.

And I’m like, we’re just, we’re going to a hotel.

We’re not spending the night here.

There is a wildfire.

And you can see the news about the Palisades, and you see, like, the progress the fire is making.

It’s like, that fire is moving fast.

This fire is going to move fast.

I’m not, I can’t sleep here, because we might never have to evacuate.

We never did.

We were under advisement.

But we were two blocks from a mandatory evacuation zone.

And we’re like, we don’t know which way this is going.

We will not be able to sleep.

We will sleep in fitful 20-minute bursts.

So, I was like, let’s just go to a hotel.

And I call my dad, and he was able to go to the…

And I told him, I’m like, funny thing, there’s now a fire, and we’re getting ready to leave.

And he’s like, oh my God.

And I’m like, I can’t call…

Like, the hotel’s not picking up because they’re so overwhelmed.

So, he was able to go downstairs, go to the lobby, and book two rooms for us.

So, we get the kids into our cars, and Julian’s driving with me, and Pippa’s driving with Nathan.

And it was like the most surreal, like, hour, one of the most surreal hours of my life.

Like, just something out of a movie, like a natural disaster movie.

It is windy.

That wind is hot.

And the air has, it’s night, but the air has this eerie, orangey glow from, like, the wildfire.

Cars are, so we get out from, like, our little neighborhood and to, like, a main street that I’m gonna take.

And it’s after eight at night.

And at that, and I’ve been out at that time of night.

And the streets, Pasadena, it is not Manhattan.

The streets are very quiet at that time of night.

And there is a steady stream of cars driving south, away from the fires, away from the mountains.

I mean, it is just like, you could see the evacuation happening.

So many cars fleeing the fire.

And, you know, we just, we didn’t know how it would progress.

And I mean, I looked at my home, pulling out of the driveway, was like, I don’t know if I brought the right things.

I don’t know what I forgot.

And I don’t know if this is going to be here in the morning.

And we, you know, so we, I’m driving with Julian.

There’s no music on.

He’s like, can we play music?

I’m like, absolutely not.

I have to focus because there’s stuff flying around in the air.

The car keeps getting hit with twigs and pebbles.

Trees are down, branches just everywhere.

And it felt almost more dangerous to be out driving in the wind in the car than hunkered down at home.

And we get to the hotel, but, or we get to, like, we know we’re within distance of the hotel, but there’s a huge backup of traffic.

And Nathan figures out, he’s a little ahead of me, that a tree must have fallen and was completely blocking the street.

So I’m able to do a U-turn, and I go on to, like, a darkened side street, and I’m about to, like, I’m making a left turn to, like, continue driving towards the hotel, and my headlights immediately show, and all the lights are down, like, so there’s no street lights, and I suddenly illuminate a huge tree that has fallen and is completely blocking the street, and I was about, like, 10 feet away from crashing into it.

So, you know, a quick braking job, backing up, and then weaving my way down other side streets, just like that I don’t know, but that I’m like, I know the hotel’s in this direction.

So we managed to get around whatever tree had fallen and blocked the street, and there’s now a huge traffic jam to get into the hotel.

This is just a random Tuesday night in January, and the hotel was not expecting an exodus of people fleeing two major wildfires.

And the only parking they have at that hotel is valet.

And they only had, you know, however many people…

They probably thought, like, they have four people working valet, and they’re like, well, we don’t need four people, but, you know, we might as well.

And they could not…

They were not flexible enough to, like, pivot and let people park their own cars, and everyone’s just doing their best.

And my dad keeps calling.

He’s like, where are you?

And I’m like, I’m here.

I can see the hotel.

But they’re moving us like, you know, it was like three blocks that took, like, over 45 minutes to travel.

And Nathan, you know, keeps calling and being like, maybe we should just go to my office and wait it out.

I’m like, no, no, we’re checked in.

My dad’s got our room keys.

We’re…

This is going to be chaos till midnight.

We just need to get the kids to the rooms.

Nathan gets in first with Pippa, and then he gives his Carta Vallee, and he walks back and he gets Julian out.

And when I eventually get my Carta Vallee, I go into that lobby and again, like a scene out of a movie, just madness.

It’s this huge, long line of people who just look, you know, scared and tired and they’re like…

And a lot of them had clearly packed like us, like plastic bags, like not their formal suitcases.

Fortunately, we got to bypass that madness, and my dad already had our keys.

So we go up to our rooms and all of us, my parents, my sister, their dogs, and then our Novak family had rooms on the same floor.

So at first, it felt like, kind of like a light-hearted adventure.

We have the kids up past their bedtimes.

They’re obviously not going to school the next day.

I think school by this point was canceled.

All right, we’re going to do a loud sip of soda now.

And we did like a little video that we sent to my brother and nieces and sister-in-law up in Northern California, because it’s like, hey, we’re out in a hotel together.

And then we get the kids settled into bed.

Nathan’s sharing a room in a bed with Julian, and I have a room in a bed with Pippa.

And I’m letting her read in bed, because I know her mind’s going to be busy like mine.

And but we’re quieting down.

So I start catching up on texts, going on social media and checking the news.

And at some point before I go to bed, my sister sees her building on the news burning.

And we hear about the progression of both fires and where it is.

And we realize that it’s just blocks from my parents’ house.

Nathan is assuring me it’s probably going to be fine.

Fires are weird.

They skip houses.

And privately, like he tells me like after this, he’s like, oh, I knew we’re fucked.

Like he just knew like when it hit the there was there’s a high school Pali High.

He’s like, he said once the news said Pali High is on fire, he just was like, it’s all going.

He just knew.

But he was like, he’s being like the supportive husband.

He’s like, my wife needs to like be able to sleep.

And I’m also getting reports about the Eaton Fire, which is the one that’s like by Pasadena.

It’s named after a canyon, which has like this beautiful hike we used to go on with a waterfall.

And, you know, and that’s gone.

So the Eaton Fire is going in multiple directions.

And we hear it’s approaching Julian’s elementary school.

So I’m exhausted, and I go to bed, 99% confident that my sister’s condo has burned to the ground.

And I had already been thinking this because when she, she was at work in downtown Los Angeles when this starts happening.

So she has to like race home, grab a few things that she’s able to grab.

And as she’s leaving her condo for the last time, she takes a picture and she sends it to me.

And I was like, that’s like, the fire’s two blocks away.

Like I had no, I was like, how did it get, and her condo’s like, just blocks from my parents.

I was like, how did it get that far that fast?

But for a while, it was like, well, maybe the way the winds are blowing, maybe the fire was gonna move in one direction that where it would get my sister’s condo, but not necessarily my parents.

But by the time I was going to bed, I felt like my sister’s condo is already burning, and my parents’ house is probably going to burn unless there’s a miracle.

And I’d also went to sleep having heard that the houses across the street from Julian’s school were on fire, and that grass at the elementary school was catching.

I’m getting more emotional about this than I thought I would.

So also, that a park near our house had grass on fire.

So somehow, I fell asleep, and I actually slept relatively well, all things considered.

Not my best night of sleep, but it was enough.

And you know, as a side note, throughout January and this month, I have been sleeping actually very well.

There was a lot of just crashing at the end of the day, utterly depleted and exhausted, but thankfully, I was able to sleep.

So I wake up that morning, and the news was just of like utter devastation that the Palisades was gone.

And I just felt this void inside of me, like a black hole in my mind and like, or in soul, and like a whole place that was so important to me throughout my life is just gone.

And the news from the Eaton Fire was not good either.

You start hearing about people, I start hearing about people I know who lost their homes.

And then I’m hearing that like 30 or 40 houses by Julian’s school had burned.

But our neighborhood, we hear is fine.

And then we found out that the one really good piece of news was that the firefighters, Julian’s elementary school is a very sprawling campus with a lot of a couple of really big field areas.

And that’s where the firefighters were able to take a stand and stop the Eaton Fire’s progression into Pasadena.

And they saved the school.

He’s there right now as I’m recording this.

So I got out of bed and I went to look outside our hotel window, and the sky was just this eerie color.

Everything hazy and, you know, orangey and just smoke filled air.

But the sky was never black.

The sky was black.

There were these fires in 2020, and the sky was black for several days.

That was like, it felt like end of time stuff then.

But with these fires, there was so much wind that most of the smoke had already been blown away.

There was this lingering smell of smoke, and there’s smoke being produced because it took them like ages to get the wildfires under control.

But the skies were never black.

The day was surreal.

We were going from hotel room to hotel room.

I was taking my parents’ and sisters’ dogs on walks, just around the hotel grounds.

I once took the dogs outside of the hotel to like, walk around the neighborhood.

And, I mean, the sidewalks are just covered in branches and twigs and leaves, and the dogs were so, you know, these are just two happy dogs who just love to walk, and they were so scared, and they were like walking as close to me as they could.

I was like, it’s all right, babies, let’s go back to the hotel.

And Nathan went to the office for just a few hours, and I remember realizing late morning, the kids were trying to watch, maybe it was even the afternoon.

The kids had been watching TV, like the hotel, which has like limited TV.

And I’m like, oh, hey, do you guys want to watch YouTube on your iPads?

And they’re like, yes, please.

And that began three weeks of unlimited YouTube, because you know what?

When your life is upended by a natural disaster, it’s like COVID, you just got to survive.

There was a lot of crying that day.

I cried the first time I woke up, and I saw how the Palisades was just destroyed.

And I got myself to the bathroom, and I just fell apart in there, because I didn’t want Pippa to see just at first how like upset I was.

They’ve seen, but you know, that first time I wanted to cry alone.

It was so just weird and awful having to tell my kids about the destruction and that my parents, their grandparents’ house was probably gone.

And I have made it a policy of not watching too much news around my kids.

They’re young.

They’re gonna get bad news most of their lives.

They don’t need, I don’t like to be immersed in the news.

Like I’ll check it a little bit in the morning and a little bit at night, but I’m not one of those people who like is checking the news constantly all day, because it just, it wears me down and it makes me anxious.

And there’s so much negativity on the news that, you know, if it bleeds, it bleeds.

And so I just, I do not watch a lot of news.

And, but I felt the need to watch the news.

And the kids were there and they felt like they needed to watch.

And there was a lot of watching the fires and seeing more fires starting throughout LA County and how the Palisades fire just seemed like wrath of God.

Like it was never going to stop.

We got videos from my parents’ block.

And people were going into the Palisades like that first day.

And we were able to see that like every house on their block had burned.

But the person who was taking the video, it ended right before they got to my parents’ house.

They had the last house on the block.

And my mom really wanted to see, we were trying to make decisions about, can we find you Airbnb or a house rental?

And my mom’s like, I don’t want to commit to something until I actually know my house is gone.

She was having a lot of trouble processing what had happened, understandably.

And she really needed that actual proof that the house was gone.

And exasperating all this was one of her next door neighbors was in like really severe denial.

And she’s like, no, no, no, I saw in that video that the hedge between our houses didn’t burn.

And if the hedge didn’t burn, the houses must not have burned.

And my mom had like really false hope about like, we’re going to be the lucky house.

We’re going to be the ones that were spared.

But then someone who was there that we, that they knew got an actual video.

And I mean, it is gone.

Just the bricks were left.

Like you see a brick chimney and a brick patio, a couple of garden things that had been made out of stone, managed to survive.

But it is completely 100% gone.

And my sister’s car, there it is.

Like you could see, like this was the garage, and there’s the car, and it is like melted.

I mean, that bad boy was beyond repair.

Never thought the fire would reach that far.

And it was a hasty evacuation, with the winds whipping it up so fast, like the mandatory evacuation order, there wasn’t a lot of time.

So, you know, my parents, they only took the one car, and that had three adults and two dogs in it.

So they didn’t take a lot.

They didn’t, you know, my childhood photos are gone.

This little red chair that my great-grandfather made when my mom was a baby, and that my mom used, like there’s a picture of my mom sitting on it on her first birthday, wearing this blue dress, and she had the chair and the dress, and she took photos of me and my sister on our first birthdays, and then of Pippa and my two nieces, and the chair and the dress are gone.

This gargoyle teapot I made in high school is gone.

It’s all gone.

For me, the photos are sad, but what are you going to do?

We decided to stay a second night in the hotel because we had the room booked, and it felt like it was getting okay to go home, but also we were still suggested evacuation in two blocks from the mandatory evacuation, and it just felt better to stay at the hotel.

And then I knew that I was there to just be an emotional support for my parents and sister.

My sister had learned, gotten confirmation earlier that her whole building basically burned and then pancaked.

I don’t know if it was four stories high, just completely obliterated.

So, I was walking the dogs around the hotel for that next night.

And one thing that was very touching was how Pippa and Julian made friends with other children who were evacuees.

And the kids were just running around.

There’s this huge lawn, and there’s this little like pretend miniature golf course like Putt-Putt.

But instead of playing with it, the kids took flags and they had like some massive game invented, and they were just outside having fun.

So it was very heartwarming to see that children could be children.

And the next day, we went home.

It didn’t feel like we were out of the woods, though.

It was still like windy and dry without rain, and the fires were still raging.

So I went to the basement, and I got a proper suitcase and packed it with clothes for me and the kids, and Nathan had a bag packed.

And then I got a bunch of the kids’ art, so much.

And I put all that in the trunk of my car.

And so I was ready to go for a long time.

Like, I think I kept the suitcase for the next week on our coffee table near the front door.

Then I went to the basement and I hunted around through, like, old folders and bins, and I found old photos that my mom had given me, and I put those in my car because we’d lost so much already.

I was like, I want to keep safe what we have.

The next three weeks were a blur.

January felt like it was a decade long, and I would say that to the kids.

They would say, this is the longest January ever, and I’m like, yeah, this is the longest decade of my life, and they loved that.

Yes, it’s the longest decade of our life.

They didn’t have school for three weeks.

We did eventually, I let them go to a day camp that was set up where they went to camp last summer.

It was indoors all day, but it just gave them something to get out of the house and play, and they were somewhere with a ping pong table and other games and lots of kids.

So just at the beginning of it, I thought, oh, I’ll take them on some outings and field trips.

And we did one trip to the aquarium, which was great.

But there was so much to do and so many ways to help my parents get, there’s just a lot to navigate.

And then there were a lot of feelings and grief.

My brain just felt like mush.

I couldn’t, I was doing what I had to do, but I didn’t have any creative energy.

Like I couldn’t have recorded this podcast episode.

And the grief would kind of come and go in waves and you’d feel like, oh, I got through it.

And then they come back.

And that’s, and I was in like a crisis mode.

And I was able to see like, oh, like, I’m okay.

Like the essence of me, I’m okay.

But I could see that my brain and my nervous system were just completely zapped and fried.

And so as the kids went back to school, I just needed to, I had to slow down for a while and get some massages and a pedicure.

And there was a lot of candy crush played in January.

I spent hours a day just sitting, playing, you know, like swiping candies left and right.

And that was about all I could handle.

And it really helped me just like slow down and rest and get out of crisis mode.

And I got, I reconnected with my therapist pretty quickly and have been in and we, you know, have talked about like getting myself out of crisis mode and how to like, just slow down and take care of my body and nervous system.

And she taught me like some vagus nerve exercises where you start with like kind of like massaging your earlobes and then holding your face and also putting your hands in front of your face and breathing.

And these like activate the nerves that can help like your nervous system reset.

And then I would put my hands in my heart and breathe really slowly.

And then I put both my hands on my stomach and breathe really slowly.

And just doing that even once a day, it would help my body like it felt like it was like slowing down and because it was like on just such panic mode from there’s just so many layers of like having to evacuate and having my parents and sister lose their homes.

And there’s been so much grief.

I mean, so many people we know.

Julian’s best friend lost his house.

And so for a while, they were staying with family farther away.

So at first, his friend and him are FaceTiming, and his friend’s like, I don’t think I’m coming back to school.

And then like right before school was going back, he’s like, I am coming back.

So they found an apartment.

So for them, that was exciting.

But other kids, their parents have just decided for whatever reason, like they couldn’t find housing here or they…

Julian’s school, house is burned across the street from it.

I see burnt houses pretty much every day when I pick them up from school.

I drop them off somewhere that I take them to…

I’ve changed the way I drop them off at school, because the street that we used to…

He goes to school.

He starts school about a half hour after Pippa.

But so what I do is I leave the house with both kids, and we drop off Pippa, and then I drive to Julian’s school.

And we sit in the car every morning with whatever book we’re reading.

We’re reading Book 5 of Percy Jackson right now.

And we read for about 20 minutes together.

And it’s, you know, it’s like a special time now for us.

And we would park by this entrance to the school that, where you would have to drive down a block with half the houses burned down, and you would be parked right next to burnt down houses.

So we had to change that.

It’s like we cannot park and just look at the remains.

It’s like looking at like, like the death of a loved one, like all these houses that are just gone.

So we park on the other side of the school and do drop off there, because we don’t have to see the houses burned down.

But when I pick them up from school, he does this after school program.

He doesn’t stay long, but I have to do it because I can’t be in two places at once and I have another child to pick up first.

So but where I pick them up from that, we have to drive down the street and we always see one or two burnt houses.

So that is just part of our life.

Seeing the burnt houses, we go down a street to go home.

The golf course burnt, like a couple of some trees and hedges burnt.

You can see how it came so close to my neighborhood.

If the winds had shifted just a little, you know, we are so lucky.

And I would say during all this, like I wish that our house had burnt down and not my parents, because my parents, you know, they’re 70 and 71.

This is not what they’re, what they wanted to be doing in their 70s, like dealing with a burnt down house.

That’s a whole, that’s future episodes.

I’ll do updates, I think, every few months, and you know, you’ll hear bits and pieces as we go along.

So I’m doing a lot better now.

I took care of myself.

I slowed down.

I got myself out of crisis mode.

I’ve been decluttering.

This week, I have been slowly getting back into, I’ve been doing, I did read a few books for my Read Around the World project in January, and the past couple of weeks, I’ve been doing my Brazilian side quest, but I’ve started writing blog posts this week.

I do a blog post for each book I read.

And I’ve been able to do that this week.

I’m like easing back into like creative work, and I’ll probably try to consciously stay slow for as long as I need to, you know?

Get, like I don’t get massages regularly.

I think I need a massage every couple of weeks.

There’s fortunately, there’s a cheap Chinese place, not far, that I love.

And I think I have to do that little extra pampering and extra self care, you know, in addition to my regular self care, just to like help myself process all this.

It’s a lot to process.

I mean, just like at the beginning of this episode, remembering that my parents lived in Pacific Palisades past tense, that so much of the Pacific Palisades is currently a past tense, that this whole world that I knew and that I frequented, and I went to like pretty much every week with my kids and where my nieces and brother and sister-in-law came, and we have so many family memories, like so much of it is gone.

Not all of it.

There are little bits that survived, but so much of it is gone.

And so much of this, you know, parts of Pasadena burned from the Eaton fire, but it’s mainly the city of Altadena, and a lot of that is gone.

And I just keep meeting people who were affected, and it’s just, you know, there’s a lot of good people.

People were so nice, like when we were at that hotel for two nights, everyone there is very like, you know, just down to earth, and everyone’s just like nice, just as seems like too trivial word, like good, like human.

Not like, like, let me try to get into this elevator before you, but everyone’s talking, how are you?

People ask you how you are first before they want to tell, you know, everyone’s like commiserating about their, you know, everyone’s a bit shell shocked too.

And it’s still, it’s a big thing to process.

And I think there’s a, I can already tell that when I get further away from this episode, in the rear view mirror, this is going to be one of those experiences that helps me become a better version of myself.

It’s like, like when I lived through postpartum depression, it was hell.

It was a nightmare.

But in the rear view mirror, looking back at postpartum depression, I could say that made me a better person.

And I’m glad it happened in hindsight because it helped me have an overall happier life.

And I could already see how it is helping me in so many ways, which I’ll talk about in future episodes.

But right now, the focus has been on just getting out of that crisis mode.

And I’m glad though, that I actually had the bandwidth to make this episode and had the quiet of the neighborhood.

This neighborhood has been so noisy because first we have, you know, we evacuate and then we’re home.

But like, you know, my parents and sister are in and out, like, you know, because they’re dealing with losing their homes.

I’ll talk about what they’re doing in, like, future episodes.

And their dogs are here a lot.

So I had the kids home from school for three weeks.

So that’s just all, you know, all next level noise.

And then as soon as I get the kids back in school, I’m like, maybe I could record an episode.

And our neighbors next door to the north get a new roof installed, which took forever and was so noisy.

And then now my neighbor to the south is having her house painted.

And it has been noisy at times because they’re using like these spray guns.

But I said, I’m going to record an episode now.

And I sat down and, oh my gosh, they have been quiet this entire time.

So I’m not going to push my luck any further.

And I’m going to wrap this episode here.

And hopefully, I can record another episode in the next week or two.

And I will not have any more natural disasters to report on.

I at least, I feel pretty good.

I think Los Angeles did its natural disaster for the year.

Oh, our hamster died this past week, and Julian’s hamster.

So that’s been another trauma that we’ve been dealing with.

I should do an episode about helping children navigate the grief of a pet.

But he’s like, he keeps saying the past couple of days, like 2025 is not off to a good start.

I’m like, no, but you know, there’s a lot of ways it could get better.

So he’s fixated on the idea of Disneyland.

I’m like, yeah, I think we’ll have to have a Disneyland trip this year.

I think we’ve earned that.

The obvious pick for Dominica, a tiny island in the Caribbean, is Wide Sargasso Sea, a novel by Jean Rhys, but I already read that book in 2018. It wasn’t my jam then, and I wasn’t interested in rereading it now, so instead, I read Island Man: A Novel by Joanne Skerrett.

Island Man begins in 2017 as Hurricane Maria makes landfall on Dominica. Hector and his estranged father Winston have recently arrived to spread his mother’s ashes, and their histories unfold against the the backdrop of Hurricane Maria’s wrath. The story shifts between the perspectives of Hector and Winston while toggling back and forth between the present and the past. This narrative structure could have been an absolute disaster, but for me, it worked 110%. (As a writer, I’m completely jealous!)

This book really had it all: complicated characters; a setting that came to life; and a skillful examination of messy issues like racism, poverty, and the immigrant experience. I’m running waaaaaay behind on my reviews, so it has been several months since I read Island Man, but as I sit here in February 2025, I can still feel the way it expanded my heart’s architecture in October 2024.

However, I’d like to get one thing off my chest: I hate the book’s cover.

I know, I know: don’t judge a book by its cover. But there are only so many hours for reading over the course of a lifetime, and I try my best to choose books I’ll love. Covers definitely affect my reading choices, and this cover screamed “intense masculine energy!” and “Tony Soprano! Minus the psychiatrist!” In other words, even though it was my pick for Dominica, I assumed I’d hate it.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. I loved this book! Yet months later, I still feel a shudder of cognitive dissonance when I look at the cover because its energy does not match my experience with the story. Skerrett has also written several romance novels, so I think the publisher wanted the cover to tell the readers, This is different! Very different! but I very nearly missed out on an excellent book because I hated the cover.

Going forward, will I completely ignore a book cover’s when choosing my next read? HELL NO. Covers are a major cue about a book’s genre and vibe, and I’m not about to discount one of the most reliable factors for choosing a book. Instead, as an author myself, I will never underestimate the power a book’s cover has over potential readers. The old adage “don’t judge a book by its cover” has plenty of wisdom — just not when it comes to books.

For Djibouti, I read Why Do You Dance When You Walk? by Abdourahman A. Waberi, translated by David and Nicole Ball. This work is an autobiographical novel in which the narrator tells his 8-year-old daughter about his life growing up in Djibouti after she asks about his limp.

The book’s premise is that the author is telling his life story to his 8-year-old daughter, which might suggest the story is suitable for younger audiences. IT IS NOT. The story includes a lot of adult themes, including a traumatizing circumcision and prostitution. It’s beautifully written but most definitely not for children.

It’s been several months since I finished this book (yep, I am waaaaaay behind on my reviews!) but I still recall the way Waberi pulled me into the story with lush sensory details and prose that often broke into poetry. It’s only 120ish pages, but it covered so much: setting; family dynamics; sibling rivalries; illness; his love of writing and reading; food; education; immigration; and so much more, all of it masterfully transporting the reader to the streets of Djibouti City from the mid-1960s to the 1980s.

This is the sort of book that makes me so grateful I finally embarked on my Read Around the World quest (and if I say that a lot, it’s because my soul is being reconfigured in ways I never imagined possible, and my gratitude and wonder just keeps increasing).

For Eswatini, I read Weeding the Flowerbeds by Sarah Mkhonza, a memoir about her years at a Christian boarding school.

Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, was renamed in 2018.

I am going to keep this review short and sweet: the book did not have much of a story. It related a lot of routines and often complained about how life at boarding school was dull. Turns out that life at a boarding school in Eswatini is not any more interesting than life was at my Catholic high school.

If you are on a read around the world journey, and you are looking for an Eswatini book, maybe try something else. Unless you are really, really obsessed with routine accounts of daily life at Christian boarding schools.

For Estonia, I read The Man Who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirähk, translated by Christopher Moseley. This is my new favorite fantasy novel, and I do not say that lightly.

I LOVE fantasy. If I had to commit to reading a single genre for the rest of my life, I would miss sci-fi, mysteries, and thrillers, but fantasy would be my choice. In another life, in another dimension, I’m actually a hobbit on a quest to read a book by an author from all the kingdoms of Middle Earth. That Courtney is probably having a heck of a time finding a book translated from Goblin to English, and I would love to continue this analogy, but I think I’ve made my point. I. ADORE. FANTASY.

And The Man Who Spoke Snakish blew me away. When I was in the sixth grade, my dad introduced me to Tolkien at the beginning of Easter vacation and I proceeded to devour The Hobbit and entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in less than two weeks. While reading Snakish, I felt like I was reconnecting with the 12-year-old Courtney who was exhilarated by her first encounter with Gandalf. I had all the same feelings of joy and awe as I stepped through the metaphorical wardrobe into a new world of talking snakes and grandfathers with poisonous fangs.

The Man Who Spoke Snakish is narrated by Leemet, a boy who was taught Snakish by his uncle. In the not so distant past, most Estonians lived in the forest and spoke Snakish, which allowed them to command the animals. They milked wolves, had fangs like snakes, and worshipped the Frog of the North, and sometimes, women fell in love with bears, but now, people are abandoning the woods for villages, where they spend their days doing backbreaking labor to grow wheat so they can eat this disgusting stuff called “bread.” (And the storytelling was so convincing, I actually gave bread the side eye. Very briefly. But still.)

Leemet’s story feels ancient and old, like Camelot and King Arthur, but it also feels new and fresh and unlike anything I’ve ever read. It questions what it means to be wild versus civilized while ruminating on religion and faith and the horrendous things humans do in the name of both.

I could gush about this book all day because it excelled in so many different ways. The characters! The setting! The story! The themes! It was all so satisfying! I can’t wait to give this book to my kids when they are in high school. If I’m lucky, they’ll let me read it to them when we are stuck at home on a rainy weekend, cozy in our pajamas, while sipping tea and nibbling cookies.

At the beginning of the year, I started my 24 in ’24 project which I described in Episode 41 of Adventures With My Forties. Here is the list of the projects I hoped to tackled in 2024, and in this week’s episode, I discuss what I actually accomplished. Spoiler alert: I didn’t cross many items off my list because the magic of my Read Around the World quest and Brazil intervened (but I’m not complaining!)

The Transcript (this is my first time ever posting a transcript – yay, I finally figured it out! Though it also feels super awkward to read back the script of what I said. But I embracing the cringe, releasing perfectionism, and sharing the transcript) (perhaps I need to come up with a little art to introduce the transcript?)

Hello, listeners, it’s time for another episode of Adventures with My Forties.

I’m your host, Courtney Henning-Novak, and this is episode 53, 24 in 24, The Good, The Bad, The Brazilian Magic.

It is less than a week to Christmas, or is it a week to Christmas?

It’s December 19th.

Oh yeah, I think it’s a week to Christmas, and I’m losing all sense of time, because it feels like December 2nd, and yet it also feels like February 28th.

But I decided I needed to just ignore my to-do list for a little bit, and take some time to reflect on the year.

This is the weird thing about December, especially now that I have children, because December has the Christmas holidays, or Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, it’s just this massive holiday season, but then it’s also the end of the year, which is a nice time for reflection.

And I feel very torn in two directions, because as I’m taking off so much off my to-do list, and since we’re going to Nebraska on Saturday, I’ve had to get everything done sooner.

And I would have liked to have start sooner, but that’s just not mom life for me.

There’s always something going on.

So it’s not like I can start preparing for Christmas in July.

So I’m not gonna do that rant right now.

There’s so many rants I can do, let’s just save it for another day.

But I’m so busy getting stuff done.

But whenever I go on social media, it’s people doing like their, well, and that wraps up 24.

And they do like the 24 season, and that music starts playing, and it shows like all the photos of the year.

And I’m like, how are we doing year end reviews when there’s so much busyness and still so much of 24 left for me to do?

But I decided, okay, I have had plenty of holiday energy.

I can take an hour of my week to get some reflecting end of the year energy.

So here we are, embracing the weirdness of December.

Although I really do wish that December was like one week longer or Christmas was one week earlier so that we had the holidays and then we had just like two solid weeks of like quiet and reflection and de-cluttering.

I know we do spring cleaning, but there’s part of me that just wishes I could start like 2025 with a fresh slate.

So all right, what I like to do now is talk about my 24 and 24 project.

I did an episode about this back at the beginning of the year, or maybe it was the end of 23.

Anyway, it’s episode 41, and I introduced my 24 and 24.

This is a momentum tool that I have been using for several years now.

And I got the idea for this from Gretchen Rubin’s work.

She has this amazing podcast called Happier that I love, and she and her sister, every year, they come up with 21 and 21, 22 and 22, so forth, and they come up with a list.

It’s like a to-do list, but also a want to do list, and they never get everything done.

It’s just there to see what they actually do get done and what they, like, they don’t get done.

And it’s like a fun process, and like, I think of it as a momentum tool.

A momentum, very important to me.

I know that if I just sit around wallowing and rotting for too long, it’s just easier to keep wallowing and rotting, and building momentum is something I’m always aware of.

All right, so I’m going to go through my list of 24 and 24.

Spoiler alert, most of it did not happen, but I still love doing this.

So let’s see what I did.

Number one was no soda or caffeine for the entire year.

And this lasted, I kept track of it, and it lasted until June 3rd.

Then I had a caffeine-free diet soda at the movies, and I wrote in my notes that it wasn’t as good as I remembered.

But I got back on soda very quickly, and I’m drinking a Coke Zero right now, and it’s delicious.

And by the time we went to Rushmore in August, I was fully back on soda and caffeine.

And you know what?

It’s my heroine, but at least it’s not heroin.

So I tried, I think I am going to have…

I know, I have had an on-again, off-again relationship with soda and caffeine since I was a high school student, and since the first time I tried to quit my first year of college.

And it’s just something I have to be aware of, and I’m just glad it’s not something like cigarettes or alcohol.

This is totally manageable and socially acceptable.

So there we are.

Number two, take an introductory class at a rock climbing gym.

Nope, didn’t happen.

Oh, well.

Number three, read 100 books.

I have bypassed 100.

I think I’m at…

Oh my gosh, I haven’t checked on Goodreads.

Goodreads said yesterday I was on track to read 120 this year, which is just insane.

But it is because of…

Where am I at?

Yeah, I’ve read 116 books as of December 19th.

I think a thing that has really helped is with the Read Around the World Challenge.

A lot of the books I’ve read, the book that was available for the country was short.

I read a lot more novellas this year than I have in years past.

So, love my reading.

And with my Read Around the World journey, I just finished Estonia.

So I read 50 books so far from of the 116 books I’ve read this year.

So the other books I’ve read, I’ll have to do a breakdown and do it on like TikTok.

The other books I read that would have been mostly audio books, though there were several books for my Brazilian side quests that would have been like the actual physical book.

And there were a few fun physical books thrown in.

I mean, the Read Around the World was the main fun though.

Okay, number four, attend 100 hot yoga classes.

As of recording, I’ve made it to 84.

It was 70 in 2023, so I made it to more classes this year.

It’s just mom life.

Like I would have been at 85 already, but I had two sick kids home on Monday from school, so my Monday class didn’t happen.

There’s just, you know, I think I’m just gonna keep having the 100 yoga classes be my goal, and one of these years, I will hit it, because every year of motherhood does get a little easier.

All right, number five, right?

The rough draft of my third novel, and I did.

It’s a book for my kids.

I assumed I’d be writing a book in my Motherhood Circus series, book three, but instead I decided to write a book for my kids.

It’s about pirates and vikings and magic, and I got that rough draft done.

Revising it has been a slower process than I would have anticipated because of the Read Around the World project has taken off, but that’s okay.

That’s the magic of life and my muse, and I have to let these adventures unspool as they will.

Number six was paint a room in our house or the front door or the back wall in our garden area, and I did the back wall.

It was this bare concrete wall covered in some stains, and I had to get a lot of landscaping that was dying, pulled out, and I painted the back wall dark gray, and it looks great, and I love it, and I think I’m never doing that again.

Until my kids are grown, I have come to terms with the fact that being a mom takes up so much of my time, that there’s just only so many hours to be creative.

And if being a do-it-yourself goddess was my main outlet for creativity, great, I’d be painting rooms.

But I’m a writer, I’m a podcaster, I’m a content creator, and right now, my do-it-yourself project is raising two humans.

So the next time something in the house requires painting, I’m going to pay someone to do it.

And I do enjoy painting, so when the kids are older, maybe they’ll help me do some painting projects.

Every year, motherhood just changes and levels up, but I am not setting any painting goals for 2025, except maybe painting furniture, because that’s such a smaller project with such less prep.

All right, number seven, try 24 new recipes.

My goal was to try 23 and 23 new recipes.

That didn’t happen, so I gave it another go, and I stopped keeping track at 10 new recipes, and that was before the mid-year mark.

And I don’t think I’ve tried many new recipes since then, but, you know, it is what it is.

Number eight was record an audiobook.

I looked into this and determined that it was too daunting a task for me to undertake solo.

So this is something I’m going to wait on until I’m working with a traditional publisher later in my career.

Or maybe I’ll record, but not thinking that it’ll be uploaded to sources like Audible, but will just be released like on a podcast or as on YouTube, something where a little like slightly lower quality is allowed.

Because when I found myself researching how to build a home recording studio, then it’s like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I do not have time for that.

All right, so number nine was get 52 mega nature doses.

So for me, taking a neighborhood walk would not count.

Things that counted towards mega nature doses would be hikes, or beach stays, or walks at botanical gardens.

We have three major ones in the Pasadena area.

Anything that got me out of city mood and into the healing presence of mother nature, I made it to 35.

And I think I maybe missed recording a couple.

And the 35 that I did record included three full days in South Dakota, which were practically like day long doses of nature because we were just out there in the woods and the badlands and just out there in incredible like expansive beauty.

So didn’t make it to 52, but I got a lot of nature doses, which is so healing and great.

So love that one.

Number ten was make a five year plan.

I didn’t do this.

And now after everything that has happened this year, I’m like, why would I make a five year plan?

Because my 2024 started, and I had no idea my Read Around the World project was going to gain so many followers that I was going to have a Brazilian side quest, that I’d be learning Portuguese, that I’d get to go to Brazil to speak at a literary festival.

So to me, the idea of making a five year plan, it’s like, I guess I would just do that to amuse my muse.

Who would just be laughing at me, like, look at the silly human thinking she can plan five years of life.

So didn’t do that.

I’m just sort of laughing at myself.

The naivety I had at the beginning of the year thinking like, I can plan out five years.

Nope.

Number 11 was complete 24 craft projects, which was another do over from 2023.

I had fun trying, and I stopped.

I hit 10 projects as of April, and then the magic of the reading around the world quest really took off with like Brazil, and I just stopped even thinking about this one.

I know I’ve completed other craft projects beyond the 10, and I craft almost daily.

I do a lot of cross stitch or crochet that takes a long time.

So for me, trying to hit a high number, it doesn’t really make sense for me.

I’ve realized I have incorporated crafting into my daily life.

It’s part of my self-care routine, and it’s like an extension of myself.

Like, I’m going to Julian’s holiday concert this afternoon, and hell yes, I will be bringing a cross stitch project, and sitting somewhere in the back cafeteria area where it’s lit, and doing stitching, while the classes that aren’t his are singing.

And when seats have cleared, and it’s almost time for third grade, then I will put my craft away and go up, because that is my self care.

All right, number 12 was help the kids prepare a family meal once a month.

They really were into this.

They each wanted to turn up making a family meal.

They each wanted to pick a recipe, and then prepare it for dinner or breakfast.

And we did this until March, and I realized it was going to give me a nervous breakdown.

It was, the point of the project was fun, and it turned into stress.

First off, my kids are already busy kids.

Sorry, I need a Coke Zero sip to clear my throat.

Much better.

So, they’re already busy humans, and I’m a busy human.

And they were, they took it so seriously.

They always wanted to do so much research, and they would not do it solo.

I’d be like, here is your, we have multiple children’s cookbooks.

I’d be like, look for the cookbook.

I want to do it with you.

I don’t want it from the children.

It just became so much.

And then they would always want it to be a recipe that I hadn’t done yet.

And so we’d get into it, and then I’d be like, holy shit, I have no idea how long this project takes.

And now I’m adding in the element of teaching a small human.

So I’m like, kids, you can help me in the kitchen.

When you come in to help, I can give you tasks, and this is how you learn.

And it is, I’m so glad I abandoned that project.

It was, the project 24 in 24 was to have fun and play and momentum, not stress.

So ditch that.

Number 13 was plan a family trip to the Grand Canyon.

I did a little research, and then we ended up deciding, let’s go to Rushmore, which has been on my bucket list forever.

And we planned a trip to Rushmore.

We had to cancel a trip to Rushmore, because Julian hurt his ankle so badly on a trampoline the day before our trip.

And we ended up rescheduling a trip to Rushmore and going in August, and it was absolutely amazing.

And I don’t see a Grand Canyon trip happening in 2025, because we’ve already scheduled a trip to Bend, Oregon, with my extended family that my mom really wanted to do.

So I’m like, the…

But what happened was, we traveled.

And we traveled as a family of four to someplace entirely new.

I mean, Naven had been there, but as a kid.

And we got to do something.

It was my first time traveling for fun, I think, since having kids.

I had traveled and had fun while traveling, but it had always been with or for family.

Like, to Nebraska to see Naven’s family, or to New York to see my family, or to Vegas for an extended family thing.

And…

Or, you know, I go to somewhere for a funeral, or somewhere for a…

You know, like, this was just…

It was so…

I so needed it.

I was really, like, heartbroken when we had to cancel it originally.

And June, I’m so glad we made it happen for August.

Which was…

I was like, okay, 2025, and Nathan’s like, we’re doing this.

And I’m like, yes!

This is why I fell in love with you.

All right.

So, didn’t really do 13, but I think I could say I did 13, because it’s like the spirit of it happened.

Number 14 was get 24 minutes of fresh air every day.

And I think I missed about 10 days of this, and I fully intend to miss another 7 or so when we go to Nebraska for Christmas.

Although, we’re supposed to get highs in the low 40s, which is not terrible, so maybe I will get some fresh air.

But fresh air is so freaking good for me.

I see some people set a goal of 1,000 hours a year, which is like, what is that, like about three hours a day.

And I’m trying to wrap my mind around that.

I do, I love when we get days outside, like when the kids are playing soccer and we just spend half a day outside getting fresh air, or when we take beach days.

And I spend so much time inside, and I have to do the podcasting inside, but it’s like, I could find a way to set up our table that’s outside by our pool, make it a little nicer setup, and turn it into like an outdoor workspace for me.

So that’s something I need to think about for 2025.

But did get a ton of fresh air.

All right, number 15 was tap dance 20 times.

I’ve got this idea of myself tap dancing, but I don’t have the idea of me learning to tap dance.

I just have the idea of me suddenly waking up one day as Freda Stair quality, being able to tap dance.

So I didn’t even try this year.

I gotta take this off the list.

And I think once I take it off the list, I’ll actually start learning, but who knows.

I had number 16 was walk an average of 10,000 steps a day.

And I have to accept the fact that I do a lot of hot yoga, and on those days, it is hard for me to get 10,000 steps because I spend a long time inside.

We don’t get steps during hot yoga, but we get a really comprehensive workout, cardio, strength, flexibility.

So for me, trying to hit the 10,000 steps a day, it’s just stupid to worry about.

I still wear a Fitbit, or it’s not a Fitbit, it’s like a pedometer.

So it’s nice to see.

I think there’s something I need to work on is standing more.

Like I’m standing right now while I’m recording this, and this is actually nice and lovely.

So moving around a little more.

Number 17 was record 25 podcast episodes.

This will be the 13th of the year.

But I’m getting back to being consistent.

I got so into recording TikToks, and then turned it into doing TikToks and Instagram.

That I just didn’t have, because that was all new to me, learning how to do that.

I didn’t have the energy for doing the podcasting too.

But I’m glad I kept this on the list, because it got me, I was like, okay, let me see if I can do podcasting, and I’m so glad I’m doing this again.

I love doing this.

So there’s more podcast episodes in my future.

Number 18 was, created TikTok 100 weekdays in a row.

I’m not certain I hit that streak, but I did fulfill the spirit of this one, and I found my stride.

I discovered, I found my voice talking about books, and reading, and my Brazilian side quest.

So I think that one was a huge success, and I did not know what was going to come of it.

And I started the year with about 300 followers on TikTok, and now it’s a little over 60,000.

And then TikTok has now gone from such like a robust platform to me to kind of stagnating, and I don’t get as many views.

But Instagram, I have even more followers on now, and the views there, and the conversations are so interesting, and it feels so vital, so it’s just been such a fun, interesting, soul-expanding experience.

Number 19 was Visit the Gamble House.

It’s this like architectural landmark, I guess, in Pasadena, and it didn’t happen, and I didn’t force it because I realized Julian’s class is doing a field trip to see it in the next half of the school year, so hello 2025.

Number 20 was Take a Monthly Family Portrait.

And I just need to get one for December.

We did it, we got it every month.

I’m so glad I had this on my list, and we have, we just have so many more family pictures.

I was making our calendar, I make a calendar every year, and I was making it for 2025, and it was so fun to be able to grab a few family pictures to add in there, because usually it’s like 100% the kids, and it’s nice to show the kids like, hello, your father and I were there, and we were involved.

And by doing it monthly, they weren’t always serious.

It’s not like we always stood together, and then with a pretty backdrop, like one of the months it was like, I think it was February, it was like, holy shit, it’s February 28th, and we never took a picture, and we went on the front porch, and we took a selfie, and it’s the four of us.

And for me, in November, it would have been a theme park ride picture at Disneyland of all of us on one of those ride cams, and I’m like, that counts, that’s a portrait.

Okay, number 21, learn how to make balloon animals.

I forgot about that.

It did not happen.

I don’t know, I’ve always had this weird idea of making balloon animals, and my character in my Motherhood Circus book series, Elodie, she grew up in the circus, and she loves making creatures out of balloons, and it’s like her artistic expression.

So it feels like something I should at least know how to make like the balloon dog, but it hasn’t happened.

All right, number 22 was Visit the Broad.

It’s this new contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, or newish, but I mean, I think it opened a decade ago.

But my sister and I have talked about doing it in 2025, because it’s right by her office, and she could take a longer lunch break, and we could go together.

So that’s gonna happen.

It’s gonna happen, I can feel it.

Number 23 was track time spent sitting versus time spent sad standing for a month.

And I don’t think it’s happened.

I think I totally forgot to do it, and I really like the spirit of it.

But it is also kind of annoying to keep having to set a timer and keep track.

So I think it’s one of those things that’s just too, like, good in theory.

But like maybe instead of tracking the time all day, what I need to do is be like, I’m setting a goal to spend at least four hours not sitting for a week.

And then maybe be like, okay, now let me see if I can up it.

And it might be easier to keep track of the time, just making sure I hit those marks.

Am I making any sense, or am I just rambling now?

Okay, last but not least, I had joy tracking.

And this idea was I keep track of things that boost my wellness and happiness, but are not part of this project.

Like board games playing, movies watched, new places visited.

And this was another one that became too annoying and too much.

So I do like tracking things, and I do have a bullet journal, and I’m tracking all week, and I have like little self-care lists, just to like make sure I’m getting my self-care done.

Like, did I remember to get fresh air?

Did I remember to do a little crafting?

So that’s something I do for myself, but this big joy tracking was way too ambitious.

So looking back over this list, I technically only completed four out of 24, which I think is my lowest that I’ve ever done.

And then I’d say another four or five, that like the spirit of it, like we didn’t plan a trip to Grand Canyon, but we went to Rushmore.

So the spirit of that was fulfilled.

But I had so much, I still appreciate this tool, and I went into 2024 with all this momentum, and my momentum carried me in directions I could never have expected.

And so that’s like, you know, we have the successes, then we have like these quote unquote, like the bad, the failures.

But to me, they aren’t so bad because I had all that momentum, and it just gave space for the magic of my read around the world quest, and the magic of Brazil.

Like just making all of those TikToks in a row, built up momentum, and it helped me discover my voice.

And if I hadn’t forced myself to do 100 times in a row, I would never have been talking about the books, and I wouldn’t have discovered, this is something that really fills my soul, and that people act, it actually resonates with people.

But even if it doesn’t resonate with people, it’s just something that I want to keep doing.

Yeah, so it’s, like I laugh at that five-year plan, because it really, I had to give space in my life for magic and adventure and the unexpected, and the unexpected came in.

I mean, maybe I will sit down before the end of the year and come up with a five-year plan, just to show, like I’m showing up, I’m showing up for my life.

And that’s like, and that just keeps my energy surging forward, and even, and be like, let me try to plan the next five years of my life, and then know that there’s no way that it’s gonna happen this way, because there’s just magic out there.

And, you know, and maybe it’s not magic, like, you know, Harry Potter or Gandalf, but it’s just the serendipity of life.

The, I just can’t get over how, at the beginning of 2024, I had 300 followers, and Brazil was not even on the radar of my life.

And now I’m learning Portuguese, and I’m watching this show, Avenida Brazil, and I’m obsessed with it, and it brings me so much joy, and I can’t wait to read more books by Brazilian authors, and just authors around the world.

I just, I had no idea what Brazil, or my read around the world quest, how much it was going to energize me, and just give me this exhilaration, and I can go around, so much of my life is mundane.

I mean, what else do I have to do today?

I’m making some returns at Old Navy.

I’m picking up a prescription at a pharmacy, and yet I have, like, I have my phone with me.

And when I’m waiting to pick up the prescription online, I’ll probably go on Instagram, and go through comments, and I’ll be engaging with people who live on the other hemisphere.

It’s my winter, and it’s their summer, and it’s just so cool to think about, and plus, some of the Brazilians are just so awesome and friendly, and they have so much to teach the world.

So I have been so blessed and lucky this year.

Did I come anywhere close to finishing my 24 and 24?

Absolutely not, but was this year absolutely overall wonderful for me as a human?

Yes, it was.

So will I be doing 25 and 25?

I strongly think so.

I was trying to convince myself, don’t do it, you’ve got to read around the world quest, you’ve got to finish revising your novel.

Plus, I’m thinking about, as part of my read around the world quest, of launching a podcast.

I really, really want to launch the read around the world podcast.

And I’m learning Portuguese.

So it’s like, you’ve got all these big projects, and you’ve got this momentum going, but I just love this tool, and it has served me so well for so many years that it’s like, I’ve got to keep it going.

What it really helps is when I’ve lost my momentum, when shit happens.

Like, two years ago, I had this tool.

I’d made my, oh my gosh, what year did my grandma and uncle die?

Was it 22 or 23?

The years blur together.

I think it was 2022.

But I had the list, and so I grieved and I mourned, and part of grief for me is, I lose my momentum because it’s all about the grief.

It’s like a physical effort.

And then when I was ready to reemerge in the world, I did check this list, and it really reminded me like, oh, I want to do that.

Let me just do this little thing.

And I’ve had years past where I had things that are quote unquote dumb on this list, like buy a nice trash can for the kitchen.

I think that took two years on the list, but we now have a nice trash can, and I love that trash can so much.

And I’m so glad it was on the list.

So when I come up with my 2025 and 25, I know in the Happier Podcast, Gretchen and her sister, they always reveal it before the end of the year, but I’m going to reveal it at the beginning of the year, because, or maybe if I do it at the end of the year, it’ll be like December 30th.

Because I don’t want to unduly influence anyone else’s lists or resolutions, or their resolution to not have lists, because we all have to do what’s best for us, and we all tick differently.

And just because I love this tool, doesn’t mean you’re going to love this tool.

Like on the Happier Podcast, I think they also always pick a word of the year.

And I’ve seen that done elsewhere.

And that has never jived with me.

It’s too much pressure.

I’m like, I can’t pick a word for the year.

No, no, no.

So I don’t do the word of the year.

I think things that might be on my 25 and 25 list will be read 100 books again.

Even though I’m on track for 120, I’m not gonna push that higher, because I think any higher, and it’s just too hard.

Sometimes you need to meet your goals earlier in the year.

It just needs to be realistic.

I’m gonna aim again for 100 hot yoga classes.

It might take me five years before my life is in a way where I am able to go as often as I want, but still it’s a goal.

I have a backlog of digital family photos that I wanna make as albums on Shutterfly.

So my goal is make one photo album.

In the past, I’m like, okay, catch up on the photos, and that’s just too daunting.

I think if I make one, that might persuade me to make another, but just one would be enough.

So that’s the one.

Launch my Read Around the World podcast.

That’ll be one of the big things on the list, like the Read 100 Books, the 100 Hot Yoga, the Read Around the World podcast.

But then I’m gonna have some easy things.

Instead of, in the past, would be hike 22 times in 2022, I just wanna do try one new to me hike.

And then I’m gonna have a couple of places I’ve been meaning to visit, like the Broad Museum, and visit those.

I’m gonna identify, instead of saying like 25 new to me recipes, I think there’s just a couple of recipes I’ve been really wanting to do, and they’re just gonna each be their own thing.

Like, I’ve always wanted to make Cook Oven, and I never do it, so I’m just gonna put it on the list, and hopefully get to it.

And I’ve always wanted to make a baked Alaska, that fancy dessert.

So I think I’m gonna do that.

I think for travel-wise, I wanna put Go See the Pandas on the list, the San Diego Zoo, which is like three hours from us.

They got pandas back this summer, and I really wanna take the kids to see the pandas.

So that’ll be the travel ambition.

And we can day trip that if we really want to.

I had this idea of dance one minute every day.

I’m debating whether that’s too much or if I should try it.

I also put down jump rope two times a week because of an article I read recently where they were saying jumping’s really good for you to do a couple times a week.

I’m like, should I do it?

I don’t know.

I bought a jump rope.

We’ll see if I decide to put it on the list.

I have watched ten movies with the kids, Framed the Kids Art.

I think that’s going to be the gnarly to-do list thing that I really, it’s been kind of like one of those mental load things hanging over my head.

They’ve created so much amazing art in these art classes they take, and it’s just languishing in a bin.

Or like before Christmas, it was just cluttered on the mantelpiece, but not in frames.

I’d like to make it look nice.

And I’m gonna put a few more things on the list that are slow and relaxing.

Like it might be something as simple as go get a frickin massage and just do that once.

I think I’m gonna have as a fun one, Finish Avenue to Brazil, because that shit is amazing.

I don’t think I need to put it on the list to finish, but it’s fun to put these things on there just to have the satisfaction of finishing them.

And oh, I think I want to put Play Pickleball on the list because we’re going to this place in Oregon and they have Pickleball there, and I need to…

I’m Pickleball curious.

I play tennis once a week.

I really don’t have the time to add Pickleball to my life, but I’d love to just play it once and see what it’s about.

So that’s what’s going on.

This has been nice to do.

A little half hour for me of reflection.

I feel restored.

Like, I feel ready to go conquer my to-do list and get the annoying things done that I have to finish in the next couple of days and then go enjoy Julian’s holiday concert this afternoon.

So this is it for 2024.

I will probably, I will be back in the new year with my 25 and 25 project, or with an episode where I say, screw it, I decided to take a year off from 25 and 25, but I doubt I’ll do that.

So wherever you are, I hope you have wonderful holidays and that you remind yourself that any stress that comes up from the holidays is fake, stress, I have to keep reminding myself of that.

And another thing I remind myself is that my challenges are also my blessings.

Like one of my challenges was getting all the kids gifts wrapped yesterday.

What a blessing though, that we have the money to buy gifts, and that I have the time to wrap them for the kids.

Like it feels stressful, and I’m like, but it’s actually a blessing.

So fake stress, I watch out for it, and when you can, like a real challenge is living in a war zone, or not having enough money to buy food.

A lot of the time, our body responds to challenges, because that’s how we’re wired.

And I’m so launching myself into another episode here, but I’m going to wrap it up as just remind yourself, my biology is reacting to this as a real challenge.

But let me think about this and whether I can counter this as, no, no, no, this is fake holiday stress.

Let me just sit back and enjoy the magic of the season and the glow of the lights and, you know, the awe and joy of children.

And then enjoy a little time to relax and reflect after the end of the season, even though we deserve two weeks and we only get one.

Still, just enjoy the rest of your year.

And I’ll see you in 2025.

For Denmark, I read The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood—Youth—Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen, translated from the Danish by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman, and wow wow WOW. (Just imagine I wrote “wow” about four billion times.) What an extraordinary memoir.

The Copenhagen Trilogy brings together three memoirs that were published as separate books. Childhood describes Tove’s childhood in a working class neighborhood in Copenhagen with a dad who is frequently unemployed and a mother who is narcissistic, manipulative, and cruel. Youth describes the time after her confirmation, when she goes to work at the age of 14, and starts dating and having sex. Dependency begins with her first marriage (loveless, sexless) spans her second and third marriages, during which she becomes addicted to prescription medication, and ends with her fourth marriage. 

Tove Ditlevsen wrote a stark, matter-of-fact confessional memoir that says the things we usually do not care to admit to ourselves. I just opened my copy at random and noticed this quote:

It bothers me a lot that I don’t seem to own any real feelings anymore, but always have to pretend that I do by copying other people’s reactions. It’s as if I’m only moved by things that come to me indirectly. I can cry when I see a picture in the newspaper of an unfortunate family that’s been evicted, but when I see the same ordinary sight in reality, it doesn’t touch me.

The Copenhagen Trilogy, p. 94.

The memoir does not shy away from uncomfortable subjects, including two illegal abortions, addiction to pain medications, and unfulfilling sex. She describes these matters so bluntly, almost with a medical precision, that reading this memoir at times felt like the literary equivalent of jumping into Arctic waters. Your soul shudders from the shock. Yet her writing style is so compelling, I was happy to dive deeper and deeper into those frigid waters, paddling around the the raw, intimate details of Ditlevesen’s unhappiness.

This is not the sort of survivor memoir that inflates your heart and leaves you believing anything is possible. It will instead shred your soul and live it in ribbons– ribbons which are poetically arranged, but ribbons nevertheless. And yet… there was something about this memoir, with all its anguish and aching loneliness, that left me craving more. It felt perhaps like an antidote to the all-too-pervasive social media that presents perfect glimpses into influencers curated lives.

There is a lot more Tove Ditlevsen in my future. Especially whenever my soul yearns a good cathartic shredding.

For Czechia, I read R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), the play that introduced the world to the word “robot.” The play was written in 1920 by Karel Čapek. I read an edition translated by Paul Server and Nigel Playfair that was first published in 2001.

When I read the elevator pitch for this book — a sci-fi play that introduced the word “robot” — I knew I had found my pick for Czechia. I have a long love for sci-fi, especially robot stories, that started when my dad introduced me to Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series when I was in high school. Fun fact: the author did not actually coin the word “robot.” His brother Josef suggested the term, deriving it from a Czech dialect word for “drudgery.”

Being a play from the 1920’s, R.U.R. has the dialogue and vibe of a musical from the 1940s, minus the singing and dancing (though a chorus line of scientists dancing the can-can would have fit in nicely with the play’s second act.) I absolutely adored R.U.R. and its commentary on the issues surrounding artificial intelligence. Despite being over a century old, the play is still relevant and I recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in sci-fi.

As of the time of this post, R.U.R. is in pre-production for a new Hollywood adaptation which I will definitely be seeing.

Coming soon: A transcript for this episode!

But, in the interest of avoiding a “burnout relapse,” I’m not creating the transcript today. Or tomorrow. Honestly, the proper show notes will probably not arrive until after the 2024 holiday season.

Which reminds me: Happy Holidays!