AK Month-to-month Recap: December 2022

Right here we’re on the finish of the 12 months! I’ve stated a lot about 2022 in my year-end recap posts that I received’t go on any longer. Let’s simply check out the month.

Greater than something, December was all about Christmas — and also you’ll see it within the images. I ended up celebrating Christmas unexpectedly throughout 4 nations this month.

I additionally learn loads of good books, discovered some kickass eating chairs, and welcomed a kitty to our residence quickly.

Let’s check out what went on in December 2022.

Locations Visited

• Prague, Czech Republic
• Vienna, Austria
• London, Coulsdon, and Watford, England
• Studying, Revere, and Wakefield, Massachusetts
• Nashua, New Hampshire

Highlights

A incredible Christmas market journey to Vienna. Surprisingly, Charlie and I’ve by no means been to Austria collectively! We’ve each been to Vienna a number of occasions, and it’s by no means been considered one of our absolute favourite cities, however we determined to take a look at their legendary Christmas markets.

Nicely, they have been FANTASTIC. A number of the greatest I’ve ever visited in Europe. A very good quantity of range in markets (some extra adult-oriented, some higher for handmade presents, some extra art-oriented). Tons upon tons of flavors of gluhwein and punsch, making cities that serve one single taste of mulled wine appear like a joke.

We additionally bought to hang around with our Vienna pals, Becki and Markus, in addition to Becki’s dad, and revel in a market night, adopted by their favourite native Irish pub.

My greatest suggestion? Put on thermals. It was VERY chilly (temperatures hovered simply above freezing, which isn’t at the same time as chilly as it may be there). My Uniqlo thermal prime and leggings saved me truly having fun with the journey, and I’d have been depressing with out them.

The World Cup. I watched SOOOOO a lot of the World Cup, and the way extremely satisfying was it? A really wild match up till the tip, and I used to be so pleased for Argentina and Messi.

We purchased a cool retro eating desk and a few equally funky chairs. They’re mid-century trendy items initially designed for the 1958 Brussels Expo. Regardless of that, they have been all fairly reasonably priced.

It’s so onerous to search out secondhand furnishings within the Czech Republic that isn’t IKEA. I’m fairly happy about these.

A Friendsmas dinner at Kantyna. Kantyna is OUR PLACE in Prague — it’s half restaurant, half butcher store, dishing up outrageously good steaks and one of the best burger on this planet. Kantyna additionally places on a butcher’s dinner known as Dinner Off the Bone, the place they serve you odd cuts.

They paused Dinner Off the Bone when COVID hit however FINALLY introduced it again! We determined to do it for Friendsmas and feasted on crispy pigs’ ears, mushy pigs’ brains, and actually, essentially the most scrumptious tripe I’ve ever had.

(The one non-hit? The room-temperature meat in aspic. Ugh. However our pals’ nine-month-old child couldn’t get sufficient of it!)

Spending my first Christmas with Charlie’s household within the UK. Seeing how a lot his sister decorates her home and serving to Charlie prepare dinner a really insane quantity of meals have been two of the highlights.

Lewis and Murray made a brand new furry buddy. Baliček, our pals’ cat, got here to stick with us for 10 days. We have been curious to see how our cats would react — they haven’t seen different cats since they have been of their foster residence.

It took about 5 days for them to heat up to one another, and required some partitioning and litter field jiujitsu, however they appeared to get alongside fairly properly by the tip! (I feel they’re glad to have us to themselves once more, although.)

Baliček is the sweetest, most loving cat on this planet, and it was good to observe a film with him purring away in your lap!

Challenges

I wasn’t planning to go to the US on the finish of the month, however unhappy information from residence had me reserving a same-day flight to be there for a buddy. I received’t go into element past that.

I’m grateful to have had miles stashed away so it value me $200 as a substitute of $1500. When you dwell far-off from family members, you may wish to do the identical.

And when you’re not into miles, simply having a sturdy emergency fund is so essential. For terrible occasions like these, you don’t wish to add monetary stress on prime.

Weblog Posts of the Month

December is all about my Better of the Yr posts — with slightly additional thrown in.

My Favourite New Locations of 2022 — Naples took the highest crown, however the place else received my coronary heart?

My Finest Journey Moments of 2022 — From getting engaged in Lake Como to crusing the bluest sea in Sardinia.

My Favourite Reads of 2022 — Simply 5 books this 12 months (and a much more digestible publish in consequence).

My Worst Journey Moments of 2022 — Aaaaaand everybody’s favourite publish of the 12 months. Sure, poop is concerned.

A Customer’s Information to Winery Haven, Massachusetts — And slightly information to a stunning, underrated city on Martha’s Winery.

This Month on Patreon

On the Adventurous Kate Patreon, I publish unique content material and never-told tales that you may entry for $6 per thirty days. We even have a personal Fb group and members get free entry to the Guide Membership every month.

This month on the Patreon, I did a publish about my favourite vacation spot of 2022: Naples, Italy. Naples completely blew me away and on this publish, I talked about what I really like most concerning the metropolis and the favourite issues I did.

I additionally wrote a publish concerning the posts that earned essentially the most on Adventurous Kate this 12 months — a deep dive into which all-time posts did one of the best, and which posts printed in 2022 did one of the best, and why.

And I wrote slightly observe on the finish of the 12 months about what was happening.

Guide Membership This Month

Our subsequent Guide Membership will happen on Sunday, January 29, 2023 at 1:00 PM ET. We can be studying and discussing Son of Elsewhere by Sudanese Canadian writer Elamin Abdelmahmoud.

“At twelve years outdated, Elamin Abdelmahmoud emigrates together with his household from his native Sudan to Kingston, Ontario, arguably some of the homogenous cities in North America. On the airport, he’s handed his Blackness like a passport, and realizes that he must be taught what this identification means in a brand new nation. 

Like all teenagers, Abdelmahmoud spent his adolescence attempting to determine who he was, however he needed to do it whereas studying to stability a brand new racial identification and all of the false assumptions that got here with it. Abdelmahmoud discovered to slot in, and ultimately grew to become ‘each liberal white dad’s favourite particular person within the room.’ However after a few years spent attempting on completely different personalities, he now should face the components of himself he’s saved suppressed all this time. He asks, ‘What occurs when these identities stage a jailbreak?’ 

In his debut assortment of essays, Abdelmahmoud offers full voice to every considered one of these conflicting selves. Whether or not reflecting on how The O.C. taught him about falling in love, why watching wrestling allowed him to reinvent himself, or what it was like being a Muslim teen within the aftermath of 9/11, Abdelmahmoud explores how our experiences and our environments assist us within the persevering with job of defining who we really are.”

You can sign up here. Hope to see you then!

New Hampshire Means Replace

My massive achievement this month on my New Hampshire web site, New Hampshire Way, was gathering TONS of e mail addresses for the e-newsletter. This was due to my new lead magnet, a downloadable calendar itemizing all of the Christmas and vacation actions in New Hampshire in 2022.

Guess what number of e mail addresses it bought me? 537. That’s enormous for a small web site. I needed to go up a brand new degree on my ConvertKit plan!

Listed below are the brand new posts I printed this month that I feel you may get pleasure from: my publish concerning the Mount Washington Auto Road, which is without doubt one of the coolest issues you are able to do in New Hampshire, and when you’re a New Englander, you may wish to take a look at the Jingle Bell Chocolate Tour in Jackson subsequent 12 months!

And I’m very excited for my first New Hampshire Means Mediavine cost to come back in at the moment or tomorrow! Lastly, I get to the touch the cash the positioning’s making!

What I Watched This Month

The White Lotus! GOD, I LOVE THIS SHOW! I hope Mike White retains making them for the subsequent decade! So properly written, such a fantastic solid, a wild satire of the wealthy, and the COSTUMES.

Each seasons have been good. I feel the primary was higher concerning the interactions between the completely different visitors. However the second was completely beautiful and I appreciated that they confirmed an excellent quantity of Sicily past the resort, all in sun-dappled mild. (Additionally, enjoyable truth: the seashore scenes have been filmed in Cefalù, not Taormina.)

And guess what? Charlie and I booked a visit to Palermo in February earlier than watching the present! I’m much more excited now.

Past The White Lotus, I loved Glass Onion and Nope for movies and An Night You Will Neglect for the Remainder of Your Life, a Netflix comedy particular with Steve Martin and Martin Brief.

What I Learn This Month

I ended up ending 2022 with 33 books learn. The bottom variety of years, and that’s okay. I did end the 12 months with a number of fabulous reads.

Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional by Isaac Fitzgerald (2022) — “Isaac Fitzgerald has lived many lives. He’s been an altar boy, a bartender, a fats child, a smuggler, a biker, a prince of New England. However earlier than all that, he was a bomb that exploded his dad and mom’ lives-or so he was instructed. In Dirtbag, Massachusetts, Fitzgerald, with heat and humor, recounts his ongoing seek for forgiveness, a extra far-reaching imaginative and prescient of masculinity, and a extra expansive definition of household and self.”

First off — I feel we will agree that is far and away one of the best guide title of the 12 months! Fitzgerald is my age and grew up poor in rural North Central Massachusetts (My dad: “Was he in Gardner?” Me: “No, Gardner was the place he went when he wanted a metropolis“). Surprisingly, I really feel like it is a perspective not shared fairly often — most New England-specific memoirs are about city life round Boston.

I really like Fitzgerald’s voice, and the way he makes the connections between the violence through which he grew up and a life that led him to bartending in San Francisco, smuggling provides into Myanmar, and finally discovering forgiveness for his dad and mom. This can be a nice guide and possibly ought to have been on my better of the 12 months listing if I had completed it in time.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (2022) — This novel tells the tales of three characters — a Nineteenth-century Englishman leaving for the Canadian wilderness, a Twenty third-century author residing on a Moon Colony, and a Twenty fifth-century detective utilizing time journey to resolve a thriller that includes all three of them.

I fell in love with Emily St. John Mandel’s writing the month earlier than with Station Eleven, and Sea of Tranquility is crammed with extra splendidly comforting optimism within the face of a scary future. And past that, what’s so good about this novel is how the whole lot progressively connects to one another, nesting doll-style, ultimately reaching a really satisfying conclusion.

This can be a good one.

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan (2022) — Frida is a single mom reeling from her husband leaving her for a youthful lady. However then she has a Very Unhealthy Day — she leaves her 2-year-old daughter Harriet alone for a number of hours. When authorities discover out, they sentence her to a 12 months residing within the College for Good Moms, a prison-like setting that teaches girls how you can mum or dad.

What a freaky, bizarre guide. The college itself jogged my memory of the film However I’m a Cheerleader — it’s a wierd sanitized “how you can be” setting set on strict, nearly cartoon-like gender roles. And it was miserable. From the second Frida arrived, it was clear that it might take the whole lot she needed to attain their ridiculous expectations.

This guide was half dystopian, half sci-fi, and far of it biting satirical commentary about girls’s rights and views on parenting. Price a learn for certain.

Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on Becoming an American by Wajahat Ali (2022) — “Rising up residing the suburban American dream, younger Wajahat devoured comedian books (devoid of Brown superheroes) and fielded well-intentioned recommendation from uncles and aunties. (“Grow to be a health care provider!”)

Now a middle-aged dad, Ali has change into one of many foremost and funniest public intellectuals in America. In Go Again to The place You Got here From, he tackles the hazards of Islamophobia, white supremacy, and chocolate hummus, peppering private tales with astute insights into nationwide safety, immigration, and popular culture.”

I’ve adopted Ali on Twitter for awhile — he’s a great follow. And this story is in some methods the memoir of each baby of Pakistani immigrants who got here of age over 9/11, and likewise a novel story about his household’s “curse” that despatched his dad and mom to jail, amongst different issues. It’s a wild learn, and properly price it.

I hope he will get on reveals speaking about extra issues moreover Islam-adjacent subjects. He deserves to.

Rich as Fuck: More Money Than You Know What to Do With by Amanda Frances (2020) — “For too lengthy, the topic of cash has been shrouded in worry, secrecy, and nervousness. It’s time to look behind the scenes at cash, whereas entering into the empowered monetary actuality that’s accessible to you. Studying Wealthy As F*ck is bound to ignite an avalanche of change in a very powerful areas of your life. When you lastly see cash for what it’s and notice your energy over your funds, life won’t ever be the identical.”

I learn this guide primarily as a result of a number of individuals I respect are enormous followers of Amanda Frances. The guide was respectable, however nothing I hadn’t heard earlier than.

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon (2012) — “Nothing is unique, so embrace affect, faculty your self by means of the work of others, remix and reimagine to find your personal path. Comply with pursuits wherever they take you—what appears like a pastime might flip into you life’s work. Neglect the outdated cliché about writing what : As a substitute, write the guide you wish to learn, make the film you wish to watch.“

Principally — a cute guide, a brief guide, with a pleasant message. Take the work of others you’re keen on and use that to create into unique work of your personal. Cease pressuring your self when you don’t really feel unique sufficient.

Coming Up in January 2023

Nothing deliberate this month! Final 12 months I got here to the belief that January is a month the place I’m impressed, goal-oriented, and able to set up good, onerous work habits for the 12 months forward.

In different phrases, it was a little bit of a waste being in Mexico final January once I was in tremendous hard-working mode. In order that’s one thing I’ll take note for the longer term. Let’s save the winter getaways for February on the earliest.

I hope we get a pleasant, massive snowstorm and revel in it whereas being cozy indoors.

What are your plans for 2023? Share away!

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