Before 2017 disappears completely, let me wish everyone who reads this a safe and happy new year. A couple of comments on the way out….

• I posted 11 times this year. I just counted and I’m surprised. I thought I’d done better than that. Maybe I can average once a month in 2018! 🙂 I still enjoy stopping by Borrowing Bones now and then, and I hope you do too.
• I’m venturing a new blog, which will be more niche, more specific, than this one. Chronicles of Aging, I’m calling it, with the intention to post out of my experience of being in the last quarter of my life. I’m not old-old, but old nevertheless. Writing will be a way for me to notice and share what I observe in the process. I plan to post more frequently than here, but have determined to keep the entries short, 300 words max. I invite you to check it out, and if it’s your niche or interest, to follow or, if you prefer not to get email notifications, to bookmark the site.
• I didn’t get around to a “best of 2017” list of books but I recently enjoyed Rose Tremain’s The Road Home. It’s been a while since I felt myself so drawn into and rooting for a character as I did with Lev, a widowed fortyish immigrant to London from a formerly communist country. Tremain is a superb and deeply empathetic writer. As for movies, I recommend “Wonder,” an important story about bullying and courage and good parenting. I’ll call these the best of the year and leave it at that.