Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 
year in review

2023: the year in review

This year had a lot of changes. In sad news, my grandmother passed away in April. And, Jake moved out. I’m still getting adjusted to that. Well, not at the moment, as he’s been in for Christmas, but generally speaking.

There were a couple notable business-type milestones this year, too. Prime Design Solutions and Innovative Tomato merged into Innovative Tomato. So, now I have half as much paperwork to do! The past couple months have been pretty busy for me due to the merger, but almost everything is complete at this point, so things should be letting up soon. In nonprofit news, a number of us (seven, in fact) who used to be on the shelter board started a new nonprofit, Seven Hearts Project. So far, we’ve sponsored a couple spay/neuter clinics, but we’ll be expanding services in the future.

It was a pretty good year for music, not only did Foo Fighters and Mammoth WVH release new albums, I also got to see Mammoth WVH in Johnstown. What are the chances?!? There were also a bunch of minor shows in town that I attended and enjoyed. The only other big music act I saw was Alice Cooper. I only got to see one stand-up show, John Cleese.

I didn’t do too much else this summer. I was sidelined for about a month with a pinched nerve in my neck. In other health news, I finally got COVID earlier in the year. I did manage to get to Buttermilk Falls and The Golden Gathering, but that was about it. And, in travel news, we took our yearly cabin trip before Jake moved and I went to visit Jake and Amelia in the fall.

Favorites:

  • book: Fairy Tale
  • series: The Leftovers
  • albums: Mammoth WVH Mammoth II and Foo Fighters But Here We Are
  • movie: I watched a bunch of movies, but had no favorites

There were no major updates made to the house, but I continue to paint everything. I just did my bedroom the other day. I painted it a dark color, which is really cozy. And I painted the living room earlier in the year. I did a couple other minor projects inside and out.

It’s almost not worth mentioning, but I dated someone briefly in the fall. It seemed pretty promising at first, but things didn’t work out, which was disappointing. I shut down my dating profile right before the holidays. I will probably start it up again next month, but we’ll see. I found a new, shorter, hairstyle I’d like to try and if it looks terrible, then I guess I’ll have to grow my hair back out before attempting to date again. Haha.

I’m not sure why, but I feel pretty positive about 2024. But, I’ve said that before, so take it with a grain of salt.

holidays

holidaze

As is customary, I hosted Christmas Eve dinner. Only my parents and Jake were in attendance. Amelia had a family thing going on and my brother had to work. So, it was a quiet evening. My mom did Christmas Day, so I got to see my brother and his family (including in-laws) then.

Jake is in for a month (!) and my mom wanted to have him and Amelia over for dinner, so we did that yesterday afternoon. I guess that concludes the holidays as I don’t usually do anything for New Year’s (besides cook pork and sauerkraut on January 1).

For years, I’ve been wanting to do a holiday shutdown at the office. The way the holidays fell this year made that pretty convenient. We were already scheduled to be closed Monday and Tuesday, so we closed the office for the rest of the week (with the stipulation that everyone needed to check in with their email a couple times a day on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in case any emergencies cropped up). So far, so good. This is usually a pretty quiet week. I’m not sure we will do this again next year, but maybe?

tv

the patient

This was a decent limited series, starring Steve Carrell. In it, he played a therapist who was abducted by his patient (who happened to be a serial killer). I felt the first half of the series was a bit more engaging than the second–things started dragging a little by the end.

My rating 3.5/5

movies

barbie

A comedy with some social commentary. Who wouldn’t like that? Plenty of people, I suppose, but I was entertained.

When I first heard of this movie, it did not sound all that appealing, but once I learned more about it, I definitely wanted to see it. So, thanks to Max, I was finally able to watch it last night.

The fact that Netflix discontinued their DVD service has really limited my movie-watching experience. You could rent virtually any movie from the DVD service. There are a bunch of movies I want to see, but none of them are on any of the services I subscribe to (Netflix, Max, Hulu). I guess I will to have to give VUDU a try and start renting individual movies.

My rating: 3.5/5

live entertainment

jasmine cain

I saw Jasmine Cain once or twice at Thunder and thought she was great. She comes to Johnstown every year for Thunder and a couple solo shows, but I did not get to see her again until last night. I saw that she was playing a “Christmas show” at the Columba Theatre, so I bought a ticket. What a great show it was! It was just her playing acoustic guitar, mandolin, and keyboards (not at the same time). I wasn’t sure what kind of music she was going to be playing, but it was mostly pop and rock songs and some originals, though she did play a couple Christmas ones by request. The 2.5+ hours she played gave her plenty of time to explore all genres. By the end of the night, things turned metal (which is the genre she plays with her band), with songs from Skid Row, Rob Zombie, Drowning Pool, and Audioslave. Those were my favorites. It was a great show and definitely worth the $15 admission. They should charge more next time!