When you’re a child, a single summer seems to last forever. Now, decades seem to fly past me in the same amount of time it took to live a year. What’s with that?

I just finished writing a 4,200-word retrospective on “the Aughts” — the name most of us media types are giving the past 10 years. We got into some fierce debates in the newsroom about the best CDs, TV shows and movies of the past 10 years. And it made me want to hear what you all have to say.

First, let me just say that any list of the best movies that doesn’t include the Lord of the Rings trilogy is both wrong and offensive. I mean, Viggo Mortensen, people. What else is there to say?



Now, moving on...

It would be hard to recount 10 years of entertainment on the blog, so I thought perhaps you could all tell me what your favorite books, TV shows, CDs, songs and movies have been for the past year. (You can’t include any of my books. So there.)

Here’s my list from the past year:

Best Book
Anna Campbell — Captive of Sin (historical romance)

Best Books I read in 2009 from prior to 2009
Kathleen Givens — Rivals for the Crown (historical fiction)
Joan Wood — The Road to Avalon (Arthurian fiction)

Television Shows
True Blood


Godric


Alex as Eric

Movies
I only went to one: New Moon. But I'm planning to see The Young Victoria, and I hope it will get my vote before midnight on Thursday.

Best Music
”Love Me When I’m Gone," 3 Doors Down
”Here Without You,” 3 Doors Down
”Landing in London” 3 Doors Down
”It’s Been A While,” Staind
(Okay, so none of these were released in 2009. I can’t help that I discovered these songs in 2009.)

By now, it's apparent that I rarely get to read, never watch TV or listen to the radio and rarely go to movies. I really don’t have much to add to this discussion.

But you do! So share with me your ”Best of” lists for 2009. And, remember. I’m always looking for new music.

Now, go for it.

For a lot of people, New Year’s Eve is a time to cut loose, drink a lot and party. For me, it’s always been a very reflective holiday, a time to look back at the past year — and my life, in general — and to face squarely my own shortcomings and to plan how I'm going to live a better life over the coming year.

It’s always been a melancholy holiday for me, to say the least.

Even when I was a child, New Year’s Eve was a reflective time for me. I’d watch Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve and try to plan a better year for myself, not in terms of random things that just happen, but in terms of my own actions.

I have to say that 2009 feels in some respects like The Wasted Year. Down in the heart over my younger son’s departure from the nest to his college in New York and recovering from 2008’s string of disasters and near-disasters, it felt like all I could do to tread water. It took forever for me to write Naked Edge, and though I did some things, like experiment with growing my own veggies, mostly I let time get away from me.

So this coming year — 2010 — needs to be The Year I Got Over Empty Nest Syndrome and Started Living My Life Again.

Most people are older than I am by the time their kids are grown and off at college. I have friends my own age who have toddlers and kindergarteners, while my boys are 23 and 20 years old. I tell myself this is a good thing, because I now have the chance at age 45 to create a new life for myself. But...

Well, that’s easier said than done, isn’t it?

I was visiting my friend Kat over Thanksgiving when I realized that I still have the same furniture, dishes, dish towels, bath towels and such that I had when I got divorced and my kids were little. Yes, I still eat breakfast cereal from a plastic bowl with the genie from Disney’s Aladdin staring up at me. I kid you not.

Kat is an artist and has the most amazing house, with a mix of folk, Native and artisan dishes, furnishings and so on. Appalled to hear that I still have a household of old junk — my sofa and TV are 20 years old — she suggested I get rid of it.

All of it.

I'm not a shopper by habit, and I like to be frugal. But there’s frugality, and there’s stupidity. I think I’m closer to the latter.

So this year it will truly be a case of “out with the old, and in with the new.” Not that I’m going to blow money I don’t have on the latest trendy junk. But with Kat’s help, I'm going to replace things bit by bit until the stuff of my Mommy Years is replaced with things that feel more like me in the here and now.

I’m not sure how other single moms deal with Empty Nest Syndrome, so ideas are welcome. But it’s time to stop moping and start living again.

In turn, I’m going to help Kat gain mastery over piles of paper, i.e., filing. It’s overwhelming to her but not to me. If journalists deal with anything it’s documents, documents, documents. So I’ll be at her place on New Year’s Eve firing up the paper shredder and getting down to work. Then she and I are going to start revitalizing my home.

What are your New Year’s plans?

A view of the foothills taken out my car window during my morning commute. The temperature was -8 F/-13 C.

Una vista de las estribaciones tomado la ventana de mi coche durante mi viaje matutino. La temperatura era de -8 F/-13 C.




Green Mountain and Bear Peak with the Flatirons. This is just down the street from the newspaper.

Green Mountain y Bear Peak con el Flatirons. Esto es sólo por la calle del periódico.


I wanted to share a glimpse of what I was seeing this morning. Fortunately, they haven't yet made it illegal to take digital photos while driving. The mountains are so incredibly beautiful with snow on them. When I was a little girl, I always thought it looked like someone had dipped them in powdered sugar.


Quería compartir una visión de lo que estaba viendo esta mañana. Afortunadamente, no han hecho todavía es ilegal tomar fotos digitales durante la conducción. Las montañas son tan increíblemente hermosa con nieve en ellos. Cuando yo era niña, siempre pensé que parecía que alguien había sumergido en azúcar en polvo.


Strangely, Christmas in Colorado is rarely white unless you’re high in the mountains. I remember Christmases where it’s been 60 degrees outside — sunny and warm. But every once in a while, we end up with snow on the ground. It’s snowed for the past two days almost non-stop, so there’s about a foot of freshly fallen snow, and it definitely makes my holiday brighter.


Curiosamente, la Navidad en Colorado es raramente blanca a menos que esté arriba en las montañas. Recuerdo que en Navidades ha sido de 60 grados exterior - soleado y cálido. Pero de vez en cuando, nos encontramos con nieve en el suelo. Es nevado durante los últimos dos días casi sin parar, por lo que hay alrededor de un pie de nieve recién caída, y sin duda hace que mi día de fiesta brillante.

I know some of you will celebrate Christmas tonight. In Europe, most of you are either home making dinner and preparing for a wonderful, magical evening or you’re rushing home from work to do just that. I don’t celebrate until Christmas morning, which is good because I haven't finished Christmas shopping yet.

Sé que algunos de ustedes se celebrará esta noche de Navidad. En Europa, la mayoría de ustedes son su casa haciendo la cena y la preparación para una noche maravillosa, mágica o estás corriendo a casa del trabajo para hacer precisamente eso. Yo no celebro hasta la mañana de Navidad, que es bueno porque no he terminado todavía las compras de Navidad.

My younger son is spending the holiday with his father on the other side of the mountains, while my older son will be coming to my place tomorrow morning. He works full time and can’t get away until late tonight. So it will be just the two of us.

Mi hijo menor es el gasto de las vacaciones con su padre en el otro lado de las montañas, mientras que mi hijo mayor va a venir a mi casa mañana por la mañana. Él trabaja a tiempo completo y no pueden salir hasta tarde esta noche. Así que será sólo el dos de nosotros.

I didn’t put a tree up this year because I haven’t had time. But there’s a wreath on the door. I might hang some lights around the house this afternoon if I get time between baking, shopping and wrapping my son’s gifts. (We work till noon at the paper, then have the rest of the today and tomorrow off.)

Yo no puse un árbol de este año, porque no he tenido tiempo. Pero hay una corona de flores en la puerta. Podría colgar algunas luces alrededor de la casa esta tarde si me da tiempo entre la panadería, de compras y envolver los regalos de mi hijo. (Trabajamos hasta el mediodía en el papel, y luego tener el resto del día de hoy y mañana libre.)

I hope you’re all doing well and that the craziness of the holiday season is settling down to peace and quiet.

Espero que todos están haciendo bien y que la locura de la temporada de vacaciones es de ponerse a la paz y la tranquilidad.

Happy Christmas Eve!

Feliz Navidad!

I've been running laps to the post office mailing everyone’s books. The lines have been outrageous! I actually got up at 6:30 so that I could be at the post office when it opened this morning and get the rest of your books in the mail. And there was already a line!

I managed to do this without coffee. Yes, without coffee. Which means some of these books might end up in Timbuktu. (Just kidding. I addressed them last night.)

But I haven’t just been mailing packages. I've also been receiving things from all of you. Thanks so much for the lovely Christmas cards! I cherish each and every one. I always hang cards on my pantry door so they're the first thing I see when I walk into my kitchen.

Last night, I got home to find a package on my doorstep that had come all the way from Antonia in Thailand. Inside were Thai translations of Extreme Exposure and Hard Evidence, together with the most adorable set of bookmarks and a scrumptious silk shawl.

The bookmarks each have a tiny figure dressed in traditional Thai costumes representing different peoples of Thailand. There are almost a dozen of them. They’re so cute that I’m not sure I could ever stick them in a book.

The shawl is of red embroidered silk. What Antonia didn't know is that I'm crazy about silk. If toilet seats came in silk I'd try to get one. Seriously! When I went shopping last night — my first attempt at Christmas shopping — I draped it around my neck and went out feeling quite happy about it.

Thank you, Antonia!

As for Christmas shopping, I'm woefully behind. I really don't like to shop so getting myself to the mall is going against the grain. I've gotten things for my sister, my mother and my niece. That leaves my dad, my two brothers and my two nephews. Not to mention my two sons.

I'll be spending the day shopping, wrapping and — I hope! — finishing the proposal for Natalie’s story, the next I-Team book. The story still needs a title, by the way. Any great ideas? Benjy’s suggestion is RANDOM INNUENDO, because that’s what he thinks all my I-Team titles offer. Smarty-pants!

I also wanted to wish my Jewish readers a late Happy Hanukkah. I totally missed it this year! I hope everyone had eight days of peace, good food and fun.