Wow, it’s been almost a month since I last posted. (Did you even notice?) I can blame my laziness on only one thing: my Christmas hangover. Not the alcohol-induced type but the stupor brought on by too much rich food and holiday fun.

Yep, my twelve days of Christmas seemed to have lasted quite a bit longer. I’m just now getting the tree out of the house and the decorations back in the attic.

Is there anything more depressing than cleaning up after Christmas?

But hey, I tell myself, it’s a new year, in fact, a new decade. 2020. I can hardly believe it’s been twenty years since we were all worried about Y2K. Remember the dire predictions about how computers were supposed to go haywire when the new century rolled in, and all our online information would be lost? Didn’t happen, did it? Thank goodness.

So what will I do with this new year in a new decade?

Well, I can figure out how to use one of my holiday presents, an Instapot. I’ve not yet taken it out of the box (see Christmas hangover above). I’ve heard great things about this gadget, raves about how it can change the way you cook. But I understand there’s a learning curve, much like the early days of using the microwave.

It also looks a little bit like that scary pressure cooker my mother and grandmother loved. I was always a little nervous when that pot whistled and the dial thingie on the top started to do a little dance.

Figuring out how to cook in an Instapot may be a project. But since it’s now January, I’ve got time.

Another Christmas gift was a waterpick. (In case you’re wondering, I asked for practical stuff this year.) One of the many indignities of getting older is that you have to work harder on maintenance. To put it bluntly, according to my dentist, I could use a water dental flosser.

Like the Instapot, this is another gift that hasn’t yet seen the light of day. I opened the box just long enough to spot the detailed instructions and decided I would learn to use my waterpik after the holidays. Something else on my January to-do list.

In addition to figuring out my new gadgets in January,  I’m also continuing to market my debut novel Ms. Dee Ann Meets Murder.

Thanks to all who’ve bought copies either locally at Almand’s Drug in Rocky Mount or through Amazon. It’s tough being an author, especially an independent one like me who doesn’t have the help of a publicist with one of the big four publishers.

But in January 2020, I persevere. As my brain recovers from its holiday sugar overdose, I’ve started revising the sequel to Ms. Dee Ann Meets Murder. Here’s a summary of a little of the action in what I’ve titled Life and Death in Narrow Creek:

It’s 1982 and Dee Ann Bulluck has enjoyed almost three peaceful years as a young wife, mother, and technical college instructor since moving to a backyard apartment in small-town Narrow Creek, North Carolina. Then her landlord suddenly dies sitting in his recliner on a calm Saturday morning. Turns out, his cause of death is something even more sinister than his diet of honey buns and Pepsi Colas, and the major suspect is Miss Josie, his wife of 35 years….

December was fun, but now it’s January and there’s work to be done.