Unlike last year, I made my goal explicit: 50 books in 2015. Goodreads posted a lovely Year In Books page, which shows what I did this year, but I tend to capture this sort of thing for my own memory: (raw list here)

I can say, finally, after five years and seven months:

There have been some changes. More on that soon. The current state of the household:

• Kolohe (my 11-year-old tabby): "Eh, whatever. Can has ear rubs, humans?"
• Frank (Noah's 17-year-old tuxie): "New cats? Whatevs. I've done this before. That food looks tasty."
• Toph (Noah's 2-year-old): "NOPE. Not coming out of the sewing room. I'm chickenshit."

and then there's Beryl. Oh, Beryl.

"I WILL CUT ALL OF YOU. DON'T EVEN LOOK AT THE TABBY. MY TABBY. MINE MINE MINE. NOT YOURS, YOU HEATHEN TUXIE BITCH."

Time gets away from you. It's easy to lose track, even if you're not trying, and -- let's be honest -- I was trying. I can't feign shock or surprise that life moved on while I was dealing with other issues; now all I can do is choose how much of it I want to reclaim, and in what fashion.

I've been a bit of an evangelist for tonka beans for some time. I love the scent and the taste, and I don't agree with the FDA's decision to ban them from food. The Atlantic has an excellent article (The Tonka Bean: An Ingredient So Good It Has to Be Illegal) about the allure of tonka beans, and the [asinine] reasons they're banned from food in the US.

Unsurprisingly, several people reached out to me to say HEY NEW PENTAGON AMY, DID YOU SEE? I love you. You know me well. 

There are two kinds of people fascinated with the idea of finding shapes that can fill a two-dimensional plane: geometry professors, and quilters. What's weird, and sad, is that they aren't really talking to each other. I've corresponded with a few of them, and as far as I can tell, there are quite a few mathematicians who are working on these problems, but the number of quilters playing with the end results likely can be numbered on my fingers and toes.