Christine at Bookishly Boisterous started this meme – get amongst it.

1. I added more lists to my Best Books 2013 List of Lists. Most importantly, this list of the best cookbooks of 2013 from Gourmet Traveller. I’m adding Recipes for a Good Time by Elvis Abrahanowicz and Ben Milgate to my wish list, if only for the watermelon filled with punch (something I’m quite partial to). The GT top ten also includes The Breakfast Bible by Seb Emina and Malcolm Eggs – definitely one of my faves of the year because how can you not admire a BACON EMBOSSED COVER?!

2. Related, some friends and I have a plan for 2014 – a book group but for cook books. We choose a cook book, all cook a dish from it and convene to feast. My friend Sam (who incidentally is one of the funniest people I know), has named the group Totes Amaze(meat)balls. Which I love to bits and must be said in a bored, teenage tone of voice.

3. Over at Bart’s Bookshelf, Darren has been in a blogging slump. So he wrote some 75-word reviews. Brilliant idea. I’ll be stealing it.

4. My favourite book shop (Readings) has a blog. Their online editor, Nina Kenwood, quoted me in her round-up of favourite books of 2013 – except that she liked Tampa by Alissa Nutting and I most certainly didn’t. Kenwood says –

“In my review, I said it was ‘well written, engaging and wildly entertaining’.  For comparison, here are some quotes from randomly sourced online reviews that didn’t like the book: ‘total crap’, ‘messed up’, ….‘you’ll need to take a shower after this one’, ‘I like my social satire with fewer penises and vaginas’, ‘possibly the nastiest book I’ve read…I feel soiled having read it’, …and ‘total shit’.

Mine was the penises and vaginas bit. Nothing’s changed since my review.

5. So I really, really need to plan what people are going to eat when they come to my house on Christmas night….

6. Our school year ends tomorrow and with it comes giving gifts to teachers. According to Tony Wilson, I’m running the risk of being Mad-Men-weird with my choice of jewellery but I do try to choose pieces that I think they’ll wear (thanks to my stalker-like observation of their style during the year). Some came from one of my favourite Australian designers, Angus & Celeste – I love their vases (if you’re still wondering what to get me for Christmas).

7. How do you pick charities to contribute to? I pick ones close to my heart – breast cancer research (my mum and one very close friend are both breast cancer survivors); Kiva (because I love their approach); and the Indigenous Reading Project (because: reading), a wonderful project that aims to improve the reading achievement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students – it’s a newish project and they’ve had great results in their first year.

8. New mattress arrives today. Feeling stressed. What if we made the wrong choice? It will really suck to have to sleep on an expensive, uncomfortable mattress for the next decade.

“It had everything we needed in a mattress: it was rectangular, it was horizontal, and I didn’t have to stop breathing all night so the springs didn’t squeak.” (That witty little bit from Danny Katz).

9. Last but not least, Merry Christmas. And because I’m not anticipating smooth sailing this year, I’ll leave it to guy who says it best –