What a month this week has been! January is definitely January-ing hard at the moment. I’m muddling through it, but the verdict’s out on how much fun is being had. There have been some highs. I’ve sold over 100 copies of A Party to Murder, which is amazing!! This was one of the milestones I had set when I decided to pursue self-publishing, and I’m so happy and proud to have reached it so quickly. Thank you to everyone who supported my launch!
If you’re reading the book now, I hope you’re enjoying it. If you haven’t started it yet … don’t mind me, I’m just over here, (not so) patiently waiting. [Just kidding. No pressure. But, also, I’m dying, hah!]
Of course, now that I’d had one day with no sales at all, my brain is convinced that this is it, and that I’ll never sell another book. You know, typical debut author anxious BS. [I assume? I hope I’m not the only one who is constantly crashing out.] I’m distracting myself from it – or trying – by doing the first pass edits on the fantasy mystery novel I wrote back in September/October. I’m down in the weeds, and it’s slow-going. But I’ve also started getting the wheels in motion for my second release, which will be a follow-up (of sorts) to A Party to Murder. I’m aiming for early April, but it’s still a bit of a moving target.
My “reduce screen time” goal was … not goal-ing very well this week. I tried, and did not succeed as much as I would have liked. I did read a bit more than usual (for being in the middle of a writing/editing sprint) but I also still doom-scrolled a bit too. But … progress over perfection, right? Gonna keep chipping away at my screen time, a little bit every day.
The kids’ basketball season is in full swing now, which adds another layer of logistics to our daily routines that is taking some adjustment. I’m really missing the slow, quiet days of our holiday break right now. Sigh. At least we are moving ever closer to spring, which will hopefully bring a much-needed energy boost along with the shorter days and warmer temps. I’m hella sick of winter. With the holidays over, what exactly is winter bringing to the table? Nothing fun or exciting, that’s what.
If you’re got any tricks or “hacks” for making this time of year less bleak, do share them with the class, please and thank you!
The new year, new chapter … but today I’m feeling nostalgic, so let’s take a wander down memory lane instead and look back at some style snapshots of Januaries past. It’s fun to remember the people we used to be, right? Clothes tell those stories so vividly – especially when you’re someone like me who (a) has had a lot of clothes over the years, and (b) takes photos of those clothes nearly every day.
Let’s start by throwing it all the way back to January 2016, a decade ago. Ten years. How? No, don’t let me digress!
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Did I even need to tell you this was 2016? Just look at those skinny, cropped cigarette pants. God, I lived in those between 2015-2017! I thought I looked great in them. And, listen: there’s nothing wrong with cigarette pants, per se. I’m sure the silhouette will come back in style sooner or later. The problem is that in 2016, we had not yet discovered high-rise pants. All of my skinny pants were also low rise – you can see this very, very clearly in these photos. And that was a problem for me because I have a super long torso and short legs. You can see how the waistband of the pants basically cuts my vertical line in half. It makes me look shorter and I don’t like that. In my head, I like to think I’m a willowy, tall person – not someone with a 28-inch inseam. Sigh.
Other things I loved in January 2016: colour-blocking, patterns, big bags, J. Crew. I’m pretty sure that half the pieces in these photos are J. Crew. I was working in private practice at the time, but hadn’t yet pivoted to a more client-facing role, so my office style was on the more casual side of business casual.
2016 ended up being a challenging year for me – probably the most challenging one of my 30s. I turned 36 that year and went through a kind of identity-slash-life crisis. This, I’ve since learned, is a not uncommon experience for women, specifically around the age of 35-36. I was “having it all” (big career, small babies, marriage, house, the whole nine yards) and not feeling particularly happy and trying to figure out why when society had assured me that I would. I figured myself out eventually, but it was rough going for a while. I think you can glimpse that in my outfits. I was playing things safe. And using bright colours to tell myself that I was fine and everything was fine. Just fine. Totally fine.
Ok, let’s fast forward 5 years to January 2021.
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Jump scare, but in a good way? If you didn’t already know and I told you this was a different person from the previous set of photos, you’d probably believe me, wouldn’t you? And, actually, it’s kinda true. The person I was in January 2021 was very, very different from 2016 Adina. I had a different lifestyle, a different job, and a very different sense of myself. I turned 40 in August 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, so I was navigating a lot of changes, both internal and external. But the real quantum leap actually came later in 2021, starting with my mom’s sudden passing in April. In many ways, that became one of the key dividing lines in my life. Before and after. But the seeds of the person I became after were already germinating in January 2021.
You can see what I’m no longer dressing to “fit in”. I’m wearing things I like, and they were not bought at the mall. The silhouettes are doing what I want them to do. I look more confident. I felt more confident. Inhabiting my clothes, not cosplaying a version of myself palatable to the world.
Let’s jump again, 2 years, to January 2023.
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This is a recognizable version of my current self, isn’t it? I was still in the middle of the transition that kicked off in 2021, but the blueprint was in place. Actually, this was another challenging period; in late 2022, I was diagnosed with DCIS, a form of non-invasive breast cancer, and underwent surgery (and, later, radiation). It kicked off another round of deep reflection and soul-searching, making me more committed than ever to living my best life on my own terms.
I still own and wear all of the pieces in these photos and would wear these exact outfits today. The middle one, in fact, remains one of my fave outfits of all time. It feels so authentic to who I am and how I want to show up in the world.
And, just for fun, let’s kick in back to last year: January 2025.
Needless to say, I still love all of these outfits. If I put them side-by-side with my current ones, it would be tough to date them. Strangely, this makes me feel like I’ve stopped aging – though not, of course, evolving. It’s just that the passage of time has been internalized now, rather than being a fully visible process. I’m sure that will change again as I move into my late 40s; my body, if not my style, is bound to change in visible ways again.
Hey, this was fun – and, as always, there were new nuggets of insights to be gleaned from the exercise. I recommend it! Old photos can be a helpful tool when it comes to reflecting on who and where we’ve been, who and where we are, and where we’re heading.
It’s official: A Party to Murder is out! You can buy it and read it and (hopefully) enjoy it. Yay!!
Well, that’s the big news around here. Shortest post in history? Just kidding. Though, in all seriousness, this week was one long waiting game for me. I was on tenterhooks the whole time, waiting for January 8 to come, and now I feel … spent, LOL!
First week back at work was rough for other reasons too. All that “circling back on stuff” we said in December that we were going to do in the new year? Those chickens be coming home to roost now. Meanwhile, my brain is, like, “2026? We don’t know her.” We were on the struggle bus this week, but eventually managed to pull out of the station and start rolling. [Am I mixing my transportation metaphors here? Probably. I told you we were struggling.]
I’ve decided that I want to cut back on my phone screen time – specifically the amount of time I spend scrolling on Instagram and Reddit. Watching IG Reels is my main bugbear. At the end of last year, I noticed that, after a period of heavier-than-usual daily mindless scrolling, my attention span while reading books was starting to suffer. And then quickly improved over the holidays when I largely stayed off my phone, read a lot of books, and watched longform media like movies and shows (without, and this is key, scrolling on my phone at the same time). Reading stuff on Reddit doesn’t contribute to the problem (as much?) but it’s still a distraction I want to try to limit going forward. Reading a book is a better use of my time than reading random posts on Reddit, even if they’re marginally interesting.
I still need/plan to be on IG a bit – for content creation, community-building, networking, and book marketing purposes – but I want to replace my passive scrolling (content consumption) as my default “need to decompress” activity. Instead, I’m embarking on a reading challenge.
Sort of.
In addition to my regular reading, I’ve decided to get back into reading more classic literature. When I was younger, this used to be my go-to, but in the past decade, I’ve stuck mostly with non-fiction and genre fiction. Introducing classic lit back in the mix will certainly be a good thing for my development as a writer. I hope it will also act as a counterbalance to my social media consumption, by helping me to exercise my focused attention and critical analysis muscles.
There are many gaps in my classic lit background, so I plan to use this opportunity to fill some of them. I’m going to document my progress on my writing IG account – and, yes, I am aware of the irony. [In my defence, my videos require a fair bit of attention and patience because I’m a blabber, and I do try to be at least mildly informative.] Feel free to follow along if you’re curious to hear my thoughts/reactions on my classic lit picks. The first one? James Joyce’s Dubliners. The video will be up soon (my handle is murders_she_writes).
