I'm on an extended break from work, through New Year's Day. I
typically space out my vacations, but for some reason this year in
early December I found I had a couple of weeks to use up. It seems
the end of the year snuck up on me! I'm not one who likes to
rollover or be paid out for unused vacation time. I always use all
of my accrued time off, every year. It keeps me sane.

It's snowing quite heavily right now as I look out my office
window. I enjoy the peacefulness of snowfall like this, when most
people are hunkered down in their homes, and there is no car or
other noise. Our house is surrounded by fir trees, so the scene is
extra pretty with the snow on the branches. My wife and I will take
advantage of the snow and get out for some snowshoeing or nordic
skiing, a nice change, since it's been a warm winter here until last
week, and we have not been able to do any winter activities yet.

I read Ken Follett's Kingsbridge trilogy some time ago [0], then the
4th book ("The Evening and the Morning") earlier this year, and am
just starting in on the 5th book, "The Armor of Light", which takes
place in the late 18th century. I'm also enjoying "Hearth Stories,
Issue 2" [1], and have the 3rd issue (just released) queued up to
read after that. Hearth Stories collects speculative/slice-of-life
fiction and is edited by our very own gopher denizen Sloum [2].

[0]: gopher://republic.circumlunar.space/0/%7eslugmax/phlog/2019/2019-11-30-recent-reads-follett-and-hertling
[1]: http://hearthstories.org
[2]: gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/1/~sloum/