One of my favorite blogging carnival / meme / events that I discovered in 2013 was Things I Learned This Month hosted by Emily at Chatting at the Sky. This is a tradition I look forward to keeping up with in 2014 – I love looking back over my month and remembering all the great things that happened, as well as the bad, and thinking about what I learned from it all – good, bad, silly, wise. Even better, I get to see what a lot of other clever ladies have been learning, too!

So here are the things I’ve learned this month:

1. My garage is a very dangerous place. I hurt myself in the garage three times in the past month, largely because it’s kind of cramped and crowded and also because I’m ridiculous. The second injury resulted in a sprained foot that still hurts when I move it in certain angles, over two weeks later.
2. I learned that sometimes it gets so cold in Wisconsin that they have to cancel school so that our little ones don’t get frost bite while waiting for the bus for seven minutes. I think we’ve had more “Cold Days” in Wisconsin than snow days since I’ve moved here.
3. I recently learned that Peter Capaldi, aka the New Doctor was once in a punk band with Craig Ferguson, aka my favorite late night tv host and Scottish Rebel. I feel as though I must have known this at one point but up until Capaldi became the New Who it didn’t matter. Now I am ridiculously pleased with the information and hoping it means lots of Doctor Who interviews in my future. Loving his new outfit by the way.
4. I learned that Witches of East End, the tv show on Lifetime, is based on the books by Melissa de la Cruz, a young adult author who I was already quite familiar with. I could not resist reading the first book and already I am surprised by how much of the story is totally different but I’m still enjoying it.
5. I learned that what American Idol really needed, all this time, was Harry Connick Jr. J Lo and a new set of people producing and making decisions probably helped, too, but mostly, Harry Connick Jr.
6. I learned that sometimes the best way for me to be comfortable in a noisy, crowded, hectic situation is to find some area to put myself in charge and sit out the storm – especially if it’s a storm of 6-12 year old boys. AKA I enjoyed the Pinewood Derby a lot more this year than last.
7. I learned an awful lot about what baby names say about your parents, their upbringing and education and your potential future prospects and a whole lot of other unrelated things that economics can tell us in Freakonomics by Steven Levitt.
8. I learned that there is a new antisocial nerdy British weirdo in my life and his name is Sherlock Holmes. I’m not sure when it happened, but I am utterly SHERlocked and I’ve noticed a trend – antisocial nerds are apparently my “thing” – and frankly it all started with my handsome husband.

What have you learned this month?