Category: Book Reviews

Pools, Bees, Good Talk, and The Forty-Year-Old Version

I have taken advantage of the current heat wave to get in the pool the past two days. It has been glorious to do my regular workout before being restricted to not having a workout.

Yeah, I’m working on that.

Anyway, the pool was great! I also learned a lot. For one, I learned that the wireless headphones I got do not like when I get in the pool. They kept crapping out during my workout on Saturday, which is beyond frustrating because I use the music to keep time for my workout. Without the music, I wouldn’t know when to start or stop various parts of my workout and–more importantly–I would get bored and cut my workout short. So, the headphones not working is actually a super not great thing and not just because music is fun. The good news is that my headphones worked better on Sunday, and I honestly do not know what changed. I changed the placement of my phone, but I had done that on Saturday with no luck so, sigh. The headphones are a fickle beast. I’ll have to investigate better headphones for when the weather actually breaks because I cannot live this way.

Continue reading “Pools, Bees, Good Talk, and The Forty-Year-Old Version” →

It’s Wednesday & 2021 Reading Is Off to a Good Start

You know, I was beating myself because I hadn’t posted yet this week, and I realized it’s because I have been struggling with how to (and whether or not I wanted to) address current events. All I’ll say is this: Living in this country is exhausting.

My reading deprivation is officially over, so I watched some TV and read some books. More specifically, I finally finished Living Single (Hulu), which is super fun because the characters really do feel like they’re my friends. I was trying to decide on my next throwback comfort watch and remembered that when I was watching The Bernie Mac Show, I started X-Men: The Animated Series (Disney+), so I think I need to go ahead and get back to that. Not to mention, seeing the good guys win over and over again might just be what I need to feed my soul right now.

A note on the wrap-up: I’m going to try something new with my book reviews this week since WordPress has stepped up its game with these blocks. I’ll see if I have the patience for it in the coming weeks.

Last week I posted:

It’s Monday & I’m doing a reading deprivation

Continue reading “It’s Wednesday & 2021 Reading Is Off to a Good Start” →

It’s Monday & I’m doing a reading deprivation

If you’re unfamiliar, a reading deprivation occurs in week four of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. During a reading deprivation, you give up reading for a week. I started mine on January 1 so that means I’m currently on day four. Just like last time, I have basically given up all media that uses words, including social media. I also gave up Bejeweled (except–TMI alert–when I’m in the bathroom) because I definitely use it as a form of distraction and admit that about myself. Unlike last time, I am a little less crazed–probably because I knew what to expect this time and also, maybe, because I have grown as a person in the last four and a half years.

As a result of the no words thing, I am VERY into the Pop Goes Classical playlist/station on Spotify. It is getting me through. Current faves include “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Queenz of Piano and “Lose Yourself” by David Garrett.

The holidays were nice and low-key. Jólabókaflóð (Yule Book Flood) was a success this year. I received The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett (reviewed below) and milk and honey by Rupi Kaur (started but, obviously, on hold until the end of the week). I gave The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas to my daughter’s friend who said she wanted to read more classics, and I gave my daughter The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo because she said she wanted to read more about minimalism. We exchanged books, drank hot cocoa, and read together for about an hour or so. It was a delight. Christmas was also a lot of fun with us hanging out, opening presents, watching movies, and eating some food.

I did make a post last week, and I did read some books and watch some movies that I didn’t post about here before the end of the new year.

What I posted:

2020 End of Year Book Survey

What I read:

Continue reading “It’s Monday & I’m doing a reading deprivation” →

It’s Monday & I hope this posts before midnight

I am writing this at 10:55 p.m. WILL I MAKE THE DEADLINE? I hope so. (The answer, btw, is yes. Hitting post on this at 11:15.)

I won’t be participating in Month of Faves this week because I never post my fave books before December 31 as I may read one of my favorite books of the year between now and then. So, here’s a recap of all my Month of Faves posts from the past week instead:

I also read some books and watched some movies:

Continue reading “It’s Monday & I hope this posts before midnight” →

#AMonthofFaves 2020: Popular Books Worth the Hype

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! That’s right: A Month of Faves is back, hosted by Tanya and Kim over at Girlxoxo. As of this writing, the official post isn’t up on the website yet, but the prompts are posted on Kim’s Instagram.

Continue reading “#AMonthofFaves 2020: Popular Books Worth the Hype” →

It’s Wednesday & I have an ashy eye

Okay, I’m going to get into the ashy eye story in a minute, but also I just want you to know that I got a COVID test after flying across the country, and it is negative. So…whew.

But, yes, I have an ashy eye.

So I discovered this ashy eye issue the day I was packing/prepping to fly across the country. My eye had been bothering me since Thursday. It kept watering for no reason, which honestly happens to me quite a bit, but I thought it was just allergies. You know, a fire was raging, and debris was flying through the air, so it seemed logical. But that night I couldn’t sleep with my eye mask on because it felt like something was stabbing me in the eye.

Then, on Friday, my eye was still bothering me. It was still with the leaking and all, but I could smell smoke in my house, so, again, I just banked on allergies. Also, my daughter told me I looked like I had gotten punched in the eye because my eye was swollen. “Yes,” I told her. “It’s the allergies.”

Continue reading “It’s Wednesday & I have an ashy eye” →

5 Books I Wanted to Nominate for My Book Club’s Middle Grade Mystery Theme & the One I Did

So my book club is doing middle grade mysteries for October, and unfortunately, I can only nominate one book. One! This is sad for me because I have a lot of books that I could recommend because I want the people in my book club to read and/or talk about them. Just for context (do I need more context?), after I taught the detective literature course at my school last fall, I said my dream would be to teach the class again and focus solely on middle grade capers or puzzle books. (I was sick of all the murdering and violence in the adult literature.) The point is that this topic lives close to my heart. 

So, anyway, here are all the books I wanted to nominate for my book club to read and the one I did wind up nominating in the end.

Continue reading “5 Books I Wanted to Nominate for My Book Club’s Middle Grade Mystery Theme & the One I Did” →

It’s Wednesday & I almost quit this site last week

Almost.

And only because I somehow got updated to the new block editor and almost LOST MY MIND with how confusing it is. Anyway, I am somehow way way back in the dashboard editor, so I am safe. For now. I didn’t finish the post I was working on (yet), but I wanted to get this posted first, so here we are.

Here. We. Are.

Barely.

Here’s what’s been happening since my last check-in post:

Continue reading “It’s Wednesday & I almost quit this site last week” →

It’s Monday & This Post Is a List #IMWAYR

I think I have too many books to read. No, I know I have too many books to read. And by read, I mean have finished by a deadline because I am in two book clubs and also clearly hate myself. I mean, obviously, I want to be in these book clubs and want to be reading the books but also, like, why do I do these things? I do not know.

Anyway, since my last post, I did some stuff:

Continue reading “It’s Monday & This Post Is a List #IMWAYR” →

It’s Monday & I’ve Forgotten How to Teach #IMWAYR

No joke. I submitted grades on Saturday for the end of our spring semester. I was doing prep for my summer class that starts Wednesday, and I could not figure out what I had done in the class before. Or what I was planning to do. What are assignments? How does one organize a class? Part of it is that I’m teaching the class online for the first time. But the other part was that my brain was seriously just like, “I don’t know, man. You tell me.”

I said to my daughter OUT LOUD, “I am a terrible teacher who doesn’t know how to teach.”

f-this-im-making-meth

Continue reading “It’s Monday & I’ve Forgotten How to Teach #IMWAYR” →