Vol.1, Issue 2 // A monthly recap of everything (mostly) that we’ve read, watched, played, and listened to

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Oh man does February and March feel like a blur! That is why this second volume of “The Latelies” is being combined. It was a blur of rain and coffee dates, flash fiction stories and Havok newsletters, a long-distance friend coming to visit, game nights, movies, even a seemingly random flu in there in early March.

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• Shark Heart by Emily Habek* // I loved this book. It was well worth the waitlist through the Libby app.
• Lion of the Sky by Ritu Hemnani* // A Middle Grade novel written in verse about the separation of India.
• Monster Therapist and the Warlock’s Citadel by Paul Regnier* // ARC read! This was another DnD-in-a-novel story and I loved it. Funny, touching, adventurous—give it a try!
• Eldest (Inheritance Cycle Book Two) by Christopher Paolini // At the time of writing this post, I’m like 60 pages away from the end. It will be finished by the time this post goes live!
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen // I started this and waaayyyy back in…February? I found a writer on Substack who conducts Closer Reading groups, where the themes, characters, etc. are examined over a period of time. It’s actually just finishing, but I plan on making my way back through this once I’ve finished reading Eldest.
• Not Nothing by Gayle Forman // The author’s second novel for Middle Grade readers.
• Flippity Gilbert’s Cottage of Quirks by Emily Barnett – Emily posted the final chapter on March 19th. It’s a delightful, whimsical story. I’m so glad to have read it! Looking forward to the physical copy release next year-ish!
• Almost the Chosen One also by Paul Regnier – His Substack Serial is still going strong! I’m excited to see where it goes!
• Jude’s letter in the New Testament on Sunday mornings and 1^st Kings on Wednesday nights
• Genesis // Ant and I are still trekking through the first book of the Bible. Abraham has passed. His son Issac is an old man and marrying off his own sons. Buckle up, it gets wild!

*If you’d like to read in a little more depth what I thought of these books, you can read my Winter Reads blog post here.

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• Fruits Basket (2019) // Ant’s still watching this and I’m kinda watching it also. Late one night, Ant sat down to watch an episode, so I watched too. But he only watched one before going to bed, so he switched over to my profile on Crunchy Role and told me start from the beginning, and I binged the first three episodes that night. I’m almost through Season 1.
• Sword Art Online (2012) // Ant’s watching this and Fruits Basket and he’s in the third season finally.
• Firefly (2002) // I’m still watching this. I haven’t made a ton of time to watch TV these past couple months, except for the stomach flu I had in early March. It has been fun rewatching this show.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005) // A friend let us borrow the complete series, oh gosh like two years ago *facepalm* and we’re finally just now watching it. We watch an episode every night with dinner 🙂 it’s funny!
• Inside Out 2 (2024) // Ant picked this for movie night, and it is such a well-done sequel. I applaud Pixar for their personification of Anxiety.
• Love and Monsters (2020) // A former supervisor of mine recommended this way back in the days of covid (back when I was still at PRIDE Industries) and we finally watched it. I loved it! The journey of the main character was so good, and I love the theme of found family.
• What Happens Later (2023) // Ant had a gaming date with a friend, so I decided to watch this. Meg Ryan and David Duchovny meet on Leap Day in a tiny airport after their flights were routed there from a catastrophic storm. It was such a beautiful movie. Aaaannnd I didn’t expect the ending. I’ll probably end up picking it for movie night soon; it might be one I need to watch again sooner rather than later to help process the ending.
• Rule Breakers (2024) // We saw this in theaters with friends and it was great! Based on a true story about an Afghan women bringing coding and computers and robotics to more women in Afghanistan. The writing could have been a little tighter, but overall it was great. I cried frequently.
• Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998) // Scrolling through Instagram one night before my movie night pick, I came across a post that hyped up how accurate the costumes are in this movie and then I clicked over to Disney+ and low and behold it was available to stream. Oh man, I loved this movie growing up. I decided that the night we watched this is one of my favorite Cinderella movies. I’m still thinking about it two weeks later. And here’s another post by the same person I found while looking for the one above.
• Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2002) // Ant loves this movie. Looooves it. I watched it for the first time ever when we were dating; Ant had seen it before already. He’s been wanting to watch it again, but since we couldn’t find it streaming anywhere, we just bought it used. It’s an extreme spoof on Martial Arts/Kung Fu movies. There are some funny scenes, but the best part is how much Ant enjoys this movie.
• Holes (2003) // Ant has been quoting the line from the warden when she was a child, “I’m tired of digging holes Grampa!” And so, we watched it. When I was a kid and first read this book, I was amazed about how it all came together. The movie is a classic, including the soundtrack.
• Mati’s play-through of Dark Souls 1 Remastered // At the time I’m writing this, we are on the eve of recording our own final Dark Souls 1 Wife Reacts video. By the time you read this, it will be out in the world. I feel like Ant is feeling nostalgic and wants to watch Mati’s playthrough…again haha. But seriously, Mati’s a great YouTuber to watch. Content curtesy: Mati swears a lot.

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• I really want to include songs that I’ve discovered thanks to my Release Radar, so I figured it would be easier to make a “new discoveries” playlist:

• We are so close to seeing Drew and Ellie Holcomb in Napa that I’ve been listening to their albums more frequently.

• Also, my Dave Barnes phase is coming back

• As did the Les Miserables soundtrack for a bit there in February.

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• Wordle //Still going strong since the end of January woohoo! It’s currently at 88, woohoo!
• Waffle // I started my streak over on 2/16/25 and then again on 3/27/25 on puzzle #1,162, bring my streak of 39 to an end. My current streak is 4.
• Patchwork // This is a fun quilt-building board game! It’s for 2 players and each player drafts one quilt piece at a time for points, trying to fill up their 9×9 board.
• Clue // With Ant’s side of the fam! We hung out with my sister-in-law, her boyfriend, and the kids on a Saturday in February and finally played Clue. I haven’t played this game in so long! Lacy and Paul were marking down what others didn’t have, which my brain doesn’t think that way. Aaaand we ended up not finishing it correctly haha but it was fun!
• Exploding Kittens // We also taught this to Ant’s sister and her kids. Tallon targeted his mom the entire time and I think both games came down to Ant and Mia.
• Keeper // 2-4 players play through the four seasons collecting resources to expand their village for points. It was the first time I’d played this game and it was fun! I loved collecting the animals.
• Lanterns: The Harvest Festival // The players are preparing for the upcoming lantern festival by using different colored tiles to create a pattern. Depending on where you place your tiles, you can earn bonuses. Players gain honor, or points, depending on certain sets collected.
• The Quest for El Dorado // Trying to reach El Dorado by collecting resources, money, and team members depicted on cards.
• Groves // Ant finally got to play with Laurisa! It’s another resource collecting game. You place your fairies (randomly drawn from your bag) on your own board, a tree, to collect resources and groves. It’s a fun one! Best placed with at least three players.
• Galaxy Trucker // The night was growing late (orrr I was just tired haha) and we only got to play one round. I love this spaceship-building game.
• Thunder Road: Vendetta // A chaotic car racing board game! Each player has three cars trying to reach the finish line and chaos ensues. It’s a blast!
• ito // A cooperative card game. You all draw secret numbers (from 0-100) from the deck and try to order them in the right order based on clues given the category. For example, if the category is Popular Historical Figures, the first player would put their card down number-side down in the middle of the table and the subsequent players place their cards somewhere in the spectrum of the cards. Once everyone has placed a card, flip them over and see if you got them ascending order.
• Betrayal at House on the Hill // Oh man do I love this haunted house exploratory game!
• Ready Set Bet! // A chaotic and fun horse betting game! Players place their bets down on the board as they see the horses move (through dice rolls).
• Scrabble // Ant won, 345-207. He played RUMINATE and the later in the game added the “D”. He Some of my favorite words from this game: RUMINATED, BAYOU, AXIS, EGGY, OOZED, CAJOLED.
  • We played this a second time this month on my birthday 🙂 Ant won again, 256-192. I actually drew the tile closest to “A” to go first, but I had no vowels and I didn’t want my first turn to be swapping out tiles, so I had Ant go. Our first words were BEE and THEN. It was a rough start, but got better around mid-game. Some of our words: QUIP, CAUSED, GOOEY, JILT, EONS, and CAW.
• Forest Shuffle x2 // This game is fun! The first time Ant and I played, I didn’t really know what I was doing and it felt like there was a lot of things to try and collect, but the second time we played, I collected all seven or eight trees and was really proud of that! Players are competing to gather the most valuable trees and species of animals or plants. Collection sets give out various points. There are also three Winter cards placed randomly in the bottom third of the deck. When the final Winter card is drawn, the game ends right then.
• Just One // A cooperative party game. One player selects a card, sight unseen and chooses a number between 1 and 4 to let the other players know which word they’re going to give one-word clues to get the other player to guess. It was difficult, but so fun! If anyone gives the same clue, their clues are not counted and the player trying to guess the word only has the remaining words to go off of.
• Mini Ticket to Ride Games: Amsterdam and London // Short and sweet maps from the Ticket to Ride family.
• Ticket to Ride Iberia // We taught Laurisa how to play when she was out here! This is the one where the initial 6 route cards are drafted and then halfway-ish through the deck they’re drafted again. It’s stressful, but it’s fun!
• D&D one-shot // We were finally able to play the one-shot with my cousin and our friend Rob! Ant DM’d and it was so fun! Man, I missing playing this regularly.
• Dark Souls 1: Prepare to Die Edition // Ant’s played through it and I watched and reacted. We’ve finished playing and reacting to Dark Souls 1! We’ve been playing since late-August 2024. What an adventure! We’re playing a kid-friendly game next, chosen by Azzie, so she can watch 🙂 but this isn’t the end of the Dark Souls journey.

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And there we have it! A month’s worth of stories and games in various forms. Your turn!

• What did you read, play, listen to, or watch in January?
• Is there something else you enjoy that you do more regularly than one my latelies? Did you knit, bake, sew, or hike something this month?

Feel free to share to the extent that you’re comfortable 🙂 I’d love to hear from you!

Happy February and March, my friends!