Where I share the books I read (or continued to read) this Spring (March-May 2022) Spoiler! The Fantasy track get’s derailed about halfway through this season’s reading!
What I Read This Spring
Reading
What I Read This Winter
Where I share the books I’ve read from December 2021 through February 2022.
I’ve been doing much better reading the books Ant and I own during these past three months. I also started creating an Excel spreadsheet to catalogue our library. It’s a slow project, but I’m excited to see it through.
My reading goal was to complete 54 books. Thanks to my month off in December I came very close to achieving my goal, but due to our Bermuda Triangle week and spending more time with Monica, watching Netflix movies (Love Hard and tick tick…BOOM), Survivor, and playing board games, I fell just three books short—but I think it was the better option đŸ™‚
Continue readingI’m a Book Dragon! (Or, My TBR-shelf)
I love books. I own too many. And that is the reason behind putting this list together, all the books my husband I own that I want to read. The more in-depth version is here. But I wanted to separate the backstory and The List to make it a less cluttered post.
The Key:
Bold: Purchased this year, ARC received, received as a gift, found in a Little Free Library
Title and Author + Date: Read this year. Woohoo!
The Deets:
Start date: January 1, 2020
Total Books on the List:
233
123
120
Completed books: 24
Number of Books I didn’t finish (by end of 2020):
Books purchased/ARC/received this year:
11 (as of 9-6-2020)
9 (as of July 2020).
8 (as of 4-12-2020).
And now, without further ado, I give you my To-Be-Read list:
Continue readingThe Books We Own
The last Sunday in March, I spent like two hours trying to bring my vision for this page to life. I am not a technological human; I know The Basics. Managing this blog and the behind-the-scene layouts and customization . . . it is all very overwhelming.
BUT!
I finally prevailed and designed the new home page I didn’t really know I wanted, but I’m happy with it! It’s still a work-in-progress, but I’m proud of myself for sticking with it.
Quarantine Day 33 // On Writing, Reading, and Doing the Work
Yallwest this year has been cancelled and they switched it to an online event called Y’all Stay Home, to support the quarantine. I spent a lot of time Sunday night looking at the panels and the special events and scrolling through the authors who are participating.
I can smell the ocean and the salt. I can see the bright Southern California sunshine and Downtown Los Angeles. I can see the overpasses and exchanges. To this day, it blows my mind that someone designed those and hundreds of people drive across them without them collapsing on the road below them. An architect of roads, I am not.
The author line-up page is this beautiful spread in alphabetical order and next to the author’s name is the cover of their most recent book. I browsed through the page, clicking on the author’s picture, visiting their website and reading about their books.
I miss browsing bookstores.
Margin Notes: My Journey Through the Bible in 2020 // Weeks 2 + 3
This year one of my goals is to read my Bible everyday. I’ve always thought a chronological Bible would be cool to read and I’ve been curious to try the Christian Standard Bible (CSB version), so November-ish of last year, I bought one. For the beginning of 2020, I’m starting in EXODUS. And while, 16 days out of 25 isn’t perfect, it’s way better than I’ve done in past years.
Along those same lines though, I’ve wanted a way to record things I’ve learned along the way–fun, random, interesting, etc. The detailed-me is cringing that I didn’t think of this the very first day of 2020 (or when I first started reading this chronological Bible), but that’s okay! Another one of my goals is to write here more, so I’m going to start with Weeks 2 and 3.
#getaftergrateful
In which I write out things I am grateful for, or personal wins in my life.
On This Is Us, Hoarding, and Story
**I feel like I should warn you. If you are not caught up on This Is Us, please don’t read this. I didn’t talk about what happens, but I allude to the something and please for the love of Story and Characters and because you care about yourself, just skip it. Or, skip to the third paragraph and you’ll be good. Thank you and you’re welcome.**
*****
I just finished watching Episode 9 of This Is Us (season 2). And it was brilliant. Gut-wrenching. But brilliant. It had me crying within the first five minutes and full-on sobbing during Rebecca’s little speech (pep talk?) to 17 year old Kate. Because it paralleled so perfectly what Teenage Kate would need to hear 20ish years later. Which of course the writers did on purpose because they’re brilliant. (which I’ve now used three times in 152 words. but it’s true so… *shrug emojii*.)
Blog-tember Challenge // Day 5: A Memorable Birthday
I have enjoyed many memorable birthdays. For my 18th birthday, my parents and sister threw me a surprise party (my cousin wrote me a song!).
When I turned 19 (or 20), I was working at McDonalds and some of my church family from Rescue showed up at the end of my shift. (That was a surprise, too).
One year Kady, our cousin Kalani, and I went and saw How to Train Your Dragon.
During our engagement, Kady, Anthony, and I went shopping at thrift stores in Shingle Springs and then to Starbucks (where I reconnected with a friend from high school who reconnected me with my friend Monica from high school!).
During our first year of marriage when pocket money didn’t exist yet, we went to the Sunrise Mall for banana juliuses from Orange Julius and photo booth photos.
This year, though, has been my favorite so far. My birthday is at the end of March, but the story starts all the way back at the beginning of February.
Real Life. True Love.
Today started off like any normal Saturday for me: I went to the laundromat and when I got home I balanced the check register and updated Everydollar. And then I did something kind of out of the ordinary: I looked up directions to The Bookseller, a local bookstore in Grass Valley so I could attend the YA Author Panel at 1pm.
12:13pm // I was so proud of myself because I left early enough to explore the bookstore a little bit before the event.
Because of my car accident at the beginning of June, I’ve been chauffeured around for the past two months. Since our new-to-us car purchase last week, I’ve been driving myself again and I feel like a new driver in some instances. Today, I felt really proud of myself for driving up Grass Valley Highway. (I’m a nervous driver to begin with. The accident didn’t help with that).
And then Garfield (our GPS) told me to take Exit 182A 174/Colfax. If you didn’t know–because I didn’t until today–this is an exit only lane. And it was crowded. And because I am overly cautious and nervous I did not force my way in. I tried–I slowed down a little and my blinker was on–but I decided to just pass it.
Mrs. Writer 