Last Day of May

 As posted on Instagram.  

I don't want this book to carry over into June, I'm going to finish it today or else.  

Other things going on:

There's a kid birthday this week and I will officially have 3 teenagers in the house.  A few weeks ago I'd say teenagers are underrated, easy-peasy, what is everyone else complaining about?  But then... not getting into why, but I've changed my mind.  Can I trade them all in for toddlers, please?  Ugh.    

May goals:  

walking: my knee, Covid, and now my back but June is a new month...

writing: I have no excuses.  I did great the first 11 days of the month and wrote 4055 words. 

reading: I didn't read six days this month but three of those were due to Covid.  I did read more than I read in April so I win.  I also watched two (TV) adaptations of books I've previously read, eight more to go...

June goals:

My June mantra: any time I want to buy books, I will put them on hold at the library instead.  

writing: 5 minutes a day

reading: changing it up and trying 45 minutes per day.  

I am part of an online book club that is reading a book I already own, so I will be joining in this month (although it's a reread for me, I haven't read the book since I was 16)  and I joined a Patreon, that also has a book club, which is reading another book I already own (not a reread), so those are both going onto my summer reading pile.  

exercising: 30 minutes a day.  I need a good audio book...  

knitting: my long neglected yarn says I am making a scarf, with cables 

yard: going to the garden store this week to buy zucchini plants (all but one I planted died), cucumbers (all dead), a new rosemary bush (the snow in April killed it), and strawberries (I think rabbits ate my plants, there is nothing left), and will probably come out of there with more plants than I have room for, but that is the story of my life so...

I think that covers everything.  May definitely 100% absolutely did not go as planned, I'm crossing everything that June listens to me, and sticks to the agenda!

Summer Reading Plans

 

As posted on Instagram, the five books I definitely want to read this summer.

I've already started Swan Song.  For a book it took me 25 years to get my hands on, so far I'm not impressed.  I hope once the apocalypse happens, it gets better.  All irony intended there.

The second and third book are authors I wanted to try, and the bottom two are Book-of-the-Month books that have been collecting dust on my bookcase.

Otherwise, it's going to be the summer of mood reading.  

My Happy List

An artichoke.  The photo is from last year because even though the cord for my camera doesn't work with any other device in the entire house, someone took it and I can't get my recent pictures off my camera and onto the computer without it.  Things that don't make me happy, people moving my stuff...  

Things that make me happy:

books, of course.  All.the.books.

blank notebooks

swimming pools

bumblebees

canceled plans

scrapbook paper

pizza

my annual purchase from Starbucks (pumpkin spice latte)

hummingbirds

the one time someone found out I write, asked to read my writing, and liked it

finishing a knitting project

watermelon

my I-tunes playlist

fajitas

flip flops

hoodies

snarky t-shirts

July

my kids (most of the time)

finding the perfect Christmas present

chocolate chip cookies

Burgerville Tillamook cheeseburgers

libraries

popcorning guinea pigs

board games

happy mail

quilts

things that remind me of my grandma (which could be its own list...)

the first ripe tomato of the garden year

that stupid Parry Grip song about the pancake robot

campfires

lighthouses

the first day of summer vacation (June 17th!) 

clean laundry

the sound of the kids doing their chores without whining (when it actually happens)

my camera

used bookstores

reading my own writing and not hating it

Smurf lunchboxes

lemon bars

key lime pie made with actual key limes

cross stitch floss 

opening the silverware drawer and finding a clean spoon

my morning coffee

lists

perfectly ripe avocadoes

things that make me feel smart (word puzzles)

that's the list so far, I might add more later.  

More:

Mitch Hedberg jokes

Brainy Smurf

being able to park in my garage (still waiting, and I've owned a garage for 17 years...)

library book sales 

Wingspan board game

Castles of Burgundy board game

washi tape

frogs

Red Dwarf

bookmarks

my screwdriver set (no one else is allowed to use it so the pieces are always in there)

my organizy gray drawer cabinet thing

Earl Grey tea

Mariokart

my typewriter

encyclopedias and dictionaries (the old school kind)

raspberry sorbet made with raspberries from my yard

when the lawn is mowed and I can ignore it for two weeks

tulips

pina coladas 

Tetris 

Pac-Man

Sim City

Pinky and the Brain

bowling

my bread machine

bagels

Well...

We avoided the plague for 2 years, 2 months and 3 days but I guess it finally got us.  Or some of us, so far I do not have any symptoms.

Yay, germs...

May Goals: Week 2

Mother's Day fishing.  We had the lake to ourselves, which was awesome and never happens. Cold weather, Sunday, and Mother's Day might have had something to do with it...  I caught two fish :) and only read about ten pages because every time I tried to open my book I had a bite (three of which stole my bait) and then it started to rain... 

How my goals are going so far this month:  

Reading: 391 pages (finished 0 books though...), and 1.5 hours of audiobooks.

Writing: 3,196 words, over eight days which is about 400 words a day.  Pretty good for only writing "5 minutes" a day.  Yesterday was my lowest word count at 125, and the only day I didn't write for more than  ten minutes.  Weekends are not the best for writing anyway.

Exercising: 1.5 hours.  I did something to my knee, but it's feeling better, so today I will treadmill it up.

This weeks plan: more of the same crammed in between kid taxi service, general mom stuff, a meeting, some kind of college information night (for the high school junior), and about 10,000 things I'm supposed to do but really don't want to (it's kind of overwhelming actually).  Wish me luck.  

  

Maisie Dobbs

 

Maisie Dobbs...

British

Set right after World War One and before World War Two

Female detective starts her own agency

294 pages, so on the shorter side

On my "22 authors to try in 2022" list, which annoys me, because checking off that list was my main goal this reading year... 

This was my second attempt to read this book.  I'm not sure when the first attempt was, but the book was published in 2003 and I don't think any more, or very few, of the series, were published at the time.  

It took me 3 days to read 66 pages (about an hour and a fifteen minutes of reading time) and then the plot jumped back in time and the Maisies's origin story began, and I just didn't care.  

In comparison, I picked up a different book and read 25 pages in about a half hour and didn't yawn once.  

Part of the reading slowness was trying to decipher one of the characters accents...  

I was interested when she was stalking the wife trying to find out where she went all day, but otherwise I was just plain old bored.  

Sorry, Maisie, I know you are beloved, but I just couldn't make myself keep going.  

People love this series, so the problem is probably all me.  I mean even the cover says "prepare to be astonished" --the New York Times Book Review.  I was astonished I didn't like this book, so I guess they were correct.

May starts with a DNF, yay.

Sigh.

Commence bookworm guilt now...

What I Read in April 2022

The books, from April, not exactly in the order I read them:

format: physical (library book) 

pages: 304 
age: adult 

genre: contemporary mystery?
4.25 stars 

One sentence summary:  This is the story of Molly the Maid who works in a hotel and loves her job, then she comes across a dead body...

Thoughts: I really enjoyed this, except one part at the end. I've read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (note: Eleanor Oliphant was not completely fine)  which has a similar main character, but I didn't enjoy that book very much, and this one was much better.    

format: physical 
age: YA
pages: 448 
genre: mystery/thriller
4.25 stars

 

One sentence summary: Pippa (I once had a cat named Pippa...) investigates a murder that happened in her town five years ago, for her senior class project.  

Thoughts: I liked it, despite a case of main character making some unrealistic/ extremely stupid choices. I guess she is 17...  This is book one in a series, I have no idea if the other books are the same character or not.

format: physical
pages: 422
age : adult

genre: romance (contemporary)  

3.75 stars

One sentence summary: Bea, a (plus-sized) popular fashion Instagrammer, complains online about a reality show she watches not being diverse, and gets invited onto the show  where they have attempted to fix the problem, sort of. 

Thoughts: I don't watch the Bachelor (my reality tastes are more people stuck on an iceberg surviving with a toothpick and a nail file) but the behind the scenes of how reality TV works was...exactly what I thought it was, and depressing at the same time.  

My main problem with this book was that yeah, I get it, Bea is plus-sized, stop reminding me.  Also two of the love interests in here were just... ew. 

I finished the book, never ever wanting to be even a little bit famous, or on TV ever, wait, I already knew that... 

Format: physical 

pages: 176 

age: YA 

genre: sci-fi, time travel 

4.25 stars

One sentence summary:  Zoe had a superpower, she can go back in time 23 minutes, and when she accidentally ends up inside a bank during a robbery, she gets ten chances to change the outcome.

Thoughts: The time-travel limitation parts were unique and interesting (though never explained) and time travel is my favorite... the weird crush/ romance thing, not my favorite... also the author's name 👍  It was a quick read, I read it one afternoon.  

format: physical 
pages: 368 
genre: contemporary thriller/mystery
age: adult 
4.5 stars

One sentence summary: Matt Pine is one of four children in an infamous family, his older brother is in prison for a murder, and the rest of the family is on vacation in Mexico when they are mysteriously murdered, so Matt (with the sort of help of the FBI) tries to figure out why.  

Thoughts:  The FBI in this book should be dismantled... they're pretty inept.  There were a few loose threads that were not answered (or I missed them) but it was a not-put-downable book that I read in a day.   

This really  reminded me of The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens except with multiple POV's instead of just one.  Maybe it's because the main character is also a college student investigating a murder...

  

format: physical 
pages:384  
age: adult
genre: non-fiction, memoir 
4.5 stars

One sentence summay:  this is the memoir of Dave Grohl, drummer for Nirvana, singer, guitarist, and founder of the Foo Fighter's and he talks about his life and experiences as himself?  

Thoughts:  Nirvana was popular (and alive) when I was in high school, but due to my weird music taste at the time, while I knew who they were, I never listened to their music.  The Foo Fighters played a concert at my college once, but again, at the time they weren't on my radar.   I have since corrected the error of my ways, been to the memorial thingie in Aberdeen, and some of the songs from both bands are on my permanent playlist etc.

Even if I didn't know who Mr. Grohl was, this was pretty good for a musician biography. The writing was great, the story was interesting, and it had a great message. The only reason this isn't five stars is that it skipped around in time sometimes and wasn't told exactly chronologically (which is fine) but it did get confusing when someone had died, but were reincarnated in a following chapter.  

I have heard (pun intended) that the audio version of this book is fantastic because it has actual music in it and is read by the author... I might have to get a hold of that version.

the DNF list, or more like the started and didn't get very far yet list:  

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (audio) by Douglas Adams.  Libby wanted it back before I could finish and there was quite a waiting list... so I checked out a different book and then it was suddenly available again 🤷‍♀️  I actually own a copy of this, so I could just read it and skip all this waiting list stuff...  

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. Owned book.  I read about 200ish pages.  I do intend to eventually finish this one.

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land (audiobook, library)  started in April, still working on it...

Waiting for Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrey (physical, library book).  Started and then put down for some reason and not picked back up and had to return... maybe later.

It seems like I'm forgetting a book or two...

April statistics:

books read: 6
fiction: 5, non-fiction: 1
middle grade: 0 adult: 4, YA: 2
owned: 5,  borrowed:1
physical: 6, audio:0, ebook: 0
pages read: 2277 (includes dnf books), hours listened: 2ish
dnf: 4

average rating: 4.26

new books acquired this month: 6 

Final thoughts: April was not a good reading month.  I read six books but three of those were in the last four days of the month... attention span, allergies, other interests, anxiety: all of the above?  I read more books in March, but I read more pages in April, so there is that...

Notes on how I rate books: 

Five stars: I want to own, reread, and stare at the pages in awe and why can't I write like that?  If I finish a book in 3 days or less, and don't put it down to read something else, it's most likely in the 4-5 star range.   

Four stars: this a book I never got bored while reading,  great writing, and that I finished and didn't want to hurl across the room.  I might or might not keep and reread.

Three stars: well, I read it, I'm glad I read it.  I might not recommend it, but it was OK.

Two stars: how did this crap even get published?  I probably spent the majority of the book wondering if it was over yet.  I don't finish many two star books...

One star: I really really hated every second of reading this book but I had to finish it for some reason (book club, everyone else loved it, it was an assignment).  I can't get this thing out of my house fast enough.  That being said, I have only ever given three books one star.  I usually can't finish them.  Maybe I should write a blog post on my one star reads...

dnf: wrong book at the wrong time (could possibly try again later), It's only been 25 pages and I'm already checking to see if I'm done yet.  I started this book, put it down, chose to read fifteen other books, and then remembered this one was on my nightstand. I usually take it as a sign when that happens that a book is not for me.

*I'm not sure what is going on with the font sizes and spacing in this post, I keep setting them and they kept changing on their own.  It's Monday... 

May 2022 goals and plans

Goals... as posted to Instagram.  

Dear Universe, this is not an excuse to send any, ahem deadly contagious viruses ahem, fury of nature, broken appendages, dead appliances, or vehicles, death of beloved family members etc. to my corner of the United States.  Deal?  Knock on wood.  Run around the house backwards for luck etc.

Writing:  for the record as of this morning I have 19,132 words written.  A lot of that is me thinking outloud (yes I have a loud keyboard) and ideas and notes, and not actual story.  Actual story is at exactly 11,500.  I wrote 164 words this morning...  not the best day but, five minutes--checkmark.  Thirty more days to go.

Reading:  Actual reading, not audio books while walking. Picking up an actual book with pages and reading them reading.  I have about seven books in progress, and my owned tbr has 265 books on it?  So many to choose from and no excuses...  

Walking: on the treadmill, probably, unless the raining, not raining, nope raining again crap stops and I can walk outside.  Spring this year...   I'm not counting on the weather, so treadmill is it.  

There it is, in writing, put out into the universe, so now I'm obligated to follow through, because that's just how my brain works.