Weekly Recap #105: Week of 5/19 – 5/25
It’s time for another weekly recap post of all things happening on and off the blog. This week I’ll be linking to the Sunday Post, which is hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.
Happy Memorial Day weekend to all who are celebrating and a huge thanks for all who serve our country! I don’t have much to talk about this week, which is why this post is so late going up. My son finished school this week so his summer has officially begun. We’re kicking it off by redoing his bedroom this weekend because he’s tired of his Star Wars theme and wants something gamer-related and orange, which is apparently his favorite color. Thank goodness for places like Etsy and Society6 where you can easily find lots of gamer-themed bedding and wall art!
The weather has also been really nice so far this weekend, so we’re hoping to get outside and do some grilling and relax on our deck, which we barely got to use last summer since it was so constantly rainy. Other than that, everything else is pretty much same old, same old.
Game of Thrones ended last weekend and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. It definitely didn’t end how I was expecting it to, but I guess I’m okay overall with the explanation for why it went the way it did. I do hope we’ll get the rest of the book series someday though because I’d really like to see George R.R. Martin’s version of how it should end.
I had a mini meltdown this week over spam on my blog and installed a math captcha to try to get rid of some of the incessant spammers. I don’t know if others are experiencing this too, but what set me off was a page long spam comment that keeps getting posted over and over again (6-10 times a day, all from different IP addresses which made it impossible to just block them outright), that’s filled with this word salad of Trump loving, Bible thumping comments. Normally I just delete spam and move on but after 2-3 months of seeing this rambling b.s. showing up daily in my blog comments, I was just over it. It’s a double-edged sword though because while the Trump/Bible spam disappeared for a few days after I installed the captcha, so did many of my regular comments. I’ve removed it for now but if anyone has a better way to get rid of spambots on a self-hosted WP blog, I’m all ears.
Aside from fighting the good fight against spam, I’ve been reading a lot this week too. I finished my 15th backlist read, An Ember in the Ashes, and have started my 16th, Lily and the Octopus. I’m also still working on my June 4th ARCs so wish me luck on that. I also bought a few books, including The Priory of the Orange Tree, which is the Deal of the Day on Amazon today. I got it for $1.99!
Oh well, that’s it for me. Have a great week, everyone!
WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK
- [19 May] Weekly Recap #104: Week of 5/12 – 5/18
- [21 May] Top Ten Tuesday – 10 Books I’d Love to Share with Everyone
- [22 May] Can’t Wait Wednesday – LOKI: WHERE MISCHIEF LIES by Mackenzi Lee
- [23 May] No Place Like Here by Christina June ★★★★
- [24 May] Bright Burning Stars by A.K. Small ★★★★
WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK
UPCOMING REVIEWS
STACKING THE SHELVES
TOTALLY RANDOM
Ugh spam☹ I hardly ever have spam comments come through, but I don’t think I’m doing anything special. I’ll look into it and let you know. I took Friday off work so I have a nice long 4 day weekend, and I’ve already finished two books (!!), one of them being a June 4th release. Go me!
Yay for knocking out those June 4 releases!
Etsy is my go-to when I’m decorating the house. So much fun stuff, I could lose hours on that site! Spam commenters are the worst; luckily I don’t get too many of them! I didn’t mind the little math puzzle, but I do have to admit that one day I got it wrong a couple times in a row and it really made me question my intelligence!
I love Etsy too. Every time we’ve decorated my son’s room, I always got there and ending up buying way too much stuff, lol.
Hmmm… I’m self-hosted WP and all of my spam goes into a separate folder where I can ignore it completely (or check it occasionally for my Fun with SPAM posts). I think I just use Akismet, but it looks like you do too? I’ll have to look in my settings for you and see if I did anything special for it to work that way, but I don’t think so. Weird that yours doesn’t work that way!
I use Akismet and it all does go to a separate folder. The problem is that for some reason, a lot of actual comments, especially from non WP users, get dumped in that folder too so I can’t just ignore it and have to check it regularly. Usually it’s no big deal, I just mark the real comments as Not Spam and move on, but but this one relentless spam comment is just getting beyond old so I was trying to just make them go away, lol.
Damn Suzanne! I was ready to recommend Akismet but you already use it! I coupled that one with some keywords that I don’t want to see and so far it had worked. You are right on comments from non WP users going to the spam folder though as it happened these last weeks to me.
I hope your problem will be solved soon!
I didn’t realize there was an option to add keywords I don’t want to see. I’m going to try that and see if that at least gets rid of this one that is making me so crazy, lol. Thanks!
Happy summer to your kiddo! We finished up school this past week, too. (Yay!)
Yay! This is his first year finishing up so early so it feels a little weird so far, lol.
The spam battles don’t sound fun! 🙁 I don’t have any suggestions on how to stop it as I’m not WP and I’ve been lucky to have very little so far… Good luck though!
I didn’t mind GoT ending. I wish it hadn’t been so rushed but the fates of the characters didn’t bother me.
Summer holidays seem to start so early in the US! We’ve got another school term after this half term break… They break up in late July!
Yes, I was not a fan of how rushed GoT season 8 felt. I probably would have enjoyed all of it more if the pace of the buildup to the end had felt more natural.
Sorry about all the spam comments, they are a pain! I found a great article on Nozegraze’s book blog about how to combine plugins to beat them, and I never have an issue now.
Oh cool, I’ll have to see if I can find that article.
I’m not self hosted but WP does a great job of with Spam filtering. I hope you get it sorted out.
Have a great reading week, and enjoy the start of your summer.
Thanks, I hope so too.
How fun to redecorate together. Orange is my favorite color too. I am so jealous you have the new CLo book. I am still holding out hope I can get approved for it.
I still can’t believe I got approved for the new CLo. It comes out on my birthday so I’m telling myself they just sent me my gift early, lol.
Oh man, Spam comments are the worst. I use Disqus and it’s worked great for me in that department. I haven’t gotten a spam comment, actually.
I expected more from the finale of GoT. I liked Sansa’s ending and Tyrion’s, but not the rest. I’m also waiting for GRRM to release the books!
I liked Sansa’s and Tyrion’s endings as well.
Oh gosh, I’m sorry about the spam. That would be driving me nuts too. I don’t have any other advice than what you seem to already be doing. Hopefully it will go away! That’s rough.
-Lauren
Thanks, I think I’ve made a few changes that should help. Fingers crossed!
Hope you’re having a great long weekend! We were able to have a fire tonight and that was nice. Feels like summer now haha!
Spam is infuriating and I totally get it. Grrr!
Game of Thrones- sigh. I’ve been consoling myself with reading sample chapters of The Winds of Winter- I know a lot of people don’t want to read them since they’re just samples, but they’ve been giving me my book fix, and they’re also a good reminder of how different the books are!
Anyway have a great week!
I want to read those samples, after I read Book 5 of course. Forever behind, lol.
Yikes. No wonder you added the math thing. I’m sorry, I don’t have any advice for spam :-/ I hope your son’s bedroom redo goes well though!
Thanks, we’re not quite finished with the room but it actually looks pretty cool, even with the orange walls, lol.
Ugh. Spammers are the worst. Looks like you have some gorgeous books to dive into this week — I hope they’re a good read ( I am busting to see your review of the Priory tree — it’s been getting such good reviews!)
I’m really looking forward to Priory. I’ll probably hold off on reading it until I’m out of my fantasy rut though, just to make sure I fully appreciate it.
Sorry you’re having such a nightmare with spam comments, my WordPress blog comes with Akismet that deals with all my spam comments.
I LOVE your totally random pic.
I hope you have a great week and enjoy your reads.
Thanks, hope you have a great week too!
Love the orange themed bedroom. I remember some game where they say; The Cake is a Like. Oh, it was Portal. The slice of cake was orange on a black background. We all got the t-shirt..lol Enjoy the start of summer vacation. I loved it when my kids were small and we had the lazy days of summer ahead of us.
Lol, yes, I’m all about the lazy days of summer.
I too have been getting so much spam. It’s aggravating.
It really is annoying, isn’t it?
That stinks about the spam, Suzanne! What is up with all the June 4 and just plain June reads? Gosh, I have a ton! I really want to read that Harmel book. I need to request it! I hope you have a great short work week!
There really does seem to be a large number of June releases. I guess summer/beach reads maybe? I hope I can get through all of the ones I have. Hope you have a great week too!
Wow, your school system gets out early! Chicago gets out late June and goes back right after labor day. Any fun trips planned??
Sorry to hear about the ridiculous spam, that would drive me up a wall too!
We just changed our school calendar this year to go back to school before Labor Day and get out before Memorial Day. It’s weird to have my son home already, lol. No trips planned yet but we are getting a puppy next month so that will keep us plenty entertained this summer. 🙂