Weekly Recap #159: Week of 7/12 – 7/18

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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.

This is actually my first weekly recap in almost a month.  I have to confess that I just abruptly stopped writing these posts a few weeks ago because they were starting to really bring me down since absolutely nothing has been going on and it made me sad to just keep documenting that fact over and over again.  There honestly still isn’t all that much going on, but I’m trying to get back to some sense of normalcy so I decided to go ahead and get back to posting.

July started off with a short, socially distanced visit with my mom and sister over the 4th of July holiday weekend. I hadn’t seen them since Christmas so it was really nice to finally have a face-to-face visit and to spend quality time with other human beings.  We wore masks and stayed six feet away from each other and 2+ weeks later, everyone is still healthy so we may do that one more time before the end of the summer.

I’m still working at home so there’s no real change there.  We had reopened our office in Hampton Roads, Virginia a couple of weeks ago but then cases immediately started surging there and everyone got sent back home.  Statewide, we had gotten down to about 400-450 new cases everyday before July 4th but now we’ve had 5 straight days of 900-1,000+ cases.  For that reason, I think we will probably be in a holding pattern on reopening offices for a while.  The holding pattern works for me as the main issue we’ve been dealing with all July is what to do with my son when the school year officially starts in August.  We were presented with two “return to school” options, 1) 100% virtual/distance learning, and 2) a hybrid model with 2 days in school instruction, 3 days virtual/distance learning.  The in-person would involve social distancing and wearing masks from the bus stop all the way through the entire school day, not to be removed until they return home, with the exception of eating lunch.  After much discussion and testing how long my son would willingly wear a mask, we have opted for the all virtual plan.  It will be challenging, but we feel it’s the safest option and thankfully my employer is good with me flexing in my hours around my son’s class times so that I can supervise him. At first I was a little worried about missing out on things like gym, but soccer started back up this week (socially distanced of course, which is so weird, lol), so at least I know he’ll have physical activity and safe in-person social interactions with his teammates.

Not much else has been going on.  Just lots of reading and watching shows on Netflix, Hulu, and Disney Plus.  I think I’ve already watched Hamilton 6 times since it came out on July 3, lol.  Then I binged the first two seasons of Good Girls, which is such a fun show.  I’m trying to decide what to watch next.  I need to get caught up on Riverdale and the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina but that need for light and fluffy I’ve had with my reading lately is also carrying over to my TV watching so I have no idea what I’m going to go with, probably Love, Victor on Hulu since that ties to one of my favorite feel-good books, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda.

I think that’s pretty much it for me.  I hope everyone out there is staying safe, healthy, and is practicing social distancing.  Have a great week!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

 
 
  
    
 

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

  
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

   
         
   

 TOTALLY RANDOM

 

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Weekly Recap #158: Week of 6/7 – 6/20

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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.

I decided to start doing my weekly recaps every other week for now just because with the pandemic still going on, I’m just not doing much each week and end up sitting here forever trying to think of something to write.  The sad thing is that even with only doing these posts every other week now, I still don’t have much to say, haha.  So many things are just still in limbo right now.  I’m still working from home and wondering how long I’ll be allowed to continue doing that, my son’s soccer training is still on pause, and we’re still just staying home as much as possible.

My big “excitement” for the week was going to the DMV to get my driver’s license renewed.  Mine doesn’t expire until October but with this expected second wave of the virus being talked about, I just decided to go ahead and do it while I know the DMV is open.  I have to tell you, it was the best experience I’ve ever had at the DMV.  Usually you have to walk in, take a number, and sit and wait up to 2 hours to be waited on.  Well, right now, it’s by appointment only and you’re not even allowed in the building until 10 minutes before your scheduled appointment time.  I had a 5:30 appointment and was walking out the door at 5:39. 9 minutes instead of 2+ hours!  I honestly hope they keep it this way even after the pandemic is finally past us.

Aside from that, I’ve just been doing the usual.  Lots of reading, blogging when I feel motivated, and trying to take more walks around the neighborhood just to stay somewhat active.  I did end up continuing with my Seinfeld binge on Hulu even though I had said I probably wouldn’t.  I’m lazy and it was easier to just keep watching than to try to decide what to watch instead.  I’m on the final season now though and am trying to decide what to watch next.  I leaning toward either Good Girls or the new Hulu series, Love Victor so we’ll see which one I go with once I finish Seinfeld.

My book haul looks ridiculously large for someone who keeps saying she’s going to read more books she already owns, but it is about 3 weeks’ worth of new books I hadn’t shared yet.  I got approved for a few anticipated reads and then caught some great ebook sales along the way too.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got.  I hope everyone out there is staying safe, healthy, and is practicing social distancing.  Have a great week!

 

WHAT I POSTED THE PAST TWO WEEKS

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

 
  
    
 

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

 
  
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

 
         
   

 TOTALLY RANDOM

 

 

********

 

 

Weekly Recap #157: Week of 5/31 – 6/6

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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.

I honestly have no idea what to even write this week. What is going on in this country and even in my own town makes everything that is going on in my own life feel so small and insignificant. The police brutality we’ve all witnessed makes my heart sick, as does the lack of leadership coming out of the White House.  I typically try not to get political on the blog, but in my mind, police officers abusing their power and, in particular, abusing it over and over again when it comes to the black community, is a civil rights issue and even more basic than that, it’s a human rights issue.  My heart breaks for the black community. They can’t even finish grieving for the loss of one life before the police take another.  And I have no interest in debating whether it’s just a few bad apples or not when it comes to the police.  If you’re wearing the uniform and you’re not a “bad apple,” then it’s time for you to prove it.  Step it up and call out your fellow officers who are engaged in this completely unacceptable behavior.  The arrests and the charges against George Floyd’s murderers give me a little hope, but the question is will those charges actually lead to convictions?  I hope so, but I have to admit I’ve lost a lot of faith of our justice system the past few years.

What I do have faith in though is people.  The peaceful protests this week have already created some changes I never thought I would see.  Confederate statues are being removed in my state’s capitol, and even in my own city, a slave auction block was finally removed from the downtown area a couple of days ago even though our pleas to have it removed have been ignored for years.  The changes are small but I hope they are the first of many, and I hope these protests will have a long-lasting impact.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got.  I hope everyone out there is staying safe, healthy, and is practicing social distancing.  Have a great week!

 

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

 
  
    
 

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

 
  
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

    
   
 

********

 

 

Weekly Recap #156: Week of 5/17 – 5/23

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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.

So, I came down with a major case of the blogger blahs last week.  I don’t know if it’s specifically the pandemic/lockdown situations, the frustration of trying to venture out safely for necessities but constantly encountering people who won’t wear masks, or just the overall negative news, but I just wasn’t really feeling it about anything, including the blog, and went into blanket fort mode.  The only exception to that being that instead of coloring, I was reading and working on that darn 2,000 piece puzzle that is becoming the bane of my existence, lol.  I am making up for lost time on the blogging front today though so apologies in advance if I spam your blog with comments.

 

 

Because I read so much last week, I now have tons of reviews I now need to write and still don’t really feel like doing them, so I think this week is going to be one big post of mini reviews.  I also have a book I’m trying to read for an upcoming blog tour but so far I’m not enjoying the book at all.  The main character is super annoying, I don’t like her family, and I guess it’s supposed to be funny, but it’s just trying too hard to be slapstick funny and everything feels forced.  I need to figure out what my options are for the tour because unless something changes drastically, there’s no way I’m going to be able to write an even remotely positive review for it.

On a more positive note, my son’s school year is now officially over so no more online learning to deal with for a while.  The school did virtual end-of-year awards ceremonies and then we drove by the school, masked up and went to pick up his honor roll certificate.  He’ll be taking mostly honors courses next year and he wants to serve as a math tutor. Him actually wanting to be a tutor surprised me so I’m hoping he’ll be selected for that.

We’re now trying to figure out what to do with him for the summer though since there’s still no hint of when we’ll be able to resume regular soccer practices, summer camps, etc.  I want him to practice his trumpet, read, and practice soccer and when I say it, he looks at me like my head has grown three sizes.  The struggle is real too because even though it looks like I’ll still be working from home for the foreseeable future, the summer is the start of my busy season so I can’t constantly ride herd on him to make sure he isn’t just on his xBox all day, everyday.

Not too much else is going on honestly.  We are looking at DIY projects around the house to work on this summer since it looks like we won’t be traveling.  Rebuilding our back deck is high on our list, so I think that project will be the winner, but we also have a ton of painting and other smaller projects on the old to-do list.  The joys of having been in the same house for over 20 years.  Everything starts to fall apart, lol.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got.  I hope everyone out there is staying safe, healthy, and is practicing social distancing.  Have a great week!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

 
  
    
 

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

  
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

   
   
 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Weekly Recap #155: Week of 5/10 – 5/16

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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.

I feel like I should just write “See last week’s recap” for what’s going on because it’s seriously just the same old, same old.  My state has started to enter Phase 1 of reopening even though we still have over 1,000 new cases on average per day.  I don’t really know why the 14 days of declining cases was even mentioned as the standard for Phase 1 when most of the states seem to be doing whatever the heck they want, whether it’s safe or not.  We’re still not going out much at all, especially since we ventured out to the grocery store yesterday and saw that the majority of people we encountered still aren’t wearing masks even though cases are definitely still climbing here in my county and the two neighboring ones.  So yeah, status quo.

I did finally finish binge watching Will & Grace and have moved on to Seinfeld.  I’m almost 4 seasons in to Seinfeld, and while it’s funny, I can’t decide if I want to watch the entire series or not.  It doesn’t feel like there’s a real storyline there; it’s more like every episode is just a standalone.  That’s fine but at the same time, I’m just sitting here like “Okay, now I can say I’ve experienced Seinfeld. Next!” This is probably also compounded by the fact that my Netflix and Hulu queues look about like my TBR, lol.

Reading is going well for the most part. I’m finishing my May ARCs this week and hopefully starting on my June ones. I also finished up another book from my backlist that I promised myself I was going to read this year.  If you’re in the market for a unique and surprisingly funny read about a zombie apocalypse, I highly recommend Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got.  I hope everyone out there is staying safe, healthy, and is practicing social distancing.  Have a great week!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

 
  
    
 

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

  
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

   
   
 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Weekly Recap #154: Week of 5/3 – 5/9

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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.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the moms out there! I have no idea what my family has in store for me today, but I’m assuming it will be fairly low-key given the stay-at-home orders and such.  I just got a copy of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood so I might just curl up on the couch, watch that, and relax.

Not much else is going on around here.  I’ve been feeling sluggish and blah the past couple of weeks so this week I’ve been making more of an effort to get outside and walk everyday rain or shine. That seems to be helping with the blahs so I plan to keep it up as much as possible moving forward.

I also finally pulled out a new jigsaw puzzle to mix things up with my reading and Netflix binging, and I don’t think I’m ever going to finish this one.  It’s a Monet flower garden and, while gorgeous, all of the pieces look alike to me. It has taken me two full days just to put together the outside border and I still can’t find one piece of that.  It’s also 2,000 pieces so it may last me until the next pandemic, haha.

I was somewhat quiet on the blog this week. I finished some great reads but just didn’t feel like writing the reviews for them. Hopefully I’ll get those written today.  I got mostly caught up on blog hopping, but that’s a never ending struggle for me so nothing new there.  I also fell down the Pinterest rabbit hole earlier this week when I was looking for items for my bookish party.  Usually I ignore Pinterest but once I go there, leaving is a real problem.  It’s like Hotel California.  I have had a Pinterest account for my blog but it was a personal account but decided I should probably have a business one too, especially in case I want to have non-bookish boards on my personal one.   I created the account but it’s basically the same as my personal one.  As with all social media, I have no idea what I’m doing with it, but if you want to follow, it’s up and running this morning and has 0 followers so it’s very lonely, lol.  —>  Pinterest

I also worked on my Bookstagram account a bit as well, trying to be more interactive, which is always a struggle for me, as is posting more than about once a week. I actually posted three times last week and I’m just like “Who ARE you?”

Anyway, that’s it for me.  I hope everyone out there is staying safe, healthy, and is practicing social distancing.  Have a great week!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

 
  
    
 

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

  
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

 
 
 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Weekly Recap #153: Week of 4/26 – 5/2

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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.

 

I’m late posting today, but it’s actually for a good reason.  I started reading Beach Read last night and it’s so good I picked it back up as soon as I woke up this morning and completely lost track of time.  I’m also planning to dive back into it as soon as I finish this post, lol.

I hope everyone is doing well.  We’re still plugging along here in Virginia.  Our stay-at-home order lasts until June 10th as of right now, and considering the past three days have brought us our highest daily numbers of new cases yet, I don’t see the order expiring early.

I honestly just don’t have much to talk about this week.  The big excitement for the week was going to my son’s school to pick up the contents of his school and gym lockers.  Since the kids had just gone out on Spring Break when the announcement was made that the schools were closed for the rest of the year, all of their belongings were still in their lockers.  The staff at my son’s school cleaned out all of the lockers and we had curbside pickup to retrieve them.  I was honestly expecting pure chaos, but it was very well orchestrated and only took a couple of minutes, so I have to give props to the school.  I also loved that they did it by grade and had the teachers for that grade at the school standing, safely spaced out per distancing guidelines, waving to the kids and talking to them.  My son’s English teacher told him he needed to pick up a book, which made me laugh. She could obviously tell he had been slacking in her class with the distance learning, lol.

The other highlight was of course the hair dye curbside pickup I mentioned last week. I picked up my color from the salon yesterday and am thrilled to say they came up with a completely idiot-proof process to cover up that root growth.  They mixed the color and put it in a Ziploc bag.  All I had to do when I got home was mix it thoroughly, twist the baggie to bring all of the color down to a bottom corner, then snip the very end off of the corner and pipe the color on as if icing a cake. It was brilliant!  My highlights will have to wait until the salons officially reopen but at least the gray is gone for a few weeks.  Small victories, lol!

Beyond that, I’ve spent my week continuing my binge watch of Will & Grace from a few months ago.  I’m finally up to the rebooted episodes and nearing the end, so now I have to decide what I want to watch next.  I don’t do well with too many choices so having Hulu, Netflix, and Disney + right now has my Libra brain all muddled and indecisive.  I might do Seinfeld though since that’s another show that I’m the last person on the planet who hasn’t ever watched it.

Anyway, that’s it for me.  I hope everyone out there is staying safe, healthy, and is practicing social distancing.  Have a great week!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

  
    
 

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

  
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

(Basically me trying to get my son to read these days…)

Weekly Recap #152: Week of 4/19 – 4/25

/38 Comments/by

 

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.

I almost forgot to post today because I woke up, didn’t know what day it was, and started to log in to work.  Yep, even with working, I’ve finally reached that point where all the days are just the same to me.  It’s all good though. I recovered and here’s my post, such that it is.  There’s honestly just nothing going on that’s worth writing about.  My big excitement for the week is that my hair salon has announced they’re doing curbside pickup on their custom dyes so that clients can touch up their own roots while waiting for the salon to officially reopen.  I watched their online tutorial and it looks doable so I’m going to pick my color up next weekend and give it a whirl.  I had thankfully gotten a haircut right before everything shut down, but I noticed my roots this week and it got me down a bit. I know no one is seeing them outside of family members, but I think it’s a psychological, self care kind of thing.  I need to do something for myself and this is a simple pick-me-up.

Mostly we’re just plugging along through quarantine.  I’m counting down the weeks until the schools stop sending online work for the kids. I hate to be unsupportive about that since I understand where the teachers and the school district are coming from, but I’m just over it and tired of fighting the fight with my son everyday since there’s no accountability in terms of grades anyway.  The official end of the school year is May 22 and that day can’t come soon enough for me.

I’m still getting some reading done and some blogging done, but it’s definitely all sporadic depending on what else is going on around here.  Speaking of which, I saw the video below on Facebook yesterday and I think it perfectly sums up what daily life is like if you’re stuck in quarantine with kids, lol.

 

 

Anyway, that’s it for me.  I hope everyone out there is staying safe, healthy, and is practicing social distancing.  Have a great week!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

  
    
 

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

  
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

  NONE!   

 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Weekly Recap #151: Week of 4/12 – 4/18

/38 Comments/by

 

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.

I feel like I really don’t have much to write here since most weeks are pretty much just repeats of the one before it.  We’re still doing okay with our quarantine routine and my standing desk is working out great. I like having the option to sit or stand and with a few quick adjustments, I can do either one as my knees dictate.  Work is still pretty busy too, which is good since it makes the days go by faster, gives me some kind of structure to most of my days, and of course because $$$.

As of this past week, all of my son’s teachers are now teaching new material to their students online so my son has a full schedule of Google meets.  That has given him a bit of structure and while he’s still not terribly motivated, he is at least attending the virtual meetings so hopefully he’ll learn some of the material he would have completely missed out on otherwise.

The only major change to our routine is that now my son’s travel soccer coaches are now sending out workout videos three times a week so that the team can have drills to practice, etc.  At first I was just forwarding the emails to my son so he could watch them and do the routines, but soon discovered, that wasn’t going to happen so now I’m his soccer coach too. I have to make a spreadsheet with the skills, number of sets and reps, etc. and go outside with him to put him through his paces. Otherwise, he just sits on the couch, watches the videos, then goes back to his games.  That whole situation is a test of my patience, lol.

Reading has been pretty steady for me, although the unexpected early arrival of my hold on the audio for The Starless Sea threw me off of my originally planned TBR for the week.  I should finish that today and then I’ll be continuing with The Master Class by Christina Dalcher and getting back on track.  The order for today is blog hopping so hopefully I’ll have time to stop by and visit everyone I’ve neglected since midweek when I lost my free time to those soccer lessons.

I hope everyone out there is staying safe, healthy, and is practicing social distancing.  Have a great week!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

 
  
    
 

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

  
 
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Weekly Recap #150: Week of 4/5 – 4/11

/35 Comments/by

 

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.

So we are all slowly but surely adjusting to our new normal.  Trying to balance my own work-from-home routine with my son’s new distance learning routine has proven challenging at times but we’re making it work.  The biggest challenge has been trying to get him to actually do the work. He’ll sign in online for the class meetings without any trouble, but he doesn’t then actually want to do anything.  He is fast losing motivation since the principal has stated that final grades have already been calculated so nothing they are currently doing is actually being graded. It’s simply to try to at least cover the material they hadn’t gotten to yet and review what they had already done since there won’t be final exams.  I’m picking and choosing my battles on this and making him at least keep up with his core subjects like Algebra, Science, Civics, and English.

His soccer coaches are also trying to have lessons online, which has been interesting too.  They record skills and routines on YouTube and the kids are supposed to watch the videos and then try to do everything that’s in the video a few times a week.  Also a challenge since my son seems to prefer being in couch potato mode these days.  They’re going to try Skype team meetings this coming week so hopefully actually hearing from his coach will motivate him better than I am.

In other news, I did end up ordering myself a standing desk.  My husband and I put it together last night and I’m actually standing at it right now as I type this post and love it.  I’m glad I also purchased an anti-fatigue mat since I can tell all of the standing is going to take some getting used to, but I’m still very excited, especially since my governor’s stay-at-home order currently runs through June 10th and my company’s CEO mentioned this past week that he could easily see us working from home until Labor Day.

I got a decent amount of reading done this week in spite of having to ride herd on my son all day, everyday.  I got a couple of my ARCs read and will be reviewing those tomorrow.  I also started one of my anticipated reads, Shorefall, which I’m loving so far.  I then got sidetracked by the sudden need to wrap up another of my lingering series so I read Holly Black’s The Queen of Nothing.  That ended up being a much shorter read than I was expecting, but nonetheless a very satisfying series finale.  I’m back to Shorefall now and plan to continue with my ARCs unless the mood reading monster strikes again.

I hope everyone out there is staying safe, healthy, and is practicing social distancing.  Happy Easter to those who are celebrating!  Take care!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

 
 
  
    
 

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

  
 
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

           
 

TOTALLY RANDOM