Weekly Recap #30: Week of 12/3 – 12/9

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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 and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

I still can’t get over how quickly the holidays are approaching.  I’m running out of time to do all of the holiday preparations I still need to do and have a feeling that holiday cards might be the thing that I just cross off my list and skip this year.  I love sending and receiving cards, but it seems like it just gets more and more expensive to do it and that I receive fewer and fewer cards from my friends and family each year as others have opted to do more of an online newsletter to sum up their year.  I feel like the cards are just a dying tradition.  Or maybe I’m just trying to justify in my own mind not sending them.

I’m heading out today to see a musical with my mom and sister, so I’m looking forward to that.  We’re going to see The Sound of Music as part of the Broadway in Richmond series.  Every year 4 or 5 Broadway shows come to our capital city so it’s a great way to see some shows without the expense of going all the way to NYC.  My mom got me this ticket as a birthday gift back in October and I had actually forgotten all about it until she called me yesterday to finalize our plans.  Oops!

We’re also doing a big holiday event at my office this week that I am completely unprepared for.  An ambitious party planner has us doing a holiday cookie exchange, an ugly sweater contest, and a White Elephant Christmas all at the same time on the same day.  Sometime between now and Tuesday I have to bake 4 dozen cookies, find an ugly sweater, and come up with a gift for the White Elephant party.  Needless to say, I probably won’t be reading or blogging much in the next couple of days.  After that though, I plan to have my nose buried in a book for the rest of the week!

Anyway, I think that’s it for me.   Have a great week, everyone!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

   

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

  
     

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

    
   

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

 

Weekly Recap #29: Week of 11/26 – 12/2

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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 and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

I’m slowly but surely getting back on track with my reading and blogging after having been away.  I’m still a couple of days behind on my comments and blog hopping, but I’m hoping to be all caught up by this evening.  Next time I travel, I think I might just not schedule any posts and start fresh once I return home.  Live and learn, lol.  But anyway, if I haven’t stopped by your blog in a while, I hope to remedy that today.

This week I’m all about decking the halls for the holidays.  We started decorating yesterday but ended up going out shopping for new decorations instead because when we opened up our storage boxes, several of our older decorations had decided to just fall apart.  At first I was shocked, but then I had to remind myself that they’re probably at least 15-20 years old and some even older than that because they were donated to us by our families when we were first starting out.  So now that we’re restocked on decorations, we’re putting everything including the tree up today.  I’ve got my holiday tunes loaded on my phone so I’m ready to roll and fully immerse myself in the Christmas spirit.

I’ve also got holiday shopping on the brain since everyone keeps asking me what I want for Christmas.  In brainstorming a wish list for myself, I’ve come up with a post on gift ideas for bookworms and will be posting that this week, along with my usual slate of posts.

I started reading Renegades by Marissa Meyer this weekend and am enjoying it so far.  I also noticed when I went to log it on my Goodreads account that it is the 100th book I’ve read this year.  I’ve never read that many books in one year before, so that was pretty exciting to see!

 

Anyway, I think that’s it for me.   Have a great week, everyone!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

  

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

 
     
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

    

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Weekly Recap #28: Week of 11/19-11/25

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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 and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

So, I’m back from my trip to New York and have spent the bulk of this week playing catch up while also preparing to host this year’s Thanksgiving dinner.  The trip was fantastic! Since we go there so much and have done most of the traditional touristy activities, we decided to do a few different activities this time.  We toured the historic district of Harlem this time, which included seeing a lot of beautiful churches and brownstones, as well as the Apollo Theater, and learning a lot about the history of Harlem that I had never studied before.  Aside from touring Harlem, we also took in a comedy show in Chelsea at the Gotham Comedy Club.  It was hilarious and I’d highly recommend it no matter who the show headliner is.  The night we went, as funny as the headliner was, the two opening acts were even funnier. I don’t think I stopped laughing the entire time we were there!

None of the Broadway shows I was interested in seeing had discounted tickets available, so we opted for an off-Broadway play instead.  It was a dark comedy called ‘What We’re Up Against’ and starred Sklar Astin, Marg Helgenberger, and Damian Young and it focused on sexism in the workplace.  The play was fantastic and gave us a lot to think and talk about afterwards.  We also ate tons of New York Pizza and Cheesecake and had a great time just exploring the city in general.

One of my favorite places that we visited was The Strand bookstore.  Now, amazingly enough, I didn’t actually buy any books, but I did buy some fun bookish souvenirs from there, including these cool bookish tote bags.

  
 

I have to confess that I have done pretty much no reading this entire week either.  I started reading The Girl in the Tower on the train ride home last weekend and while I’m really enjoying it so far, just got too busy with Thanksgiving planning to even pick up the book again.  Then once Thanksgiving was over, I spent the rest of my long weekend binge-watching Marvel: Agents of Shield.  I watched almost 3 full seasons from Thursday afternoon to this morning!  I should be ashamed of myself, but I regret nothing, haha!

Hopefully I’ll get some books read this weekend or else The Bookish Libra may be a bit quiet next week!

Anyway, I think that’s it for me.  I hope everyone who was celebrating this week had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!  Have a great week, everyone!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

    

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

  
     
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

 
    

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Credit: inkygirl.com

Weekly Recap #27: Week of 11/12-11/18

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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 and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

So, I’m writing this post early since it will need to be published before I return from my trip to NYC.  Looking into my crystal ball, I’m going to say that I’m having a fabulous time on my trip and don’t want it to end.  It is supposed to rain almost the whole time I’m there but hopefully it will just be light showers.  If it’s too bad, I might be spending my trip visiting some of those museums uptown that I’ve always neglected in the past.

Aside from getting ready for my trip, my week was pretty quiet.  I did participate in the HoHoHo Readathon, which was fun and helped get me into the holiday spirit sooner than I would normally be.  I managed to read 3 out of the 4 books I had hoped to read but then got sidetracked with trip planning and didn’t get to the last book and also forgot about the chat until it had already finished, which was a bummer since I was looking forward to that.  I definitely hope to participate in it again next year!

My favorite read from the readathon was Mr. Dickens and His Carol.  I’ll be reviewing it this week and I think it’s a must-read for anyone who loves historical fiction, Dickens, A Christmas Carol, or heck even just Christmas honestly.  It’s just such a charming read.

I’m hoping to get some reading done on the train so we’ll see how that plan goes.  Sometimes that works out for me, sometimes I just fall asleep, haha.

Anyway, I think that’s it for me.  Have a great week, everyone!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

    

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

  
     
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

    

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Source: Pinterest

Weekly Recap #26: Week of 11/5-11/11

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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 and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

This week has been kind of a blur for me. I’m sitting here trying to write about it and am drawing a blank as to what I even did, lol.  I’ve been busy finalizing plans for my trip to New York City.  I’m heading that way this Friday morning so if you don’t see me around and I’m not commenting on your blogs, that’s why!  I’m going to try to some of my commenting and visiting while I’m on the train, but I’m sure I’ll be offline for a few days once I actually get to the city.  Some of my plans are still up in the air but I know that I’ll be touring Harlem on Saturday and am really looking forward to that. I’ve been to NYC many times over the years, but Harlem is one area I’ve never made it to before.  Aside from that, I’m sure we’ll be seeing a couple of shows.  We usually wait and decide which ones once we get there and see what the discount TKTS booth has available since we’re usually able to score pretty good seats at a great price that way.

Aside from planning my trip, I was glued to my TV the first couple of nights of the week, waiting to see how our elections in Virginia turned out.  It was a wild and stressful ride, but ultimately I was happy with the results and feel like some of my faith in the democratic process has been restored.

On the blog, I’ve been participating in my first HoHoHo Readathon, which has been fun.  I don’t usually read a lot of holiday-themed books, so it has been a refreshing change of pace for me.  So far I’ve read two books, Winter Street and Winter Stroll by Elin Hilderbrand, and am starting my third book, Mr. Dickens and His Carol, today.  I don’t know how many books I’ll get read this week since I have a ton of errands, etc. to do to finish getting ready for my trip, but we’ll see how it goes.  Once I finish my HoHoHo reads, my plan is to start The Girl in the Tower and hopefully get that read on the train.  I’m also hoping to get some posts scheduled so that my blog isn’t completely dead while I’m away, but we’ll see…I’m not a great planner so if I’m quiet, just know I’ll be back soon, lol.

Anyway, I think that’s it for me.  Have a great week, everyone!  I’m sure I’ll be playing catch for a few days after I get back, so thanks in advance for your patience!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

 
 

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

  
     
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

 
    

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Source: Grammarly FB Page

Weekly Recap #25: Week of 10/29-11/4

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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 and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

I hope everyone who celebrated Halloween this week had a great time.  We had a lot of trick or treaters, although not as many as usual, I’m assuming because Halloween was on a school night this year.  I way overbought on candy, so have spent the rest of this past week trying to come up with ways to get rid of some of it so we don’t eat it all ourselves, lol.

I don’t know about you guys but I honestly cannot even believe it’s November.  I’ve even seen Christmas decorations going up in several yards already.  Where has this year gone?  I’m looking at some of the goals I had made for myself for this year and now it’s like ‘Welp, guess they will now be goals for 2018!’

Politically speaking, we’ve got a big week coming up in my state.  Everyone around the country is watching our gubernatorial race to see who wins.  Because of the way the calendar falls, our election is always seen as a referendum on the sitting President.  I’ve gotten a little behind on my blog commenting/blog hopping because I’ve been so focused on the local polls and the news coverage every night when I get home from work.  I start watching, planning to only watch for a few minutes, and then the next thing I know, it’s time for bed and I’ve accomplished nothing.

As far as reading goes, I still managed to have a pretty decent reading week, finishing up both Artemis and Starfish, and getting another 100 pages of Hillary’s book read.  I also started Wonder Woman: Warbringer yesterday and am really enjoying that so far.  This week I’ll be starting my HoHoHo Readaton reading list as well.  I’ve decided I’m going to start with Mr. Dickens and His Carol since I think that one is going to take me the longest.

Anyway, I think that’s it for me.  Have a great week, everyone!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

   

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

    
     
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

   
    

 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Weekly Recap #24: Week of 10/22-10/28

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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 and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

Thanks to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday last week.  I had a lovely day and as you’ll see from my Stacking the Shelves this week, I did indeed score a lot of new reads as birthday gifts, not to mention a couple of gift cards so that I can purchase more once I work my way through these.  Aside from birthday activities, it was actually a very quiet week. I’ve been trying to get out every day and take a nice, long walk now that the cooler fall weather has arrived.  I’ve also been making my son go with me, and it’s amazing how much more information I can get out of him about his school day when I have him completely away from all of his electronic distractions.

We did have a last minute dash a couple of days ago regarding Halloween costumes. For the past two months, my son has been telling me that he didn’t want to dress up this year, that he would rather stay home and hand out candy.  “Are you sure?”  “Yes.” “Are you absolutely sure?” “YES!”  All of the sudden on Thursday, he comes to me “I think I want to go trick or treating.”  “Seriously?”  Thankfully we have a Spirit Halloween store in town and they still had a few costumes left in his size.  Otherwise I would have forced him to wear his soccer uniform and carry a soccer ball with him, lol.

As far as the blog goes, it was pretty much business as usual for me this week.  If you haven’t entered my twitter follower celebration giveaway, make sure to do that. It ends tomorrow.  Also, if you’re interested in reading Dear Martin, there’s a blog tour giveaway on my review post so be sure to enter that as well.

I did get a lot of reading done, finishing One Perfect Lie, The Tethered Mage, and about half of Artemis this week, and I’m of course still plugging away on Hillary’s book. I’m about 350 pages into that and still wishing she had been elected President with every page I turn.  I don’t know that I’ll be able to objectively review that book since I’m obviously a huge Hillary fan, but we’ll see how I feel once I finish it.  I definitely think it’s one of those reads where if you love her, you’ll love the book. If you hate her, you’ll find nothing redeeming about it.

Anyway, I think that’s it for me.  Have a great week, everyone!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

    

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

    
       
 

STACKING THE SHELVES

 

   
   
   

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Source: Pinterest

Weekly Recap #23: Week of 10/15-10/21

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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 and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

Well, all of my work deadlines are behind me so needless to say, this has been a great week!  I’ve had plenty of downtime and have just been enjoying the fall weather, napping a lot, and getting caught up on all of the shows that have been stacking up on my DVR.  I haven’t tried many of the new shows yet but of the ones I have, I really enjoyed the first few episodes of “The Brave” on NBC.

And today’s my birthday. Yay!  I have no idea what I’m doing today yet, but I’m hoping to spend some quality time with my son and my hubby (and hopefully snag a few new books too!).

On the blog, I’ve got a few blog tour posts coming up this week, one for a YA fantasy called Marked Beauty and one for a YA contemporary, Dear Martin.  Both reads were quite good so I look forward to sharing those reviews.  I also have a new giveaway up on the blog to celebrate reaching the 1,000 twitter follower mark.  If you haven’t already, make sure you enter.  The prize is a book of your choice (up to a $20 value) from The Book Depository.

Anyway, I think that’s it for me.  Have a great week, everyone!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

   

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

    
       
 

STACKING THE SHELVES

 

   

 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Weekly Recap #22: Week of 10/8-10/14

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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 and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

Just one more day until my last big deadlines of the year! I’m happy to say that this past week actually ended up not being nearly as stressful as I thought it was going to be.  My coworkers were a lot more proactive than usual and even though we were really busy, everything went very smoothly.  Hopefully that trend will continue through tomorrow!

We also had our first soccer playoff game yesterday, which didn’t go as we had hoped so our season is now over.  It wasn’t the way we wanted to end, considering how well our team had played all season, but the better team definitely won yesterday.  I’m still really proud of my son, since this was his personal best season yet.  I’m waiting now to hear from him if he’s done until next spring or if he wants to play in the winter indoor soccer league.

Not too much else is going on honestly.  On the blog, I’ll be posting my 50th Netgalley review tomorrow so that’s a pretty exciting milestone for me.  I’ve also finally reached the 1,000 follower mark on twitter so I’ll be posting a new giveaway sometime soon to celebrate. 🙂  I’ve also been looking around for new challenges and readathons to participate in this fall and winter and so far, the one that has appealed to me the most is Caffeinated Book Reviewer’s HoHoHo Readathon so I’ve been looking for books for that and plan to sign up soon.  If anyone knows of any other good challenges or readathons, let me know.  I’m kind of new to them so I don’t necessarily know what’s out there to choose from.

Anyway, I think that’s it for me.  Have a great week, everyone!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

      

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

        
      

 

STACKING THE SHELVES

 

 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Source: Pinterest

Weekly Recap #21: Week of 10/1-10/7

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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 and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

This past week was one of those weeks where I felt like I was just constantly distracted and trying to go in about 10 different directions at the same time.  Upcoming work deadlines have had me bringing work home several nights this week and then trying to fit that in around my son’s soccer games and homework. Thankfully my work deadlines are fast approaching (10/16) and then that stress will be behind me.  Soccer has been going well. We just finished the regular season with a 6-1-1 record and will have our first playoff game in a week.  My son hasn’t scored anymore goals, but he is still having an outstanding season. I’m really proud of him, especially since he wasn’t even sure he wanted to keep playing this season.

Another big distraction has been starting to plan my November trip to NYC.  Since I’ve already done most of the obvious touristy things on previous trips, I’ve been doing a lot of research trying to come up with some new things to do and places to go.  We’re thinking of touring Harlem this time if we can find a tour that we like the sound of.

Netflix was calling my name a lot this week as well. I had a few of those evenings where I just needed something mindless to do so I vegged out and binge watched the rest of Shameless, season 3 of Fuller House, and then watched the Jane Fonda/Robert Redford movie Our Souls at Night.  Man, those two still have the best onscreen chemistry!

Needless to say, I got a little behind on my blog commenting.  I meant to get all caught up today but then spent most of the day reading and napping instead, haha.  I hope to be caught up before the end of the day tomorrow though.  I also have a few reviews that I need to get written because while I was hibernating and reading, I finished Crooked Kingdom as well as the cozy mystery Murder Over Mochas.  I also started Emery Lord’s The Names They Gave Us and Hillary’s new book.  I think Hillary’s book is going to take me a while to get through, just because of all of the emotions that it stirs up, but so far, I’m finding it to be an interesting read.  Very raw and honest.

Anyway, I think that’s it for me.  Have a great week, everyone!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

       

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

        

 

STACKING THE SHELVES

 

 

TOTALLY RANDOM