Weekly Recap #99: Week of 4/7 – 4/13

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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.

*Checks self*  Yep, still tired, still busy, and the whole week was a blur.  There’s light at the end of the work tunnel though because the tax deadline is tomorrow.  WOOHOO!

All I really have on my mind right now though is that Games of Thrones is back TONIGHT!  I was up until 1a.m. last night working on blog posts for the upcoming week because I will be doing nothing tonight except tuning in to see how this final season kicks off. I’m so excited!

I do have to catch up on my blog hopping, so thanks as always for your patience in that.  I had very good intentions of doing it yesterday but then sat down to read what I thought would be just a few chapters of The Bride Test.  Twelve hours later (!), I had finished the book and hadn’t visited a single blog. No regrets though because The Bride Test is amazing and I think that’s exactly how I needed to spend my Saturday.

Okay that’s it for now.  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 #98: Week of 3/31 – 4/6

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

First I want to start off with apologies for totally slacking this week in the blog hopping department.  I started out well but then about halfway through the week, I crashed and burned.  Work just really sucked the life out of me and by both Thursday and Friday evenings, nearly every time I sat down, I immediately dozed off.  We are critically short-staffed at work at the moment, and although some of the stress/workload will go away after the April 15th tax deadline, my team’s work is primarily audit-based, so we’re just getting geared up for our busiest time. We did just hire a new person though, so hopefully once she’s fully trained, things will level off.  Until then, the gif below is me pretty much every night and all weekend, lol.  For this reason, my What I’m Reading list below is probably way overly optimistic, especially considering I only finished 1 1/2 books this past week, but we’ll see how it goes.

 

via GIPHY

Not too much else besides work went on this week, but my son did have his first Parks and Rec soccer game of the season.  He’s with a new team this time around, so I was thrilled when they won the game 6-0.  He’s playing midfield this time around too and looked really good out there, so I felt like all of our off-season training efforts are starting to pay off.  His next game isn’t until the 11th and then he has back-to-back games, including one on tax deadline day. I’m really hoping I won’t have to miss that one, but we’ll see…

After sleeping in late on Saturday, my son and I finally got to the theater to see Captain Marvel. We both really loved it.  Honestly it was way better than I thought it would be based on the mixed reviews I had read for it, so that was a very pleasant surprise.  There was also a great trailer for Avengers:  Endgame, so now I’m more excited than ever to see that in a few weeks!

Okay that’s it for now.  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 #97: Week of 3/24 – 3/30

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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.

Before I forget, today is the last day of my 3rd Blogoversary Giveaway so be sure to enter if you haven’t already. It’s for a free book of your choice up to $20.  —>  Enter for your chance to win a free book!

I think my biggest accomplishment this week was that I made it through the last Fantasy ARC that I had on my review schedule for the Spring.  I really enjoyed both Wicked Saints and Descendant of the Crane, but I think I’m ready to take a break and read from other genres for a while.  I don’t have any other Fantasy ARCs on my schedule as of right now until August and I’ve been requesting contemporaries, historical fiction, and some thrillers to give myself a good variety to choose from.  Once I’m ready for more fantasy, I plan to focus more on the books from my backlist, especially series that I’ve started and not finished.  Plans don’t always work out, especially where shiny, new books are concerned, but we’ll see how this goes.

The book I’m most excited about right now is The Bride Test, which I recently won in a giveaway from Jennifer – Tar Heel Reader.  Thanks Jenni!  I hardly ever win giveaways so this really made my day. I can’t wait to read it.  I think 3 April ARCs to get to and then it’s next on my list!

Not too much else has really gone on aside from the usual.  At work, there’s two weeks left until the tax deadline so I’m sure we’ll be crazy busy until then and probably beyond depending on how many returns we extend.  In soccer news, even though my son didn’t make the school team, his first game for Parks & Rec soccer is this Wednesday.  Because he has been doing so much training all winter, he’s going to play offense instead of defense this season so I’m hoping it will be pretty exciting to watch.  He’s also continuing his training for the foreseeable future, so I’m glad to see that not making the school team hasn’t killed his enthusiasm for the sport.

Lastly, in what I’ve been watching on TV/Netflix news, I finished season 2 of Riverdale on Netflix this week so I’m caught up until they put the next season on there, and am now trying to decide what to start next. There’s also a part of me though that just wants to cancel my subscription after they jacked up the price and then immediately cancelled One Day at a Time, which was one of my favorite shows on there.  Aside from my Netflix dilemma, I am also anxiously awaiting the new seasons of Game of Thrones and The 100.

Okay that’s it for now.  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 #96: Week of 3/17 – 3/23

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

My crazy schedule caught up with me this week and after about Wednesday, I decided I needed to take a little break and recharge.  My son was also feeling down because after all of his hard work training for so many months, he still didn’t make the soccer team.  I decided we both needed a little pick-me-up so for the past two nights we have vegged out together, watching movies, ordering pizza, and indulging in ice cream.  Marvel movies were on the agenda, as well as Into the Spiderverse (which was awesome, by the way!).  We’re both feeling much better now, but needless to say, I have some catching up to do on the blog and especially with writing reviews because I didn’t write a single one all week.  Oops, lol.

On the reading front, I’m about to dive into Descendant of the Crane. It’s the last fantasy ARC I have on my schedule for a while so if it doesn’t bust me out of my YA fantasy rut, at least I have plenty of other genres coming up to give me a break from it.  The weather has been gorgeous here this weekend so I’m really hoping to be able to start reading this one outside.  I’m also working on my backlist reads with an audiobook of Crazy Rich Asians that I’m really enjoying so far.

Oh, and before I forget, in blog news, today is actually my blogoversary!  The Bookish Libra has officially been up and running for 3 years now. I’ll be starting a giveaway later today to celebrate, so be sure to check back for that.  Thanks so much to all of you who have supported me these past 3 years.  It’s the friends I’ve made, just as much as my love of books, that keep me blogging and I really appreciate all of you.

Okay that’s it for now.  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 #95: Week of 3/10 – 3/16

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

This is one of those weeks where I’m sitting here trying to remember what happened each day and I’m coming up totally blank. The joys of working for an accounting firm, I guess. Life is a blur from January to April 15th, lol.  I think the highlight of the week was being so busy and so tired that my husband and I tried Instacart for our grocery shopping and DoorDash last night to order dinner from one of our favorite restaurants that doesn’t have its own delivery service.  I really loved both services, especially Instacart since I hate going grocery shopping.

Aside from that, the only thing that really stands out is soccer, soccer, soccer.  My son’s Parks and Rec season started this week and he is still attending the training sessions, so our schedule was extra busy.  He also has tryouts for his school team starting tomorrow, so every spare minute has been devoted to helping him be as ready as he possibly can.  We don’t know what his chances of making the team are since he’s only a 6th grader and will be trying out with 7th and 8th graders, but we figure it’s a good practice run for next year anyway so that he’ll know what to expect and will be more comfortable trying out when he has the best chance of making the team.  I’m proud of him for even trying out though. I was a wimp and never tried out for any kind of sport when I was in school, lol.

On the blogging/reading front, I think I have finally hit a wall in my fantasy reading.  I found myself getting especially impatient with the worldbuilding in Wicked Saints, which I actually set down yesterday in favor of Serious Moonlight, a YA contemporary.  I don’t think it’s an issue with Wicked Saints either; I think it’s just me.  I wanted a read in a world that was familiar and didn’t want to have to work to imagine another new fantasy world.  I don’t know if it’s because I’m just super tired from work or if my mood reading side is demanding a change, but you’ll notice below that I hauled more books than usual this week and not a single one of them is fantasy.

Anyway, I think that’s about 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 #94: Week of 3/3 – 3/9

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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.

Work really kicked my butt this week so I didn’t get nearly as much reading or blogging done in the evenings as I usually like to.  Instead, I was in full Netflix mode most nights.  I haven’t read the book yet, but I watched the movie Dumplin’ and thought that was pretty good. I’ve had Dolly Parton songs in my head ever since I watched it too, which I won’t complain about. I’m not typically much of a country music fan but I’ve always loved Dolly.  I also decided to try an episode of Riverdale to see if that series would be of interest. Needless to say, I fell down the Riverdale rabbit hole and I’m now almost finished with season 1.

I was also unfortunately too tired to get caught up on my reviews. I had hoped to get my review up for Daisy Jones & the Six this past Friday but instead, it will be posting tomorrow.  I’m excited to share my thoughts on Daisy Jones because it’s just such a great read. As far as my reading, I did manage to finish Bloodleaf, which releases this week and I’ve just started Sky Without Stars, which is a Les Miserables retelling. So far I’m really loving it.

The actual highlight of my week was getting my order of Girl Scout Cookies.  I always order way too many with the idea that they’ll last us all year, but if the tradition continues, they’ll all be gone in about three weeks, lol.

Anyway, I think that’s about 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

 

The perfect floorplan for a bookworm.

 

Source: Pinterest

Weekly Recap #93: Week of 2/24 – 3/2

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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 can’t believe what a couch potato I’ve been all weekend, but it really was all about the “Netflix and Chill” for me.  I finished watching the final season of Kimmy Schmidt and then started binging The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.  At first I couldn’t stand the Sabrina show, mainly because I’m so used to the fun and quirky Sabrina the Teenage Witch show that I used to watch all the time.  The new show reminds me more of Charmed than anything else, but I liked that show too so the Netflix show gradually won me over. I expect I’ll finish the first season today.

I think part of my need to just have a lazy weekend is because it’s busy season at work and we were severely short-staffed this week.  We’re supposed to be a team of 6, but recently had two people transfer because they didn’t want to do the kind of work we do anymore but didn’t want to leave the firm, and then we had another from what’s left of our team out on vacation.  That left three of us to cover the work for ten offices.  We got through the week but it involved rarely leaving my desk at work and then logging in from home almost every night to keep the jobs moving forward.

Somehow, even with work and the crazy soccer schedule, I still managed to get a decent amount of reading done this week. I finished You Asked for Perfect by LJ Silverman, which I thought was fantastic, and I also finished What’s If It’s Us, which I thought was super cute. I’ll be posting reviews for Desperate Paths, You Asked for Perfect, and possibly Daisy Jones and the Six (which I’m currently reading) this week.

Random blog thoughts:  I’m not sure if I’m going to write reviews for all of the backlist books I’m reading this year since I’ve set my backlist reading goal so high. I do think I’m going to try to at least do bookstagram posts with some bullet points of what I liked for some of the books I don’t review on my blog.  I don’t know, just an idea I’ve been toying around with as I’m watching the list of unreviewed backlist books I’ve read in 2019 grow. I may change my mind but we’ll see…

I think that’s about 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 #92: Week of 2/17 – 2/23

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

As I type up this week’s update post, I’m sitting here staring out my window, wondering yet again if the rain will ever end.  My front and back yard look like lakes, as if we’ve simply run out of places for the water to go.  The ground here is so saturated that during a small snow and ice storm that hit the area last week, my son missed two days of school, one for the actual weather and then one because trees came down all over the county, taking down power lines with them.  The outages were widespread enough that several schools in the county had no electricity, thus the bonus day off.  Something seriously needs to give on the weather front.

I don’t have much else to report this week.  My son’s soccer coach has added a speed and agility class to our already packed training schedule, so now we have soccer from 4-7pm on Wednesdays.  Thankfully he only wants him to attend this extra class for a few weeks because it is definitely a time killer that has us not getting home until nearly 8pm.  It will also probably mean minimal blogging that day just because there’s still homework, etc. to contend with once we finally do get home.  My son is planning to try out for his middle school team in a few weeks so I’m really hoping that all of this extra training helps him to achieve his goal.

Speaking of blogging, as most know, I’ve been trying to cut back on how many ARCs I request and focus more on books I already own.  That said, I still have a pretty long listing of pending requests, some of which have been pending for months so I wasn’t expecting to get them.  I got unexpected approvals for both Serious Moonlight by Jenn Bennett and Middlegame by Seanan McGuire, and am so excited to read both of them.  I’m so excited for the Bennett book that it took everything in me not to drop all of the other books I’m reading and dive into that one, lol.

I had some really great reads this week too.  Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee was a lot of fun, and I also loved You Owe Me a Murder, which I breezed through in one day and which reminded me of the old Strangers on a Train movie.  It’s definitely one of the better YA thrillers I’ve read.  I’ll be reviewing both of these books this week, so stay tuned!

I think that’s about 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 #91: Week of 2/10 – 2/16

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

This week was kind of a blur for me.  We’re entering busy season again at work and are doing so short-staffed and with some time-consuming new procedures to follow.  I’m hoping the procedures smooth out and become easier to follow as we get used to them, but right now, every day is just ugh.  The highlight of the work week was getting heart-shaped pizzas for lunch on Valentine’s Day, lol.

Speaking of Valentine’s Day, my husband and I were both still getting over being sick so we did nothing.  I bought my own box of chocolates again this year because the only one I like is the variety that has nuts and even after almost 20 years of marriage, he still gets it wrong every year.  Some people are great gift buyers and some are hopeless. He’s definitely in the hopeless category when it comes to chocolates.

On the sick front, I honestly can’t believe how long the after-effects of this sickness have dragged on.  We’re both functioning now and back to work, etc., but are also both still coughing frequently and feel completely drained by the time we get home in the evenings.  I napped almost all day yesterday and may end up doing the same thing today.  Food still tastes weird too.  My coffee tastes metallic and I was especially disappointed Friday night because we picked up Chick Fil A on the way home from soccer practice and it tasted weird too.  I’ll be so glad when this sickness is completely out of my system.

Reading was a mixed bag for me this week too.  I finished The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which was absolutely fabulous.  I don’t know that I’ll be writing a real review for it, but it was definitely a 5 star read for me.  Then I also finished an ARC of Crown of Feathers, which I still need to write my review for, but I will say that it was a hard book to get through.  I almost DNFed because of all of the info dumping.

Crown of Feathers was supposed to be my final February ARC but I just got approved for Rayne and Delilah’s Midnite Matinee. That book was a recent CWW pick for me, so I’m excited to dive into it this week. I also just started reading Obsidio, the final book in The Illuminae Files.  I’m excited to see where this story goes and I’m excited to finally be finishing up one of the series that has been lingering on my TBR for way too long.

I think that’s about 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 #90: Week of 2/3 – 2/9

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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.

After our Arctic blast a couple of weeks ago, we were finally treated to some lovely 60-70 degree weather this past week.  I knew with all of the yoyo-like temperatures we’ve had lately that eventually I’d end up sick.  This week unfortunately ended up being the week, and not only did I get sick, but my husband did as well.   I got sick first, catching what was either the flu or the worst cold I’ve ever had from a coworker I was training last week.  We probably should have cancelled the training but were just desperate to get it in before busy season is in full swing.  I thought I had escaped the sickness but woke up Thursday morning sweating profusely, achy all over, and running a fever of 102.3.  I ended up calling in sick Thursday and Friday because I felt so badly, but thankfully am feeling much better today aside from a nagging cough and some congestion.  Unfortunately though, as soon as I started to feel better, my husband came down with it. He’s not even convinced he got it from me because apparently almost everyone at his work has been sick lately too.  My son has been lucky so far, so I’m really hoping that luck holds so he doesn’t miss school.

I saw this photo on the Facebook page of the local NBC station and had to laugh because it’s so true, especially this year.

Credit: NBC12

 

Not too much else went on this week.  Since I didn’t feel well enough to do much else, I did get a ton of reading done. I only have one more February ARC left to read so I’m excited about that and plan to get back to my backlist reading as soon as that one is read.  I also, as of right now anyway, only have 5 ARCs for March so I think that’s going to be a big backlist month for me.  I guess it probably sounds weird to be excited about not having many ARCs, but I am just so eager to meet my goal of reading more books that are sitting on my shelves that I’m thrilled when there’s any window of opportunity to do that without worrying about not meeting ARC deadlines.

When I wasn’t reading this week, I was continuing with my Gilmore Girls binge on Netflix and finishing up season 5 of Grace and Frankie.  Next up for me will be to finish the final season of Kimmy Schmidt and then to start The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and see if it lives up to the hype.  I’m also hoping to watch Bohemian Rhapsody this week since it’s coming out on Redbox.  I missed it when it was at the theater but keep hearing good things about it so now I’m very curious.

I think that’s about 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