Tag Archive for: weekly recap

Weekly Recap #45: Week of 3/18 – 3/24

 

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 last week was the first week of Spring, but apparently Winter wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye because we had 4-5 inches of snow here and two more snow days for my son.  All I can say at this point is “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Winter!”  Anyway, here’s hoping that the warm and sunny days will begin soon, especially since I got a call from my son’s soccer coach yesterday and practice starts tomorrow.  I’m excited to get back to watching him play but wondering how it will be this time around since my family isn’t involved with any of the coaching duties at all and will only be spectators.  With my father-in-law’s recently diagnosed condition, we made the decision that coaching soccer was just not an option this year.  My son also decided he wanted to waver up to a new league with kids that closer to his age and grade.  (Our county sets July 31 as the cut off to determine what age league kids should be placed in and my son’s September birthday always puts him with younger kids and he’s over it now that he’s about to go to middle school, lol.)  Anyway, lots of new things to expect this season.

Aside from that, it was all work and not much play for me.  I had to work yesterday so I didn’t get to participate in any of the marches, but wow, it was so incredible to see on TV.  When I left work yesterday, I saw that we even had a march going on here.  I was so touched by what I saw that I cried all the way home from work, lol.  The newspaper is estimating the crowd size at around 400 people but in my gun-loving town, that is incredible.  Those students have really started a movement!

I got a fair amount of reading done this week in spite of my busy work schedule. I devoured The Woman in the Window and I Was Anastasia and hope to finish up The Room on Rue Amelie today, although this one has been somewhat of a struggle for me so far.  It’s a WWII historical fiction but even though the blurb says fans of The Nightingale and The Lilac Girls should love it, I don’t think it has the same vibe as those two books.  It feels more like a romance novel with WWII as a backdrop rather than focusing on the war itself.  I still have a ways to go so I’m hoping that will change but so far I’m a little underwhelmed.

I think that’s it for me for now.  I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

       
  

UPCOMING REVIEWS

       
   
   

 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

   
   
 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Source: Pinterest

Weekly Recap #44: Week of 3/11 – 3/17

 

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.

You ever have one of those weeks where everything is just a blur?  I’m sitting here trying to think of something to write and I honestly can’t remember a thing that happened all week, lol.  I blame it on the fact that I’m working six days a week from now until our mid-April deadline at work.  I think my schedule this week was pretty much just wake up, get ready for work, get my son ready for school, go to work, come home, make dinner, fall asleep in a chair while reading until bedtime, repeat…

I noticed yesterday that I had 12 episodes of The Big Bang Theory on the DVR that I hadn’t watched yet (Have I mentioned that my To Be Watched list is as bad as my TBR? LOL!), so I ended up watching about half of those last night before falling asleep in my chair.  I have an equal number of Young Sheldon episodes to watch but I can’t decide if I’m really into that show or not.  The first couple of episodes were okay but nothing to write home about.  We’ll see. They can sit on the DVR a while longer.

I did manage to squeeze in a bit of reading this week. I finally finished Gemina, which had been on my TBR forever, as well as an ARC of Every Note Played by Lisa Genova.  My review for that one posts tomorrow, and just wow, what a heart wrenching read that one is, especially if you’ve lost someone to ALS.  I’ve also got a couple of historical fiction ARCs that I need to read ASAP, including I Was Anastasia, which I started yesterday and am really enjoying so far, and The Room on Rue Amelie, which is advertised as perfect for fans of The Nightingale and The Lilac Girls, which are two of my favorite books so I’m really hoping this one lives up to that advertisement.

I think that’s it for me for now.  I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

     
  

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

       
   
   

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

     
      
 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Source: Pinterest

Weekly Recap #43: Week of 3/4 – 3/10

 

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 started off my week by going with my family to see Black Panther.  Wow, talk about a movie living up to the hype!  It was incredible and I’m so ready for a sequel!  I also saw trailers for the upcoming Christopher Robin and Mary Poppins Returns films and I’m just so excited for both of those since Winnie the Pooh and Mary Poppins were such big parts of my childhood.

The rest of the week was pretty quiet.  It’s busy season at work so I’m fried by the time I get home each day and lay around like a lump until it’s time to get up and do it all over again, lol.  I got a fair amount of reading done this week, including Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone, which was an amazing read.  I didn’t think she could top The Nightingale, but she got pretty darn close with this one and it had me sobbing by the end.  After that I needed some laughs so I binge watched season 1 of The Good Place on Netflix.  The first two episodes were average but after that it was hilarious.

I also had a random mishap on Thursday that has slowed down my blog commenting and review writing a little.  I was walking down the stairs and lost my footing when I was nearly all the way down.  I fell but somehow caught my underarm on the newel post.  I didn’t break or dislocate anything thankfully but being slightly airborne and then getting jammed up on the newel post really jerked around my upper body and shoulders so I’m very sore all over those areas and my right arm and wrist have some colorful bruises from where it smacked the post.  It has been a little uncomfortable to type a lot, but tonight it’s starting to finally ease up a bit.  Hopefully I’ll be good as new in the next day or so.  The best part of the whole experience was that my son was upstairs playing video games and remained completely oblivious to the entire incident.  I screamed, fell, and then cursed a blue streak for quite a while afterwards because it f-ing hurt like hell, and he never even came out of his room to see what had happened.  He didn’t know it had happened until later that night when he heard me telling his dad about it when he got home from work, lol.  Anyway,  lesson learned that day was that stockings and stairs don’t go well together!

I think that’s it for me for now.  I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

    
 

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

       
  
   

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

  
 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Weekly Recap #42: Week of 2/25 – 3/3

 

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 the big excitement this week was the “Bombogenesis” wind storm that struck the East Coast Thursday in the overnight hours.  My week had been so nice and peaceful up until that point and then all heck broke loose.  As soon as that wind started howling, all hope of sleep was lost because I was so worried trees were going to come down on the house.  Almost as soon as the winds started, we received an automated phone message from the local school system saying that the schools would be closed on Friday because the National Weather Service was predicting hurricane force wind gusts.  Based on what I was hearing outside, I was completely fine with that decision even though it came it at nearly midnight, lol.  Thankfully though, aside from the lost sleep on Thursday and Friday nights, the only other damage we had were tons of limbs strewn across the yard.  We were very fortunate.  Many other areas around us didn’t fare as well with lots of downed trees and power lines.  The wind has finally slowed down but there are still a few thousand people without power in my city.

Needless to say, I didn’t go out much the latter part of the week or over the weekend, so I got tons of reading done.  I finished The Family Next Door and Little and Lion, both of which were fabulous, and I got a nice start on The Cruel Prince, which I’m also really enjoying so far.

I also finished Tarnished City by Vic James yesterday and probably won’t be writing a full review for it on the blog.  I’m pleased to have gotten it off my TBR as part of the March Take Control of Your TBR Challenge, but aside from feeling that sense of accomplishment, the book itself fell flat for me.  I was able to finish it but I didn’t feel like much of anything happened and I was much less invested in the characters this time around.  I’m sorry to say that I don’t think I care enough about them to continue on with the third book and see how it all ends.

Not too much else happened. That or else I’ve forgotten it because of the excitement of the storm.  I did finish the first season of Big Little LIes on HBO and am looking forward to seeing what they do with the second season.  I’m now looking for new shows to watch, so if anyone has any suggestions for shows either on basic cable, HBO, or Netflix, I’m all ears. 🙂

I think that’s it for me for now.  I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

    
 

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

       
     
    

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

   
 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Source: Book Lovers World Instagram

Weekly Recap #41: Week of 2/18 – 2/24

 

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, for those who read last week’s post, you know I mentioned I’ve been experiencing some pretty awful headaches the past few weeks. Well, I went to the doctor to see if I could get some answers as to a possible cause.  After hearing me describe what I was feeling, she decided to send me for a head CT.  That of course freaked me out because it brings to mind so many worst case scenarios and so I scheduled the CT for Thursday afternoon because I didn’t want to wait any longer than necessary.  I got the results yesterday afternoon and the scan thankfully came back normal, although that means I still don’t have any answers to what is causing my head pain, which the doctor diagnosed as migraines with auras.  She gave me a prescription that she says should help with the pain, so we’ll see how that goes and then I think next up will be some bloodwork and/or a neurological consult if the headaches continue.

Thankfully I didn’t experience any headaches this week so I was able to get plenty of reading done again this week in between watching Olympic events on TV.  I finished 4 books and am starting a 5th tonight.  I also watched the U.S. men win the curling gold medal today and although I still can’t say that I 100% understand that sport, it was fascinating to watch.

Now that I’ve finished reading and reviewing most of my March 6th ARCs, I’m starting the first book of the Grishaverse trilogy in hopes of squeezing in one more book from my backlist before the end of the month.   It hasn’t been a great backlist month because of all of those ARCs but I did finally finish that massive Springsteen autobiography that I’ve been sitting on since October 2016.

I had planned to go see Black Panther this weekend too, but the hubby has been in bed all afternoon and says he doesn’t feel well. so I think those plans are probably on hold until next weekend unless he starts feeling a lot better very soon.  I keep hearing great things about the movie so I’m tempted to go without him but I’ll try to be patient and wait, lol.

I think that’s it for me for now.  I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

     
  

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

       
      
    

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

 
 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Weekly Recap #40: Week of 2/11 – 2/17

 

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 such a mixed bag weather-wise.  We started out with wintry temps but by Thursday and Friday, we had spring teaser temps in the 60s and 70s. Those two days were fantastic, but sadly, today we were right back to highs in the 30s and sleet.  Mother Nature just can’t seem to make up her mind, lol.

Aside from the weather roller coaster, it was a fairly typical week here.  Valentine’s Day was okay, not as romantic as I would have liked, but it seems to always be that way when the holiday falls during the week.  We’re both just too rushed and too tired to put much effort into it.  Heck, I even bought my own box of chocolates this year just to make sure I got what I really wanted.  That evening though, the hubby did manage to surprise me with tickets to see the Dave Matthews Band in concert.  We won’t be going until July, but I’m pretty excited about it.  I haven’t been to a concert of any kind in years and DMB is from Virginia so it’s always fun to support the local boys.

The whole week feels like a blur honestly, in part because I fought a headache all week long and just couldn’t focus on much else.  Nothing over the counter helped at all, and I was just miserable.  I’ve never had a migraine before but when I described what I was feeling to my husband, he seems to think that’s what it is.  I finally called my doctor on Friday and have an appointment to see her this coming week. I also fell behind on my blog visiting/commenting late in the week as my headache grew worse, but hopefully I’ll be able to get caught up this weekend since it has finally eased up a bit.

In spite of the headache that just wouldn’t go away, I did watch a lot of the Olympics coverage as predicted, and I also managed to get a lot of reading done too.  Out of those 5 March 6th ARCs I was fretting about a couple of weeks ago, I’ve finished reading 3 of them and have started the 4th.  I haven’t written a single review for them yet (still working on that procrastination goal obviously, lol), but at least I’m making good progress and should have them all reviewed prior to the publication date.  Because I’ve been so focused on those ARCs, my backlist reading has not been nearly as good as it was last month.  I did finally start a backlist book though, Bruce Springsteen’s 500+ page autobiography.  I’m about halfway through it now and It’s one that has been on my shelf since October 2016, so I’m happy to finally be working towards marking that one off the to read list.

I think that’s it for me for now.  I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

     
  

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

       
    
 

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

    

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Weekly Recap #39: Week of 2/4 – 2/10

 

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 feel like I say this almost every week but I’ll be so glad when spring gets here.  The older I get the more I dislike winter and want nothing to do with it.  It’s not even that we get all that much snow here — it’s that everyone overreacts as soon as the first flake falls.  We’ve probably had less than 4 inches of snow total since Christmas, yet my son has only had 2 full weeks of school since then.  Endless 2 hour delays and cancellations, which he loves of course.  Me, not so much. LOL!

The only good thing about delays and cancellations is that I can squeeze in a few extra minutes of reading on those days, so I’ve had some pretty good reading weeks this winter.  I still need to write the reviews for them, but I finished reading all of my February ARCs this week and even finished one of the 5 ARCs that I need to read and review prior to March 6th.  I still don’t know that I’ll get to any of my backlisted books this month, but I’m feeling more optimistic about getting my Netgalley deadlines met anyway.

Aside from reading, I feel like I spent most of the week camped out in front of the TV, although I can’t remember much of anything that I actually watched the first half of the week.  Work was busy this week so I think I basically just came home and zoned out, lol.  I’ve been glued to coverage of the Olympics since Friday and expect that will continue for the next couple of weeks.

I think that’s it for me for now.  I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

     
 

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

       
   
  
     

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

     
   
 

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

Source: Pinterest

Weekly Recap #38: Week of 1/28 – 2/3

 

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 far as weeks go, I have to say this past one was a great reading one for me.  I finished 3 books and started a 4th, and am hoping I’ll have an equally good week this week.  Even though I did great with my backlist challenge last month, I don’t think February is going to be as good a month.  Why?  Because at some point I got request happy and requested 5 ARCs that all have publication dates of March 6th.  I didn’t anticipate getting approved for all of them, but now I have my hands full of ARCs that I need to get read between now and March 6th.  I’m still going to try to squeeze in a few older reads because I loved the progress I was making on  my backlist, but I definitely need to prioritize those ARCs.

Off the blog, it was a pretty quiet week.  After a brief warm up, we’re back to wintry weather again so I spent much of the week curled up under a pile of blankets wishing for Spring.  I did manage to watch a couple more episodes of Big Little Lies and I’m officially hooked on that show, which is probably a good thing since I’ve gotten bored with almost every other show I watch and actually deleted a bunch of my series passes off the DVR.  I’m on the hunt for new shows now.

Aside from that, I’ve just been busy with work and with keeping my son on track with his school work. He brought home his first semester report card this week and I was thrilled to see he had earned straight A’s.  We also had middle school orientation recently, so it’s really hitting me just how fast he’s growing up.  My baby is definitely not a baby anymore.

I think that’s it for me for now.  I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

    
 

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

        
  
  
     

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

I think this may be a first for me, but I have acquired no new books this week.

 

TOTALLY RANDOM

Weekly Recap #37: Week of 1/21 – 1/27

 

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.

Last week was a pretty good week all around. The drama at work has calmed down, and I was able to get a lot of blogging done.  I won’t say that I’m completely caught up, but I feel so much better about where I am right now versus where I was this time last week.  I also liked the feedback that I got from you guys regarding the mini book reviews for older books, so I’ll be trying those for the first time later this week.

I was checking out my progress on my challenges thus far and I’m feeling pretty good about all of those right now too, especially the Beat the Backlist challenge.  I’m reading Our Dark Duet right now, which is my 6th backlist book of the year.   I don’t know if I can maintain that pace long term since I do have quite a few ARCs coming up that I need to read and review first, but considering I only read about 25 backlist books all last year, I’m so stoked to have gotten off to such a good start.

It has also been a productive week for me on the series front. I don’t think I made it an official goal for 2018, but I have also been saying that I really want to finish up some series this year that have been lingering on my TBR for too long.  Well, I’m thrilled to say that I finally finished The Lunar Chronicles this morning and am already nearly halfway through Our Dark Duet so I’ll be finishing up the Monsters of Verity duology in the next few days too.  And because I’m on a roll, I also finished Nevernight too so now I just have to read Godsgrave to be all caught up in time for the third book in that series.

It wasn’t all reading for me this week either.  I also binge watched Season 4 of Grace and Frankie on Netflix.  Man, I love that show so much! I’m ready for season 5 already, which is the worst part about binge watching a series. You then have to wait FOREVER for more new episodes, lol. And with the news that Meryl Streep will be joining the cast for season 2, I also started watching Big Little Lies on HBO.  I’m only a couple of episodes in, but I’m completely hooked, which is kind of funny because I wasn’t the biggest fan of the book the series is based on.  It was just an okay read for me.

I think that’s it for me for now.  I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

    
 

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

      
  
  
     

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

        

 

TOTALLY RANDOM

Weekly Recap #36: Week of 1/14 – 1/20

 

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.

Unfortunately I’m not off to the greatest start on my resolution to get more organized and schedule my posts far in advance.  Hopefully today will be productive, but as of right now, I have only two posts scheduled for the rest of the month.  Usually I’m a little better off than that, but someone unexpectedly quit at work last week and there was endless drama about it that followed me home each night and I just couldn’t focus on writing anything.  Thankfully we’ve come up with a game plan to move forward until her replacement is found, so hopefully now I can buckle down and really work on my goal.

That said, I have managed to finish reading all of my January ARCs and am writing the last of the reviews today so I guess I am doing better at staying on top of my ARCs so far, lol.

I’m thinking of following in the footsteps of several of my fellow bloggers and just doing mini reviews for most of the backlisted books I’m reading.  Unless I have a lot to say about a pre-2018 book, I like the idea of just making the review short and sweet and moving on, saving my lengthier reviews for ARCs and 2018 releases.  I’m thinking/hoping it will allow me a little more time to focus on things like discussion posts, which I really want to do more of this year.

On the non-blog front, I had this random nostalgic moment and started rewatching the old Party of Five series on Netflix.  I had forgotten how much of a crush I had on Matthew Fox, lol.  And the new season of Grace and Frankie dropped this weekend too, so I can’t wait to dive into that. Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda are just comedy gold in that series. Love it!

Oh well, time to start working on reviews and posts to schedule!  I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

     
   

UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

      
  
  
     

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

        

 

TOTALLY RANDOM