Tag Archive for: weekly recap

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

 

Weekly Recap #20: Week of 9/24-9/30

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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.

Happy October, everyone!  This is my favorite time of year.  The temperatures are finally cool enough that I’ve been able to get outside and comfortably walk around my neighborhood.  The leaves are changing colors and Halloween decorations are starting to pop up everywhere.  October is also my birthday month, so yay!  I may do a birthday giveaway on the blog to celebrate, so stay tuned for that.  I’m also still hoping to do one when I reach (and keep) 1,000 twitter followers.  I’ve reached 1,000 three times this week but then always seem to drop a couple (those pesky marketing bots), but we’re definitely getting close to that giveaway as well.

Aside from enjoying the fabulous fall weather, soccer has once again dominated my week.  After that amazing game where my son scored the three goals, his team has really struggled, earning their first loss of the season followed by a tie.  That was a bummer not just because they had been playing so well, but also because it meant we ended up with extra practices this past week to try to get back on track before we start playoffs next weekend.  I did try to read while sitting at the practices, but that was kind of a fail.  I did manage to finish and review The Rules of Magic and All the Crooked Saints this weekend, and also finished Dear Martin, which I’ll be reviewing later this month for a Blog Tour.  And at long last, I have finally started reading Crooked Kingdom!

Not too much else is going on right now, although I am planning a short trip to NYC in November.  New York is my favorite place to visit so I’m really looking forward to that and am curious to see if I’m able to get my blogging act together enough to schedule some posts for while I’m away, 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

 

Weekly Recap #19: Week of 9/17-9/23

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Hey everyone!  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 highlight of this week, by far, was celebrating my son’s 10th birthday. Can’t believe he’s now into the double digits! He is really just growing up way too fast.  We’ve had a grand time celebrating though, with a birthday dinner on the actual day, lunch and frozen yogurt with Grandma yesterday, and then today we’ll cap it off with a party for him and his friends at the indoor trampoline park.  He has reached that age where he mainly just wants gift cards so that he can buy what he wants, which was hard for some of us to adjust to since we like watching him unwrap gifts, but I have to admit that it did makes everyone’s shopping a lot easier this year so no one complained too much, lol.

Ian also scored 3 goals at yesterday’s soccer game, so yet another fabulous way to celebrate his birthday.  He actually blew his dad and I away because, prior to yesterday, he had only scored 1 goal in all the years that he has played. His dad is his soccer coach and usually plays him in defensive positions so now he’s wondering if he has been playing him in the wrong position for all of these years.  I don’t know how to answer that, but from a proud mom perspective, seeing him play up front and score all of those goals and actually have his teammates looking for him so they could give him another chance to score was very cool.

Because of all of the party preparations, etc., I’ve gotten a little behind on my blog comments, which is funny since one of my main posts of the week was specifically about commenting on blogs, haha.  I’ll get caught up today after the party though so it’s all good.  I didn’t get as much reading done as I had planned to either, but I did manage to finish The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman, which was a wonderful read, and now I’m working on All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater.  Unfortunately, I’m struggling a bit with that one because of the pacing, but am still hoping to knock that out today so that I can move on to Dear Martin and Hillary’s new book, which I’m dying to read.  My mom started it yesterday and she said it’s a very good read, but that she actually has to keep setting it down and walking away because it makes her mad about the election all over again. I’ll be curious to see if I have a similar reading experience.

Not too much else is going on in my world.  I am excited about new fall shows starting up this week.  I don’t have too many shows that I watch, but I am looking forward to the Young Sheldon spinoff since I love The Big Bang Theory so much.

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 #18: Week of 9/10-9/16

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Hey everyone!  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 happy to report that my son and I have started to slip back into our school routine so the second week of school was much calmer than the first.  He loves his teacher this year too, which is helping with that a lot.  Last year he did not like his teacher at all and fought me on going to school on a regular basis.  Hopefully my luck will continue on that front!

My soccer mom duties also kicked into full swing this past week.  We had our first three games of the season so evenings and weekends have been jam-packed with running to games and practices.  We’re now 3-0 though so that’s exciting. My son is also playing more offense than defense this season, so he’s also happier with soccer than he has been in a while.  He hasn’t scored a goal yet but he did take three shots on goals in Saturday’s game so he’s getting close to scoring.  (Insert proud mom cheers!)

Real life made it a little difficult to get reading and blogging done this past week, so for the first time in a while, I only posted one review.  That was kind of a bummer since I’d been doing so well about posting at least 2 for so long.  That said, today and the upcoming week will involve writing a lot of reviews to get myself caught back up again.  I also got bogged down reading a book that ended up not being a great read so that didn’t help with momentum, The Blackbird Season by Kate Moretti.  I probably should have just DNFed it and moved on, but it was one of those books where the mystery was just good enough that I wanted to find out what really happened and who was responsible.  I’m hoping for some better reads this week as I’ll be starting All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater today and then moving on to Alice Hoffman’s The Rules of Magic, and then hopefully to Nic Stone’s Dear Martin, which I’ve heard nothing but great things about.

This also seems to have been a huge week for accumulating books.  I can’t remember the last time I picked up so many new books in the same week.  A lot of them are from Netgalley, so needless to say my 80% review rate just took a nosedive, haha!  I’m looking forward to reading all of them though so yay for new books!

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 #17: Week of 9/3 – 9/9

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Hey everyone!  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.

What a busy week!  Between getting my son back into the school routine and getting caught up at work from being on vacation, I didn’t really have much time or energy left over for reading.  I don’t even want to think about how many hours I wasted just vegging in front of the TV after I got home from work each night, haha.  I watched an entire season of Shameless on Netflix and am almost finished with that show so I spent a lot of time just randomly scrolling through shows on there looking for something new to watch.  Wow, who knew how much time you could waste doing that?!

We also had our first soccer game yesterday.  It was a little stressful because we lost a few of our best players over the summer because they decided they wanted to join one of those travel soccer leagues.  We didn’t have the money to go with them, so this year so this season is a rebuilding season for our team.  That said, we still managed to squeak out a victory yesterday so that was very exciting.  My son took a ball to the wrist and had to sit out most of the second half, but thankfully he’s fine and ready to play again this week.  The game is right in the middle of the week so I’ve been hard at work this weekend making sure my blog posts are scheduled and ready to go.

Even with the busy schedule this week, I was still able to read a couple of great books, A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and The Alice Network.  I hadn’t originally planned to read Alice but found myself not in the mood to read anything I had originally planned to read and so grabbed that.  If you’re into historical fiction, that one is a fantastic read about an all-female spy network during WWI.  I also started Forest of a Thousand Lanterns yesterday and am really enjoying it so far.  I’m not sure what I thought it was about, but the heroine seems to be somewhat of an anti-heroine so I’m pretty excited to keep reading.

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

 

from Pinterest

Weekly Recap #16: Week of 8/27 – 9/2

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Hey everyone!  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 was my vacation week, and although I’m sad to see it end tomorrow, I had a nice, relaxing time.  My son and I hung out quite a bit, which was nice since he starts back to school on Tuesday.  We had cool, rainy weather off and on all week so it made for great reading and movie marathon days.  My son and I watched A Dog’s Purpose (OMG, what a tearjerker!), Lego Batman, and Boss Baby.  Man, I love Redbox. Those movies probably would have cost us $100 to go see them in the theater and get snacks, etc. and we were able to see them all for just $4.25.  We also went to his school on Friday and met his new teacher.  He was more excited to see the class roster than to meet the teacher.  After a year of being in different classrooms from most of his friends, they are all reunited this year.  I feel sorry for the teacher, haha!

In blog-related news, I got a lot of reading done this week so that was nice.  I haven’t posted my review yet, but Warcross by Marie Lu was my favorite read from the week. It was outstanding! The One Memory of Flora Banks unfortunately ended up being a DNF.  I sympathized with the main character and her condition, but the constant repetition reminded me of the movie Groundhog Day, which I wasn’t a fan of either.  I found myself rapidly skimming through, just looking for anything that was new, and it just got to be tedious, therefore the DNF.  I finally got around to reading A Perfect Obsession, a Netgalley request that I was woefully behind on.  I’ll be posting my review for that this week. It was a pretty good read, although I did have a few issues with it.  I’ve also just started reading A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, a much-hyped 2017 release.  So far it is living up to the hype and is just hilarious.  It’s a huge book but I expect to knock it out in a day or two.

I also only have one more ARC to read for September deadlines so I’m coming out of my vacation, feeling like I’ve been very productive.  I do have 6 ARCs to read for October though so I’m planning to go ahead and get started on those later this week so that I don’t end up in a hole.

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