Today is the last day of Spring Bloggiesta, and almost everything on my to-do list remains yet to be done. Today is also my birthday, and Paul says we can do whatever I want. Since I gave myself a four-day Birthday Weekend and won’t go back to work until Tuesday, I am also giving myself a one-day Bloggiesta extension. I still need to get those reviews written, but I’m not sure that’s what I want […]
I’d like to say a hearty “thank you!” to everyone who stopped by to comment on my Sunday-on-Monday Blogiversary post! I have no idea whether there are another eight years left in this thing…but then again, I had no idea when I started that there would be eight years of this thing to begin with, let alone that they’d be such fulfilling ones. I know that now, of course, but I’m taking it one year at […]
I started this blog eight years ago today: March 16, 2007. I’ve been at it longer than any job I’ve ever had, except for my current one. Sometimes I think one of the reasons I haven’t seriously looked for other employment for a while –something closer to home, at least–is the outlets and opportunities this blog has given me. They are sources of creativity, expression, and satisfaction I don’t need to look for in my […]
This is the first day of Daylight Savings Time, which means no one will really know what time it is all day–we just know we have an hour less of it to do anything. Therefore, I’m going to speed through a few bullet points before I slow down for (most of) the rest of this Sunday. I’m happy to tell you one thing we’re not doing this Sunday: going to visit the hospital. Kate’s leukemia […]
The following conversation took place on Twitter this past Thursday. The results of it will be made public in the very near future, so please follow the people involved to make sure you see what comes next. (Yes, this is one of those annoying announcements that an announcement is coming.) [View the story “Book Blogger Buddy System 2.0” on Storify] I really wasn’t looking for a new project–especially not now–but I am very pleased that […]
We all really need a slow Sunday; I wouldn’t be surprised if all of us make time for naps today, around whatever else happens. Reading, ‘Riting, and the Rest of it… I am reading and working on a Shelf Awareness review today, the break in between two very busy weeks at my “real” job. Spencer has a lot of schoolwork, and Paul just needs some resting and unwinding time. His healing process post-melanoma surgery is […]
Reading, ‘Riting, etc. For the first time ever, I’m using a tracking spreadsheet for my reading this year, and this week I realized a benefit of it that I hadn’t previously considered. It doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes I finish a book and find I have little to say about it; I’m recording those books in the tracker, but I don’t have to review them. This is a huge change in approach for me, […]
Happy Puppy Bowl Sunday to one and all! I’m looking forward to watching what Winchester does while we watch it. The theme of the past week here on the blog was “health,” starting with a post about the measles outbreak at Disneyland, which included my recommendation (again) of one of my 2014 Books of the Year, Eula Biss’ On Immunity: An Inoculation and its thoughtful, timely exploration of the vaccination controversy. My other health-related post […]
I gave three of the designated four hours (and an undisclosed amount of dollars) to yesterday’s National Readathon Day. Four hours doesn’t sound like much when you’ve participated in readathons that last six times that long. But it turned out to be a nearly ideal amount of time to commit to reading on a Saturday afternoon–long enough to be productive, yet limited enough to stay (mostly) focused. I didn’t actually make the commitment until yesterday […]
I finished two books yesterday, within three hours of each other. I was so close to the end of the audiobook Unbroken when I got home from work on Friday that I listened to it while driving around on my Saturday errands, which I very rarely do. And I got a late start on those errands because I stayed home in the morning to finish Blue Stars. I’ll be working on my writeups of both […]
My sister and I spotted a couple of snails on her front walk Saturday morning as we were leaving to go get coffee. It was a drizzly day, and that does tend to bring them out. They’re not the most photogenic critters, but they do keep still enough to be photographed pretty easily…and so I decided to make one of them my mascot today. I’m considering re-christening this weekly update as the “Sunday Slowdown”–since that’s […]
What I’m reading My first book of 2015 is the same as my last book of 2014, a February Shelf Awareness galley. I’m off to a slow start on my reading year, and for the most part, it’s on purpose. Since my work schedule is back to normal this week (sigh), I plan to start my first audiobook of 2015. I think it’ll be Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand; the print edition has been languishing in […]
