And so Christmas has come and gone, along with the visiting relatives and most of the cookies. We watched movies and ate and sat around and talked. As the kids aren’t so much “children” any more–the youngest one in the extended family turned eleven-and-a-half on the 26th–Christmas itself feels like less of an event, and what I most appreciate is some time off to spend with my loved ones. I don’t go back to work […]
I have an entire week off from work! Some of the time will be occupied by holiday-related activities, of course. There’s still some shopping and gift-wrapping to be done (fortunately, not all of it’s mine). We will have visitors and houseguests. There will be cooking and baking and Christmas Eve dinner for three generations of the family. There will be gift-unwrapping, and silly pictures, and sticking bows on the dogs. There will probably not be […]
Today is my stepson Spencer’s 15th birthday, and his grandmother is visiting for the weekend to celebrate with us. It’s also the day we finally got the Christmas tree put up and decorated. I’m grabbing a few minutes in between events to check into the Sunday Salon. What I’m reading in print / on screen I’m about one-fourth through My Father’s Wives by Mike Greenberg, a fiction galley I’ll be reviewing for Shelf Awareness in January. […]
I finished one book this week, I’m halfway through a January release I’m reviewing for Shelf Awareness, and I’ve got just over two hours left of my current audiobook. And here are links to some other things I’ve read recently. On Blogging and The Online Life Brainstorming ideas, organizing them, optimizing them, writing about them, picturing them, and distributing and promoting them–Buffer‘s Big List of Blogging Tools has 39 suggestions to help with all of these […]
What’s What I’m drafting this post on Saturday afternoon and scheduling it for Sunday morning. It will be the first post here on the blog since last Tuesday, and the first thing I’ve written for public reading in nearly a week. The last few days have been mildly to moderately lazy–and thoroughly necessary. I’ve spent the last couple of hours reading through the backlog in the “must-read” folder in my Feedly, nuking any non-“must” posts […]
What I’m reading and writing I am working my way through my podcast backlog during my daily commute after finishing my audiobook read of The Magicians trilogy. I probably won’t post my thoughts on that one (those three?) until after December 1 even if I finish writing them up before that–this is still Nonfiction November, after all. After posting “revisited reviews” for that event all this past week, I have a new review scheduled for […]
I suspected that the past week wouldn’t be good for either reading or writing, and sadly, I was not wrong. I’m holding down the blogging fort by revisiting some book reviews from the archives for Nonfiction November; two have gone up already, and three more are lined up for this week. I’m not sure I’ll get an original post done for this week’s #NonFicNov “Diversity” prompt, but I did put together a short reading list of books […]
Please meet newest member of the family! I don’t think he’ll be much of a reader, but he seems to have the makings of an excellent reading companion. Chester is a 3-year-old “petite golden mix” of Golden Retriever and something smaller–Cocker Spaniel or Corgi seem to be the most likely suspects. We met him last weekend, and officially adopted him and brought him home on Saturday, November 8. He came our way via Forever Friends […]
I’m not sure that posting these “Sunday Salon” updates so late in the day on Sunday catches as many dedicated Sunday Salon readers as morning posts do, but since I usually have more time to write them on Sunday, I think may keep to this schedule for now. Bonus: I almost get to count these for Monday, too, since I know most of y’all won’t see them until then anyway. What I’m reading in print […]
What I’m reading in print / on screen I finished reading On Immunity this morning. Well, I mostly finished–in full disclosure, I didn’t read through all the endnotes. However, I have a feeling this is another book that will inspire more than one post–this fall has been pretty good for those!–so I may get to them yet. I’m hoping to finish my galley of Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking this week, and am seriously considering taking nothing but […]
If a “Sunday Salon” post goes up at a time when most people won’t see it until Monday, it’s officially “late,” I say. What I’m reading in print / on screen I’m still reading On Immunity—it’s not a long book, but it’s not the kind you devour, so it feels right to go slowly with it. I’m double-teaming that with November review reading for Shelf Awareness… and I just told my editor that I won’t be submitting […]
I decided that I liked the “bullet journal” format I used for my last Salon post, so I’m bringing it back this week. I’m drafting this post on Saturday afternoon after finally getting my Book Talk post on The Teacher Wars done. I’m hoping to get one more review written up this weekend, but weekends just don’t seem long enough sometimes! I finished listening to Rainbow Rowell’s Landline at the end of the week, and my thoughts […]
