Weekly Wrap-Up #44

Posted December 5, 2021 by Lisa Mandina in Weekly Wrap Up / 16 Comments

Once again I’ll be linking this up with the Sunday Post (hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer) and with Stacking the Shelves (hosted by Reading Reality).

Another week that started out not too bad. And for the most part, it went mostly good. Sunday afternoon the guy came and finished up the little path for my dogs by the fence. The only thing I didn’t think about is how now that is all dirt next to the bricks until the grass grows back, which means it kind of defeats the purpose for having those bricks. Oh well. The first shot is what I had, the second was the mid-progress, and the last picture is finished.

I did have my first evaluation with my new job, it went well. Of course I think my principals are giving me a big break and not expecting much with all the extra things that have been heaped onto my job that I didn’t really sign up for when I took the job.

Thursday was my library assistant’s birthday and we had time during the day to really get the library decorated for the holidays. My assistant made cool book “sculptures” of a reindeer, snowman, and the Grinch, as well as a Fireplace. Here are some pictures.

The biggest issue I had this week was that I ordered my new iPhone and it was going to be delivered on Wednesday. Well, they needed a signature, and they came at 1 pm, when I’m at work. It was almost impossible to get them to hold the item at a UPS access center, which of course wasn’t that close to me either. But I finally got my phone on Friday, and had to get it set up myself. I’m realizing that while it copied most of the stuff over from the other phone, there are a few things I’ll still have to do myself manually. Oh the fun!

Also on Friday I had someone come out to give me an estimate on redoing my tiny bathroom. I just want to be able to take bubble baths again really. The company I called is a very good one. But their estimate was quite a lot more than I was hoping. I don’t want to do just one of those companies that put a bath tub thing over what you already have, I want it torn out and redone. But I guess I would get what I paid for! So we’ll see if I do that.

Saturday I finished up doing shopping with my mom for a family that we adopted from the school where I am a librarian. The names aren’t included, just sizes, wishes, etc. We’ll wrap everything and get it turned into the school this week so that they can have gifts on Christmas. Still trying to finish up shopping for my own family, as they aren’t great at giving ideas.

My brother’s family is getting a lot better after their Covid positive tests Thanksgiving week. I’m so grateful that they only had very mild cases. But we are still being careful and won’t get together for another week for my nephew’s 4th birthday.

Books finished:

I finished 4 books this week. I did end up DNFing one that was an e-galley of an author I used to read all the time. But this one was high fantasy, and while it wasn’t bad, I’ve never been a big reader of that genre, so I just don’t feel it is the right one for me. I need to reach out to the publisher and let them know since they asked me to read it. The first book above is an e-galley I won from the author, and I’ve posted my review yesterday. The second book was an e-galley from an author’s review team that I’m on. I posted that review on Saturday as well. The third is an audiobook, will hopefully have time to review sometime later this month. The last book is an ARC the publisher sent me and I plan to post my review on Monday.

New Books:

Physical books:

The first two pictures were from publishers. All the Right Reasons was one Simon & Schuster had asked me to review. Not sure why I got the finished copy of When We Were Them, but I’ll be donating it to my school library. I won the copy of Where There’s a Whisk from the YA Books Central website. The middle picture is from a trade on Twitter. I already had the e-galley of Dig Two Graves but I really wanted a physical ARC. The other is one I had hoped for, but I don’t really ever get anything from Inkyard Press, so was excited to be able to trade for it as well. The fourth picture was a book I ordered from the author back in October I think, and I had to wait for her to get more copies. I ordered from her for all the cool swag of course! The last book is one that I ended up weeding from my school library, but it was too cool to not want for myself!

Audiobooks:

Audible had a bunch of books on a really good sale, like $1 each! So I picked up a few! While I’ve already read and own a physical copy of Pucked Under, I love the audiobooks of this series, so for a dollar I couldn’t pass it up!

E-galleys:

All are for blog tour reviews. Even with my not sure if I want to write anymore, I still went ahead and said I’d do a review of the last one as maybe a help to my own writing.

Free e-books:

I keep telling myself to stop, when will I ever read all these, but their free, and you never know. And I think I’m going to set a challenge for myself for next year to try to read more of these. Most of these come from signing up for author’s newsletters. The first one is from the Amazon First Reads that I get a free book for being a Prime member, I think every month?

Bookish stuff:

So I participated again this year in Tara Sivec’s Facebook group “Tara’s Troublemaker’s” ornament exchange. I got a really cool one that I asked for that is related to Outlander.

What I’m Watching:

Well, you might have seen me mention how big a fan I am of the tv series The Big Bang Theory. I found out a week or two ago that the guy who played one of Penny’s exes, Zack, actually graduated from the same college I did 5 years after me. And for Giving Tuesday, anyone who donated $25 to our school’s special fund got to participate in a Zoom call with him. I was a little sad not to get to actually talk to him, and they asked us to also turn our cameras off, but it was still fun to listen to him talk and learn about his career. It was really more probably for those people who were acting or drama types of students in school, but it was still cool!

Giveaways to Check Out:

How was your week? Did you get any good books? Are you binging any tv series you’d recommend? What are you looking forward to this upcoming week?

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16 responses to “Weekly Wrap-Up #44

  1. Nice pics, the library looks nice! And glad to hear your family’s Covid cases have been mild. Thank goodness!

    Also, enjoy the new phone. 🙂

    Free is hard to turn down right? 🙂

    Have a good week!

    Greg recently posted: Sunday Post #430
    • Lisa Mandina

      Yep, free is so hard to turn down. Especially e-books that don’t take up room or collect dust in my house. lol Thanks for stopping by!

  2. I want to redo some things in my bathroom but don’t want to spend the money or have the disruption right now. They did have some really good audiobooks on sale. I do the Thrifty Thursday challenge each month to read some freebies. I count the $0 purchase and author newsletter ones, but not the Prime first reads because those aren’t really free when you have to belong to Prime. But of course I grab many freebies every week.

    Anne - Books of My Heart recently posted: Read-along & Giveaway: Night Huntress world by Jeaniene Frost
    • Lisa Mandina

      I think I’m going to join into the Thrifty Thursday thing next year. Set a goal to read two of my free e-books a month if at all possible! Or at least one a month. I’d like to do one a week, but I’m afraid I’ll stress myself out if I set the goal that high. Because I want to work on reading the physical books sitting in my house too next year.

    • Lisa Mandina

      It’s crazy because my bathroom is tiny! Like 4 or 5 foot by maybe 8 foot? OH well, that was just one place that I knew was going to be expensive. I might look at some other places, like Home Depot or Lowe’s. Thanks for stopping by!

  3. Your library looks incredibly inviting. I’m glad that your evaluation went well. It always seems like the people in charge end up adding more duties to our jobs. It’s funny that principals never have lunch duty!

    I love seeing all your new books. I am trying not to add any more freebies to my Kindle. But it’s hard to resist!

    • Lisa Mandina

      Thank you! Actually as long as I’ve been at the high school level they seem to always have at least one administrator in the cafeteria for every lunch. Of course we seem to have a lot of fights this year too. It’s so hard to resist freebies! I was trying for a while not to do it, but last year I think I gave up. lol Glad you could stop by!

    • Lisa Mandina

      I think I might have another of her books from an Amazon First reads or something yet still need to get it read. Oh well, it’s a goal for next year to start actually reading all the free books that aren’t for blog tours. Thanks for visiting!

    • Lisa Mandina

      It was still neat. He was actually backstage while they were filming his latest sitcom, United States of Al, and towards the end of the call they came and asked him to talk quieter because they could hear him on the set. Yeah, I know she found the ideas somewhere online, so it was cool!

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