Weekly Wrap-Up #72 – June 19th, 2022

Posted June 19, 2022 by Lisa Mandina in Weekly Wrap Up / 40 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).

Happy Father’s Day to those who celebrate it! I’m still not really talking to my dad, although I sent him a Father’s Day card, and he did text me to say thanks for it, so I only plan to celebrate today with my stepdad.

I wanted to share the list of the Gateway books I am supposed to try to read. I’m putting out a wish that if anyone has an ARC of it they wouldn’t mind passing on for me to read, I would pay for shipping or let you look at my books I have for trade. Here are the books I need: The highlighted ones I have already read or own.

I was thinking this week was going to be a week to just be home and hang out and do nothing. Forgetting that I had a Jury Summons for Tuesday. I had to call over the weekend to make sure if I was still supposed to show up. Those who had jury duty on Monday didn’t have to come in, but those, like me, whose summons was for the Grand Jury, were still required to show up on Tuesday. So I assumed my Monday would be spent lazing around the house, not getting dressed. And it started out that way, other than a little bout of slight vertigo. But around 10 am, a friend of mine called and asked if I could take her up to the dealership to pick up her car that she’d dropped off for a recall item. So I did, and then she and I ended up going to lunch, which we’d wanted to do this summer anyway.

Tuesday I had to report to Grand Jury Duty selection. I was kind of excited. I’ve always wanted to serve on a jury. But in the end I wasn’t selected. But it was sooooooo random. We went in, the judge explained what grand jury duty was. Basically what is different about it from regular jury duty is that you don’t do one trial, you look at several cases and determine if there is enough of a reasonable cause to have it, enough evidence for a case, as well as for the person being charged. That’s all. And there are 3 sessions a year, November to March, March to June, and June to November. You only have to meet when the group decides, which usually the judge said is like every other Tuesday, possibly all day each of those Tuesdays, for the time period. They only needed 12. Then he had people who had reasons they might not be able to do it talk to him privately and the rest of us went out and had a short break. Most of them were dismissed. Then he had one of the prospective jurors go up and shuffle and spread out all of the juror cards. Then another juror went up and randomly picked 12 from the piles. Those were the jurors. Sadly my name was not called, so I got to leave shortly after that along with everyone else who was not picked. We are all alternates though in case one of the 12 ends up not being able to complete their term. To make myself feel better about not getting picked, I stopped by the TJ Maxx close to the courthouse and found a new solar lawn stake for my backyard. I love those things!

The weather was miserably hot this week too, and I have a Google Nest that the power company installed, so I am enrolled in their “Energy Rush Hour” program which means a few times each summer, and I think maybe in the winter too, where they control your thermostat for like 2 hours. They did it both Monday and Tuesday.

Wednesday was almost a day to just stay at home. Except I realized this morning I only had enough dog food for one more meal, so I had to leave the house to buy dog food. But then I just came back home to relax in my air conditioning. Oh, I did post a discussion post that I’d been sitting on for awhile on Wednesday: Would I Lie to You or Have You Ever Reviewed a Book You Didn’t Finish?

Thursday I went and saw Jurassic World again. I wanted to go do a few other errands, but it was just so hot, temps in the upper 90s, but felt like triple digits. So I went home. Then about 7:30 pm, the power shut off. The power company said probably wouldn’t be back on till 9:30. It came back on before 9 though, so that was nice.

Friday was another hot day, but a little cooler in the morning because of a “cold” front that had moved through bringing a little bit of rain in the early early morning hours. So I got my mowing done, which means I hopefully won’t have to until it is a little less hot in about a week. I’m hoping we’re getting closer to the time of year when I don’t have to mow every week. Friday night I went with my mom and stepdad to take my niece and nephew to Chuck E. Cheese so my brother and sister-in-law could meet with a group from their church.

Saturday I got to just stay home in my pajamas all day. It was nice. Except we had a heat advisory and my dogs kept wanting to go in and out all day long! And then they just wanted to stand outside in the heat.

Books Finished

Technically I finished The Ruthless Groom last Saturday night, but since I already had last week’s Weekly Wrap-Up Post scheduled before I went to bed Saturday night, I didn’t feel like going back and adding it in. Just saved it for this week’s post. It was reviewed on Monday. Last on the List was finished for a review on Thursday. After I had to DNF another book that was supposed to be a review this past week, I started the third book, which was an anthology. Now they weren’t short stories, more novellas, which means a little longer than you might expect in an anthology. I didn’t read them all, for the tour we were only required to read 5 of the stories. I posted my review yesterday.

New Additions to My Library

ARCs:

This is an ARC I had the publisher reach out to me about this in early May about reading. Got the ARC on Saturday.

Audiobooks:

This was a download from the library for the Gateway list of books I’m supposed to read this year. Don’t know if I’ll get to it before the loan expires though. The second two were from the Sync summer free audiobooks. I haven’t really wanted any of the weekly options this year until both of these sound good. You can get them this week for free if you go sign up HERE.

Bookish Stuff:

None

E-galleys:

I signed up for the first one a while back because I enjoyed the author’s book I read as part of a series earlier this year, Bayside Heroes: Fired Up. And I’m hoping to meet the author at Book Bonanza next month. Now I’m just hoping it is as good as the other book I read by the author, because I’ve had some issues with DNFs over the past week or two. It should be a review this coming Friday. The second one is for a blog tour at the beginning of July.

Free E-books:

The first three were from Amazon. The last four were for signing up for authors’ newsletters.

Library books:

I’m adding this category this week and for a while, because I’m going to be checking out a lot of books for the Gateway Reader committee I’m on. I need to read these, but probably shouldn’t have checked them all out at once. Because I honestly have no idea when I’m going to read them.

Physical Books:

Other than the library books above, none.

What I’m Watching

As a New Kids on the Block fan, they showed a preview of the second season of Jonathan Knight’s home show, and I remembered I’d never gotten around to watching the first season. Now, I’m not really a big fan of those kind of shows, I always joke watching them is like watching paint dry. But I decided to give it a try, and it was definitely interesting!

Based on a couple other bloggers’ recommendations, I also started First Kill. And it’s pretty interesting!

And a new season of the tv series Evil started this past week, so I’m watching that too. Even though last season was really weird, and this one is starting out a little weird too!

Giveaways

Final Thoughts

How was your week? Did you read or watch anything good? Get any good books?

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40 responses to “Weekly Wrap-Up #72 – June 19th, 2022

  1. What are Gateway books? All my physical ARCs are 2018 (or 2017) releases or older since I have not attended any book festivals in a while. Anyhow, it’s a great list. I read a majority of those books. I hope you get to Reck’s book. It was quite heartwarming and wonderful (in my opinion). I used to hate getting called for jury duty when I was a teacher (so much work to be absent), but I probably wouldn’t care now. The county courthouse is closer to home than my job. That flamingo is cute too.

    Sam@WLABB recently posted: Sundays with Sam – The Sunday Post
    • Lisa Mandina

      My state, Missouri, has different level of reader award books for the students to vote on. Gateway is the high school level. Middle school books are the Truman award, Upper elementery is Mark Twain, and there is a picture book too, I forget it’s name. We also started a nonfiction award, although those aren’t voted on I don’t think, just recommendations of good, recent NF titles. I figured when they gave us the list I would have read a bunch of them, but I guess I hadn’t read as many YA in the past few years as I’d thought! Yeah, if I was still a teacher there is no way I would want jury duty. But for grand jury it is only one day once or twice a month, and as a school librarian, it wouldn’t have been the pain being a teacher making sub plans is. Thanks for stopping by!

    • Lisa Mandina

      I remember seeing all the books back when I was doing my big long Waiting on Wednesday posts, but guess I never got to actually reading most of them! Yeah, don’t know when it will be any cooler for mowing here. Sounds like our summer temps are settling in. 🙁

  2. WOWZERS! That’s a pretty extensive list! And you have to have them read by when???? Unfortunately I don’t have any and in fact haven’t heard of most of them. Good luck with the project. And, thanks for visiting me! Happy Reading this week.

    • Lisa Mandina

      I think they’ll be kind of lenient on reading them, but by December I think. Ugh! I’m going to give the ones that sound good a try, and the ones I know I won’t like because they’re not my type, I will probably not even try. I mean we have a committee for a reason, right? Thanks for returning the visit!

    • Lisa Mandina

      It was my first time being called, and I was disappointed not to get picked as I mentioned. Especially since it wasn’t one that would be an every day thing! Thanks for visiting!

  3. I like your new solar lawn stake. I’ve never served on a jury. I thought it might be fun, but I’m kind of glad I’ve never had to do it, lol.

    The Google Nest thing that your power company installed and has access to sounds kind of invasive. I understand that it’s good for us to save energy, but I don’t want my power company telling me I can’t keep my house at 68° or 70° because they think it takes too much energy. Some people can’t deal with the heat like other people do, you know?

    Jenni Elyse recently posted: Sunday Post #23
    • Lisa Mandina

      Oh yeah, me too! I hate the heat! I keep my house at 69-70 when I’m home. Even though they can control it, I can always adjust it right back to where I want it. So far it isn’t a bad thing. I just hope it is always that way! Thanks for stopping by!

  4. Good luck with all that Gateway reading. I love the flamingo, it looks so good – can you see it at night? My sister got called up for jury duty but wasn’t needed – she ended up sitting around for a couple of days with nothing to do. A family friend was on for a murder trial, it involved children and was very traumatic so I’m glad I’ve never been called up!

    • Lisa Mandina

      The second picture of the flamingo shows it lit up! 🙂 That would suck if you had to sit and had nothing to do. I have always wanted to do jury duty, part of my civic service! Thanks for stopping by!

    • Lisa Mandina

      It probably looks silly in my yard, but I love them, so I keep getting them! And I’m about the only one who can see them since I have a privacy fence around my yard. You need to go see it! It’s so good! I’d guess it will be streaming soon though if it’s not already since it’s been out a while, in case you don’t want to go to an in person movie yet.

  5. I sat on a jury about 2 years ago and it was fun, but I’d like to sit on a grand jury one day. My daughter was just summoned for a Grand Jury in the fall, so I hope she gets picked and has fun with it.

    Wendy recently posted: Sunday Post #45
    • Lisa Mandina

      The grand jury I guess is just sitting and going through cases to decide if there is enough evidence to try someone, so you don’t really get to do a lot like a trial jury exactly. I’d still like to take part! I hope your daughter gets to do it if she wants to!

  6. Sorry to hear that you’re not talking to your dad. Family relations can be tough sometimes. Hope you had a nice time with your stepfather today. It’s funny, I never want to be picked for jury duty. My work doesn’t pay for it so I’d be going on my own dime. Not really interested in that. My husband served on a couple of juries (he has it covered through his work) and was frustrated by the end of both of them. One ended up being a hung jury because of one woman that shouldn’t have been on the jury anyhow due to prior prejudices she didn’t disclose before. What can you do…

    Rachel @Waves of Fiction recently posted: Sunday Post #165
    • Lisa Mandina

      That stinks to not get paid for it. I am on a salary for my job, so I’d be okay if I had to take a day off once or twice a month for it. I always wondered how they know what people really think when they pick them for a jury. I’d hoped to get a look at that, but it was all so random.

  7. Experiences like your jury duty non-selection will come in handy in your writing though; so still a win. Still sounds like quite the eventful week. We’ve been dealing with the heat where I am as well but having a little rain right now which is cool…literally. Good vibes for the coming week.

    • Lisa Mandina

      That’s true! I should totally use it in a story somehow! The rain here, when we get it, has just made it muggier. 🙁 Thanks for visiting!

  8. Yeah the heat here is intense too! I was surprised that yesterday was pretty tolerable for a time. Granted I was in the shade and we had two fans going, but it was the longest I’ve ever willingly sat outside in latter half of June in…years! Lol.

    Nice new reads too! Those are all new to me ones but the one anthology about Baba Yaga looks interesting! Hope you enjoy your new reads!

    • Lisa Mandina

      Yeah, today hasn’t been horrible but the rest of the week is supposed to be miserable here again. Thanks for visiting!

    • Lisa Mandina

      I haven’t actually read any of her books, I DNFed the first one I tried, it was under Victoria Schwab. But I love this show!

  9. I hope you like Bacchanal, I haven’ t gotten to it yet but it sounds good.
    We don’t have jury duty at all so I’m always fascinated to learn about how it works

    • Lisa Mandina

      I used to have a good relationship, but things have just gotten bad with the way things are in the world, and sadly my life has been a little less stressful, not having to bite my tongue and ignore stuff he says when I spend time with them, so for now I’m okay with things staying this way. Sorry you have a not so great relationship as well. Yeah, Evil is so weird some times! But I can’t seem to stop watching, lol.

  10. I just realized I have not been getting notified of your new posts for over a week now, which is why I missed this post. Something is wrong with Follow It. I just saw you have a follow by email option which might be new? Anyway, I’m going to try that. I’m frustrated that I’ve been missed some blogs lately. And I think you may be the first person I’ve heard of that actually wants to do jury duty, lol.

    Tammy @ Books, Bones & Buffy recently posted: Buffy’s Corner 6/26/22 – Looking at the Week Ahead
    • Lisa Mandina

      Weird! Follow It is what is supposed to work now. Ugh. I think my email follow is Follow It though. But try it and see? 🙂 Lol, I’ve always wanted to do jury duty since I first heard about it! Although when I was actually in the classroom teaching I probably wouldn’t have wanted to.

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