Merry Christmas everyone! I don’t know how many of you will be out and about today, but since I don’t have kids and live alone, I spend most of Christmas day at home. All the family gift stuff is done by Saturday night since I’m still not talking to one side of my family. Although I will probably go have dinner with family this evening.
As usual I’ll be linking this up with the Sunday Post (hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer).
So, first, let’s go back to last Sunday when the Chiefs won, but barely! So happy for the win, but man is it embarrassing that they did that poorly against a team that had such a bad record! Anyway, we had another game yesterday, but I’ll talk about that later in this post.
Monday was the first of two days we have before our break. It was a regular schedule school day. Mostly quiet in the library. A friend of mine who is thinking of applying for a job at my school next year stopped by and brought me lunch. We had snow for about an hour, big fluffy snowflakes, it was so pretty outside. But they only stayed on the ground for a bit before melting as the temperatures actually went up a bit for the day.
Tuesday seemed like a waste of a half day to me. Kids were basically at school for 3 1/2 hours, fitting all 7 classes into that time. Afterwards we had a very quick staff meeting where our principal gave us a gift like he always does. I guess in the past it has always been yummy Topsy’s popcorn, but this year we got a nice tumbler.
Wednesday was lovely for sleeping in on my first day of holiday break. I had a doctor appointment and then did some grocery shopping because Thursday was predicted to be a winter storm day, really cold, possible snow or ice. So I made sure to be all set to stay home all day. Even canceled another doctor appointment I had scheduled on Thursday so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting out.
Thursday was a lot of snow in the morning, but it did stop around 10 am. Then with the major wind the temp went down and down until it was 30 degrees BELOW zero! Fortunately the dogs weren’t fans of the cold and would go out do their business quickly and then be ready to go right back inside! I did some blogging and some commenting on blogs and some reading.
Friday was another mostly quiet day. I did get out for a few last minute items I needed and wanted to have before Christmas weekend and when stores would be closed. Friday evening we had a get together with my aunts on my mom’s side. In the past we’d always drawn names, the adults, and exchanged gifts and the little kids, under 18, got gifts from everyone. This year the adults didn’t draw names. Probably why it was a small get together. But it was still nice to hang out, eat snacky foods, and then watch the little ones open gifts. My annual food contribution to this get-together is Rotel and Velveeta cheese dip with ground beef and tortilla chips. And then I always have some left over for myself to enjoy!
Saturday, Christmas Eve, I spent the morning relaxing around the house, some blogging, some reading. I also gave in and decided to go ahead and put a deposit down to go on an Outlander tour in Scotland in July. The noon Chiefs game brought a win thankfully. Although how they can play in the below zero temperatures I don’t know! And then we had dinner at my mom’s house with my brother, sister-in-law and niece and nephew doing our family gift exchange.
Books Finished
Started the first one last week, but didn’t get it finished over the weekend. The second one I also started a week or so ago, read the first half while soaking in a bubble bath, and almost the whole second half during another bubble bath. The third one I got through pretty quickly as well! The fourth one was also considered a novella, and I finished it in about a day. It was my last holiday read of the year.
New Additions to My Library
ARCs:
I got this one through an ARC request from the publisher I believe!
Audiobooks:
None
Bookish Stuff:
I got to open my Festivus gift from my partner that we get in the Sharks of Awesome group on Facebook for fans of Penny Reid. It was full of awesome stuff! You can see all that in the picture I posted under physical books below.
E-galleys:
None
Free E-books:
The first 7 were free on Amazon. The last 3 were free for signing up for the author’s newsletter. Lots of Christmas titles I won’t read till next year at the earliest!
Physical Books:
As I mentioned above Festivus was last Sunday for the gift exchange, and so this is all the cool stuff I got! The pens are really cool because they are specific, one is for a Penny Reid setting, one is from Cobra Kai, and one is from Outlander. And they are laying on top of a personalized notebook. I’ll have to start carrying it to jot down all the things I think of throughout the day about my stories that I need to get written!
The first picture are books I won from a publisher giveaway, can’t wait to read these! The second one I won from the author on a Facebook giveaway. Love the discreet covers so much! The third one is one that I purchased for myself when I just happened to scroll through my Amazon physical book wishlist and noticed it was marked down to like $7!
What I’m Watching
Of course the Chiefs had two games this week basically, so that was watched, both wins thankfully. Most shows are now on their winter hiatus, so I worked on finishing up some shows I was streaming and starting some new ones as I had time. I finished watching the movie based on A Friend of the Family which was so good, so sad, so just wow. I do plan to watch the documentary too. And I started watching the new Hulu Kindred movie/series. I’ve been wanting to watch this adaptation of the book by Octavia Butler ever since the movie Antebellum was said to be similar to it.
Coming Up Next Week on My Blog
First was a Bookish First win. It doesn’t come out till the first week of January, but I can only fit it in this week. Second is an ARC that also comes out the first week of January, same thing about fitting in! And the last one is for a blog tour review post on Friday. I should have another L-L-L-Little Reviews post this week, and I’m planning to do my End of Month/End of Year post on Saturday.
Giveaways
Don’t forget that I do now have the nice little box on the right hand sidebar so you can check out giveaways all the time!
- Winter 2022 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop – This seasonal giveaway runs till March 19th
- The Looooong and the Short of It with a Giveaway: November Wrap-Up and what to Expect in December. This ends on Saturday, if I get over 100 entries I’ll pick two winners! Although this is the first month in a while it looks like I might not make enough entries.
Final Thoughts
How was your week? Did you read or watch anything good? Get any good books? If you celebrate Christmas, did you get any good gifts? I hope you got to spend time with family and friends if you could! Any exciting plans for New Years on Saturday night?
Instead of pictures of my dogs this week, I’m going to share a fun little Christmas song rewrite that popped up in my Facebook memories this week (I think the credit was for a Norwin Public Library, it was posted by Once Upon a Time Book Club):
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that’s interesting that the kids still had school. My son was out of school by the 16th. I hope all ijs well and you have a happy holidays. 2023 will be awesome!
Yeah, we had a day and a half which seemed kind of like a waste, especially the half day.
LIsa I hope you have a lovely and relaxing holiday break! There’s a whole week left to read so happy reading! Merry Christmas!
Anne – Books of My Heart This is my Sunday Post
Yep, hoping I can get the three books I need to read to meet my Goodreads goal done! Merry Christmas to you too!
Merry Christmas! My kids are 20 and 17, so we do spend part of the day together, but now they are playing video games, my hubby is out shoveling the snow since my 17-year-old has to be at work at 6:30 tomorrow morning, and I am blogging 🙂 It’s all good. I like my quiet time!
Same! I spend most of today at home alone, blogging and reading, then go for dinner at my brother’s tonight.
Sadly, our Australian shepherd LOVES the snow and cold, so we were having to go out in the sub zero temperatures to lure him in. It was ridiculous! Have an enjoyable holiday break!
I think one of my neighbor’s dogs is like that. One of mine will decide he needs to stay out and bark if she is out there too. I have to go outside with mine since they are little, which also means I can pick them up and make them go inside if they don’t want to, lol. Thanks for stopping by!
Merry Christmas!
Thanks!
I’m still trying to get in some holiday reading. I have so many books. Yours all look really good. I hope you have a great dinner tonight and a great week.
I had review books I had to get to this week, so I went ahead and set an end date. lol Thanks for visiting!
I love low-key Christmases. This year, we spent yesterday and today with friends. It was fun, but it was tiring, lol. I’m looking forward to staying home tomorrow and just vegging. 😀 Merry Christmas!
My Sunday News
Yeah, low key is really nice. I feel like I’m getting a lot more relaxing this year. Not doing what I should be around the house either though, oops! Thanks for stopping by!
My mind cannot even comprehend 30 below zero. My body was in shock when in dipped into the 20’s here. lol My family does gifts the way your does – the adults draw names and the kids still get gifts from everyone. Although at this point there is only one kid, my 14 year old niece. She thinks it’s pretty awesome that we all get one gift while she gets several. 🙂 That Rotel dip is so yummy. I haven’t had it in ages. The Outlander tour sounds amazing! Color me jealous! Merry Christmas, Lisa.
We had my cousin’s daughter for the longest time as the only kid until my niece was born 10 years ago. She got to enjoy it for about 10 years, lol. Thanks for stopping by!
Merry Christmas, Lisa! I hope the rest of your break is relaxing. I think we’re getting snow later this week, I’m excited because it will be the first snow in our new house. And wow, a trip to Scotland sounds amazing!
I’ll bet the snow will be so pretty in your new place! We are actually getting a bit this morning too. Thanks for visiting!
Sounds like a nice week before the break started. Though as you said the half day seemed silly to cram 7 classes in 3.5 hours. I can’t remember what our half days were like or if we even had them! In high school we had block scheduling so 4 classes a day and the half day usually fell on the day we had a “study hall” period and that one was eliminated. If I am remembering correctly! Lol.
Nice new reads! Lots of new to me ones but looks like good reads all round! I can’t quite tell what it is, but I like the little shark dude in one of your pics! I’m a huge Jaws fan! Lol. And that Baby, Just One More Page is so cute! It reminds me what I did with “The Night Before Christmas” and my Stephanie Garber collection! It was a lot of fun changing the words but I wasn’t savvy enough to keep up the rhyming!
Happy Reading this week!
Here’s my Monday Wrap-up
Have a GREAT day!
Old Follower 🙂
I think the shark you’re talking about is the pinata that my secret santa sent me! The name of our Facebook group is Sharks of Awesome, so I thought it was very cute that she sent me that! Yeah, it was a weird half day. But then we have a weird schedule where three days a week are full schedule days, the other two are block schedule days. Since Monday was a full day, they did a full schedule on Tuesday. That way they only had to adjust one day. My school rarely will rearrange schedules otherwise. Our two block schedule days include an extra “study hall” day. And since we only have 7 classes, our Wednesday is an early release day and the kids only have three classes and then teachers have meetings every Wednesday afternoon. Ooh, I need to see your fun The Night Before Christmas rewrite!
It was my December 24 Instagram post! It was a lot of fun to write!
Guess I need to go to Instagram and find it. Sounds like fun! I rewrite a lot of songs, short parts of them, when I’m singing to my dogs, lol.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
Thank you, and same for you!
We had like an inch of snow, below zero temps and lots of wind over the weekend. But I had a nice Christmas. I hope you had a great Christmas too. 🙂
Yeah, only about an inch for us too, but the really cold temps and wind the week before. I did have a nice Christmas too! Thanks for stopping by!
Saturday was our big get together also so Christmas day here was quiet. I like those sometime. Hope you had a great Christmas!
We got snowed in but didn’t get as cold as some did. Tons of snow though.
Kindred looks good.
I enjoy the quiet Christmas day as well! I had a nice Christmas too. Kindred ended on a total cliffhanger, I sure hope they do a second season!
I love the Baby, Just One More Page song! 😀
My aunt was planning to make the Rotel cheese dip for Christmas but my uncle wound up in the hospital with intractable back pain over Christmas so she didn’t make any of the things she had planned. Oh well. We’re just glad he gets to go home tomorrow. I do love that dip though.
That is a great Festivus haul! Enjoy your week!
Oh no! I hope your uncle is doing better now! You’ll have to make the dip for yourself. I’m still enjoying some leftovers today!
Wow. You all got hit by that cold snap really hard! We got down into the single digits here but not below zero. Yikes. So glad it seems to be moving on now. I’m glad you got some time off work! And I hope you had a merry Christmas!
Yep, we should have some warmer temps, up to almost 60 this week! Crazy midwest weather.