I’m connecting up once again with Kimberly at Caffeinated Reviewer.
Sunday I meant to just stay home all day, other than maybe a trip to the grocery store. My mom texted me around 8 in the morning though, and asked if I wanted to go to Costco with her since I don’t have a membership. So we did that, and then after she suggested we drop off our cold items and then go have lunch, and of course I couldn’t turn down a free lunch, lol. Afterwards I came home and got to doing some blogging. Still behind on reading too. I did get the book I was reading finished to post a review on Monday.
Monday was so miserably hot. We had a fire drill in the morning, before it got too bad outside. It was busy in the library, with English classes coming down to check out books, and several students with laptop issues throughout the day. I ran by the grocery story after work and then came straight home to just hang out inside the house as much as possible. I forgot to share pictures of our first two displays of the school year.
Tuesday kind of sucked. Miserably hot again. And they came and took my clerk almost first thing in the morning. I was supposed to have two classes that I was doing library orientation with, and then I was leaving at 1 pm for a doctor’s appointment. It was busy because they were already doing a state test, and of course having lots of computer issues, so I had to deal with all that by myself. Plus new students coming for computers. Plus the two classes for orientation, which thankfully this teacher didn’t really want me to spend more than about 10 minutes talking to them, then letting them check out. Oh yeah, I also had to help a teacher who needed printer toner, because that is also my responsibility. One good note is that the doctor visit went well. Other than the depression survey I have to fill out every time, where I had to mark some things as worse than I wanted because of how stressed with work I am. My A1C is staying at 5.9%, which is pretty good since up to 5.7% is considered normal. We talked about my weight, but I don’t know that I could give myself the shots they have for that these days, plus don’t even know if my insurance would cover it with how low my A1C is. Then I had to race home for a Zoom meeting for the membership committee I’m on for the Missouri Association of School Librarians. I also volunteered to be the Vice-Chair, which means I’ll be the Chair of the committee next year! Yikes or Yay!
Wednesday sucked even more. When I emailed asking if my clerk could at least come down for me to have a lunch, I was told no, that I needed to close the library. I was also then given my building budget, along with asking if I really needed all of that this year. Um, yes, I do, they took away about $1000 of my district book budget, so I can use this money to help with that. I had kids with attitudes, and I was just done. I ended up going home sick halfway through the day. Mostly mental health, but I just couldn’t be there anymore. Went and had dinner with my mom.
Thursday was a little better, although I’m still alone in the library, and just as frustrated as ever with my principal and the whole school year. Didn’t have time to even come and update this post for the day because we had Open House in the evening from 5:30-6:30, and I didn’t have time to run home in between. So my mom came over and let my dogs out, and between the end of school and the open house, I went and played with puppies and then my friend and I went and had dinner and just sat and talked. It was nice.
I can’t even describe how many ups and downs Friday had. I don’t know that I can last another full school year at this job. They started the hall sweeps again, and basically it means I have to give up half of my library no matter what. Even with having an open classroom they can use, it has to be the library. None of the people in charge realize that when it’s the same students doing this over and over, it should be obvious it isn’t working. And how is it better to keep a student who is late to class sitting in the library where they don’t get the actual instructions for that class? Spent another day where I had to go back into the tech room and just let the tears come. However the tech people were there. One, who is just there occasionally because she isn’t a “tech” person, but works for that department, had to give me a hug when she saw me crying. And this happened in between classes I was doing library orientation for. I still can’t believe my AP asked why I couldn’t just do the library orientations in the teachers’ classrooms. I reached out to my MSTA (Missouri State Teachers Association) Rep about all the things that had been happening. And asked it if was even something worth putting in a grievance with my district. I can’t afford to lose my job. I’ve got no other income available.
Friday night was a bit better, spending the annual Labor Day weekend tradition of going to the SantaCaliGon days in Independence, MO with my mom and aunts. I got a new KC Chiefs t-shirt, I’ve wanted to find a yellow one that I liked, and I finally did! I’ve also wanted to try actual fresh macarons, as I’ve only had the ones you buy prepackaged, and haven’t been impressed. Then this one local booth had some really unique flavors of jelly and one was root beer flavor. I’ve tried two of the macarons, which were okay, still don’t get the fuss. Haven’t tried the jelly yet.
Saturday morning I was able to sleep in. It was lovely. Then I got up and took Dora to get her toenails trimmed. Argyle rarely needs it as he likes to run and skid to a stop and then run to the other end of the brick tile path I made for him by the neighbors’ fence when he’s playing with their dogs. Unfortunately they never seem to cut very much, so I’ll probably end up seeing if I can take my two over one day for my friend to do it, because she does a good job. It’s just that she has two litters of puppies right now, and it’s kind of a hassle to pack my two up and drive them over when I’ve already been over to work once that day already. Oh well. I went and had coffee/drinks with my dad, stepmom, and sister at noon. I was supposed to have dinner and vent with my author friend about our life choices, but after the coffee afternoon with my family, I really just wanted to go home and hang out with the dogs and do some blogging. The book I was reading was kind of boring, so it might turn into a DNF.
Books Finished
First was the ARC I started at the end of last week. The next was an e-galleys from the author. Those two reviews were posted this past week. I also posted my L-L-L-Little Reviews for August, and my DNF post for August. The last book I probably could have added to my L-L-L post before it went up, but as crazy as my week has been, I just didn’t have the time or energy. So that is a paperback I bought from the author, and I’ll probably put that review in my September L-L-L post.
Here are my weekly stats from Bookly:
New Additions to My Library
ARCs:
Technically this one has already been published this month. However I entered a giveaway from Good Girls PR to win one of the special trope ARCs they created for the different tropes in this story. I love the Forced Proximity/One Bed trope, so that’s the one I got! Now to fit this whopper of almost 500 pages into my reading schedule soon!
Audiobooks:
none
Bookish Stuff:
Thanks to Jess from A Great Read, I learned of another awesome bookish blanket from Kohl’s, and my order came this week!
E-galleys:
Saw this on Edelweiss, and it sounds a lot like my thoughts of how I wish I could see if there are alternate universe versions of me who made different choices about certain things, and if they’re happier in their lives than I am. It doesn’t come out till next May though, so it’ll be a while till I get to it.
Free E-books:
All of these were free on Amazon.
Physical Books:
I got an awesome surprise book box from Entangled Teen in the mail on Saturday. I’d seen some people posting about it in the Facebook group, but hadn’t thought anything about it. Love this copy so much and those cool sprayed page edges!
What I’m Watching
So last weekend they seemed to be showing a Mel Brooks movie marathon, I watched Spaceballs and Blazing Saddles, or at least they were on the tv when I was blogging. And of course, always Outlander binging when I get home from school in the evenings and am too exhausted to try watching anything new that I have to pay attention to very much. I did see on someone else’s blog, Socrates’ Book Reviews, that the last season of Evil was out! Even though I wasn’t currently subscribing to Paramount+, I decided I needed to go ahead and then I started watching the last season. Also there seemed to be a Harry Potter marathon on and I would turn that on in the background when I was blogging.
What’s Coming Up Next Week
All of these are e-galleys. Two from a publisher, one from an author, and one for a blog tour. The first I was supposed to get up last week, but with no reading time, I didn’t get it finished in time. And I may end up DNFing it because it’s kind of slow, and with how my brain is working these days, it’s just not doing it for me.
I’ve also got my End of the Month post coming on Monday, and at least one book blitz this week I think.
Final Thoughts
And…it’s September! Yay! Tomorrow is Labor Day which means an extra day off school, thank goodness. How was your last week of August?
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What a great book blanket. I sorry work is not going well but i hope it gets better.
I’m doubting it will ever get to where it should be. At this point I just have to get my expectations all the way lowered and not let hope mess things up. I can’t wait to use the blanket on a cold evening in front of the tv!
I’m sorry things have been so bad already at school. That sucks. I hope you figure something out. I love the show Evil-it is so good!
Yeah, I need to finish watching the last season. It’s wild and out there, but I need to know what happens!
UGH! I just want to build a blanket fort for you so you can relax and get away. So sorry work is this sucky already. I was hoping it would be better, and I know you were trying to stay positive. At least football season is starting and you have a winning team to cheer on. We are taking bets on how many (few) games the Pats will win this season. Oh well. Sending virtual hugs your way.
Looking forward to everything except for work these days! lol Sorry about your Pats, maybe they’ll have a good season this year? I’m worried my Chiefs are done with their good seasons, I mean I can’t imagine they can actually win another one, that just seems like too much luck. We’ll see!
Puppies! I hope you cool down this week like we are. I’m so sorry it is so bad at school. My daughter has injections for migraines which she has learned to do herself. She also does the GLP-1 ones because her medications had her gain so much weight and it’s hard on her joints with hypomobility. Anyway insurance wouldn’t cover the brand name ones, but we found a compounding pharmacy (you have to get a certified or verified one which we researched) and it’s about $300 for 2 months which isn’t too bad. It’s not auto injector though; it’s a regular needle and I learned to do it for her. Here’s to a better week ahead.
As much as I’d like the help with losing weight, I just don’t think I could do the injections myself. Plus I know those drugs are actually hard on your liver, and my friend who is helping me with some health things is trying to help me figure out what is wrong with my liver without adding more issues to it. I’m going to try to work on just not letting work get to me as much as possible. It’s so hard though, but I know it’s not worth it.
I am so sorry work was stressful this week. I know how frustrating all that can be. I really hope things get better. I feel like school districts across the country are just in a terrible state right now, and it is so infuriating! But I’m glad you were able to do your annual Labor Day weekend tradition and I hope that was a nice reprieve from the terrible week.
Omg I am so happy you got the blanket! 😆 Jess over here influencing us all with her fun purchases. Lol.
I can’t wait to snuggle up under the new blanket too! Yeah, it might be time to get out of education sadly. I’m just so close to retiring I wanted to wait. But if I were to quit after this year, it just means it would be longer till I could get that retirement, like 8 years instead of 4. My mom and family keep telling me I’ve got to think of my mental health though, and they’re right.
Lisa I feel so bad that your job is so stressful! I love your new blanket though – I hope it helps de-stress you when you get home from work. I hope next week is a better one for you.
I’m looking forward to blanket weather to enjoy that!
I am sorry work has been so stressful. I hope the 3 day weekend recharged you.
It definitely is nice having 3 days off! I feel recharged at the moment. Going to work on not letting work zap me so much.
I’m sorry to hear your school year is off to a bad start. I don’t understand why they hired a library assistant for you, but have her work elsewhere. I’ve had jobs like that and I hated it. They hired me for one thing and then make me do other things that were not apart of the job listing, it sucks. I hope the office hires their own person soon so you can get the help you need. It also seems stupid to put the kids who are avoiding class in the library. I mean what does that teach them? You can skip class and it’s all okay? They should be walked back to class and then given a detention for after school where an office admin or teacher has to watch them. Yay! I’m glad you were able to order the blanket online! I haven’t decided if I want to use mine for when blanket weather actually starts or save it in my storage unit. It’s still all wrapped up right now, along with a Halloween one I impulsive bought when I had reward dollars! I still have my Belle & Tiana reading a book blanket too! I’ve too many it seems. I may need to donate a few as I know I’ve a handful from book boxes that I just kept for whatever reason that I don’t need to keep.
Nice new reads! Lots of new to me ones but yay for getting a special ARC! I both love and hate when publishers do that. Mostly because I usually want one of these special ARCs and never get one. Covid really messed up my standing with publishers.
I hope you enjoy all of your lovely new books and hopefully have a better week at work this week! Sorry for my late visit, I ended up going to my sister’s yesterday for a BBQ and it ended extremely late, like we didn’t leave until nearly midnight and I got home after midnight.
I’ve figured out pretty much they wanted to hire the person I hired, it’s why the AP was pushing so hard for the other two candidates for me to pick instead of her. At this point I’m just going to make it through the year and look for anything else in June, whether it’s in education or something else, as long as I can find a job making what I do after 29 years in education. Which isn’t that much, but is more than starting at most other jobs. Getting that special edition was cool, except the book comes out on Tuesday and I have no time to get it read before then with all my scheduled review books! Sounds like you had a nice weekend!
Puppy time is the best! With everything you have on your shoulders right now, I am glad you were able to get some puppy time. Sounds like you had quite the week! It looks like you have some good reading ahead of you! What If It’s You looks really good. And I love your new blanket! I hope you have a much better week, Lisa!
Yeah, I’m excited to read What If It’s You! The new blanket is in the washing machine as I write this and I can’t wait to have it on the couch to snuggle under while I watch tv or read!
I’m sorry your year is so tough already. I hope things get better! Those puppies are adorable, I want one so bad!! I’m looking forward to your thoughts on The Lies of Alma Blackwell:-) I hope you enjoy the holiday!
Every time I go see the puppies I think I want one, but I know I can’t do three dogs, and I also think after the two I have now are gone, it might be nice to move into an apartment and not deal with anything but myself.
I’m sorry to hear you had a rough week! I hope this week is better for you and that you enjoyed the extra day off with the 3-day weekend!
So far the week is a little better, but I don’t foresee that lasting.