Weekly Wrap-Up #204 – December 29th, 2024

Posted December 29, 2024 by Lisa Mandina in Weekly Wrap Up / 24 Comments

I’m connecting up once again with Kimberly at Caffeinated Reviewer.

I do love playing around with Canva. Making buttons for my blog is so much fun! Even if I’m not completely thrilled with the final result, they’re still fun!

So Sunday was cold, but I got to sleep really late into the morning. I got up and put on Lick on Passionflix because I’m going to watch it or at least have it on in the background for the month that I’m subscribed to try to help convince them to make the second book into a movie too. Went to the grocery store because they do their reward points based on the Chiefs score the day before, all you have to do is spend that same amount. That’s more points than I ever get just off of the deals they have. Spent the day doing a lot of blogging. Then went and had dinner with my mom, before going to her house to watch a movie on Netflix since I don’t have that right now.

Monday was cold in the morning, but warmed up a bit during the day, even with no sun really. I blogged a bit, then went over to my friend’s house to have her cut my dogs’ nails. I also got to play with the 3 puppies she has left, her two dogs, and also Gabriel who I’d watched a while back was there too. She and I went and had lunch. Then I came home to hang out with my dogs and blog a bit more. My mom and I went and had a quick dinner at Panera, then she stopped by the pet store there and got some treats to give her dog for Christmas. I came home and did a bit more blogging, and sat and read with Outlander on the tv in the background.

Tuesday was busy! It was chilly, no snow, just cloudy and foggy too. We did Christmas at my mom’s house in the morning. Starting with breakfast, and my mom got the Mickey Mouse waffle maker to start the hints for when we finally told my niece and nephew about the Disney Cruise we are all going on in July. I think the kids were pretty excited!

I went home to take care of my dogs before going to my dad’s side. I got a little extra time to read and snuggle with the dogs on the couch because my sister’s flight from Chicago was American Airlines and they had a little upset on Christmas Eve morning delaying a lot of flights. She didn’t get in till 3:30. She had wanted a certain type of BBQ to share with her boyfriend, and we had been planning to go to the place to give him the experience, but since they closed at 5, my dad went and picked it up for us to eat at their house. When they got back to the house we ate, then opened gifts, and sat around and talked for a while. It was her boyfriend’s first time in Kansas City of course, he’s from Scotland. Got lots of toys for the dogs from everyone. My sister didn’t want to do gifts because of having to haul things as well as the cost of her traveling, but she still brought some little treats for everyone.

Christmas morning, Wednesday, there were no family plans. Woke up and had some of the leftover quiche my mom had made for breakfast the day before. Made sure to call my mom as soon as I was up to talk. I’m sure today was very hard for her. The last few years have been her and my stepdad mostly spending the day together, because normally I’d be at my dad’s side. I put on the 24 hour marathon of A Christmas Story until the Chiefs game at noon. My mom did see that there was one restaurant open their normal hours, so she and I went and had lunch. Came back after lunch to watch the Chiefs game and finished reading my book during the game, another win! In the evening normally I would go to my brother’s house for the tortellini soup my sister-in-law makes, but with my sister and her boyfriend here, we had a lot of plans with her this week. She wanted to go see a movie together, it was something we used to always do when she was here, especially scary movies, so we went to see Nosferatu. Fortunately the movie didn’t start till 7:45, so I was able to go have dinner at my brother’s before heading straight to the movie theater to meet them. It was busy at the theater! Even that late at night! Oh, my neighbors did give me some treats and toys for the dogs too. For dogs who rarely play with their toys, they got a ton this year.

Thursday, the day after Christmas, I kind of slept in, but my sister wanted to have us all do breakfast at 10 am. Which was fine because I also needed to get out and get groceries. I got up at 8, was going to do some blogging, but then got sucked into an email with a link for a TON of free e-books. Headed to breakfast, and had a nice time sitting and chatting with my sister, her boyfriend, my dad, and stepmom.

Ran by the grocery store afterwards and then came home to hand out with the dogs and hopefully get some blogging done. Tried to find something to watch other than more rewatching of Outlander, but nothing grabbed my attention enough, so that’s where I ended up.

Friday was a foggy, drizzly morning, temperature not too bad though. I got to sleep in which was lovely. Got up and decided I was going to take the rest of the Christmas money my dad gave me and go get a mani-pedi which I’d been needing for a while. When I finished up the e-galley I was reading, by the lovely Nicole over at Feed Your Fiction Addiction, I found my name in the acknowledgements at the end along with some other fellow bloggers! That made my day! I came home and watched the newest episode of Outlander before doing some more blogging. In the evening my sister had set up a get together at a Mexican restaurant we used to always go to with her friends and family, as well as inviting me and my mom.

Saturday woke up to another majorly foggy day. Put my trash out because it was postponed one day due to the holiday this week of course. I had considered going to meet my sister and her boyfriend and my dad and stepmom for breakfast at 9 am. But I woke up at 8:30 and decided I wasn’t going anywhere just yet. I finished a book over breakfast that went toward my BTB challenge. Then I did some blogging. My sister texted asking if I was going to meet them at a KC favorite burger restaurant, so I ended up doing that to see her one more time before she left. I stopped to get dog food on the way home. Then I made my usual Rotel cheese dip to take to my brother’s house for my mom’s side of the family holiday get together in the evening. It was a really foggy drive home, less than a quarter of a mile of visibility according to the weather channel app, but I came home and finished up this post before going to bed and reading.

Books Finished

Again I had no set review books. So I worked on a few I wanted for my TBR as well as on the review books coming up the first week of January. All except the 2nd review will be in my L-L-L Review part 2 post this week. The 2nd book was an e-galley I read, by debut author Nicole over at Feed Your Fiction Addiction. I will post that review this coming Saturday, and I’ve linked the cover above to Amazon, but you can buy it other places too!

New Additions to My Library

ARCs:

None

Audiobooks:

None

Bookish Stuff:
E-galleys:

So I had a huge issue getting logged into the UK Netgalley to get this one. Reset my password. Then when I went back to my US Netgalley, that password didn’t work. And I tried to reset it, but it then said I’d tried too many times. Not to mention the first time it said the password I’d been trying couldn’t be my new one, even though it had told me it was wrong when I tried it first! Ugh! I hate that!

Free e-books

On Christmas day there was a freebie day where I got over 40 freebies from Amazon! I tried to group them by the type of story they are in case you want to see if any are still free!

Physical books:

So, I thought I’d given my book list to my dad for Christmas, but I guess I hadn’t, and they just gave me cash. Which is fine. In the first picture, the top left book is just one my sister read and liked so she brought it to me. The other top book is the fun Scottish slang book her boyfriend found for me, it’s out of print, so he found it at a second hand shop. The front two books were from my sister from my Amazon wishlist. Both I’ve already read and loved and just wanted to have on my shelf! The second picture is one of the books I ordered with the money my dad gave me for Christmas. Now that I finished the first book in that series this past week, I’m ready to read on!

What I’m Watching

Of course the latest episode of Outlander, and they have been SO good. Another winning Chiefs game on Christmas, which means we have the #1 seed and home field advantage for playoffs. A few times of A Christmas Story during the 24 hour marathon on whatever channel does that every year, TBS? Watching Lick on Passionflix a lot too so maybe they’ll make the second book into a movie too since it features one of my all time favorite book boyfriends. Went to the movies with my sister and her boyfriend in town from Scotland on Christmas. Sunday night my mom and I watched Carry-On on Netflix. It was pretty good!

Christmas night I met my dad, my sister and her boyfriend at the movie theater to see Nosferatu. It was definitely creepy and gory a bit. The ending was a little depressing, but not necessarily unexpected.

What’s Coming Up Next Week

Since it’s end of the year, there will be a DNF Report, L-L-L Reviews part 2, a Monthly/Year Wrap-up post – including challenges signed up for the year, as well as some e-galley and ARC reviews. And we have a work day with no students on Friday, boo! Not going to be ready to go back.

Final Thoughts

Don’t forget I added in a monthly wrap-up giveaway again because my read ARC pile was getting big again! It just started on Wednesday. And as I’m going through and getting rid of books, I’m finding I will probably continue to do 2 winners as I pull out more ARCs from my shelves that I’m not going to keep. For this giveaway I might do a big giveaway with like 6 winners, and get rid of a TON of the books on my pile.

I hope you were able to have a nice holiday. My week was really busy with my sister and her boyfriend coming from Scotland and she had so much she wanted to show him and do with him since this was his first time in Kansas City.

How was your holiday, whichever you might have celebrated or might be celebrating now? How was your week? Are you ready for the new year? I know this year has been a bad one for me and I can only hope next year settles down. As long as it doesn’t get worse, and maybe just a little better, I’ll be happy.

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24 responses to “Weekly Wrap-Up #204 – December 29th, 2024

  1. Oh wow! Sounds like you had a nice holiday! That’s cool about the grocery store and getting extra points based on the Chiefs’ score! No one does anything like that up this way, but still that’s a fun concept! Glad to see you got the Belle tote! I haven’t been to our outlet mall in ages so I don’t know if it made it to the stores themselves, but I did notice that online the print was available. I was like, of course! But if I hadn’t of bought it when I did, it likely wouldn’t have made it to the online outlet. At least that’s what I tell myself and that’s the story I am sticking with! Lol. I was actually a little curious about the Nosferatu movie. I actually would love to watch the original one as I know this one might terrify me. I don’t do well with scary movies, but vampire ones always catch my attention. Maybe I can rent it on sunny summer day this year! Lol. For some reason horror movies images always last a long time in my brain and it just terrifies me to no end! The last time I saw a horror movie out of curiosity and because it had 2 of my favorite actors, I had a hard time sleeping for a month or two and all the reviews complained of the movie, yet I was terrified of it and couldn’t open my closet unless it was sunny and people were home! Lol. Glad you were able to spend time with your sister from Scotland! That’s always nice especially with that big of distance between you.

    Nice new collection of reads too! Lots of new to me ones except for Isabel Ibanez’s book. I made sure not to start that duology right away as I heard there was a killer cliffhanger! Lol. Hope you’re able to get to read that one soon! Hope you enjoy all of your lovely new reads and gifts as well! The shadowbox for ticket stubs is really cool! I still save mine too, though it’s been a looong time since I went anywhere to see anything! I think my little box I kept them all in might be in a box in my storage unit as I know I couldn’t decide at the time if I should continuing to keep them or not. Basically started saving them probably since middle school or high school…? I’d have to find said box to see but yeah, that’s not happening anytime soon as the “non book” boxes are haphazardly stacked in there and finding the “not a book” items is impossible! Lol.

    Happy Reading and hope you have a Happy New Year!

    Here’s my StS

    Have a GREAT day!

    Old Follower 🙂

    • Lisa Mandina

      The shadow box was on Etsy if you ever decide you want one! I used to be scared really bad by scary movies, but still loved them. I’ve since gotten over a lot of being scared since I’ve lived by myself for so long. But that doesn’t mean sometimes when I take my dogs out at night I might get a little creeped out after seeing some scary movies.

      • I feel like I would do worse when I live alone! Every little noise would have me jumping. I still jump at sounds if I am home alone! Lol. I scare very easily basically. So I figure I might just start with the OG Nosferatu and see how things go! Lol.

        • Lisa Mandina

          I assumed I would be that way too. But maybe it’s because I live in such a small house now? I don’t know. lol

  2. danielle hammelef

    I see my name in the acknowledgements of Nicole’s book too! How exciting! I read her manuscript when Nicole was seeking beta readers and knew she had an excellent story. I had a wonderful Christmas–quiet and relaxing–we couldn’t go and see family because my husband had a bad cough and didn’t want to pass that around. I spent over 2 hours at my favorite indie store yesterday armed with gift cards and a two-sided wish list. I enjoyed seeking out my most wanted books and could have spent even more time there just browsing. Happy New Year, Lisa!

    • Lisa Mandina

      I saw your name too! That is so awesome you helped with that! Glad you had a nice Christmas! So much fun to spend that much time at a bookstore!

    • Lisa Mandina

      I need to do more looking at how long the freebies are. I might be more likely to get to the ones under 200 pages unless it is by an author I already know I like!

  3. Ash

    Okay first of all holy wow that’s a lot of free e-books lol. I can’t wait to watch Carry-On! We didn’t watch it before Christmas because we heard that “Last Christmas” by WHAM! was in it and we didn’t want to get whammed!
    I really liked a long stretch of bad days, did you enjoy it?
    Hope you had an amazing Christmas!

    Ash @ Essentially Ash
    Want to follow me on Bookstagram, booktok, add my snapchat or check out my photography?

    Ash recently posted: June's Pretties 1
    • Lisa Mandina

      I’ve really got to curb the freebie grabs! lol. I liked Carry-On although I’ve seen some people who didn’t care for it as much. LOL, I didn’t even think about that song in it. I did like a Long Stretch of Bad Days! My review will be coming this week in my L-L-L- Review post.

    • Lisa Mandina

      Came out last Friday. But the next one is this coming Friday, and then I think there will be two weeks till the last one for this season. 🙁

  4. Yay! I’m glad you found yourself in my acknowledgments!! (You never know who may or may not read all the way through to them.) I do so appreciate the blogging community for their support all this time!!

    Also, that shadow box for the tickets is a fantastic idea! I think I finally gave up and threw all that kind of stuff away, and now I’m wishing I’d found this cute solution instead.

    Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction recently posted: Sunday Post & Book Pre-order Campaigns Galore: 12/29/24
    • Lisa Mandina

      I always love reading the acknowledgements. It’s interesting to see who the authors talk about, and other things about them or about publishing! I have lots of other things I need to throw away, but I’ve kept the tickets! I had a little fancy shoebox type of container, but this I saw on Etsy and knew I needed it.

  5. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Sounds like a pretty good week off. We drove to my sister’s home in Philly for four days last week and now are home and just relaxing. My daughter and I also got in a good day of shopping, using the GCs we got for Christmas.

    • Lisa Mandina

      So much time spent with family is wonderful! I loved having my sister in town. But man, it ate up a lot of my just relaxing days I’d hoped for.

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