Weekly Wrap-Up #214 – March 9th, 2025

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

Sunday was cool in the morning, but warmed up to in the 50s in the afternoon. I was feeling a little better, although by the afternoon my head was stuffy again. I did take the second Covid/flu test and it was negative also. I went to watch my nephew play one of the games in the weekend tournament, and they won, it was a good game. At 2 pm I met my dad, stepmom, and youngest sister at their favorite Mexican restaurant in Liberty, MO where he lives, for his birthday. I’d already ordered the last season of Outlander on DVD for him and had it shipped straight to his house. I didn’t have as much time for blogging as I normally do, so I’m feeling a bit behind!

Monday was a bit cool in the morning so I wore my jacket into school. When I left school it was not needed. I got one of my March displays up, my St. Patrick’s Day themed one. They’ve been doing some construction on all of our main entrances to make them look nicer and also to make it more obvious which one is the actual “main” entrance for when people come during the day and have to check in with the office. It is not on the side of the building facing the street, but back behind where the parking lot is. That means I’ve had to park elsewhere. But on my way out the door after school they’d redone the steps, so now I will be parking back where I usually do I guess. I stopped by Target to get a humidifier for the house to help with my now scratchy throat at night. Then got Chipotle for dinner and hung out at home for the rest of the night.

Tuesday was a pretty quiet day in the library. Well, the first hour the teacher who has our non-English speaking kids was in the library with her classes working on creating videos for some assignment. I worked on cutting out lamination for a new bulletin board display. The weather was forecasting storms possibly in the evening followed by maybe a flash freeze, snow, and blizzard speed winds. So all day we were debating whether Wednesday would be a snow day. I came right home after school and it was drizzly rain, and not much wind at that point. I had a Zoom call at 6 pm for one of the library committees I’m on. Oh, and I saw one of the bunnies from last spring/early summer in my backyard in the afternoon! Yay! I love the bunnies! By the time I went to bed the wind was majorly stronger, and the rain had turned into almost sleet.

Wednesday morning I was woken up right before my alarm by a text/call from my school district saying school was cancelled for the day. Which makes sense for how bad the roads were. I’m guessing my driveway is a sheet of ice and I don’t have enough ice melt left to put out there. I slept till after 8 am, which definitely helped with feeling better. Although still had a stuffy nose most of the day. Did some budgeting work with entering expenses for the last week or so. Then I did some blogging. I went outside and cracked up most of the ice layer on my driveway to try to make sure it would all melt away in the sun and warmer temps so I could get out of the driveway on Thursday morning for work. I tried the new wild cherry and cream Pepsi, and I wasn’t a fan. So I’ll take the rest of the cans in for treats for my students. I also tried the new blackberry Dr. Pepper, that one I liked a little bit more. But since I don’t drink as much soda these days, I’ll probably take the extras of that in to the students as well.

Wednesday evening got the sad news that my stepdad’s cousin had passed away. She was 73 years old, and had been suffering from Alzheimer’s pretty severely for the last 5 or more years to where she didn’t really remember anyone. I probably won’t be able to attend her funeral out of town since it is during school. I can still remember her voice, and I relate a lot to her because she was also a teacher and we were able to share teacher stories for a while, and like me she never got married, never had any kids. She lived with her mom pretty much her whole life. But they were farmers, and she also was a big part of the family farm, so it made sense for her to continue living there with her mom since her dad was passed away a long time ago and to stay with her mom.

Thursday was back to school. Kind of chilly in the morning, and since I’ve been getting over this cold I went ahead and wore a jacket. It was a mostly quiet day in the library, there was a test called the Seal of Biliteracy held in the library for the first half of the day. I backed out of a committee I’d been working on for the district because I don’t feel like I should be gone for something that doesn’t directly affect my job when I don’t have a clerk. I let the district person in charge know my reasoning. I spent most of the day finishing up the spring bulletin board and also my Women’s History Month display. I went to dinner with my mom to try a new Mexican restaurant, it was good. Then I came home and had to speed-read to finish a book that my review was due on Friday. Then I watched the new episode of Ghosts and did a bit of blogging before bed.

Friday was another quiet day in the library, although from what I heard there were several fights around the school during the day. I brought my new sticker maker to school and made a bunch of stickers while working on changing out a bulletin board I’d had up in a corner of the library since probably early 2024, before my original library clerk left to take care of her son in the hospital. I had my mom run over and let my dogs out during the day because I had to go back to get a sonogram on my breast because they’d noticed something on the mammogram a couple weeks ago that they wanted to take a closer look at. Fortunately the doctor said it was just a cyst they’d noted a few years ago had gotten a tiny bit bigger. They said just to come back in a year for my annual mammogram and not to worry. I did the drive thru at Wendy’s on the way home. I’d been kind of tired and yawning at work most of the afternoon, so I just wanted to come home and veg on the couch with the dogs and watch Outlander.

Saturday I slept in, but the sun is coming earlier, so on the one hand that makes it easier to get up, but also makes it harder to sleep in on the days I can. However I woke up from a horrible dream, so I was eager to get up and away from that. I did the dishes, ate breakfast, and did some blogging. At noon I went and met my dad, stepmom, youngest sister and one of my aunts at a coffee shop down by my sister’s house. We sat and talked for a couple hours, then a new pizza place had opened across the street from the coffee house so we went and had a late lunch/early dinner of pizza. I came home, finished up this post and then just hung out on the couch with the dogs all night.

Books Finished

First, third, and fourth were e-galleys, first from the author – review posted on Wednesday with an Xpresso Blitz tour, the second from Rachel’s Random Resources for a blog tour review on Friday, the last one from the author as well for a review tomorrow, Monday. The 2nd book was the audiobook I’d been listening to.

This week I also had my review of a book I finished last Saturday, and a last minute Top 10 Tuesday post.

New to My Library

ARCs:

None

Audiobooks:

I’ve been reading my paperback copy of this, but only finding time in between scheduled review books to read a bit here and there. So since I do adore her audiobooks, I put this on hold at the library and it was available this week so I could jump in where I was and keep going.

Bookish Stuff:

None

E-galleys:

Technically the first one was sent to my Kindle address a week ago, but silly me didn’t realize it until I went to see because I had to review on my blog calendar for Monday. The second one was an egalley link from the publisher on Netgalley. It comes out in May I believe, I don’t know if I’ll have time for it, so it is just a maybe and I didn’t download it yet. Third was another Netgalley link from the publisher and I went ahead and downloaded that as it doesn’t come out till August so I could go ahead and work it into my schedule closer to the pub date. Plus I have discovered I love this author since her last series which was my first of hers! The last one was also sent to me from the publisher. Have you seen the show Maxton Hall? I really liked it when I watched it, but the book wasn’t in English, and now it’s getting published in English this summer. So I did go get that one for sure from Netgalley!

Free e-books:

Both were freebies on Amazon.

Physical books:

I’ve decided I’m buying as many of Tara Sivec’s physical copies as I can, to help support her needing money right now for her cancer treatments. Of course I am not rich, so I’m just buying one per paycheck. This is the third in the Seduction and Snacks series and I haven’t read it yet. The second picture is the prize I won from author Lisa Suzanne on her Instgram page! The Vegas Aces is a huge book with 5 books in a series plus a novella.

What I’m Watching

Enjoying the new season of Survivor, and then a new season of The Amazing Race started this week. And of course always rewatching Outlander when nothing else is on. Also new episode of Ghosts this week, and their annual “new ghost” was hilarious.

What’s Coming Up Next Week

First two were e-galleys from the authors. The second one I’m unsure if I might not finish because the age gap between the two is a little much for me from what I read in the author’s newsletter prequel story, and that makes me icky feeling. Third is an ARC the publisher sent, and since I got it later, it will be read after the pub date by a few days. I hope to post all reviews this week if all are read.

I also have a top 10 Tuesday post this week with my own special topic in honor of a favorite author.

Final Thoughts

One week of March down. How has it been for you so far?

Here’s a picture of Argyle enjoying the sunlight on my snow day Wednesday. My new iPhone camera is so much better when I zoom in than the last one was.