Weekly Wrap-Up #220 – Happy Easter! – April 20th, 2025

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

Happy Easter if you celebrate! I probably won’t be out visiting blogs a lot today because I took my Dora into the emergency vet this morning, and while they didn’t find anything wrong, she’s still not acting just right. Of course when she is at the vet she is the strong silent type and won’t act like anything hurts. So send positive thoughts for us! And hopefully she’ll get to feeling better and I can get out to do some blog visiting this week.

Sunday I slept in pretty late because I didn’t sleep well in the hotel room. I felt like lots of tossing and turning and getting up every couple of hours. I know I slept because I had a lot of crazy vivid dreams, but I don’t remember a lot about them now. I got up and did some blogging. Then a little after 11 am I headed out to get some lunch. The conference registration was already open, wasn’t supposed to be open till noon, so I went ahead and got all my stuff taken care of. I had the hotel golf cart take me down the big hill to the Land Shark bar and grill for lunch. I probably should have just walked for the exercise. But after lunch I wasn’t going to walk back up the big hill! Came back to my room and blogged for a bit before the first event that my committee was kind of in charge of at 2 pm. The first actual session I went to spanned the first two times and it was about book repair. We got some goodies with that and got to actually try them out on a book. After that everyone went and lined up for dinner basically. We had a great key note speaker to open the dinner. Also the president used something I’d posted on Facebook after one of our Zoom meetings in his speech – a post I’d made about how the organization inspires me – he didn’t put my name on it though. Then all the regional groups had short meetings right after the dinner and speaker. There were other things going on in the evening, but I was ready to be alone again and went back to my room to do some blogging and reading and relaxing.

Monday was a busy day with the conference. Normally at conferences I skip breakfast to get a little extra sleep. But I had to go to this one because they were recognizing all the committee members, and I’m on the membership committee. After that there were some great sessions. Lunch was a buffet and then a meeting/awards ceremony. I ate the lunch, sat in the back of the ballroom, then left after eating to go rest in my room for a while. Then there were a few more sessions. Followed by a happy hour which I skipped, and a special author event that I didn’t get my registration done in time to go to. I went to the one at 5:15 though, and got to meet Kathleen Glasgow, whose book won the 23-24 Gateway Award, and also got to talk to Alan Gratz again, whose book won the 23-24 Truman Award. Next was the Readers Award banquet, the favorite meal of the whole conference every year, because we get to listen to all those authors speak, as well as hear what the votes of our Missouri students chose for the 24-25 winners. I went back to my room after to rest and pack up to be ready to take things to my car before the Tuesday morning sessions. So I could check out and just go when those sessions are over.

Tuesday I slept in a bit. I got all my stuff down to my car, checked out of the hotel, and then went to check out the Idea displays set up on the last day. There were less than 10, but a few looked like ones I’d love to try. While I was sitting waiting for the first session, I got a text asking if I wasn’t going to pick up the Raffle basket I’d won, they would give it to someone else, but I’d never been notified! I went down to grab it and it turned out they’d had the wrong phone number I guess. But it was an awesome basket full of gift cards and a really neat book shaped vase. The second session of the day/last of the conference, well I picked one that wasn’t what I thought it was going to be about, so I slipped out and started the drive home. I did stop at a Dutch Bakery on the way home, bought a few snacks. I also stopped and picked up my dogs on the way home, happy to have them home and be home with them. Unfortunately I got a call from the Principal from last week’s interview. He said that the interview went really well, but they’d decided to go in another direction. So that made my night a little sad. But I tried to stay positive for the interview scheduled on Wednesday. Oh yeah, when I picked up my dogs, the puppies had Argyle’s leash for a bit and it was like they were trying to lead him around.

Wednesday was back to work. Not going to talk a lot about it. Mostly it was the same. I had an interview at 1 pm, but after I knew it wasn’t a job I would want, and I’m guessing they probably won’t offer it to me anyway, because I don’t feel the interview went great. Even to get away from my current hell, it just would be trading one type of negatives for another type. So will just keep trying to work on how I can just do everything I’m asked to do, or at least not suggest any changes for anything for the things I will do. I still refuse to take on tasks that have nothing to do with my job when I don’t even have a clerk. But it’s not worth even fighting for that anymore. I did get to be home a little early though because of the interview. So that was nice. Went to dinner with my mom. Then it was my favorite tv night of the week. Oh, and I did find out that my neighbors found a house and will be moving into it at the end of April. I’m happy for them, but still sad for Argyle losing his neighbor dog friends.

Thursday it started raining right as I was taking the dogs outside before going to work. School was kind of busy. I had stuff to do all day. I worked on moving around some displays. Still bringing some more things home from my job. Even if I don’t get a job somewhere else, I’m pulling back from my current job and only using what they buy for me or that I print there at work. I went outside and ate lunch in my car again, the afternoon was breezy and sunny and really nice. We had a staff meeting afterwards, which made me get home later than normal. Saw the groundhog in my front yard again as I was pulling in my driveway, it ran under the bushes in the front of my house. I did a little blogging, then hung out with the dogs for the evening. Hoped Friday morning would be dry and warm enough to mow. I did notice the baby bunnies are no longer in the little hole by the fence, but I think they might be hiding under the bushes in my backyard, so I’ll have to keep an eye out when I do mow.

Friday was a wonderful sleeping in morning. The craziness is that the temperature would have been perfect for mowing at 8 am when I got up, it was 70 degrees. By about 9 am, it was 59 degrees, so I got out and mowed about 9:30 instead of waiting till 11 since it was going to keep getting cooler. Before I went out to mow, the groundhog was out in my front yard munching on grass, and running back under my front bushes whenever a car drove by. I saw one baby bunny go running out from one of the bushes in the backyard while I was mowing. I found someone on Nextdoor website who said they would come clean the vines off my front porch and maybe do the stuff on the fence in my backyard, and they said they’d be there at 10 am. I was done mowing by 10:30, and they still weren’t there. I waited until 10:45 and then I texted to find out if they were coming. They said they’d come by in the afternoon. I had my appointment with Safelite to repair the latest windshield chip at 1 pm. They got that done really quickly this time. The guy who came to cut down the overgrowth I had was really young and just starting his lawn service business, but the price was so good I couldn’t say no. And he did a great job! Went to dinner with my mom, and helped her bring my stepdad’s office chair down from her upstairs office so my aunt could come by and get it on Saturday. Here are before and after pictures of the overgrowth on my house:

Saturday there was a tiny bit of rain during the evening, and woke up to a cloudy morning a little cooler than the day before. I got up and did some blogging. Then went to do the weekly coffee with my dad, stepmom, and youngest sister. Since it was my turn to pick a place close to me, I chose the Starbucks since there had been $60 worth of gift cards for Starbucks in the basket I won at the conference. Sat there with them for about 4 hours because my sister wasn’t able to get there till around 2. Came home and tried to work on my computer class I’m taking. But I think I’m going to drop it since it was free and it isn’t exactly what I was thinking. Plus I’m not going to probably ever teach computer science at this stage of my career, so a little late to stress over learning coding I’m not going to use. Watched some tv on the couch with the dogs and went through some more boxes of letters and cards that I brought home from the storage unit we are trying to clean out. Here is my order from Starbucks. I love their grilled cheese sandwiches!

Books Finished

First was the audiobook I almost finished on my trip down, review will be in my L-L-L review post at the end of the month. Second was an e-galley I posted a review of this past week.

It was another week with not a lot of posts planned.

New Additions to My Library

ARCs:

I got this fun ARC in this cool box from Entangled Publishing on Friday. It comes out May 6th, so we’ll see if I can fit it in.

Audiobooks:

none

Bookish stuff:

First was this year’s conference t-shirt. I really like the color of the shirt and the pop of the orange on it! Second pic is of the goodies I think for pre-ordering the new traditionally published edition of Nine Month Contract by Amy Daws.

E-galleys:

none

Free e-books:

This was free on Amazon.

Physical books:

They had a local bookstore selling things at the conference. I bought this awesome tote bag and a few books. The one to the right of the bag is for me, and the one on the left bottom is also for me – the author was at the event so I wanted her autograph. The other two will probably go in my school library, although Alan Gratz was at the event so I did get his signature on that one.

What I’m Watching

At the hotel I watched a lot of The Big Bang Theory, and then of course when I was home I watched my usual shows: Survivor, Amazing Race, Ghosts, and then rewatched Outlander when I had time back home because it is my comfort show, even when it makes me cry, lol. I started The Bondsman with Kevin Bacon on Thursday night, watched a little more Saturday night, and I think it is fun! I feel like we always need a good demon hunter/slayer type of show and haven’t really had one like that in a while.

What’s Coming Up Next Week

Both are e-galleys, the first for a review on Thursday and the second for a review on Saturday.

I do have a blitz scheduled for this week, one with an author interview I think?

Final Thoughts

Last full week of April this week. Which means we’re getting closer to May. Which means I’m getting closer to another miserable year being over and my countdown of 3 more years, which could technically be 2 1/2 if I choose to retire mid-year like I could actually do.

We’ve had some nicer spring weather finally. How has your weather been? How is April going for you?

Here are some pictures of the yummy beverages I had while at my conference at the beginning of the week.