I’m connecting once again with Kimberly at Caffeinated Reviewer.
Sunday was a bright sunny day, getting up into the 80s again. Tried to sleep in, just because I could. Argyle is my snuggler and will sleep as long as I want to stay in bed, other than getting up to go out. Dora wants to get up though. I got to do some blogging in the morning. Then I went and ran some errands, grocery store to get things to make a breakfast casserole for the week once I’m home. Dinner was at my mom’s house for our weekly family dinner. Spent the day finishing up season 3 of Resident Alien since my Peacock subscription expired on Monday.
Monday was soooooo hard to get up in the morning. Even knowing it was the last morning I had to get up for work for a while. But I got in and got some things done. They also had some students in helping clean laptops in the morning. I made sure to put everything I was worried about walking off into cabinets or drawers that I could lock up. Said goodbye to the tech guy, who is interviewing, but hopefully will be back next year. Came home to let the dogs out, it’s hot again! Did some blogging. Then went to help my mom with something she needed brought down from her 2nd floor to sell.
Tuesday morning I woke up crankier than planned. My two did not do well with sleeping with me halfway through the night. Dora kept getting out of bed and I don’t want her doing the ramp to get up, so I would have to get up and pick her up. Then the rain didn’t really start till later in the morning anyway, so sadly it wasn’t the rainy morning I’d been looking forward to sleeping in on my first day out of school for the summer. But I slept a little later than planned because of it, putting Dora back in a cage for a bit to sleep longer. Then I changed my mind about making the breakfast casserole and will wait on that till Wednesday. I also still needed to finish the book that I needed to post my review for today. So I sat and read and finished that. Then I cleaned my desk off which had been a mess since probably March/spring break. Blogged for a bit after that. Around 1:30 pm the news broke into afternoon tv and then the tornado sirens started going off and it started pouring down rain. The possible tornado touchdowns were south/east of where I live, but I guess we were in the possible path. Lots of rain though, had a record for the day. Rained most of the evening. Struggled a bit with the next review book I started.
Wednesday I got better sleep and woke up to sun and a slight bit cooler than the day before. Had a FB message from one of the teachers at my school who is doing summer school. He asked me if I could come to his class on Thursday to teach about research, but unfortunately I already had plans. But it felt so nice to have a teacher ask me to do something like that! For lunch one of my friends from the Scotland Outlander tour I went on a couple years ago was in town visiting her daughter, so we went to lunch. Then in the afternoon I came home to do some more blogging and also go through things in my house to get rid of. I got a few things photographed like my Ninja air fryer/grill, my countertop ice maker, and some dachshund mugs, then posted them for sale on Facebook Market. My mom and I went to dinner, then she wanted to go to some presentation at the local library about past Mob history. It was pretty interesting, and there was even a woman there who had been married to one of the Spero brothers who was one of the big people in the KC Mafia, and she even answered some questions to people who asked.
Got some good sleep the night before and woke up pretty rested on Thursday. I should have gotten up a little earlier because I made my breakfast casserole, and it wasn’t ready till about an hour and a half before I was meeting my friend for lunch. That’s okay though, I just had a small serving. Did some blogging and then reading to finish the review book that I was struggling a bit with but wanted to go ahead and finish. Went to meet my author friend for lunch. Came home after that and finished my book, although I was dragging and just wanted a nap after I finished. In the evening I went and had dinner with another friend before going to see the theater re-release of one of my favorite movies, Dogma. Another late night for me! I did got get the new flavor they had at Nothing Bundt Cakes. It was okay. I’m not a big chocolate cake person, so this was a little over the top chocolate for me. I mean when you eat real s’mores, the chocolate doesn’t overload you really.
Friday I had let the dogs sleep with me all night and for the most part got a good night of sleep. Got up and started going through some tubs of things I have been meaning to get rid of, but am struggling because of the memories. They’re just old teeny-bopper magazines or scrapbooks I made from stuff in those magazines. But yeah. I also rearranged my reversible couch to put the lounge side on the other side for a bit. Did a tiny bit of blogging before heading out to lunch and a little shopping to help my mom find a swimsuit coverup for our cruise, and some other things she was looking for. Came home and decided to go ahead and mow my yard when I saw the grass was pretty tall with my two little dogs. Then I did some more blogging for a bit, and then finished up my assignment for week 3 of my AI class I’m taking for graduate credit. It was national donut day, and my favorite donut store, Duck Donuts offered a free cinnamon sugar donut to anyone. I could leave with just that, and got a peanut butter donut with buttercream frosting in the middle. Which had kind of sunk down by the time I got it home and took a picture.
Saturday morning woke up to wet ground as there was a bit of rain in the early morning hours. Which was nice to take the dogs out and go back to bed for a little bit longer. Got up and had breakfast and also decided to redo my assignment for my grad class because I felt I needed to add more to meet the rubric guidelines. Then I did a bit of blogging. The weekly coffee date with my dad’s side was at a place that was right by the Pride parade route. And it never had great parking, so at first I was going to skip this week because I just hate the hassle of downtown and parking anyway, let alone when any kind of big event is going on. But my dad said I could ride with them, so I went ahead and went. Which meant I had to stay for as long as they did, which is often longer than I want to waste hours on just sitting. Of course we had a downpour that hadn’t really been predicted by the weather people. After I got home from that and fed the dogs, my mom then texted to ask if I wanted to go to dinner with her and my niece and nephew while my brother and sister-in-law went to dinner on their own. So I did that in the evening. Doing so many meals with other people definitely took away from my time to read.
Books Finished
First was the hilarious new e-galley from Meghan Quinn, review posted on Tuesday. Second was an e-galley from another favorite author, review posted on Friday. Wanted to get a third book this week, but just didn’t get it done with struggling with the second book above.
I also posted my May end of month post and my May Travel post last week.
New Additions to My Library
ARCs:
Got my replacement ARC of this one. It was on the rainy day of the week and even though I grabbed it right off the front porch the packaging had some dampness on it. But fortunately it was just fine when I got it out of the package.
Audiobooks:
Audible was having a really good sale, like the first one was under $1!! All of them were around $2 except the last one was almost $5.
Bookish Stuff:
When I went to lunch with my author friend on Thursday, she had a bunch of stickers she is going to put out at her table at book events, but she let me look through and grab my favorites first. These are the ones I picked!
E-galleys:
This is for a blog tour in July. It will be posted the week I’m on my cruise so I have to make sure I get to it before then so I can schedule it to post while I’m gone.
Free E-books:
The author mentioned this one was free in her newsletter, so I went and grabbed it from Amazon. I’ve read the first two in the series I think. I have almost all the rest as freebies on Amazon, so I really do need to read them at some point!
Physical books:
Okay, so I have always been a big fan of Maggie Stiefvater. I interacted a lot with her on social media back in Twitter/X’s hey-day. She even almost named a tiny one scene character with my last name, but that character didn’t make the final cut of the book. I had a picture I took of her at BEA used in one of those biography books they make for schools too. With her latest book, I didn’t know that I’d buy it or read it. It is adult, but not exactly my normal type of read. But on Instagram she was drawing a dachshund a day, I guess there is a dachshund in the story, and even drawing on some of the pre-order books at the independent bookstore that was doing a special pre-order deal. So I gave in and pre-ordered hoping I would get one of those books. I did not. But I did get the cute little book/signed plate with dachshunds, so in the end I guess it was worth it? The book will go on my TBR shelf and we’ll see if/when I get to it!
I got my Target special edition copy on publishing day! Much quicker than when I pre-order from B&N or anyone else it seems. Loved that the bonus content was the illustrated scenes throughout the book. I loved this one, you can check out my review of it this past week HERE. All the covers were different depending where you got it from, I think I picked this one because I liked the bonus content best, even if it wasn’t my favorite of the covers.
What I’m Watching
Finished up the 3rd season of Resident Alien because season 4 started this week. And because my Peacock subscription expired on Monday and I haven’t decided which streaming service to subscribe to for the summer, I began a rewatch of Outlander from the very beginning again. Of course it was Outlander day this past week too.
Wednesday night I went to the public library with my mom because she wanted to listen to a speaker about the Kansas City Mafia. This documentary, Black Hand Strawman was by the person speaking, so we got to see bits and pieces of it. It’s always interesting to hear people talk about things they remember from those days or little connections they have to people or places.
It was the 25th anniversary of Dogma, which I can’t believe it has been that long! I loved that movie so much that when it came out on DVD I know that summer I watched it at least once a week, if not more, very similar to my current Outlander obsession. Well it was rereleased into theaters for this weekend, so I went with my friend to see it. It’s been a while since I’ve watched it so there were a few parts I’d forgotten, but I could mostly recite it word for word, lol. While Kevin Smith wasn’t at our showing in Kansas City, they did show some snippets from where he was after the movie was over, so I’m glad we waited through the credits.
Friday night I decided to watch a movie instead of continuing my umpteenth rewatch of Outlander. And remembered that I had seen the movie White Bird was available on Starz. So that’s what I watched and it was so good. Had me in tears at the end of course. I do need to still go back and watch the first movie by the author, Wonder.
What’s Coming Up Next Week
First two are e-galleys for the authors’ review teams – if I get the second one that is, I haven’t heard anything yet and I found an email from back in December that may mean I’m not getting stuff anymore since I didn’t review that Christmas book. Third one is a finished copy I got from the publisher and instead of reading last week I decided to wait until after I finished the first one. Last is the e-galley the publisher sent me, should be posting a review on Saturday.
Final Thoughts
First week of June and first week of my summer break is over! I had a lot of lunch dates last week it seems like. Kept me busy. Didn’t have as much time to go through things in my house like I had hoped. Maybe next week? I’ve got a lunch date with another friend I used to teach with this week. I’m going in for an MRI on Wednesday, and have an author event on Wednesday night. Plus my dad wants to come over and help with something in my garage I need help with and then take me to lunch. And I need to help my mom with her dog on Thursday when she drives down to Branson to sell her campground membership.
How was your week? What are you looking forward to this week?
0
0
0
20
Sounds like a busy week! But at least some of it was the good kind of busy. Lol. I also hate going to downtown areas and driving around trying to find parking. It sucks since one of my indie stores likes to host in the areas alongside downtown. There not always the best areas either to be by yourself, which I usually am, but not much else to be done about it since I want to meet/see the authors they bring! I just get to be super stressed when it’s time to leave. So I can definitely understand wanting to skip coffee that day. I’ve met Maggie Stiefvate a few times as well! Love her presentations, she’s just great! And though she cam to St. Louis for this book, it really didn’t sound like my kind of read either, so I had to pass. Even though I had one of her books unsigned on my shelf, which I am also a bit eh on reading. So I could justify skipping this time around, although I knew it would’ve been fun! Lol.
Nice new reads! Glad you were able to get another ARC of that one book! The title is intriguing and I will be curious to see what you think of this one! It is pretty amazing how quick Target can get their books out to you. B&N is super slow with their membership shipping. I was surprised when my books showed up a day early this week and that was after getting tracking updates saying they went back to a sorting center after being out for delivery by my local PO. It was a stressful afternoon that’s for sure! Lol.
Hope you have a great week ahead!
Here’s my StS
Have a GREAT day!
Old Follower 🙂
Yeah, I’m sad Maggie isn’t coming to KC on this tour. Especially when I saw the other locations had people bringing their dachshunds to see her! This current book wasn’t going to be one I was going to probably read. But there was a chance of one with a dachshund drawing by her on it, so I gave in and took a chance. And didn’t get one sadly. Oh well. I was shocked at how quick Target was. And they are even quicker than Amazon has been as well as way faster than B&N. That’s a difference for you actually getting it early! HOpefully it’s a new trend for you!
A busy week with a lot of peopling. I used to do that kind of thing daily but now I just like to stay home and do my own things. I have boxes I need to go through from my parent’s house yet. Robin is reviewing the Stiefvater book this month.
Yeah, I need a week to just be home doing my own thing. But I keep telling myself that at least with my mom, some day I won’t be able to do things with her, so I need to do those things now and not regret it later. I got a load from the storage place today and realized I probably only have one more car load to go through in the place. So that’s good at least! I’ll be reading Robin’s review. I don’t know if I’ll get to the book or when.
You did have an exciting first week of vacation! I hope that your MRI goes well this week. Enjoy the author event Lisa.
I’ve never had an MRI, so a little nervous, although possibly more nervous about the cost. But can’t wait for the author event!
I’ve read and enjoyed most of Steifvater’s books. I’ll have to check out her adult novel. So nice that you’re getting some free time over the summer taking a break from doing summer school this year. I think you needed it after the year you’ve had.
I definitely needed time away from that school and the people there. Hoping to go back at the end of July refreshed and just ready to get in and get out to be ready to retire in 3 years.
It sounds like a very busy week, Lisa, but I would have done the same with it being my first week off. I hope you get into a bit of a routine and do the stuff you wanted, but if not, no big deal. You have all summer, right?
I do have all summer, although it seems shorter every year! With 10 days before teachers come back as part of my contract, it means I start back at the end of July. So not really even two months off.
Wow, you did have a busy first week of summer. I love that The Listeners has a dachshund in it. I wasn’t that interested but now I sort of want to read it.
Enjoy all those fun meals with your family and friends!
She says it isn’t that big a part of the story, just she got drawing dachshunds and kept going, lol.
Wow, Lisa, what a full and eventful week you had! I love how you share all the little details — from the snuggles with Argyle and Dora to juggling blogging, errands, and family dinners. It sounds like you’re handling everything with such grace, even with the crazy weather and the tornado sirens! That mob history presentation sounds fascinating too — what a unique experience. Also, juggling grad classes and book reviews on top of everything? Super impressive. Thanks for sharing your week so honestly and warmly — it really feels like I’m right there with you. Hope you get some well-deserved rest soon!
I’m at least getting some sleeping in, not having to wake up with an alarm is a blessing in itself! And seeing lots of friends has been nice. The grad class is a little more work this year than the ones I took last summer, but it’s worth it as it will be something to add to my pay scale as I get more hours.
The cover for Seven Year Itch is cute! How to Survive a Horror Movie looks good too!
We just had Nothing Bundt Cake yesterday for the first time, at a birthday party. I had lemon and it was delicious!
I really do like Nothing Bundt Cakes, the lemon ones are good! They have a key lime coming out in a week or so that I can’t wait to try!
Gosh you had a busy week, and so many books? I really need to up my game. And now I need to go check out a few of these books…
I mean, I was reading closer to 3 a week up until this past year when things have just slowed down. So only getting 2 done a week is making me stressed. But it will all work out in the end!
A busy first week of summer for you. Loving the new arrivals. Have a great week Lisa.
Yeah, it went by fast! This one is going a little slower so far.
Yea for making it to summer vacation!! And it sounds like it was a fun first week.
I love Dogma – one of my favorites as well. I should try and rewatch it because it’s been years since I last saw it.
I hope you are having a fun week!
It had been a long time since I’d watched Dogma, so there were some things I’d forgotten! So far this week is going a bit slower thankfully.
Isn’t it the worst when real life gets in the way of reading.. lol.
Looks like you had a relatively fun week.
It happens too often, lol!
Sounds like you had such a full and busy week! That library event about the mob sounds super interesting—and a little wild that someone connected to it was there. Hope this week gives you a good balance of rest and productivity!
Thanks! It’s been a much slower week, although still plenty that it hasn’t been boring.
I love Dogma!!! That was a great movie. I am going to see the rerelease of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on Saturday and I am super excited. I love when they rerelease my favorite “old” movies. I’m glad you are enjoying your time off and hopefully the dogs let you sleep and snuggle. My dogs know the routine now-we go out at 5:30 when my husband gets up, then we go back to bed until 8-8:30. I have them trained.
It is a blast for these re-releases! A few are ones that I didn’t see at the theater, so that is nice too! I do still take my dogs out around 5:30 or 6, but then we do go back to bed til 8 as well, lol.
Sounds like you’ve been super busy! Such a pretty copy of Till Summer Do Us Part – love the colors! Hope your MRI goes smoothly!
I ended up not doing the MRI as it was going to be $1200 out of pocket, and since it wasn’t at the hospital, at an imaging place instead, they didn’t do payment plans. Plus, the issue isn’t one that I have a lot, it’s only when I do certain things that I don’t have to do ever, so I just won’t do that!