Weekly Wrap-Up #229 – June 22nd, 2025

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

Sunday was a cloudy day, and I’d thought about mowing, but decided to wait until Monday when people would be at work. That way I didn’t feel bad about doing it in the morning when it was cooler. So I had a day of blogging and reading and spending time with my dogs, even though after the morning the dogs weren’t very cooperative about letting me sit and read. I added my ratings charts as a page on my blog HERE. Debating if I should put the charts on my sidebar? In the afternoon I went and took a little marker thing I bought to put at my stepdad’s grave for Father’s Day. My sister-in-law made dinner so we went up there to celebrate Father’s Day for my brother. Afterwards came home and read more of my book – which is making me want to go back to Scotland. So then I rewatched a couple more first season episodes of Outlander.

Monday woke up to a bright sunny day. I knew it was going to be hot later, so I did my mowing in the morning after breakfast and a little blogging. Went to a late lunch with my friend who is Argyle’s breeder. She is very particular about what she eats, she does nutrition and so she always has to ask about if there is any vegetable or canola oil or any soybean products in food. We ended up at an Italian restaurant first, and the owner was there, and there wasn’t much she could eat, he didn’t realize some of the things that had even trace amounts. But he has a little deli counter, so he gave her some deli meats and cheese. Then she wanted to go to a local Jordanian restaurant and we had some baklava and hot tea. Yeah, it’s too hot for hot tea. Which it was very hot today! Of course we spent a lot of time talking, so I didn’t get home till about 4 pm. My mom texted and asked if I wanted to do dinner, but I told her I’d just gotten back from lunch. I feel bad, don’t want to turn my mom down these days. She understood though, I wouldn’t have had any appetite to eat at that point. So I spent the night inside with the AC as much as possible with the dogs seeming to want to go out constantly. Finished my review book that I’ll be posting about on Wednesday.

Tuesday woke up and was supposed to be rainy, but it missed us in the morning. It was pretty cloudy most of the day. I got some classwork done, went and commented on blogs, and read my book. I emptied out another tub from the storage and came across more books from my childhood as well as a couple of my diaries, and even a couple of the stories I wrote in middle school. Which of course contained all my friends and classmates as the characters, lol. My mom wanted to do dinner, so we went to Culver’s because their commercial made me want some of their custard. My mom has decided to go ahead and build the smaller house she had thought about during the homes tour last month, and there is one that is in the process and should be done i 6 months. This way she will be downsizing and getting rid of so many stairs. Plus having a nice fenced backyard that walks straight outside with no steps there either, for taking the dog outside. But since she is going to do that, she decided we don’t need to get rid of the storage space, so my speed at getting all my stuff out of there will slow down a bit, even though I don’t have a lot left to get. When I got home I wrote up a review for Wednesday and just hung out with the dogs. Originally the forecast had said some possible severe weather for the evening, but other than a few sprinkles we lucked out.

Wednesday morning woke up to another kind of cloudy morning. But I will take the cooler weather as it is supposed to get back to normal HOT summer temps later this week. I did a little blogging and reading and laundry. Started the next assignment in my grad class, these last two weeks seem to have a lot to do! Right now it is creating an AI policy that could be used for my school/class/library/district. Then we share it to a discussion post and comment on suggestions or what we like about each other’s policies. At noon my dad came over and helped me unattach one of the shelves in my garage that kind of stuck out at an angle because I don’t need it. And now that I’m keeping my mower in the garage without a shed in the back, I wanted more room to move the big trash can back into the garage as well. He took me to lunch with my stepmom at a local small Italian restaurant/deli where we sat and talked for a bit. I came home after, and heard thunder and soon it was pouring rain. That had not been in the forecast! So I sat and did some blogging and enjoyed watching it rain out the window by my desk.

Thursday morning it was sunny outside. Had a good night of sleep, some good/interesting dreams that made it hard for me to get up at my usual 8 am or so, even if I wasn’t tired anymore. It is just like I had to stop watching a good tv show or movie, lol. It was warmer today than Wednesday. Did some blogging and working on my grad class. Although the dogs were being a bit of a pain and I wished I could go to the library to work with no interruptions. But they were all closed because it is Juneteenth. So instead I had the tv on in the background while I worked and watched about all the things going on around town. My mom had the strange urge to make chili even though it is getting to be summer hot temps. So I went over for an early dinner because I had my counter top icemaker for sale on the Facebook Marketplace, so met someone around 6 pm to sell that. They said to meet between 6-6:30, never got a set time. So I sat there for over half an hour and they never showed up. Ugh. Came back home and then had a message from them saying they couldn’t get out of work.

Friday was going to be a heat index day. The morning wasn’t too bad, actually the perfect temps in my opinion, there was a little breeze. But it just got hotter and hotter as the day went on. I did a little bit of blogging before I saw emails from several different authors about a Stuff Your Kindle day. And you can see below how crazy I went with the freebies, all from Amazon. The dogs were being a pain again, so I packed up my stuff, went and had lunch, and then went to work at the public library for a few hours so I’d not be dealing with them. I got home and fed the dogs. I had thought about going to see my former co-librarian at a poetry event he was having, but it was outside and I just can’t do this heat. So instead of sitting around all night I decided to go to the movies, and I saw 28 Years Later. When I got home from the movies and pulled into my driveway, I saw a deer in the yard next door. It just stood there and watched me as I took a picture from my car before I pulled into the garage.

Saturday I slept in a little past 8 am, but the dogs were ready to get up at 8:30, even though we’d been outside at 7 am. It was already getting warm, but there was a pretty strong wind, so if you weren’t directly in the sun it wasn’t as bad. I had breakfast and then wrote the review for the book I’d finished the night before. Then I had to do some more classwork as one assignment was due on Sunday by midnight and the final assignment was due on Thursday instead of next Sunday. At noon I went for the weekly coffee with my dad and stepmom. My youngest sister was out of town this weekend, so it was just us and my aunt who has started coming lately. Afterwards I ran by the grocery store and then back home to stay out of the heat. Spent the night mostly sitting on the couch with the dogs reading and watching tv. Oh I did stop by Nothing Bundt Cakes after coffee with my dad because it was the last day to get their summer flavor of Key Lime. I had a bit of it for dessert with my dinner.

Books Finished

The first two and the last one were all e-galleys. The first two were for author review teams, posted reviews on Wednesday and Thursday. The last one’s review was posted Saturday. The third one was the audiobook I got from the public library. It’s review will be in my L-L-L post which I think is coming up this week since it is the last week of the month.

I also posted my reviews of two books from weeks past, and the Summer Giveaway Hop posted on Friday HERE.

New Additions to My Library

ARCs:

none

Audiobooks:

Audible was having it’s 2 for 1 credit sale, and since I had a couple credits after returning a couple titles that I couldn’t get into, I was able to do it. I decided I hadn’t read any Lani Lynn Vale in a while, so grabbed the first one, and then even though I own a paperback copy of the second one, I thought I didn’t know when I’d get to it, so maybe I’d listen to it. The third one is an ALC for a blog tour review, and I started listening as soon as I got it on Friday. I can’t share the audiobook cover yet though because they won’t reveal the narrators until the 26th.

Bookish Stuff:

none

E-galleys:

The publisher emailed me Netgalley widgets for the first two. First one doesn’t come out till January, so I won’t get around to it till December probably. The second one I am only a maybe on reading, because it is a short story collection and for some reason I have trouble reading those at times? But it comes out in November, so we will see closer to the time. The third one is for the author’s review team. It comes out July 10th I believe, so my review will be up right before my cruise!

Free E-books:

The author posted in her Facebook group that the first one was free on Amazon, so I went and grabbed it. The second in the series was only $1.99, but I waited on that. However, Friday was a Stuff Your Kindle day, and the first one was still free on that day along with a bunch of others! I could not help myself as you can tell. I try to limit myself to ones that are under 200 pages, but that doesn’t always work if they sound good! I even grabbed a little Amish romance novella that sounded like one I might enjoy.

Physical books:

none

What I’m Watching

Back to watching Outlander from the first season again, lol. Of course keeping up with the Resident Alien new episodes on Friday nights on SyFy too. Tuesday night I decided to give a new series on SyFy that I’d been seeing commercials for a try, Revival. And while it wasn’t great, it was at least interesting enough and had a kind of cliffhanger at the end of the first episode that I want to keep going. I say kind of a cliffhanger because I actually was kind of wondering if that was what was happening with the character that we got a big secret about.

I must have been in the mood for zombies because Friday night I went to see 28 Years Later. It was kind of slow. Had some scary parts kind of. Lots of flopping genitals since all the zombies are pretty much naked by now. Seems that the whole UK island was just left to deal with it and the main characters lived on an island off the mainland. Near Scotland maybe? Now the very end of the movie? That was just weird AF. I guess there is supposedly a trilogy planned for this part of the series. Which, honestly there were several parts other than that ending that I felt needed more wrapping up.

What’s Coming Up Next Week

First and third ones are e-galleys from the publisher, reviews hopefully on Monday and Saturday. Second is an ARC from the publisher, hope to post review on Wednesday. I am also planning my DNF and LLL posts this week since it is the last full week of the month. Might have a Discussion post too.

Final Thoughts

Wow, only one real week of June left really! A day or two after this week, but otherwise we are almost to July! Can you believe it? June is flying by! But of course that is how it goes since it is my summer break from school. This week I do have an externship that is provided for teachers so they can learn about career paths to then go back and help students maybe want to go into those. So Tuesday and Wednesday I will be driving to meet the bus about 45 minutes away from where I live, about 15-20 minutes from my school.

How was your week? What are you looking forward to this week?

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