Weekly Update

Welcome to my weekly update for December 18, 2022! Happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate! First, a social media update. I haven't been very active on Twitter in years but I do share links to my blog posts there. I tried to ride the current chaos out but I decided I was done this week. My account is still technically active because I don't want someone else to take over my username, but I won't be posting there at all any longer. I made the move to Mastodon so you can find me there @IntrovertedReader@bookstodon.com. I probably won't be very active there either, honestly, but if you're looking for more friends, I will follow back. Since my last update on December 4, we visited Big Sur on the California coast. Our first day was a washout. We could barely see the boulders in the ocean below us. We made the most of it with our rain gear though and we did see the elephant seals on the beach around San Simeon. Oh, and we saw a herd of elk there too. The next day was supposed to be rainy again but it turned out to be cool and mostly sunny. The road south of us to San Simeon, which we drove the day before, was closed due to the threat of mud slides on old burn scars. We drove north and saw the Bixby Bridge (you'll probably recognize it from car commercials). We also drove the 17-Mile Drive around the famous Pebble Beach Golf Course. That drive was beautiful and we saw sea lions, sea otters, lots of birds, and even some harbor seals! And our patience with the rain was rewarded with a beautiful rainbow! The next day the road south of our hotel was still closed. We went…

Welcome to my weekly update for December 4, 2022! I hope everyone who celebrates had a wonderful Thanksgiving! My husband and I were on our own on Thanksgiving day but we flew down to San Diego the following Saturday to spend a long weekend with his cousin. They've taken us in and treated us like royalty for a lot of holidays since we started traveling in early 2019. If you like reading Sarah Addison Allen's books (as I do), you should check her out on Instagram this month. Last year she shared a tiny Christmas story every day in December on that platform as a sort of virtual advent calendar. The stories were delightful. I was so excited to see that she's doing it again this year! We felt late to the party but we drove in to Sacramento just before Thanksgiving to see Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience. We loved it! There were actually two different immersive van Gogh shows in town at the same time but this one was rated slightly better. The display is on about an hourlong loop. It was magical to watch his artwork come to life all around us. The soundtrack was fantastic too. We loved it so much that we hung around and watched it twice. I can't speak for all the different immersive shows but we highly recommend this one if you like van Gogh's art! These shows travel all over the country so if you haven't seen one yet, check the website I linked to or do a search and I bet one will be coming to your area soon. Slideshow: I love walking along the Embarcadero in San Diego. This day was cloudy but these sunbeams broke through in the late afternoon. The Star of India, the world's oldest…

Welcome to my weekly update for November 20, 2022! Well hello there! Long time, no see! My last update was on August 28. I wrote in that post that my husband and I were coming out of a quiet few weeks just hanging around Billings, Montana and we had a couple of busy weekends planned. I did not intend to disappear for almost three months! We finished up our time in Billings on September 10 and took a couple of weeks to sightsee and get to my husband's next work assignment in Lodi, California. (If you're new here, he's a traveling healthcare professional and works about three months at a time at different hospitals around the country) Lodi isn't the most exciting location, though it is actually more beautiful than we expected with all the wineries and roses still blooming everywhere. But what drew us here is all the national parks and other scenic areas within about a three-hour drive. And you know we love our national parks! Since I last posted, we visited these national parks: Glacier, Theodore Roosevelt, Yellowstone (yes, again), Grand Teton, Crater Lake, Lassen Volcanic, Yosemite, Sequoia & Kings Canyon. We also visited Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho, Lake Tahoe in California and Nevada, and just spent a weekend exploring Mendocino and Point Reyes National Seashore here in California. We've been super busy and super blessed to see so many amazing places! Our internet connection is not good at our current location so it's been hard for me to post and read blogs. I try to only indulge my blog habit while my husband is at work. At this job, his days off completely overlap with my usual days to visit your blogs. So here we are. I should be able to make…

Welcome to my weekly update for August 28, 2022! Three weeks in a row with no real adventures to report. This must be some sort of record for me! My husband has had to work a lot of call shifts recently so that ties us down within 30 minutes of the hospital. We'll be out exploring again soon though! Posted: A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey, read by Frankie Corzo 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Ten Completed Series That I Wish Had More Books Wild Rover No More: Being the Last Recorded Account of the Life & Times of Jacky Faber by L. A. Meyer, read by Katherine Kellgren 🌟🌟🌟 Read: 20,000 Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne, translated by Anthony Bonner 🌟🌟🌟 Currently Reading: Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen--You read that right. I finished reading this last week but I inhaled it. I'm re-reading it more slowly now so I can actually take notes for a review (I'm hoping to post about it this week since it's released on August 30). Case Histories (Jackson Brodie #1) by Kate Atkinson, read by Susan Jameson Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages by Guy Deutscher Up Next: I would like to read The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie for Banned Books Week (September 18-24) but it feels like I'm currently on the hold list at my libraries along with every other reader in the country. I'll probably check out The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas while I'm waiting. What did your week look like? Hosts: Deb Nance at Readerbuzz hosts The Sunday Salon and Kimberly at Caffeinated Book Reviewer hosts Sunday Post. Kathryn at Book Date hosts It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Welcome to my weekly update for August 21, 2022! We had another quiet week here. My husband is on call again this weekend so we have to stay within 30 minutes of the hospital. But that gives us time to recover from all our activity this summer so that's fine by me! The organizers of the Cybils Awards are recruiting judges now through September 9! If you review books for kids anywhere on the internet (picture and board books all the way to young adult books and everything in between), you should consider applying. I was a round one panelist for the high school nonfiction category last year and thoroughly enjoyed it! I read books I would never had read on my own and learned so much, I feel that the pool of knowledge I bring to the table as a reader has grown tremendously. It's a lot of fun! I haven't decided if I'm going to apply this year simply because I have so many other projects I want to work on but I encourage anyone who's interested to go for it! Posted: The Feast of Roses by Indu Sundaresan, read by Sneha Mathan: Book Review 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Read: I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in beautiful Asheville, NC. I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase merchandise through links on my site.  Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 I may turn around and read this again as soon as I finish my current Kindle book. It was that good. If any of you are in the Asheville, NC area, Ms. Allen is launching this book in an event with Wiley Cash at UNC-Asheville on August 30. If flights weren't so expensive right now, I'd be tempted to go home for this signing.…

Welcome to my weekly update for August 14, 2022! This was a quiet week. My husband was on call at work last weekend and really just wanted to relax this weekend. I planned to read less last week so I could sort through all my Montana pictures (why take one picture when I can take four marginally different photos?) but that didn't happen. I dropped my phone and cracked it across the camera lens. Luckily I have a protection plan that allowed me to get a replacement but I've been transferring everything over and setting that up. I don't usually mind that task but since I just got this phone in April, I do not find it enjoyable now. *sigh* I'm just thankful I only had to pay a relatively small deductible. I don't have any travel photos to share this week so here are pictures of my sister's two cute doggos and our beautiful farmer's market bounty. Slideshow: Posted: Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time, written and read by Rob Sheffield Dark Waters (Small Spaces #3) by Katherine Arden, read by Renee Dorian Hilarious Book Titles Read: I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in beautiful Asheville, NC. I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase merchandise through links on my site.  A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman Maclean 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Best Kept Secret (Clifton Chronicles #3) by Jeffrey Archer, read by Alex Jennings 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution by Elie Mystal 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Currently Reading: Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen (A huge thank you to Katie at Doing Dewey! She sent me an ARC when she saw this…

Welcome to my weekly update for August 7, 2022! My sister flew home yesterday after a fabulous visit. We all drove the Beartooth Highway on Saturday (we saw mountain goats)!) and then on Sunday my sister and I took off to spend three nights in Yellowstone. I've only visited the south loop on my other visits because of weather events, but this time we were able to do the entire figure 8 drive. Woohoo! (The north and northeast entrance roads are still closed so we weren't able to visit those.) Summer flowers were probably at their peak both on the Beartooth Highway and throughout Yellowstone. They were so beautiful! We had the iconic experience of getting caught in a mercifully brief "bison jam" as a small herd of those ruminants took their time wandering down the road and bringing traffic to a halt. We also stumbled onto Grand Geyser's eruption. It is predictable but the predicted time is +/- 90 minutes and I am not patient enough to sit for 3 hours waiting for it. We arrived toward the end of the window and only waited about 30 minutes or so. It's taller and lasts longer than Old Faithful. Very impressive! One of my good friends was supposed to fly in for a weeklong visit the same day that my sister left but some things came up so she had to cancel. ☹️ Slideshow: View from the Beartooth Highway. You might be able to see the road snaking down the mountainside.Lupine blooming beside the Beartooth HighwayMountain goats on the Beartooth HighwayMammoth Hot SpringsBison jam. Everyone stayed in their cars, tried to give the animals space, and mostly kept moving, surprisingly enough. I had my phone out the window while the cars in front of me were stopped but pulled it…

Welcome to my weekly update for July 31, 2022! My sister is here visiting this week so I'll keep my post brief. As my husband and I drove home to Billings from Rapid City, SD last Saturday, we stopped by Devils Tower National Monument. It was really something to see! Apparently the name "Devil's Tower" is a mistranslation and local tribes, who view the area as sacred, have asked Congress to officially change the name to Bear Lodge, which is what they've always called it. That proposal is now a bit of a political football. *sigh* Why can't we just get along? Anyway, here's my picture of it. We saw maybe eight rock climbers in various stages of ascent as we circled the tower. They're braver than I'll ever be! Posted: The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic by R. K. Narayan: Book Review Even As We Breathe by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, read by Kaipo Schwab: Book Review Books from Seasonal TBR Lists That I Haven't Read Yet Read: Nothing. Currently Reading: I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in beautiful Asheville, NC. I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase merchandise through links on my site.  A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman Maclean The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack Up Next: My sister leaves Saturday morning and another friend arrives for a visit late Saturday night. It's nice to see everyone but I'm sure it will cut into my reading time! What did your week look like? Hosts: Deb Nance at Readerbuzz hosts The Sunday Salon and Kimberly at Caffeinated Book Reviewer hosts Sunday Post. Kathryn at Book Date hosts It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Welcome to my weekly update for July 24, 2022! My birthday was last Monday and my husband's birthday is this Monday so he took the week off of work. We spent the time in Rapid City, South Dakota. There is a lot to see and do there! We visited Badlands National Park, Wind Cave National Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Black Hills National Forest, the Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer State Park, and more. It was a busy week! And hot. My car's outside thermometer showed that it was 106° F (about 41° C) on my birthday. The forecast was for 105° F so I believe it was right. But we put on our sunscreen and hats, donned our masks in indoor spaces, visited the caves on the hottest day, carried lots of water, and had a fabulous time! Slideshow: Cathedral Spires Trail in Custer State Park Badlands National Park Roughlock Falls in Black Hills National Forest Inside Wind Cave National Park Mount Rushmore Posted: Ten of My Favorite Books Set in the Southern Appalachians All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West: Book Review 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Heart of Iron by Ashley Poston, read by Adenrele Ojo: Book Review 🌟🌟🌟 Read: I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in beautiful Asheville, NC. I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase merchandise through links on my site.  Links go to my reviews on GoodReads. The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic by R. K. Narayan 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Dark Waters (Small Spaces #3) by Katherine Arden, read by Renee Dorian 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Currently Reading: I visited a local bookstore in Rapid City, Mitzi's Books. It was a cute shop with a good selection for its size. I couldn't find any fiction obviously set in South Dakota…

Welcome to my weekly update for July 17, 2022! We took a break last weekend and just relaxed in Billings so I don't have any new pictures to share. My birthday is tomorrow (July 18) so we have plans for that and I should have pictures next week. I won't be around the blogosphere much this week though. In the interest of sharing, I'll tell you about a new-to-me Chrome extension I installed a few months ago. I read about it when Book Riot reposted some old content. I sign up for a library card from every city my husband works in so I have access to a lot of libraries at this point. The Library Extension lets me check availability at all of my libraries (digital or physical) at one time directly from GoodReads, Amazon, and many other bookish sites. It made my life so much easier! I still only have access to libraries I have a card for but it's nice to check the card catalog and/or Overdrive directly from GoodReads instead of opening a new browser window or something. Posted: Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, edited by Paul Hawken 🌟🌟🌟 Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepety, read by a cast 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Ten Summery Book Covers Read: Links go to my reviews on GoodReads Ghost Story (Dresden Files #13) by Jim Butcher 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Even As We Breathe by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, read by Kaipo Schwab 🌟🌟🌟½ Currently Reading: The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic by R. K. Narayan Dark Waters (Small Spaces #3) by Katherine Arden, read by Renee Dorian The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack Up Next: I don't see myself finishing any of these soon so I won't even speculate. What did your week…