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| Hosted by The Book Date |
Life
It was another very hectic week, though with some fun stuff squeezed in! We are still scrambling to plan our trip to Montana and Canada this summer and reserve campsites. We thought we were all set, having grabbed sites at Glacier National Park and Banff National Park (Canada), but we're finding out that things have changed since we last visited a national park! We used to go to Badlands NP in South Dakota a lot and never had trouble finding a site, and we figured that Teddy Roosevelt NP in North Dakota would have plenty of sites. Nope! We got some of the last sites available this morning in both places - for July and August dates!
Plus, we are planning a month-long trip to Texas in March/April to visit family and friends (in Texas and along the way), and we only just started planning that trip this weekend. We came up with a rough plan and texted family and friends yesterday to confirm they are all available. We still have a lot of planning left to do for both trips.
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| Can't wait to get on the road again! |
All of this means I only just did my annual look back on the previous year and planning for the coming year on Saturday - yes, in February! That shows you how far behind I am.
I did have some fun last week, though. Tuesday was a long-overdue game night with my three closest friends (and one new-to-me friend). Thai takeout, fun games, herbal tea, and lots of laughs--this is my kind of crew! No pictures, except of some of the games I brought along.
Thursday evening, my son treated me to a show at our local dinner theater (my Christmas gift). I haven't seen live theater since February 2020 (I have to avoid crowds because of my immune disorder). So this was a little nerve-wracking for me, especially since I had to remove my mask to eat, but it's a small venue, and we had a great time! The show, Something Rotten, was clever and hilarious (about a medieval playwright competing with Shakespeare and discovering musical theater). The other people at our table were very nice, the food was delicious, and it was wonderful to spend time with my son!
And, my health continues to be stable (though I have to be careful of all this stress!), so I enjoyed walks and hikes almost every day last week.
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| My husband and I walking mid-week on a local path. |
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| Lovely sunny day at our local nature center Saturday. |
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| Our iconic covered bridge. |
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| Tried a new-to-us trail on a gloomy Sunday. |
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2024 Reading Challenges Wrap-Up and 2025 Challenges - I finally signed up for my 2025 reading challenges (seeing a theme here?). You can also visit my 2025 Challenge Page, where I will track my challenges throughout the year. In both places, I included challenges hosted both by bloggers and by Booktubers and both year-long and seasonal challenges. Lots of reading fun ahead!
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2024 Health Year in Review: Riding the Chronic Illness Rollercoaster! - another late year-end wrap-up. Here, I review the highs and lows of my health last year and talk about which treatments helped me.
Friday Reads 1-31-25: Finishing January with Great Books - my brief weekly update of what I am reading and listening to.
How Do You Juggle It All? Setting Priorities and Doing All the Things Without Feeling Overwhelmed - I recorded this video on a whim this weekend, frustrated by feeling so far behind and overwhelmed while working on annual goals. It's basically a cry for help, with a plea for advice (or commiseration)!
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I finished reading The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon, a book I've been meaning to read for years. It was worth the wait. The town of West Hall, Vermont, has always been plagued by mysterious disappearances, deaths, and supernatural legends. In 1908, a woman named Sara looks back on her childhood on a farm in West Hall. Her "auntie," a Native American woman who helped her and her father, taught her many things about nature ... and some very unnatural things as well. As an adult, Sara's beloved little girl, Gertie, goes missing. In the present day, in that same farmhouse, Alice is bringing up her two daughters, 19-year-old Ruthie and six-year-old Fawn. When Alice goes missing, Ruthie finds Sara's old diary and starts to unravel some of the mysteries of this strange place where they live. This is a super creepy paranormal thriller, with perfect January vibes. I enjoyed it.
Next, I squeezed in one more January book, inspired by the timing: Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham. This is a YA graphic novel by two very talented authors--I've enjoyed books by both of them in the past, including Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang. And, yes, it's a love story, but it's far more than that. The main character, Valentina, who's been obsessed with Valentine's Day since she was a young child, is dealing with a lot: family secrets just coming to light, getting to know "new" family members, friendship bumps, and learning about her Vietnamese heritage and culture for the first time. It was excellent, with plenty of emotional depth, and was perfect for the season, with its dual focuses on Valentine's Day and Lunar New Year.
I have a buddy read planned for early February but needed one more small book while I wait for my reading buddy to be ready to start our book, so I chose something perfect for Black History Month: Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin: Civil Rights Heroes by Tracey Baptiste and Shauna J. Grant. This is part of the outstanding middle-grade History Comics series (I previously enjoyed The Roanoke Colony: America's First Mystery and The Great Chicago Fire and The National Parks: Preserving America's Wild Places (a must-read for all kids!) Don't know who Claudette Colvin was? That's part of the point of this book: that stunning, revolutionary changes occur as the result of many unsung heroes doing their own part to move things forward. Claudette was a 15-year-old Black girl in Birmingham who made headlines across the state for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a bus. She was dragged off the bus by police, charged with defying segregation laws, disturbing the peace, and assaulting police officers (which, of course, she did not do). She wasn't even doing anything illegal, as she knew she was within the details of the segregation laws as written. Plus, did you know Rosa Parks was involved in civil rights all her life? I'm about halfway through now, and it is just an amazing story--and sadly, so relevant right now.
On audio, I finished Two Degrees by Alan Gratz, a middle-grade novel that focuses on the effects of climate change on three different children. Akira and her father are enjoying a horseback ride in the Sierra Nevadas in California when a wildfire traps them and some others in the forest. Natalie lives in Miami with her mother, and they typically just ride out hurricanes because they can't afford to evacuate. But when "the big one" hits Miami dead-on, the waters rise faster than they expected, with consequences they never dreamed of. Owen and George live in Churchill, Manitoba, near the Hudson Bay in the Canadian arctic. They know all about polar bears, but when the best friends get stranded out on the tundra, polar bears, hungry and desperate from the longer thaw season, get close enough to put their lives in danger. The novel rotates between the three stories, each featuring kids whose lives are in peril, trying to escape from a disaster or crisis brought on by climate change. It's excellent on audio, with different narrators for each story. The overall theme is an important one and it's filled with action and suspense (even some humor), but this might be too scary for younger middle-graders.
Now, I am listening to Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad, a book I've been meaning to read for ages! It's all about the author's experiences as a 22-year-old cancer patient with a deadly form of leukemia that was quite advanced by the time she was finally diagnosed. I'd heard of her story because she is married to Jon Batiste, the fabulous musician from New Orleans, and I knew he'd taken time off to care for her. He hasn't entered her life yet, though, where I am now in the book, about one-third of the way through. She reads it herself, and the audio is excellent. It's a very moving story, and I've been bookmarking many passages because so many of her observations are things I can really relate to, as someone with chronic illness. I'm so glad I'm finally listening to this incredible memoir.
My husband, Ken, finished In Too Deep by Lee Child and Andrew Child, the 29th book in the Jack Reacher series, my husband's favorite. Now, he's started another Christmas gift from me, The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. He and I are both big fans of Heller, since I met the author at Booktopia in 2017 and read his novel, Celine. Since then, we've both enjoyed his other outdoor thrillers, The River, The Guide, and The Last Ranger. This one is post-apocalyptic, and my husband seems engrossed in it so far.
Our son, 30, is reading Practical Adept, book 17 of the Spellmonger
series by Terry Mancour, which he loves! He's been working six days a
week and sounded exhausted when I talked to him yesterday--I hope he's
had some reading time to unwind.
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