Life
Happy Monday Morning!
We came downstairs for breakfast this morning to discover that all of the drains on the first floor--toilets, sinks, shower--were gurgling and backing up. After some frantic calls to local plumbers, we're guessing the problem is that our septic system is full and needs to be pumped out. Luckily, we were able to find a septic service that could do that this afternoon, and we're hoping that solves the problem. In the meantime, my husband brought our little porta potty in from the camper!
Speaking of the camper, we've been planning for months--waiting out the weather and my husband's retirement--for a little respite, camping on our favorite waterfront site at a beautiful local state park. It rained for a week straight, so I changed our reservation three times! Finally, the skies were clearing, it was supposed to be perfect weather--sunny and 70's--for the next two days, so we spent all day Wednesday packing. We were about 5 miles from the campground, at a red light, when an SUV behind us rear-ended us! The camper was damaged in a way that rendered is unusuable, so after trading insurance information (and shedding some tears for me!), we turned around and headed back home.
We tried to make the best of the beautiful weather, though, and still treated Thursday like a "day off," determined to spend as much time as possible outdoors. We enjoyed our screened porch, surrounded by trees, and drove to a local state park, just a few miles from our house, to sit by the river and read our books.
Saturday, we got to make up for another part of our lost camping trip, with a roaring campfire in the portable firepit in our driveway. We celebrated my husband's retirement with a small group of friends, some great takeout, and that beautiful campfire on a cool fall night with starry skies and a brilliant full moon!
Healthwise, I'm still in this relapse, far from my usual level of functioning, but I am definitely able to do more and am feeling a little better than I was a few weeks ago. Yesterday, another perfect fall day, I took a short walk, for the first time in months, with my husband at our local nature center. It was so wonderful to be outdoors in the sunshine!
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On the Blog
I didn't have a lot of "work" time last week, but I managed to get one review up this weekend:
The Falcon and the Owl by Matty Dalrymple - I love this series of mysteries about a woman who can sense spirits
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On YouTube
My plan was to make a camping vlog last week, in place of my usual Friday Reads video. That obviously didn't work, but I did still make a short outdoor vlog, with plenty of peaceful videos of nature (and what I'm reading):
Friday Reads & Outdoor Vlog 10-7-22
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What We're Reading
I'm still immersed in the R.I.P. Challenge for fall!
I finished reading The Guide by Peter Heller, a thriller set in the outdoors in Colorado. It's a follow-up to The River,
which my husband and I both enjoyed. Here, Jack, one of the characters
from the previous novel, has a new job as a river/fishing guide at an
exclusive fishing resort. Jack is grieving some losses and dealing with
some PTSD, so this seems like the perfect job for him right
now--spending his days on the river, where he's happiest. But, of
course, something's going to disturb that peace! Much of this novel featured a creeping sense of dread, as strange things keep happening that Jack doesn't understand. Toward the end, as the secrets are revealed, the suspense and action heat up. It's a thriller, but I absolutely love the way Heller
writes about nature and the outdoors!
Now, I am reading a detective novel with a twist: The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters, book one in a trilogy. Like many of my darker fall reading choices, I bought this one (and the second book) for my husband, and he's loving this series. Hank Palace was recently promoted to detective with the Concord, New Hampshire, police department. But the world is ending in six months, so life--and the job--has been pretty strange. A giant asteroid is headed toward Earth, and there's nothing that scientists can do about it. But Hank is committed to this job that he's wanted all his life. When yet another apparent suicide shows up one morning, the rest of the team just wants to move on, but Hank has a gut feeling that foul play may have been involved; a few details at the crime scene just don't add up in his mind. It's a unique premise, and I'm enjoying it so far.
I finished listening to a YA novel on audio, Creep by Lygia Day Penaflor. I really enjoyed her novel All of This Is True last year. Fifteen-year-old Rafi lives with her grandparents and attends Holy Family High School, just like her absent parents did years ago. The first-person narrator on the audio sounds sweet and bubbly, but Rafi is completely obsessed with the "it" couple of the senior class, Nico and Laney. She got into trouble last year for a similar issue with a teacher, but she can't help herself as she expertly inserts herself into their lives. She's very happy, until tragedy hits the beautiful couple, and she'll do anything to help them. This novel is aptly named--I kept thinking, "That's SO creepy!" But it also has emotional depth, as the reader slowly learns more about Rafi and discovers what is behind her behavior.
I have just barely started a new audio that I've meant to read/listen to for years: Captives by Debra Jo Immergut. The author used to be an editor at FamilyFun magazine, back in the days when I was a writing freelance articles for the magazine, so I was excited to see she'd published a novel (this one in 2018 and another more recently). A woman is in prison for a long time, and the prison psychologist who she goes to see recognizes her as his high school crush. Good set-up, right? From what I've read about it, it seems to be a psychological thriller.
My husband, Ken, is still reading Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau by Ben Shattuck. I loved this book this spring (my review at the link) and got to meet the author at Booktopia
in May. This is nature writing, as you'd expect from the title, but
also a personal memoir about the author working through some very
difficult times (including Lyme disease, which I could relate to!) by
walking five different walks (and one canoe trip) that Thoreau wrote
about in his public writings and his diaries. He incorporates excerpts
of Thoreau's writing, his own personal experiences, drawings, and
beautiful writing about the natural world. I loved it, and my husband is enjoying it so far.
Our son, 28, finished reading Naked Empire, book eight in the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, and now he is in the middle of book nine, Chainfire.
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