I hope everyone has been enjoying their spring breaks. I am thoroughly happy that spring is here because I really miss the greenery and of course the gardening that comes with it.
I am so sorry for never posting about our third garden, but I think I have a way to incorporate it with whatever we do this year. We have a little nursery in my nephew’s playroom. There is a dresser in there that has enough space to like five containers of various veggies to grow indoors, and my dad put a couple of his LED lights on top of them in the daytime, and they’ve been growing like weeds! It’s absolutely insane on the progress our green beans, lettuce and radishes have been making in the last few days.
Here are some of the early photos my mom took earlier in the month.
I’m definitely looking forward to going outside and hang out with my cats for longer than five to ten minutes top, I’d like to get down and scoot out onto the deck again, I need to get as much exercise as possible–I’m not interested in getting my body into shape. It’s already a shape and I’m okay with it at the moment. All jokes aside, I enjoy being at the cats level. They seem to enjoy it a lot too. Some of them know if I am on the ground, they can get more pets, however, they have yet to figure out I also like to read while on the ground too, and there’s one that usually does not like to see my books. All of us (the cats and myself) are very spoiled but we can’t deny we don’t enjoy it though.
Besides all of the pretty things growing in our house, I’ve been listening to a lot of great music lately.
I have listened to quite a few albums this past month, and with promising results. I started with VÉRITÉ and her new release, “Love You Forever” and I loved this album so much. I absolutely love VÉRITÉ’s moody music, she reminds me of a poppier BANKS. The next album was Pop Evil’s “Skeletons” and that is a really good record. I enjoyed it a lot. And the final “new” releases, Ava McMahon, who was a member of Celtic Woman (I refer her as Eabha as that is her real name in Irish Gaelic) released a new EP called Scéalta this past week and she has a beautiful voice, and even though I don’t know the Gaelic language, it obviously doesn’t stop me from listening to her music.
For some odd reason I get into these spurts where I will focus all of my musical attention on a single artist or band and this month, I was hooked on Asking Alexandria. I was a late bloomer–honestly, I remember hearing about them in 2005-06 with Bring Me The Horizon but I was nowhere near ready for metalcore at that point in my life, so I stayed as far away as possible. And then all of a sudden, Danny left the band and I weirdly got into them with Denis as lead vocalist and I did like him but you can’t replace Danny’s voice though. Nowadays, the whole “metalcore” vibe they had in their days has disappeared, but I love this transformation into hard rock, and it fits with Danny’s voice now and honestly the music they’re creating now is much better, but of course that’s my opinion.
Before I leave you be for the rest of the day (or night), here is my Top 20 for March. If you’d like to check out the rest of the Spotify playlist, click here.
Black Out Days by Phantogram Grand by Kane Brown Midnight Sky by Miley Cyrus Evil by Hollywood Undead Temporary by VÉRITÉ Fukk Sleep by A$AP Rocky featuring FKA Twigs Inside Out by The Chainsmokers featuring Charlee Let Down by Palisandes Feel The Waters by Sarah Reeves Animals – Orchestral Version by Architects Empire by Beth Crowley Until the Levee by Joy Williams Sound of Glory by Pop Evil See What’s On The Inside by Asking Alexandria 1985 by Bowling For Soup Already Damned by Crimson Adored featuring Lauren Babic I’d Do Anything by Simple Plan What Could Have Been by Sting featuring Ray Chen I’m Dangerous by The EverLove Lullaby of Woe by Ashley Serena
What were you listening to this March? Drop your top three favorite tracks in the comments below.
This past month has been pretty crazy and I’m happy to be done with it honestly.
The beginning of it was interesting though, my sister has expected contractions throughout her pregnancies, but she went to the hospital more frequent with this one, and the most recent weren’t necessarily had anything to do with my niece. She had some issues with her breathing and her feet were very swollen, and she was told to rest more and put up her feet, and she tried to do everything the doctor requested but she still had complications, so she went to the hospital to be checked out and when she came home over two weeks later, we had welcomed our newest member into the family!
💗 MEET KIMBER MAE 💗
In my baby announcement back in May, I mentioned that I wasn’t going to share her name until she was born, mainly for the suspense but I also didn’t know whether or not her parents would change it last minute.
Kimber is a preemie, like moi, but at least she didn’t weight like two pounds and have to spend roughly 70 days in the NICU! Despite this though, she actually weights one pound less than her brother Nolan. We are all in agreement that we definitely don’t remember Nolan ever being this small! Nolan was a chunky baby but she’s very petite. A big difference between she and Nolan is that Kimber loves to be swaddled whereas Nolan has never enjoyed being wrapped up. He’s even four years old and he does not sleep with a blanket on him!
Since she came so early, as she was supposed to be born in early October, we had to make some adjustments to our plans of having my nephew come to our house while Blondie was in the hospital, we assumed it would be like two days, but it turned out to be two weeks. He went to his dad’s house on certain days but for the most part he stayed at our house, and he was a very good boy. He was very helpful to us, especially my dad and I, with our issues lately. I watched a LOT of toddler based educational shows like Paw Patrol, Blippi, and Cocomelon. By the end though, I was growing to be a fan of Blippi’s videos at Children’s Museums and Zoos. And at night we switched between Bluey (another favorite of mine!) and Muffet Babies. He seemed to enjoy having a sleepover in Aunt Meg’s room.
When Blondie was officially allowed to go home, she came to our house, and I finally got to meet her after almost a week after she was born. I was thrilled as this meant that I could have her on my bed like I did when Nolan was a baby. My mom got her a bouncy seat thingy in the beginning of her pregnancy, and we got to test it out and we found out that even though she enjoyed sitting in it, she seemed even smaller! I swore she gave me a little smile that next morning too!
Now let’s move on to the sad part of this post. I was hoping to write a separate one, but I thought it would look strange since I included Kimber’s announcement in this one.
I am very sad that Her Majesty the Queen has died. She was the reason why I became obsessed with the British royals and other monarchs in Eastern Europe, as I was curious about why she had the Roman Numeral “II” behind her name and that’s when I discovered my love of the Plantagenet and Tudor dynasties.
I have watched many documentaries on the Queen’s 70 reign in the last few years. I’ve enjoyed seeing her all dressed up, doing engagements out in public in various colors and her signature smile, hat and bags. She always seemed so interested in everything! I will forever enjoy the opening of the opening ceremony of the Olympics in 2012, where she walks the walls of Buckingham Palace with James Bond and her corgies, and acts like she drops out of the helicopter into that arena, I knew it was fake but it still shocked me they would do something like that. She must’ve had her say in the way of the segment too, after all she is the Queen, she wasn’t going to do something that showed her in a negative way, and joining Daniel Craig, allows us as the audience and fans to see her playfulness and overall sense of humor!
After 70 years of her reign, we now have a King and will probably have one for quite a while as after King Charles is William, The Prince of Wales, and his son Prince George of Wales. This part is a part weird, but I’m sure I am not alone in my thinking, but I am curious on how the British royals will evolve into this new order, and still be able to be caring human beings to themselves and others around the world.
As you can imagine, having to experience all of these new changes in a matter of two weeks, I haven’t been able to listen to music nor read my books as much as I normally do, I am finally trying to keep up with my stuff but I’m trying to take it easy as well.
This month saw a lot of good and bad things, but I still had my music to get me through it. So, I hope you enjoy my Top 20 below. If you’d like to play the entire monthly playlist on Spotify, click here
Little Lies by Fleetwood Mac Fallin’ For You by Colbie Calliat Sometimes A Prayer Will Do by Celtic Woman All She Wanna Do by John Legend Late Night Talking by Harry Styles Brand New by Ben Rector Love Me Anyway by P!nk featuring Chris Stapleton Vegas by Doja Cat Choke by The Warning featuring grandson and Zero 9:36 Shivering by Illenium featuring Spiritbox Kickstart My Heart by Halocene featuring Shershen&Zaritskaya Bow Down by Rain Paris Toxic by Charlotte Wessels Try Again by Aaliyah Come, Little Children by Clovet Mae Godless by BANKS Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost by Eklipse featuring Melissa Bonny Bom Bidi Bom by Nick Jonas featuring Nicki Minaj Black Widow by Fame On Fire featuring Twiggy
What were listening to this month? Name your top three favorites in the comments!
For the past three years, I’ve always ended my reading challenges with a book about the Holocaust. Of course, they were mostly fictionized, but they echo the stories of fellow inmates and survivors of the most infamous camp, Auschwitz. This time I managed to find a book that was on my Goodreads TBR (to be read) and it was free with Kindle Unlimited.
I knew what was getting myself into before I did the one click thingy, but I am never prepared to what would be in front of me with every page. I am always drawn to read about these awful years towards the end of each of my reading challenges. I doubt I’ll ever understand it, but here we are anyways.
WARNING: There are spoilers down below, so you might want to ignore this review today!
A PEN America Literary Award Finalist A Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee An Amazon Best of the Year Selection
The untold story of some of WW2’s most hidden figures and the heartbreaking tragedy that unites them all. Readers of Born Survivors and A Train Near Magdeburg will devour the tragic tale of the first 999 women in Auschwitz concentration camp. This is the hauntingly resonant true story that everyone should know.
On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women, many of them teenagers, boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service and left their parents’ homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Instead, the young women were sent to Auschwitz. Only a few would survive. Now acclaimed author Heather Dune Macadam reveals their stories, drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, and consulting with historians, witnesses, and relatives of those first deportees to create an important addition to Holocaust literature and women’s history.
taken from Goodreads.
Despite the evil of it all, this book was really interesting!
“We were nice girls from good families trying to learn how to steal from other nice girls from good families. This was not human. They dehumanized us.”
The author Heather Dune Macadam focuses on the original girls who were taken to Auschwitz in 1942. There are a lot of names and numbers to remember throughout the entire book, but I find it important that you mostly hear these heartbreaking stories from these lovely ladies. These were innocent girls expecting to work for the government (even though it was them who took practically their jobs and everything else before whole families were rounded up!) and end up in hell on Earth in a form of a new camp for anyone and everybody who was an enemy to the Nazis.
The conditions at the camps were downright awful! Each girl and woman was forced to strip their Sunday best, shave their heads, and get tattoos on their arms of their numbers the officers gave them. However, as you go on and learn about the jobs the prisoners vied for on a daily basis, and it wasn’t just the Nazi officers giving orders, it was fellow inmates too. They were offered a series of jobs in Auschwitz, none of them were ideal, some were downright dangerous like dig ditches and lakes in all seasons and temperatures! The women were being fed little unkosher meals, like soup made out of horsemeat and a piece of beard no bigger than a fist. And if that wasn’t enough, they also had to deal with diseases like typhus and sleep in places that were covered in fleas and lice!
And yet, we have survivors….
“Genocide does not simply go away. Just as it can continue to haunt the survivors, it shapes the lives of those who live with and love those survivors.”
As I see what is going on with the world nowadays, seeing Israel and what they are doing to their Palestine communities is another example of the Holocaust, as the Jewish were also kicked out of their homes and made to live in a one room with other families in the ghettos. Israel is an unique country with three main religions: Christians, Judaism and Islam. I used to think this was amazing until I saw what they don’t put on the mainstream news. I wonder how many Jewish people who were in these cocreation camps would support this violence. I think it would be a very low number. And then, we have what is going on with Russia and Ukraine, and you have the same exact story. History is just going to continue to repeat itself over and over again until we find out how to respect each other in our differences, and as much as I’d like to see that happen someday, I doubt it’ll happen in my lifetime and that’s the sad truth to it.
Have you read Heather’s “999: The Extraordinary Young Women in the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz” yet? Do you find yourself interested in books like this one? How do you deal with the sadness they tend to bring us readers?
August hasn’t been one of the friendliest months; lots have happened, but as long as my niece decides to keep inside her cave just a tad bit longer, we’ll deal with it.
Speaking of her though, we had a nice baby shower for her, and we all had an excuse to dress up, Blondie wore a rose-pink dress, kind of fitting considering she wore a bright ocean blue for Nolan’s shower! Originally, I wasn’t going to want to wear a dress, I tried to talk my mom into getting a jumpsuit or romper, but she talked me out of it, and I found a nice olive-green Maxi dress instead. I’ve been really obsessed with my clothes in the color green these past two years and I have yet to figure out the reason for it! I was going to leave the leggings at home but even I saw right through that idea! Whenever I wear dresses, I tend to wear shorts underneath so I can talk verbally and physically with my legs without flashing the poor people in front of me. I have done this on accident in the past, so it is just better to wear leggings or something.
Anyways, we had a great time, celebrating my sister and my little niece. Nolan had a blast too! He absolutely adores baby socks and the “bow ties” (which are the hair bands!), hearing him “ohh” and “awe” over the gifts was so sweet! He is thoroughly excited about his baby sister, and I am thinking of placing bets amongst family members to see how long it lasts because he does not have the patience for things, so a lot of us know it’ll be an interesting adventure for him.
A week later, my little dude decided to grow up and start preschool!
The first day was a bit odd, he didn’t want Blondie to leave him, but it seems after she left, he had a great time! He came home with first crafts he had made in class, and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing bits and pieces of his morning activities because he was playing with his toys in the living room. We’re all still trying to wrap our brains around the fact that he’s even old enough to attend “big kid” school, but nothing really prepared us for it like the second day, he pretty much told his mommy to go away as he walked up to his teachers and new friends. The other day they came over and brought his Spidey backpack inside to show us some of his assignments and a fairly large magazine full of book fair goodies! I definitely don’t remember this in my preschool days, but since with COVID, they just send home these catalogs for each student and my dad and I went through that whole thing on our own because that was our favorite thing about school, although I never bought books home, so to see Nolan point out certain books or magazines was very touching to me! He loves his books like his mimi and mommy!
And then all hell broke loose, my mom came home from work a week later not really feeling well, and as she tried to start her second shift on Sunday, she was sent home with COVID within half an hour later.
As much as we tried to quarantine in our house, it didn’t really shield us well enough, especially when one of us is like me and needs assistance on a daily basis. I had some sickly symptoms the same day she was tested but I didn’t voice it until that Monday because I was utterly terrified to say anything to my folks, they are both vaccinated but I chose to not get it. I am not one for needles/shots, but I also didn’t know what kind of side effects would present itself later on in life, so I just chose to forgo it entirely and my parents were very aware of my feelings toward it on both reasons, and they haven’t said anything about it. I know it contradicts my thoughts I wrote about in the post I wrote back when this mess started but even then, I still knew I wasn’t getting the vaccine.
My symptoms were mild in comparison to my folks, the one thing we all had was the disgusting taste in our mouths, and we found out it was caused by our medicine, and what seemed to make it disappear were fruity candies, especially Life Savers. I would keep them on my bookshelf so I can chew/suck on it for a bit of time and it would help so much for us! My dad was the last in the household to get it and he used those cinnamon candies and I remember thinking, “why torture yourself like that?!” and my mom would actually eat butter scotches and they worked, but I liked the fruity flavors to keep me occupied for probably 15-20 minutes. We were all thrilled to be done with everything and Blondie and Nolan were allowed to come over again. It was pure torture to be separated from him for basically two weeks, and as he started school too.
All right, so everything aside, this month’s music has been somewhat interesting. In the beginning, I was trying to keep up with the newest releases and the first Monday afterwards, I went through my Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify, and I proceeded to put every song onto the main playlist. I ended up listening to three albums, the first was Hollywood Undead’s “Hotel Kalifornia” which came out a couple of weeks ago. I loved it! I have like eight or nine favorites on it, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, you need to! The second was found by accident and it is called, “Aventine” by Agnes Obel. This was also great but very different compared to HU though! And the final was Demi Lovato’s “HOLY FVCK” and I surprised myself with this because I did not think I would enjoy it, but I was wrong and it’s probably one of her best releases in a while.
Here is my Top 20 songs for August! If you would like to check out the entire playlist, click here.
Meteorite by BANKS Hands of Gold by Delain Weight of Everything by Ill Factor featuring Katie Garfield Blow by Eva Under Fire featuring Spencer Charnas Every Man Is A Warrior by Lena Fayre The Promise by In This Moment Valiant by Nightcity. Thunder by Imagine Dragons Cake By The Ocean by DNCE How Soon Is Now by AG featuring Dresage Dorian by Agnes Obel This Is What I Live For by Graffiti Ghosts Kings & Queens by Ava Max The Champion by Carrie Underwood featuring Ludacris Let You Down by Sleeping With Sirens featuring Charlotte Sunds Crazy Train by Joseph William Morgan 100 Little Deaths by Lilith Czar Pink Venom by BLACKPINK Happy When I Die by Hollywood Undead Sound of War by Tommee Profitt x Fluerie
I have been looking forward to doing this tag again for the third year in a row, since the end of March, and what makes this one different from my previous posts, I will also be giving you an update look into reading journal! I said in the beginning that I would like to discuss my progress was going sometime this summer and since we’re right at the middle of 2022, I figured it would be awesome to do it all together so I wouldn’t have to do more scheduling this month!
Firstly, we will go on with the tag itself and then I’ll show you my journal afterwards. I do have a couple of things to mention though, I am only talking about the books I’ve read from January to mid-June and I’ve kept the same questions, so if you’d like to do this challenge on your blog or YouTube channel (or just for fun!) I would really love to see your answers, so please tag me in your posts!
Honestly, I’ve read a lot of really good books. I’m trying to break out of my normal genres like romance and rediscover old favorites like historical fiction. It took me a bit, but I’ve finally started to push through the historical aspect with diving into stories about the Vikings, and I am forever grateful for taking a chance on K.M. Butler’s debut “The Raven and The Dove” which is based on the Vikings living in Normandy. Before reading this book, I wasn’t interested with these types of books, but I have a soft spot for women’s stories and despite the fact the author wrote this in two POVs, I actually loved it! It was fun to look into the main character’s lives and how they viewed one another personally and the customs of the times.
After I finished it, I tried my foot into similar books, but I wasn’t able to mesh with any others until I came across Melanie Karsak’s own Viking stories called “The Road to Valhalla”. I had tried to read one back in December, but it wasn’t what I wanted to read at the time and then a few months later I discovered the actual series and I adore the fact that Melanie can create such interesting characters and settlings that you can clearly picture in your mind at all hours of the day (or in my case at night!) and attempt to figure out how it will all end for them. Once I completed “Under the Howling Moon” back in March, it didn’t take me long to whiz right through them! I will probably be finished with all five books by the end of the season.
Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far This Year?
I’m surprised with myself, but I haven’t really read any sequels or at least any proper sequels than besides The Road to Valhalla. However, when I was done with “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott back in March, I decided to test out “Little Men” which is about Jo’s school for boys and discusses her life with her nephews and other young gentlemen that live amongst Jo and her husband Friedrich. The stories are very dated, but I have enjoyed love discovering the way people wrote their stories. Louisa wrote her books in the style that reflected her life in some way, so in a way she gave her accent and voice to her characters.
The other sequel is Harry Potter and the “Order of the Phoenix” by J.K. Rowling. Some of you might know about this, but I tend to only read my Harry Potter books whenever the weather warms up a little, so from spring to early summer to the end of autumn, I am sitting outside with our cats on the back deck continuing my Harry Potter journey. When I came back to it in late April, I was halfway done with it and usurpingly remembered everything I had previously read several months before and so I was thoroughly excited to finish it but now I feel weird that after I am done with ‘Half Blood Prince”–and I could finish it by the start of fall–that I will have one more book in the series and I would cross it off my reading bucket list!
New release you haven’t read, but would like to
I’ve tried my hardest to not think of the recently released books, but I do take advantage of the Amazon’s First Reads for prime readers, as you can get one book a month and they are usually free to any user, and I’ve collected three books I thought looked interesting and they were: “The Last Rose of Shanghai” by Weina Dal Randel, “The Taste of Ginger” by Mansi Shah and “The Lobotomist’s Wife” by Samantha Greene Woodruff. As you might be able to tell, all three were from the Historical Fiction box. I am excited to get to these books, but I have no idea when that will be exactly!
Most anticipated release for the second half of the year
There are a couple of books I’d like to get my feet on soon, like I said above, I haven’t paid that much attention to the lists. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t see anything on social media from my family and friends… One was inspired by my friend Ella, as she had checked it on Goodreads as “want to read” last month. She has a large array of books and this one really seemed odd and right up my alley, It is called, “The Drowned Woods” by Emily Lloyd-Jones.
The second book was listed as part of Hot Summer Reads blog post on Goodreads, and I thought the title was both hilarious and morbid, but once I saw what it was about, my curiosity was piqued, it is former actress Jeannete McCurdy’s “I’m Glad My Mom Died”. Besides historical fiction, I also have a huge weakness for memoirs, and I think this would be a great read as we enter the colder months. I only say it like that because I tend to want sporty and coming of age books around the time school starts back up!
Biggest Disappointment
This year I’ve been trying to listen to more audiobooks and back in February, I decided I wanted to check out some childhood classics, and I found “Matilda” by Roald Dahl and I have always been curious about it, and the fact I have only watched the film once in my whole life, I thought I would be fine with it but I was so upset with it by the end of the experience! I still don’t believe it deserves to be in a “children” category, especially with the amount of traumatic themes in it. I literally rated it as a three out of five stars, because I thought it seemed fair. I mean I didn’t absolutely hate it, as there were good spots here and there, but overall I’m glad I got it off my list for good.
There was another children’s classic that I didn’t finish but thought it was worthy a mention here. Upon recommendation, I decided to check out “Anne of Green Gables” by Lucy Maud Montgomery and before going into this, I had just finished “Little Women” so I thought I would mesh fairly well with it. I didn’t. My first thought was I didn’t like how the author used the word “ejaculated” in the beginning of the story as to being a substitute for “gasping” or Louisa May Alcott’s favorite “raptures” but after the first chapter, it kind of disappeared and I thoroughly happy about it!
I can be a big talker when I want to be, and I’m constantly daydreaming just like Anne, but even I thought she was too much for me to handle, so by the time I had passed Chapter 10, I thought it was going by so slowly but slightly amusing to hear this little girl yap about anything and everything. Unfortunately, when I was about to hit Chapter 19, I couldn’t take any more of it. so, I eventually had to find something because this wasn’t working out very well.
Biggest Surprise
Last year, I did something I thought I’d ever do, I watched The Notebook. I still don’t remember what caused me to go for it, other than it must have been on our movie channels constantly and I might’ve been in a huge rom-com mood, and this was what my brain chose first, but I did enjoy myself. It wasn’t too awful, but I still don’t want to watch A Walk to Remember though…
Although I might consider listening to the audiobook instead, since I did give “Safe Haven” a chance back in February. I have watched the film when it came out in 2009, but I have only watched it once so I thought this insight would play in my favor, but it didn’t. I still remembered everything of the movie, but I was shocked when I found myself crying in the middle of the night for certain chapters and the ending really got me good, but now I can’t stand to rewatch the film and that part sucked but I am open to listen to more Nicholas Sparks books in the future!
Favorite new author (Debut or new for you)
For the most part, I have discovered a lot of “new” authors, but my favorites so far have been K.M. Butler, and it was his first historical fiction novel and my first of the new year. I owe him for creating such interesting characters like Halla and Taurin. They came from two separate religions and worlds, but he found a way to make it work and tell the story of how people can accept and change their views for the greater good of others.
Another historical fiction book I found at the end of May, is about Lady Katherine Swymford, simply titled “Katherine”. She was the mistress and later wife and Queen Consort to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. It was written by Anya Seton in, get this, 1964! Honestly, I thought the author’s not in the beginning was odd, because she explained how her family would travel back to England in the ’50’s and she studied as much as she could that was available at the time, in order to write the story of Katherine de Roet. It just never occurred to me of how old the book itself would be until I did some digging of my own! It is 500 pages long, so I am probably still reading it as this post publishes, but it’s been very interesting so far!
Newest fictional crush
Well, when I started reading Melanie’s “The Road to Valhalla” series, Hervor wasn’t the only one to fall head over heels in love with Prince Hofund. The moment when he and her cousin Leif and their warriors arrive out of the sea and into battle in the second book was amazing because for once everything came so vividly to me at that moment. It wasn’t supposed to be a sexy scene but leave to me to make it that way!
Unfortunately, I have had some difficulty picturing these Viking men lately, sometimes, descriptions can be blurred together for me and since I haven’t watched many films or TV shows set in the Viking world, I don’t know certain hairstyles and/or the ordinary look of these characters, however, I have better luck with the women because it’s easier to picture them for some odd reason.
Book that made you cry
Well, considering I just told you this back in the “Biggest Surprise” question. I have cried to a few others, such as, “Other Words for Home” by Jasmine Warga, “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott, “Under the Hunter’s Moon” and “Under the Blood Moon” by Melanie Karsak. I am trying like crazy to stay away from those that could turn me into a blubbering mess, but sometimes it just happens without any warning!
Book that made you happy
One of my secondary goals for this year was to read books that have become a film and/or TV series in the last couple of decades; and I had one book where I was curious but worried about because I have watched the film before and hope to show it to my niece and nephew someday. James and the Giant Peach. This was my second Roald Dahl classic and as I was listening to the audiobook for it, I was so happy to know that there wasn’t a lot of things changed for the film, and despite it also discuss childhood abuse and trauma, it is generally a cozy little story.
The second thing that also made me happy was when the book itself was originally released on November 1st, 1964. It actually came out on my birthday, and it was a wonderful surprise after I had finished reading it and the fact that my views on the film adaption didn’t change either made things work so well!
Most beautiful book you’ve bought this year
The most beautiful book I’ve read this year was definitely “Other Words for Home” by Jasmine Warga. It was exactly what I needed at the time of Ramadan and the start of Eid. I don’t really celebrate the holidays of the Muslim communities and friends, but mainly it was my way of supporting them unknowingly. It was such an adorable, but kind of sad modern children’s book set on a little girl named Jude, who is a Syrian refugee in the Midwest of the United States, and you learn about how she is learning how to adjust to life in America with her mother, as they stay with her uncle’s family.
What books do you still need to read by the end of the year?
By this time, I’d hope to be around 24 books into my initial goal for the year, which is 40-45. I am currently reading six different series, and I’m almost finished with “Harry Potter” and “The Road to Valhalla” series, I doubt I will be able to finish “Deathly Hollows” because I know it’s a giant book and chuck full of information, so I would like to take my time on it, plus I tend to only read my HP books while I am outside with the cats, and really it all of it depends on the weather too, but I am looking forward to completing TWO of them this summer! As for the others, it will be interesting on what actually happens with them.
And then, there’s my notion of finishing the “Me Before You” by JoJo Moyes and “Sinners on Tour” by Olivia Cunning series I had mention last year or back in 2020, because those are fairly shorter on their percentages, especially “Wicked Beat” but I don’t know, it’ll just depend on my mood and what I generally want to read for the next half of the year.
Now let’s move on with our next subject. My reading journals.
Before 2022 started, I had a lot of plans and thoughts that I thought would be fun to create in this new venture, but in the last three months I’ve noticed that I am not grabbing neither one of my journals on a daily basis.
The most important spread I use in journals are the monthly trackers. It has been kind of fun shading in a box or circle for every day I’ve read, but recently I’ve had to make a faint line after seven days because for the last five months I’ve been counting each dot in the Blue journal and it can get very frustrating if you’re not careful! In my Green journal, I was smart enough to create an easer tracker system that includes the numbers on the left side of the graph, and I tend to go for that one most of the time; if it wasn’t so heavy I may actually use it everyday!
The second most popular habit tracker is my “amateur” bookshelves I created in the Green journal–I am still very impressed they worked out so well, especially after going over it with my pen! Next time I will just forgo the pen because that was such a disaster! Anyways, I completed one shelf, I did that back in late March or early April I think. It was a quick discovery I will say! I definitely have a lot more Kindle reads but I’ve added one print, two novellas, and seven audiobooks so far! Also, I need o make a not for year to pick prettier colors than gray, pink turquoise and green because they are ugly together!
As for my actually Reading Log, I’ve had to do some editing here and there. Since my overall theme is Harry Potter, I had wanted to use the House colors for each section, but I didn’t have all of the colors so I had to improvise and although I use the heck out of it, my hopes for it didn’t work out well for me but I would like to work on them to do this layout again in 2023.
And my final layout is the end-of-the-month stats and again, I didn’t have big plans for it but I am happy on what I was able to do for it. I have done some updating this past month and I am going to need to create two more blocks for November and December and the end results for the year.
For those who don’t know, I have four things I keep a record of each month and they are: how many books I finish, the number of pages I read, days of the month and finally the selection of words. If you’ve read about the post where I talked about how I wanted a space reserved for all of the words I collect as I read each of these books, mainly because I love to collect but I also wanted an everlasting reminder of the stories.
I apologize for the bad lighting, I decided to take them just after the sun went down and had to deal with my regular light and the shadows of my feet! I bet you never thought you’d see those words in the same sentence! Anyways, for the most part the photos actually came out really good!
Are you the type of person who needs to create a book journal like me? How would you design yours or what has been your favorite layouts/themes? If you don’t have a reading journal or blog, how do you keep track of everything?
Got Meghan's Blog 