The Sunday Post is hosted by the wonderful Kimberly, the Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news, recap the past week, take a look ahead, and showcase our new treasures—I mean books!
This week I’m also participating in The Sunday Salon hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz, and Stacking the Shelves hosted by Marlene at Reading Reality.
The Past Week
In real life: The house is in total upheaval, but it’s in a good cause. The new floors were installed Monday through Wednesday. They look beautiful! I’m still adjusting to the difference in how they feel and how they change the sound of the house, but I think I’m going to love them. It’s so much nicer than the old, worn-out carpets!
The deck crew should start demo on our old deck tomorrow. We’re having it replaced with Trex, and also having the old, worn-out sliding glass doors replaced.
We finally chose our paint colors and contacted a painter. We’re waiting for a contract; hopefully that will be in the works soon. If we’re lucky, the painters will be able to start this Wednesday (fingers crossed, but somehow I doubt it); otherwise it will be in two or three weeks. We’re having them do the living room, hall, our bedroom, and both bathrooms. Seriously, by the time we get everything done, it’s going to look like a new house! (Well, mostly. The kitchen and bathrooms probably need updating at some point, but not now.)
Meanwhile, basically everything we own is still in storage in the basement, except the kitchen and dining room stuff, our computers, and the bare necessities we need, like a week’s worth of clothes. All the big furniture is grouped in the middle of the rooms, or stored in my office. This weekend, we moved Mr. Bookwyrm back into his home office (which we’re not painting because we did it 10 years ago and it’s still OK.) My temporary workspace is set up in the kitchen/dining room until the painting is done.
Writing accountability: My minimum goal is an achievable 250 words every day (fiction or other creative writing; book reviews for the blog don’t count.) Given how busy we have bee, I haven’t had the time or energy to write, neither on vacation nor since we got home. I only wrote X days over the past two weeks.* Word counts for week: XX words of fiction* (my goal was 1,750 for the week.) I am using 4theWords to gamify my writing sprints. I had signed up for the July Camp NaNoWriMo with a month-long goal of 7500 words, but I didn’t make it.
* Numbers as of Saturday morning, and subject to revision. My writing week, like my blog week, runs from Sunday through Saturday; I schedule the Sunday post on Saturday, usually before my evening writing session, so Saturday’s stats don’t always make it into the post until sometime after it has been published.
Recent Posts
- Sunday Post – 7/21 and 7/28/2024
- Monthly Wrap-Up – July 2024
- Sunday Post – 8/04/2024 – this post
Looking Ahead
- Montana Sky, by Nora Roberts – review
- – Top 10 Tuesday
- The Lily of Ludgate Hill, by Mimi Matthews – review, tentative
- The Bright Spot, by Jill Shalvis – review, tentative
- The Curse of Penryth Hall, by Jess Armstrong – review, tentative
- Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, by Heather Fawcett – review, tentative
- other reviews TBD
- Sunday Post – 8/11/2024
What I’ve Been Reading/Watching (since 7/14/2024)
Reading: I finished rereading The Spellshop (Sarah Beth Durst; ARC) to refresh my memory so I can write the review. Then I reread The Liar by Nora Roberts; it’s a favorite which I reviewed back in 2019. That’s really all I had the time or energy for. Renovations take a lot out of you!
Listening to: Podcast episodes from Science Friday and Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.
Watching: We haven’t had time, or for that matter, a TV. (Like everything else, it’s packed away in the basement.) But we caught up on Stephen Colbert’s monologues, streaming them from Mr. Bookwyrm’s computer to his monitor on his temporary workstation in the dining end of the kitchen.
Playing: a little Pokemon Go, plus my usual NYT word games: Wordle, Connections, Strands, and my favorite, the Spelling Bee.
Added to the Hoard
Purchased or Free (Kindle)
(Click title for Goodreads page or my review.)
Kindle: The Library of Borrowed Hearts; Bookshops & Bonedust (audiobook reviewed 5/09/2024); A Knight in Shining Armor; Duke Gone Rogue; Dawnshard; System Collapse; Facets of the Bench; The Enchanted April
Anne - Books of My Heart
Even with the disruption, the progress should feel good. I love when the renovations are complete. I know you have painting and the deck yet. You’ll enjoy it all this fall when the weather is nicer too.
Anne – Books of My Heart This is my Sunday Post
Anne – Books of My Heart recently posted…If I Loved You Less by Aamna Qureshi @aamnaqureshi_ @sophiarose1816
Lark_Bookwyrm
It does feel good to finally be moving on this. We had a lot of inertia to overcome, and a lot of dithering (mostly me) over colors and flooring choices and all that. I’m looking forward to it being done, and getting to use our new deck come fall, when it cools off a bit!
sherry fundin
Nora Roberts book looks good. We were going to renovate our house, but since Covid hit and we’re having health issues, I doubt we will do anything.
sherry fundin recently posted…Sherry’s Shelves 8.28 – 9.3.24 #stackingtheshelves #thesundaypost #thesundaysalon #weeklyupdate
Lark_Bookwyrm
I’m sorry to hear you’re having health issues, and I hope things improve for you. We are really fortunate to both be in good health. It took us a while to get around to the renovations, tbh. We were thinking of starting in 2020, and then the pandemic happened. Once things opened back up and we felt more comfortable having people in the house, it took us a while to get past the inertia and make decisions on what we should do first!
Deb Nance at Readerbuzz
Getting rid of the carpet and replacing it with wooden floors—it was one of the best things we have done. Hope you enjoy it, too.
I need to get back to setting goals for my writing. I got lost in Paris in July last month, and now I need to return to the writing world.
Deb Nance at Readerbuzz recently posted…The Sunday Salon: What I Did to Celebrate Paris in July This Year
Lark_Bookwyrm
It would have been nice to spring for hardwood floors (as opposed to LVP), but that was more than we wanted to put into it at this point. We might feel differently about our next house, whenever we move. But I think these are going to be good, and easy to keep clean.
I need to get back to writing, too, as soon as I can focus on it. So far I haven’t had the energy by the end of the day.
Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits
Congrats on the house update! I know what you mean about different flooring changing the way the house sounds, though. We had a similar experience when we moved from a condo (with carpet) to our new home (with wood floors). I also learned that while I like walking barefoot on carpet, wood floors need slippers or at least socks.
Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday ~ Favorite Series Books
Lark_Bookwyrm
Yes, I think my lovely lambs-wool-lined moccasin slippers are going to get a lot more use now. And isn’t it good that we both know how to knit socks?
Katherine
Yay for the flooring being done. It’s going to be amazing when you get everything unpacked and can really relax! Flooring can definitely change the sound. My brother-in-law and his wife did the tile flooring that looks liek wood floors through out their entire house and the echo was deafening until they got enough rugs and whatnot! I just picked up an audio of The Liar. I absolutely loved that one but it’s been ages since I read it. I hope you’re having a great week!
Lark_Bookwyrm
We’re hoping the furniture (and books) muffle some of the echo so we don’t need many rugs. The impetus was to make it easier to clean, and to (mostly) eliminate carpets because of my dust allergies. We’ll see how it goes. We have already realized we need a rug or mat at the front door, and something under the rocking chair, and something in my office under the office chair. (The last two are to avoid scratching up the floor.)
Let me know how the audiobook of The Liar is! I love that book; I think it’s one of her best.
Have a wonderful week, and I hope you didn’t get hit too hard by all the rains associated with Hurricane/Tropical Storm Debby.
THT Steph
You have a lot going on with the house. It all sounds wonderful. I hope you enjoy the flooring. It is one of the biggest castles to have done with moving everything. I have not regretted having our floors done, although I do miss just a quick vacuum over a clean and mop some days.
Lark_Bookwyrm
I’m looking forward to having it all done so we can put everything back in place. I do like the new floors, though they are taking some getting used to. We got a good vacuum for hard floors, and so far it’s doing a good job. I’m planning a vacuum and damp-mop session once the painting is done.
Sophia Rose
I know we have to get our floors done in the next five years and reno the kitchen, but I’m not looking forward to it. Hoping all yours is done with no hold ups. Nice batch of books you got in your haul.
Have a good week!