Sunday Post – 5/29/2022

May 29, 2022 Sunday Post 17

The Sunday Post is hosted by the wonderful Kimberly, the Caffeinated Book 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

Last Monday (May 16), I had tea and a book discussion with a college friend over Zoom. We talked about The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, and we have very different opinions, so it made for a lively and interesting discussion. We each provided our own afternoon tea, complete with tea sandwiches and sweets. I made cucumber sandwiches, curried chicken sandwiches (with cranberries, apples, and pecans: delicious!), and cherry scones using dried cherries. I had a pile of delicious strawberries, and a small dish of chocolate truffles that Mr. Bookwyrm gave me for Mother’s Day. I also bought a bag of Milanos, because I hadn’t had them in years. I served it all with (decaf) Earl Grey tea, using my favorite tea set. It was so much fun to have a proper tea party; I haven’t done that since before the pandemic.

If you’re wondering where I was last weekend, we went up to my aunt’s memorial service. (She passed away on Halloween, but the service was put off due to the Delta and Omicron surges.) We decided to go despite our reservations about public gatherings, because I really wanted to be there for my cousins. Mr. Bookwyrm and I are both recently boosted, and we wore masks during the service, as well as outdoors afterward. It was a lovely service, and set up so that people could Zoom in if they couldn’t be there in person. My aunt was a teacher at a private school (in fact, she was my 9th-grade teacher), and some of her former colleagues and students gave really moving tributes to her and her impact on their lives.

My mom flew in for the weekend, and we stayed in a hotel near where my cousins live (about 100 miles from here) so we could spend time with them and their families, as well as my only remaining aunt and uncle. I hadn’t seen any of them since a couple of years before the pandemic, and it was so good to be together! There were two extended-family lunches (one Saturday and one Sunday), which were both unmasked, so I’m praying that no one gets Covid. It’s been a week, and Mom, Mr. Bookwyrm, and I all seem to be in the clear, so hopefully everyone else is, too.

This past week, I’ve just kind of been chilling and trying to get some stuff done around the house… without much success. Maybe I’ll be a bit more focused in the coming week.

Recent Posts

Looking Ahead

  • Desperately Seeking a Duchess, by Christi Caldwell – review
  • – Top Ten Tuesday; tentative
  • other reviews TBD
  • Sunday Post – 6/05/2022

What I’ve Been Reading/Watching

Reading: I have had two slow reading weeks, and I don’t really know why. I finished Point to Point by Celia Lake, which counted toward the continue-a-series readathon for COYER. I read Desperately Seeking a Duchess by Christi Caldwell (an ARC) and A Stitch in Time by Kelley Armstrong (a Christmas gift from my sister.) I’m still reading The Forgotten Beasts of Eld in tribute to Patricia A. McKillip, who died on May 6 of this year.

Listening to: Invisible Women by Carmen Criado-Pérez. Unfortunately, my library check-out ran out, so I will have to finish the last 15-20% on Kindle.

Watching: We watched Benjamin Franklin by Ken Burns. It’s very good, which is no surprise; I love Ken Burns’s documentaries. This one had the added bonus of Mandy Patinkin voicing Franklin.

Playing: The Last Campfire on Steam, and Penguin Isle on my iPad. (And Pokemon Go on my phone, but that’s kind of an ongoing thing.)

Added to the Hoard in the past 2 weeks

For Review or Consideration

Many thanks to Tor.com for A Mirror Mended, Harlequin for Sound of Darkness, and Kensington for The Belle of Belgrave Square and Murder in Westminster.

Purchased (Kindle, print, or audio)

Print: Semicolon (Click title for Goodreads page.)

Kindle: A Marvelous Light; The Diabolical Baron; The Proposal; The Enigma Game; (Click title for Goodreads page or my review.)

Audiobooks: (Click title for Goodreads page.)

Stay safe, stay healthy, stay kind… and may you find books a haven in the coming weeks.

Related Posts

17 Responses to “Sunday Post – 5/29/2022”

  1. Jenni Elyse

    Sounds like it was a lovely service for you aunt. My father passed away in 2020 and it was difficult to do the service because of the pandemic. We managed, though. I hope your cousins are doing okay considering.
    Jenni Elyse recently posted…Sunday Post #20My Profile

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      Thank you, Jenni Elyse. I’m so sorry for your loss, and I hope you’re doing all right now, at least most of the time. I know grief can come in waves, and even years later, it can swamp you unexpectedly.

      My cousins are doing as well as can be expected. There are many joys in their lives, as well as the grief of losing their mom. I think the memorial service was healing for them, as was the chance to spend time with family members on both sides.

  2. Greg

    Your bookish tea party sounds very nice. 🙂 And Milanos. I haven’t had those in forever either…

    I’m glad you were able to see family, but I hear you on Covid. It’s still out there and nerve wracking when you go out.

    The LAst Campfire looks intriguing. I’m going to have to take a look at that one…
    Greg recently posted…Sunday Post 454My Profile

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      Yes, Covid is still nerve-wracking. Increasingly so (again), as studies show each subsequent Omicron subvariant is more infectious (has a higher RO) than the previous one. And we aren’t even seeing BA.4 and BA.5 in this country yet, at least not in high numbers. My summer plans are looking less and less viable, darn it.

      I think you might really like The Last Campfire. It’s a very soothing game – quiet music, puzzles of varying difficulty (none of them impossibly hard), and as far as I can tell, there’s really no way to die, which lowers the tension level considerably.

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      Thank you, Esther. The tea party was a lot of fun, and the memorial service and time with family were very healing.

  7. Anne - Books of My Heart

    It’s nice you were able to get out to see family and honor your aunt. Still even wearing masks sometimes it feels a little surreal to me. I love your tea and Addie Larue. I hope you enjoyed it as it was a favorite of us in COYER book club last year.

    Anne – Books of My Heart This is my Sunday Post

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      I did enjoy it! My friend was not as enthusiastic, and she made some very good points (which I won’t post here because spoilers.)

  8. Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction

    How fun that you were able to have a lively book discussion with a friend about Addie Larue. It always makes a book more enjoyable when you can talk it over with someone. (Or, in this case, I guess maybe it made you realize some flaws? Either way, it makes for a more interesting experience when you share it with a friend!)
    Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction recently posted…Sunday Post: Book Pre-order Campaigns & Giveaways Galore – 5/29/22My Profile

  10. Katherine

    Sounds like a busy week! I’m so glad you’ve stayed healthy through all the family events and your aunt’s service sounds unbelievably special. The zoom book discussion sounds like such fun! I love curried chicken salad and scones. King Arthur Flour has these things called jammy bits you can substitute for dried fruit in scones and I’ve been loving them though it takes WAY less jammy bits than dried fruits. I hope you’re having a wonderful week!