Sunday Post – 11/17/2024

November 17, 2024 Lark_Bookwyrm Sunday Post 1

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: I took it easy most of the week as the incisions in my veins (from the cardiac ablation) healed. I should now be able to get back to walking and maybe start some yoga, which I have been thinking about trying for a while.

I meant to take advantage of the downtime to begin my online Christmas shopping, but I spent most of it playing games, working on blog posts, trying to figure out X and Bluesky, and attempting to solve my office chair-mat problem instead.

Speaking of Bluesky. . . I deactivated my X (Twitter) account and moved to Bluesky. I set up two accounts there, one for the blog and one for personal/professional stuff. (To find the blog account, just search for bookwyrmshoard.) To be honest, I don’t know how much time I’ll spend on Bluesky; I may stick mainly to Instagram and Threads, at least for the blog. I’m trying to cut back on social media, as well as on the time I spend looking at my phone screen. It’s just not good for me, mentally or in terms of eyestrain.

5 Good Things: I’m trying something I’ve seen on several other blogs in the past months, and listing some good things from this week.

I have the most caring, supportive husband in the world!
I almost gave up on finding the yarn for the vest I want to make my dad, but I tried an obscure online shop, and they had it in the color I wanted.
I don’t think I have enough yarn for the socks I’m knitting myself, but I found a miniskein in my stash that goes beautifully with the yarn I’m using, so I will knit the toes using the miniskein.
I started writing again. Just a story idea, and not necessarily one I want to follow through on, but it got me back into actually putting words on paper… er, screen.
I made Lemony Bean and Shrimp Stew (NYT recipe), and even though I had to tweak the recipe a little, it was delicious. It’s the first time I have ever cooked with leeks, but it won’t be the last!

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.) I wrote one day this week, but I got a lot of words in! Word count for week: 1300 words of a story idea (my goal is 1,750 for the week.) I use 4theWords to gamify my writing sprints.

Looking Ahead

Ivory Vikings, by Nancy Marie Brown – audiobook review
The Oldest Books on My TBR – Top 10 Tuesday
other reviews TBD
Sunday Post – 11/24/2024

What I’ve Been Reading/Watching (since 7/14/2024)

Book cover: The Teller of Small Fortunes, by Julie Leong

Book cover: Feuds (Valdemar Anthologies #18), edited by Mercedes Lackey

Book cover: Enchanted Net (Mysterious Fields #1), by Celia Lake

Audiobook cover: Arrows of the Queen (Heralds of Valdemar trilogy #1), by Mercedes Lackey, read by Christa Lewis

Reading: I finished up both The Teller of Small Fortunes (ARC) by Julie Leong and Feuds (ARC), the latest collection of Valdemar tales edited by Mercedes Lackey. Since then, I’ve been dipping into one book after another, trying to find the one that would grab me. I finally decided not to wait until the trilogy is finished, and started Enchanted Net by Celia Lake. (Book #2 came out on Friday, and book #3 comes out on Dec. 15, so I won’t have to wait too long to finish it.)

Listening to: I finished up Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey, read by Christa Lewis. It’s very odd to listen to a book you have read aloud to someone else, especially if you like doing all the different voices. Christa Lewis is a good audiobook narrator, but her choice of accents and her pronunciation of many of the names is so different from mine that it sometimes takes me aback.

I also listened to an Imaginary Worlds podcast on SF and fantasy audiobook narrators, which was really interesting.

Watching: I’m going through the Lord Peter Wimsey adaptations for the umpteenth time. I watched Five Red Herrings and Clouds of Witness. And we watched a few episodes of Late Night with Stephen Colbert.

Playing: The usual games: Pokemon Go and several NYT word games (Wordle, Connections, Strands, and the Spelling Bee) as well as Sudoku. I also played more Wingspan on Steam than I probably should have.