Monthly Roundup: January 2022

Happy February!

PHEW. What a month. Started off quite well, ended up not-so-great (not THAT, fortunately, and nothing major), but definitely not as much reading as I would have liked, especially since I had to take multiple days off. HATE when that happens, but such is life. It’s been cold, cold, cold here, and we’ve gotten a lot of snow (though not as much as some of you in the East. We have some more snow on the way tonight, though, so we’ll see!). I’m working my way through all the ebooks on my TBR, so I’m hopeful for more reading this month.

Let’s get this recap started, shall we?

Books I Read in January 2021

1. Gory Details: Adventures from the Dark Side of Science by Erika Engelhaupt

2. Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America’s Cheap Goods by Amelia Pang

3. Rad Girls Can: Stories of Bold, Brave, and Brilliant Young Women by Kate Schatz

4. The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis

5. 100 Side Hustles: Ideas for Making Extra Money by Chris Guillebeau

6. Miss Jacobson’s Journey by Carola Dunn

7. Rookie Move (Brooklyn Bruisers #1) by Sarina Bowen

8. Wonder Women of Science: How Twelve Geniuses are Rocking Science, Technology, and the World by Tiera Fletcher (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

9. The Book of Separation by Tova Mirvis

10. Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back by Mark O’Connell

11. This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work by Tiffany Jewell (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

12. Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby (no review)

13. Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1) by Julia Dahl (review to come)

14. Playing with Matches by Suri Rosen (review to come)

Not fabulous in terms of numbers, but in terms of quality, this has truly been a phenomenal month. Several of these books will end up on my best-of-the-year list, I already know. Lower numbers this month because I spent the last week down with a migraine that wouldn’t die and spent the days huddled under a blanket. I highly prefer reading.

Ten of these books came from my TBR, hurray!

Reading Challenge Updates

Not currently participating in any reading challenges.

State of the Goodreads TBR

Last month, we ended at 162, this month, we’re sliding under the door with…158! Getting there. : )

Books I Acquired in January 2022

None! Hurray!

Bookish Things I Did in January 2022

None. Been a quiet month for that.

Current Podcast Love

Still listening to Ologies with Alie Ward, who is funny and brilliant and so enjoyable to listen to. I learn so much from this podcast and can’t recommend it highly enough.

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

I’m slightly over halfway through American Literary Almanac, edited by Karen L. Rood. It’s not the most fascinating book I’ve ever read, but I enjoy the bits of literary trivia on (mostly male) American authors. I picked this book mostly because I was tired of seeing it hang out on my shelf unread, so I’ll be glad to finish it- hopefully in February. I had to take a week off due to the Migraine from Hell, but I started up back with my daily 30 minutes of reading yesterday!

Real Life Stuff

It’s been like an entire year in a single month this month, hasn’t it? Exhausting.

We started out the month keeping our daughter home for the first week back to school. I just couldn’t fathom the idea of sending her back into the petri dish that is an elementary school, with case numbers absolutely exploding everywhere, with kids poorly wearing cloth masks. NOPE. And sure enough, her school had a massive number of cases that first week, as did basically everywhere in the area. I reluctantly sent her back the second week, but I wasn’t happy about it.

She ended up out two days this past week because on Monday night, I started having some weird symptoms and came down with a migraine on Tuesday at 1 am. (My doctor says it’s not normal to be woken up with a migraine, though it’s happened to me before, unfortunately.) Migraines, for me, are a full-body experience. I get chills and sweats, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, body aches, etc. It’s almost like the flu with a deadly headache- but this time, I also had a fever. Highest it went up to was 101.9, so you can see why I was concerned, right? I kept my daughter out of school (because if the house had COVID, it was likely that she’d brought home an asymptomatic case) and we went off for PCR tests- negative, thankfully, and I skipped off to the doctor, who put me on preventative meds and gave me a referral to Neurology. Doc also said I may have picked up a virus that triggered the migraine (although I’m not sure where, as I quite literally go nowhere- the places I have to go to, I’m in and out as quickly as possible and I avoid everyone, and I N95-mask everywhere and sanitize my hands after touching anything, but this would definitely explain the fever, and the fact that it took me so long to feel better). I see a neurologist in March, he specializes in headaches, so that’ll be…something. Likely not fun, but I’d definitely like to have fewer migraines. They’ve increased in frequency; I’m wondering if my body is trying to start a menopause party and this is one of the symptoms. Who knows. Bodies are stupid.

I’m doing *much* better now, thankfully, and we’re in waiting for a nasty snowstorm tonight that will start out as rain and then dump anywhere from a few inches to a bunch of snow on us. Plenty of time to stay inside and read!

For February, I’m continuing my assault on my list of ebooks; I’ve had some of them sitting there too long and I’m picking them off one by one. Other than that, the only thing on the schedule so far is a doctor appointment with the physiatrist I see for my back (which is its normal level of crummy- a good thing! No new flares, I’ll take it!), so hopefully the headaches will stay away and I’ll be able to spend my month with a pile of excellent reading.

Happy February, friends! Stay warm, stay safe, stay healthy. We’ve made it this far; we can go a little further, together.