How is it already September?!?!??

Seriously, summer just started, and now it’s over? WHAT?!?!? I really don’t understand how time works anymore. I did have a very relaxing summer, however. So much time spent reading outside on the front porch (which, to be honest, I enjoy just as much as reading on my swing – which is STILL waiting to be fixed, sigh – and it doesn’t put me to sleep, so that’s nice! Also, I can wave at neighbors who walk by and check out their adorable dogs). So many relaxing days. Now that it’s back to homeschooling, I hit the ground running at 6:30 am and most days, I don’t get a single break until I’m done for the day at 8 pm. I wish I were joking.

My me-reading will slow down, but fortunately, my daughter and I are reading a lot of really great children’s nonfiction (which I LOVE). That’s one of the definite upsides of homeschooling. I was able to discover so many fascinating books for us to make our way through throughout the year. We’re only one week in and we’ve already read some great books (my history/social studies choices alone are fabulous!), so I’m thinking it’ll be a pretty good year on this front anyway.

I’m still behind in posting reviews, though NOT behind in writing them – that’s a first! But when I get caught up, my posts will probably be a little slower, since I’m not ready quite as quickly now, with my days being devoted to my daughter’s education, and most of the rest of my time devoted to cooking and cleaning (ugh). So I’ll still be here, just not quite as often. : )

Let’s get this roundup started, shall we?

Books I Read in August 2022

1. The Choice: Embrace the Possible by Dr. Edith Eva Eger

2. Idiot’s Guides: Foraging by Mark Vorderbruggen

3. What the Witch Left by Ruth Chew (no review; a reread to my daughter)

4. In Pain: A Bioethicist’s Personal Struggle with Opioids by Travis Rieder

5. Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes du Mez (no review)

6. I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day

7. As If on Cue by Marisa Kanter

8. A Place at the Table by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan (review to come)

9. When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed (review to come)

10. The Explosive Child by Ross W. Greene (no review)

11. Give a Sh*t: Do Good. Live Better. Save the Planet by Ashlee Piper (review to come)

12. Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (no review)

13. The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed by Wendy Lower (review to come)

14. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee (no review)

15. Who I Was With Her by Nita Tyndall (review to come)

16. The Outside World by Tova Mirvis (review to come)

17. Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491 by Charles C. Mann (no review; read as part of my daughter’s school)

18. Come and Hear: What I Saw in My Seven-And-a-Half-Year Journey Through the Talmud by Adam Kirsch (no review)

Eighteen books completed. That’s a completely acceptable number to me. I suspect they’ll be back down next month, simply due to far less time to read. Such is life!  

I didn’t review Jesus and John Wayne or The Sum of Us because I’m just not smart enough to speak about those topics, to be honest. They’re both fascinating books (with more than a little bit of overlap in the topics they cover, unsurprisingly), and I recommend both of them if you’ve got the time and mental space for them. I read Le Petit Prince in its original French; I usually try to read one French book a year, but I don’t always get to it; it’s *really* been difficult to do during the pandemic, with everyone at home and my responsibilities having increased 4378432794832-fold. There’s just not enough time, and it’s never, ever quiet around here (truly, my husband and daughter make enough noise for at least 30 people, and noise-cancelling headphones don’t cut it). I managed it this year, however, but it wasn’t easy!

Thirteen of these books came from my TBR.

State of the Goodreads TBR

Last month, we left off at 140 books; this month, we’ve got…131! Slowly, slowly going down.

Books I Acquired in August 2022

Another used book sale! I love the group that puts these things on, and I’m glad to see them return. We picked up so many good books this summer. Here’s our latest batch:

Current Podcast Love

I’ve been listening to more Crime Junkies as I fall asleep, along with You’re Wrong About, which is pretty interesting, and I love that each episode has a different topic. When I’m awake and I can focus on the episodes (like when I’m exercising), I’ve been enjoying Digging Up the Duggars, which dissects episodes of the Duggars’ show, knowing all that we know now about the scandals that were brewing and/or ongoing throughout. Super interesting!

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

Still stuck on I and Thou by Martin Buber; I’ll eventually get through it! I also finished Come and Hear: What I Saw in My Seven-and-a-Half Year Journey Through the Talmud by Adam Kirsch, 20 pages a day, on days when I had time (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA). It was lovely reading, though not necessarily a book that I wanted to put my sole focus into, so the short-chunk-per-day method really worked well here. I’ll likely finish I and Thou next, and move on to something else…

Real Life Stuff

Seriously. Life is exhausting right now.

I get up, get dressed, gulp down some coffee, take care of the dishes from the night before, and then get whatever I have planned for dinner started and/or made. If it’s Monday or Tuesday, I squeeze in a half-hour of virtual volunteer work before we start school, usually by 8:15. My daughter has ADHD; herding her through math and language arts, our most intense subjects, is often like pulling teeth and takes every last ounce of patience I can scrounge up. This usually takes us right to lunch; most days this past week, we had working lunch breaks and we worked through the afternoon, often until 3 pm. And then, if it’s Monday or Tuesday, I squeeze in another half-hour of volunteer work, then tackle whatever’s left to do of dinner and clean up the living room, which is where we do our schoolwork.

After we have dinner, I do whatever exercise I’m doing for the day (if this is walking with my son, it often takes close to or over an hour), then I shower, and then it’s time to put dinner away, clean up, and put my daughter to bed. This puts me at 7:30 or 8 pm, and I haven’t had a moment of downtime at all throughout the day. Fridays, we have my daughter’s counseling appointment, so school will go longer that day. Wednesdays, I go grocery shopping; that usually takes at least two hours after school.

Right now, I’m getting most of the bigger stuff like laundry done on weekends. I get no help with housework or cooking (other than my son occasionally pitching in to cook), so ALL OF THIS is on me, and I’m absolutely struggling and overwhelmed. I need like 347823473928 more hours in the day so the house doesn’t look like a disaster, the laundry isn’t always behind, the compost and recycling aren’t piling up to be taken outside, and the kitchen isn’t full of other people’s dishes that I have to scrape off.

So now you can see why I have so little time to read during the school year! But that’s life, and it’s not going to change, so I’m doing my best to deal. I do really enjoy that hour or so of reading I get at the end of each day, though!

Wishing you all a wonderful September!

Here we are! Welcome to JUNE!!!!!!!!!!

It feels like a slightly better month for reading than last month. Maybe it just feels that way because it’s nicer outside, because I can read outside on my swing (most days, anyway!), or maybe it just feels that way because we’re taking some time off of school to get things ready for the fall. Either way, it feels as though I’ve gotten some good quality reading done. Don’t worry, I’m still a few books behind in terms of reviews. I don’t know that THAT will ever change.

I’m hoping to make some decent progress on my TBR this summer. So far, it’s going pretty well. I’m still foolishly yearning for the days where I had that beast beaten down into the 70’s, and while I don’t think I’m in any danger of getting anywhere near that, what with the 237482374932 hours of homeschooling I do per day of homeschooling during the school year, it’s nice to have a goal, right?

Anyway, let’s get this recap started, shall we???

Books I Read in May 2022

1. One People, Two Worlds: A Reform Rabbi and an Orthodox Rabbi Explore the Issues that Divide Them by Ammiel Hirsch and Yaakov Yosef Reinmen (no review)

2. Chosen: A Memoir of Stolen Boyhood by Stephen Mills

3. The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer

4. The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree: How I Fought to Save Myself, My Sister, and Thousands of Girls Worldwide by Nice Leng’ete

5. The Kissing Bug by Daisy Hernàndez

6. Koshersoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew by Michael W. Twitty (review to come)

7. Why’d They Wear That?: Fashion as a Mirror of History by Sarah Albee (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

8. Tiny House: Live Small, Dream Big by Brent Heavener (no review)

9. Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter by Lloyd Kahn (no review)

10. The Big Tiny: A Built-It-Myself Memoir by Dee Williams

11. Time Cat by Lloyd Alexander (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

12. A Beginner’s Guide to Paradise by Alex Sheshunoff (review to come)

13. Lennon by David Foenkinos (no review)

14. And Now I Spill the Family Secrets: An Illustrated Memoir by Margaret Kimball (no review)

15. Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast (no review)

16. The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan (review to come)

17. Dude Making a Difference: Bamboo Bikes, Dumpster Dives, and Other Extreme Adventures Across America by Rob Greenfield (review to come)

18. Frindle by Andrew Clements (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

Not a terrible month. I squeezed a few graphic novels in there, which got my numbers up, but I was visiting the library with my son and he was over in that section, so I grabbed a few (since I’m almost never in that part of the library and I always forget about the GN’s!). They were a nice break between other things from my TBR. We’ll see what things look like after next month…

Nine of these books came from my TBR.

State of the Goodreads TBR

Last month, we left off at 150; this month, we’re tap-dancing in at 146! I read a whole bunch, ditched a few from the TBR, and here we are, comfortably in the 140’s. Now how long will it take me to move to the 130’s? : D

Books I Acquired in May 2022

I actually got a few new books this month!

We stopped by the used book store one day when we were out and about, and I wound up with A Day Apart: Shabbat at Home by Noam Sachs Zion and Shawn Fields-Meyer, and God Was In This Place and I, I Did Not Know: Finding Self, Spirituality and Ultimate Meaning by Lawrence Kushner.

Then, I checked in on a Little Free Library a few blocks down from our house (the owner also has a really sweet German Shepherd) and found Through the Narrow Gate: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery by Karen Armstrong, so I’m also looking forward to reading that!

But there’s a book sale coming up midway through June…

Bookish Things I Did in May 2022

In the very beginning of the month, I attended a virtual book talk with Riva Lehrer, author of Golem Girl, and she’s fabulous. And even beyond the talk about the book, which was great, it was nice to be in a space full of and made for Jewish women. I actually kind of gave a little sigh of relief when our collective voices rose up in the chat box. It felt like home.

Current Podcast Love

It’s been a bit of a back and forth month. First, I listened to a lot of Crimes of the Centuries, which details historical true crime cases. This was super interesting and really well-narrated. Then my brain wanted something different, so I’ve been listening to Tedx Shorts, short little chunks of Ted talks. Interesting and varied enough to keep my interest while I’m awake, but not super music or loud. I’m digging this!

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

Taking a little bit of a break from this for a bit, but I’m still working my way through The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Music History by Michael Miller.

Real Life Stuff

Phew. What a month.

My son moved back in! He’s going to be going back to school in the fall, so this is the best place for him to be for that! It’s nice having him home; he’s been walking with me a lot and helping me cook, so I appreciate that.

We finished our year homeschooling! We’re taking a MUCH-needed break for a bit while I regroup and start to plan out school in the fall. We’re still going to be keeping our daughter at home for a while; I’ve got to figure out what we’re doing with Language Arts, and I know I’m going to structure our weeks a little differently, in order to give us time for music and art.

MIGRAINES.

UGH. All of Memorial Day weekend was spent with migraines – Saturday, Sunday, AND Monday. Which landed me in the neurologist’s office Tuesday morning, which in turn will land me in an MRI tube next week. Yayyyyy… They’re not expecting to find anything, just ruling it out so we know. But for the first time in my life, and probably the fifth or sixth doctor that’s prescribed it, my insurance has finally covered Zofran (an anti-nausea drug, as in, “Here, Stephanie, please take this Zofran so that you stop throwing up your migraine medication!” Don’t let your doctor try asking for these meds to keep you from vomiting yourself into the hospital when you’re pregnant, though. THAT would just be ridiculous and a frivolous waste of time and resources!).

But that’s about all that’s new around here. This month is going to be spent reading and planning for this fall’s homeschool. I have a stack of books to page through and figure out what we’re going to do. Other than that, I’ve got stacks of books that are just begging to be read, and long, empty days. My backyard swing is calling my name!

Wishing you all a wonderful June! Stay safe and healthy!!!

What a whirlwind of a month. Between life and homeschooling, my poor reading time has definitely shrunk. Combine that with my getting to a chunk of my TBR that I don’t feel hugely compelled to write reviews for here, and I’ve been more absent than usual this month. My apologies! We’re definitely in a transition period and I’m still trying to figure things out. I’m working on it, I promise!

Not a bad month at all, just busy. Passover came and went (life without leavened grains is just sad, y’all. But I’m always grateful for how much avoiding chametz for eight days helps me appreciate the struggles of those with conditions like celiac and food allergies), and we had a few really awesome weather days – including several days where I was able to read outside! My swing isn’t out yet, but possibly at the end of this month. Bring on those long, hot summer days!

Let’s get this way-too-short recap started, shall we?

Books I Read in April 2022

1. Rescuing Jesus: How People of Color, Women, and Queer Christians Are Reclaiming Evangelicalism by Deborah Jian Lee (no review; read for my volunteer job)

2. Self-Reg: How to Help Your Child (and You) Break the Stress Cycle and Successfully Engage With Life by Stuart Shanker (no review)

3. What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

4. Everything You Need to Know About Asian-American History by Lan Cao, Himilce Novas, and Rosemary Silva (no review; read for my personal Read Harder project)

5. This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross-Smith

6. Golem Girl: A Memoir by Riva Lehrer

7. The Lost Arts of Hearth and Home: The Happy Luddite’s Guide to Domestic Self-Sufficiency by Ken Albala and Rosanna Nafziger Henderson (no review)

8. How Good Do We Have to Be?: A New Understanding of Guilt and Forgiveness by Harold Kushner (no review)

9. Lovesong: Becoming a Jew by Julius Lester (no review)

10. Follow My Leader by James B. Garfield (read out loud to my daughter; no review)

Slow month overall for reading, but that’s just the homeschooling life sometimes. I usually don’t review a lot of the more spiritual Jewish books, nor do I review the things I read out loud to my daughter, and that kind of makes up the bulk of what I read this month! I also read through parts, though not all, of two books on foraging, which took up a good portion of my reading time in the beginning of the month. That also explains my low numbers.

Five of these books came from my TBR.

State of the Goodreads TBR

Last month, we ended up at 154; this month, we’re actually down to…151! This is definitely a good thing. I think it’s more that I’ve had less time on the computer to find new books than it is that I’ve been reading enough to get the number to go down on its own, but hey, less is less!

Books I Acquired in April 2022

None!

Bookish Things I Did in April 2022

I was lucky enough to be able to virtually attend a talk given by Dr. Eboo Patel, author of Acts of Faith. He’s an incredible speaker, and I could’ve listened to him for hours. If you’re at all interested in how religious diversity works in the US, or in religious literacy in general, try to catch one of his talks if you can.

Current Podcast Love

Bleh. Still mostly just listening to BBC World Service. I halfheartedly tried to find something new to listen to a few times this month, but nothing stuck. Such is life. I did listen to the first one-and-a-half episodes of Stark Raving Dad, by a homeschooling dad from New Zealand who writes some interesting things about homeschooling, while I was biking one day, and I’m enjoying that so far.

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

Woohoo, I finished Everything You Need to Know About Asian-American History, which I ended up really enjoying. It covered most groups of Asians that have made their way to the US, and gave accounts of their history here in the US, including the very, very racist ways they’ve been treated throughout their time here. Eye-opening and informative. I’ve moved on to The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Music History by Michael Miller, which I borrowed from my son’s shelves (and which I found when I was doing various workouts in his room. He’s currently living with his best friend, so I use his room for some privacy in my workouts). Enjoying this one so far!

Real Life Stuff

It feels like it’s been a busier-than-normal month. My daughter turned eight, I have her seeing a counselor now so we can work on her need to argue with me about everything, and the whole house could use a giant clean-up, but I can barely keep up with the day-to-day cleaning (my husband and daughter make messes faster than I can get to them, and I’m the only one doing any kind of housework). There are days when we homeschool from 8:30 am until lunch, I gulp down my lunch and get started on dinner prep and cleaning the kitchen, then it’s back to homeschooling until 3-ish, sometimes later, and then it’s more work on dinner and what chores I need to do for the day (and two days a week, I put in a few hours for my volunteer job). Add in some exercise and a shower after dinner, and it’s pretty much bedtime after that. I’m seriously struggling to get anything done beyond the very basics right now.

We’ll relax our schedule a bit over the summer; we won’t start nearly as early, and I’m only making my daughter do math two days a week, just enough to keep her brain on track and ready to start again in mid-August. That’ll at least give me time to do a more thorough daily cleaning, and I’ll 100% have more time to read in the afternoons- on my swing! It’s still in the garage now, since it’s still mostly just in the 50’s on our warmer days (oh, Midwest…), but hopefully it’ll be out and ready for swinging by the end of the month.

And now it’s May! We can sign up for summer reading tomorrow, which we will! On Thursday, I’m attending a virtual book talk with Riva Lehrer, author of Golem Girl which I just reviewed in April. And that’s really all I have on the schedule for this month, which is good. I have enough to do already!

Stay safe out there, folks. The wastewater data (and Walgreens testing numbers) say that COVID cases are going up again. I miss the days when we believed this could be eradicated completely. Five cases at my daughter’s former school this week…that we know of. Sigh.

Wishing you a warm, lovely, safe May, full of lots of time to read!

It’s me, the slowest reader in the world!!!

Okay, maybe not the slowest, but it sure feels like it. Now that I’m homeschooling my daughter, I get like an hour per night to read. Pretty much every moment of my life is dedicated to homeschooling, cooking, cleaning, and exercising. That’s IT.

Why yes, I am very tired, thank you!

I wouldn’t change things – I’m actually really enjoying teaching her, we’re having a lot of fun! – but I wouldn’t mind adding another hour or ten in the day so I could do things other than adult responsibilities. I’m very much looking forward to this summer, where we’ll have more of a relaxed schedule, and I can spend plenty of time out on my backyard swing, reading the days away.

Are you ready to see how little I’ve managed to read this past month?

Let’s get this sad, sad recap rolling!

Books I Read in March 2022

1. The Cold Vanish: Seeking the Missing in North America’s Wildlands by Jon Billman

2. How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith

3. Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang

4. Attainable Sustainable: The Lost Art of Self-Reliant Living by Kris Bordessa

5. Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash by Edward Humes

6. Outsmart Waste: The Modern Idea of Garbage and How to Think Our Way Out of It by Tom Szaky (review to come)

7. Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb (no review; read out loud to my daughter at bedtime)

8. The Intimacy Experiment by Rosie Danan (review to come)

9. Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon (no review)

10. The Third Daughter by Talia Carner (review to come)

11. Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries by Rick Emerson (NetGalley book; review to come in June)

That’s IT. It’s better than zero, but someone who’s read 19+ books in a month, reading so few feels…anemic. Sad. I’ve read a ton of children’s nonfiction that I haven’t listed here – maybe I should? The stacks we’re bringing home from the library are so enormous that I struggle to carry them. Maybe I’ll make a section on what we’ve read for homeschool next month. Hmm…

Nine of these books came from my TBR, at least!

State of the Goodreads TBR

Okay, so last month, we ended up with 156 books waiting patiently for me to get to them. Currently, we’re at…154! I joined a fabulous homeschooling group on Facebook for secular homeschoolers, and there was a really great thread on there one day about helping your kids become better learners and more focused, and they had some *great* book suggestions (I have one of the books in my library bag right now!). I’m definitely okay with my TBR growing so that my daughter can grow. : )

Books I Acquired in March 2022

None! We even stopped by the used bookstore one day and while my husband and daughter left with books, there was nothing I needed. : )

Bookish Things I Did in March 2022

The only thing I did that might fit into this category was to pick up a spring break activity bag for my daughter at the library! They made up activity bags for kids with STEAM-type activities, so we’re going to be diving in to some of those. I so appreciate living in an area with such great libraries!

Current Podcast Love

I’ve been mostly listening to BBC World Service at night. With the situation in Ukraine being so tense and frightening, I do my best to keep up to date with what’s going on. I don’t have all that much time to hang out on the computer these days, so those few minutes I listen before falling asleep do a lot to keep me informed.

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

I finished A Room with a View by E.M. Forster this month! It’s something I’d actually read part of as a young teenager, and then I never finished, so I’m glad to have finally tackled it in full. It’s actually part of a three-books-in-one book for me; the book also contains Howards End and Maurice, so I’ll eventually get to those as well, just so I can have completed the whole book. Currently, I’m reading Everything You Need to Know About Asian-American History by Lan Cao, Himilce Novas, and Rosemary Silva. I’m very much enjoying it and finding the knowledge I’m gaining super useful for some of the history my daughter has been covering. This was a good choice to pull off my shelves!

Real Life Stuff

What a month!

I feel a bit like I’m on a hamster wheel that just won’t stop, and I’m getting flung around in circles. We get up at 7 and eat breakfast and get dressed; tidy up from 8-8:30; start school at 8:30; have lunch at 11; I start dinner at 11:45; back to schoolwork at 12:30; and we’re usually done with school around 3. (I have a really literary approach to homeschooling, so we do a LOT of reading together, which is why we’re not like the, “We get all our homeschooling done in two hours!” families. I envy them! My kiddo also isn’t very self-motivated yet, so I need to be involved with everything.) And then it’s errands and cooking and cleaning, and dinner, and exercise, and shower, and then every other night it’s my turn to do bedtime, and then I read, and then it’s bedtime.

Lather, rinse, repeat. This is quite literally what every weekday looks like; I write all my book reviews on weekends because there’s quite literally no other time.

I very much need more hours in the day.

I had yet another migraine this month as well, which makes three so far this year already (it may be four). I had an appointment with a neurologist, who prescribed me a different kind of rescue meds – which insurance promptly denied, so I guess I’ll just keep losing days of my life? It’s cool; I don’t need relief from (literally) blinding head pain that makes me vomit. I’m glad the insurance knows so much better what I need, in a medical sense!

It’s not all doom and gloom, though, I promise. This week has been spring break for my daughter, and we both really needed this lazy, relaxing week! I’m trying some new exercise stuff – HASFit on Youtube – and while I loathe exercising, I’m actually having fun with these two. Warmer weather is around the corner, and not this month, but probably at the very end of next month, I’ll be able to pull my swing out of the garage and spend long, lazy days reading outdoors again. And the organization that I volunteer with is scheduling more regular meetings, including a book club, so I’m looking forward to learning more with them. (So when you see me listing selections like this month’s, which is a book about Jesus, that’s why! This Jewish girl is happy to read whatever if it means she has a better understanding of the people she’s lending a hand to.)

So that’s where I am this month. What’s on the agenda for April? I’m virtually attending a discussion with Dr. Eboo Patel, author of Acts of Faith and creator of the Interfaith Youth Core, who is appearing as part of our parent education group’s author talks. I’m going to my synagogue to help pack Boredom Buster bags for kids served by our local rotating shelter program. Passover is coming, and my daughter turns 8 at the end of the month! We’re still not ready to do a big party yet, but we’ve got some fun activities planned for her. Going to be a busy month, but it’s a good busy.

Stay safe out there, friends! The pandemic isn’t over, though I know we all want it to be. I have multiple friends with COVID right now, and our friends’ 3-year-old has it as well. I’m still N95-ing everywhere I go; I’d *really* rather not get this in any form, mild or otherwise.

Happy April reading!

Holy low amounts of reading this month, Batman!

Some months are like that. I’ve been working on some house projects and trying to get things in better shape around here, which has eaten up a lot of my time. Plus, I’ve finally gotten into a kind of an everyday schedule, which has done wonders for my mental health, but has left me with less time to read. That’s okay. It happens. Not every month can be bookishly perfect.

But it hasn’t been a bad month at all. November is always one of my favorites. The weather is getting colder, and the trees here were absolutely stunning this year. I’m back to actually getting dressed most days- in actual people clothes, as we jokingly call it- and that makes me feel more productive. We’ve had a few snow flurries, but no accumulation yet…but I’m sure it’s coming! And Hanukkah has started, and if you’ve never had a latke, you’re absolutely missing out. Crispy fried oniony potatoey deliciousness. Seriously the world’s most perfect food. I wait all year for these and they never disappoint.

But books!

Let’s get this roundup started, shall we?

Books I Read in November 2021

1. Love, Chai, and Other Four-Letter Words by Annika Sharma

2. Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

3. Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America by Eyal Press

4. Princess in Disguise by E.D. Baker (no review; read out loud to my daughter)-

5. The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live by Danielle Dreilinger

6. All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

7. White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad

8. Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts) by Lev AC Rosen

9. Love Is a Revolution by Renée Watson

10. The Simplicity of Cider by Amy E. Reichert

11. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

The nonfiction I read were heavy books that took me a long time to get through- some books just take more time to process than others- so that definitely accounts for my lower numbers this month. All-of-a-Kind Family was a reread; my daughter didn’t remember it from the last time we read it, so we wandered through it again. It’s a sweet, charming read, and she enjoyed it a lot. Princess in Disguise, however, was just…not good. The Little Prince is one of my favorite books, though the translation we read, I’ve always felt, is clunky. There’s a more recent one and eventually I’d like to check that out.

Seven of these books came from my TBR.

Reading Challenge Updates

Not currently participating in any reading challenges, but my library has a winter reading bingo that starts up on December 1^st! I may try to wrangle some of my TBR picks into that, we’ll see.

State of the Goodreads TBR

Last month, the total rang in at 156; this month, we’re sliding in at…156. Those end-of-year book lists are starting to creep in. I’m in trouble!

Books I Acquired in November 2021

None!

Bookish Things I Did in November 2021

I virtually attended my library’s monthly board meeting! The sound quality was pretty terrible, but I could mostly follow along, and it was actually pretty interesting. I was cheered to learn that my library is in such great financial shape, and they showed drone photos of the new library building’s progress, which was, of course, extremely exciting!!! I plan on attending these as often as I can, so I can stay in the loop.

Current Podcast Love

Still making my way through Ologies with Alie Ward. Cannot recommend this highly enough; Alie is so bright and energetic and such a fabulous interviewer that even episodes that don’t seem like they would interest me much turn out to be fascinating.

I had an unfortunate experience with a migraine Thanksgiving night, and migraines require true crime podcasts (I have no idea why, but it’s the only thing I want to listen to when I’m down like that. So weird). During that time, it was back to Crime Junkie.

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

It’s on! I’ve *finally* made progress with this and gotten into a good routine here.

So, the book I picked up for this challenge at the beginning of my daughter’s school year was The Joy of Sects: A Spirited Guide to the World’s Religious Traditions by Peter Occhiogrosso. It’s a sizeable book that’s been sitting on my shelf for a few years, and one I’ve wanted to read for a very long time. Pre-pandemic, I’d usually read a set chunk of my Read Harder book- 30 pages, 50 pages, whatever worked for me at the time with the book I was working through. That technique wasn’t working for this, however, and after trying several things and failing, I decided to start with how I was working on cleaning projects: by setting a timer. So every day after lunch and Pilates (if my back isn’t too garbage to do Pilates), I sit down with The Joy of Sects and set the timer for 30 minutes, and I read until the timer beeps. I’m currently 275 pages into this book, and I’m pretty proud of that!

Real Life Stuff

My daughter has now had both vaccines (she’ll be considered fully vaccinated December 10^th!), and I had my booster shot! WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No side effects for either of us, neither of us has grown a tail (disappointing!), and our internet is still the same speed as it always was. (And if I’m microchipped, well, I apologize for my boring life to whoever is tracking me, and am relieved that they’ll have an easier time finding me if I ever go missing. All those true crime podcasts, man…)

She had her first playdate since the pandemic started; a friend from school came over for a few hours and they had a wonderful time. And we were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with my mother-in-law, her boyfriend, my sister-in-law, and my nephew. Everyone there was vaccinated (the kids had each had one at the time), and most of the adults had received their booster (daughter and I went the next day). It was lovely, though a bit strange, as we were all still feeling a little weird being unmasked and anywhere close to people we don’t live with! We’ll still be keeping very safe, but we feel a little better knowing the kids are on their way to being better protected.

We also attended an outdoor Hanukkah gathering, which was a lot of fun. Music, donuts, candle lighting, and a walk through some outdoor lights made for a great evening! It was nice to have somewhere to go and something to do, after so long of…just…not, you know?

I’ve also started blogging again at my old blogspot blog, Stephanie Gets It Done. If you’re interested in what my (fairly boring!) daily life looks like, you can check it out. I’ve got a lot of projects in mind for the new year and I felt the need to be more accountable for my time. Starting to blog there again helped me to kind of organize my thoughts and my time and pull me out of the life-is-somewhat-normal-again-now-what kind of panic I’d been feeling earlier this year. It’s what helped me get back into more of a regular daily routine, which is incredibly helpful.

Other than that, it’s been a nice quiet month! We’re pretty low-key about this time of year, so there’s not a lot of hustle and bustle. I’m looking forward to the colder months, of snuggling up on my chair with my crocheted afghan and plowing through some good reading.

I wish you all love, light, and peace as we move into this last month of 2022! May your reading be merry and bright. : )