topaz119 | (no subject)

In today's News of the Mundane, I got the garbage disposal replaced at the house, almost finished packing up my office for the move and passed my annual security training on the first try (\o/).

/excitement

So, books:

finished
The Royal We == Like all the best fic (which this is, no matter that it's published), I am going to have serious difficulties keeping the lines of fanon and canon uncrossed after tearing through this. Throw in a spontaneous re-read of Drastically Redefining Protocol and my brain will never sort things out. Super-fun read.

Still The One, Jill Shalvis, which was just kind of a mess. I picked it up because I wanted to see what she did with a heroine who had physical limitations (recovering from a serious car accident) and it was nicely handled at first, but then as soon as said heroine needed to look good, out came the 4 inch FM heels, which, what? The rest of it felt just as sketched-in, and I finished it, but was sad at the wasted potential throughout.

now
Love Irresistibly, Julie James -- Came highly recommended and so far is living up to the hype.

Princes At War, which I'm pretty sure I saw on my flist/circle, about the British royal family during WWII--my mom is reading a cozy mystery set during this same time, so we're trading this one back and forth so she can see the photographs of the people she's reading about. Very readable and being able to distract my mom during this whole hospitalization mess is worth its weight in gold.

Also still reading Marie Kondo's Tidying Up book, and (lord help me) going through my closet. The boys are looking at me like I'm insane, but I have done the folding thing on all of my shirts and am starting in on theirs. We'll see how this works when I get to my books. (Oh, and I KonMari'd my desk, too, since the new workspace is all hyper-modern and open and small and I won't have room for all my fun stuff. I'm not sure I recognize myself here!)

next
no telling

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

good luck tidying up!

It's so not me, K!

Congrats on passing! It sounds like you've been very productive.

Ugh, I'm so happy I didn't have to take it again. We have to go through it every year, and sometimes it turns into a giant production, but at least there was minimal drama this year.

Is Princes At War the bio about George VI and Edward VIII (The Duke of Windsor)? I'm thinking about getting that for my husband.

It is--I'm enjoying it quite a bit. A lot of it is taken from GVI's journal notes and letters to/from his mother, which I'm finding very interesting. Plus, there's a fair amount about the other 2 brothers, too, neither of which I knew anything about.

Excellent!! I actually bought it already but was torn between giving it to him or his mother. I'll probably give it to him for his b-day, then she can read it when she comes for Christmas...

JEALOUS of all your book posts. I wish I had more time (and force myself) to read. Better the past couple of years, but I still have a stack to tackle.

I read nonstop as a child/teen/pre-kids but then life intervened and it's only been in the last few years that I've gotten back to any kind of real reading. It's been a conscious process though:
1. I gave myself permission to read whatever I want: romance, science, fantasy, cozy mystery, YA, kids classics, whatever. (Very VERY rarely is it Literature.)
2. My TBR list is ridiculous -- I have a tag on goodreads for all the books I've picked up on amazon's deal of the day, etc, but haven't gotten around to reading and it's easily (and sadly) a 3-digit number. (And that doesn't count the books I reserve at the library and return unread 4x before I actually get around to reading them!)
3. I mostly read in spurts--trying to go in and out of a book for 15 minutes a day makes me insane (and not want to read) so I'm trying to find pockets of time when I can just read.
4. I listen to all the books the boys want me to read--things that I don't really want to find the time for, but that are great to chat with them about. Audiobooks on the commute have been a big help (I'm working my way through all of the Dresden Files and I did the Simarillion back a few years ago.) It frees up more time to read stuff I *really* want to read w/o guilt.
4. I made myself give up the self-proclaimed I-Finish-Everything mantle--now, if I don't reach for it, it's gone. Sometimes that's in the first 50 pages, sometimes it's 200 pages in, but I've gotten to where I just let it go, which has consequently let me read so much more.

If it helps, I'm totally jealous of your music adventures!