I took Monday and Tuesday off so I could drive to Tulsa to attend Travis Baldree’s book signing for Brigands & Breadknives. He talked about writing, answered questions, and read from Chapter 15. He narrates the audiobooks of this series, and I highly recommend listening to them, because he is a delight.
I got to read poems and listen to some great music at Joan of Bark at Rubber Gloves on Wednesday (and also going to be performing on December 13 at the Fest, which you should come see if you’re local or want a reason to travel to Denton)!
This is the collab I didn’t know I needed. “No Good Deed” with Cynthia Erivo and Misty Copeland.
I am very excited about this evening and tomorrow, when I will be catching up on all the taking care of my home that I have been neglecting whilst out gallivanting around. I might even go ahead and put up the tree. ‘Tis (almost) the season!
Happy November! These first couple of weeks have been a flurry of jury duty, UNT Fall Preview, interviews, and writing. It’s hard to believe the month is almost half gone already.
It’s the end of an era! The very last Let It Be Sunday from Joy the Baker. I will miss these weekly joyful check-ins, but I know there are more wonders on the horizon.
An international student we know just received funding to continue with her studies here, and then was bitten by a dog and had to have a rabies shot. Please help with the costs if you can.
I always love dark cello playlists, but this has been my jam this week. It’s so soothing. I also like to think it informs those who walk into my office that 1) yes, I would love to help, so come sit around the imaginary fire pit and discuss what you need, but with enough foreboding that they also realize 2) do not fuck around because you will indeed find out.
“You don’t think your way out of burnout. You restore your way out — by rebuilding the energy, safety, and nourishment your body needs to believe again.” I needed to read this piece from The Good Trade today.
I hope you’re having a good month so far. Happy weekend, friends!
There’s no way the whole list would fit in one picture. This is one of several stacks. I’m not sad about it.
This November feels weird. There are a lot of changes afoot in my life – some potential, some already in motion. So that’s a big part of it. But it feels like the year should be over already. And also that it just started. I feel like I’m in a weird loop. Time is a construct.
I’m also in the unique position of actually having already completed most of my resolutions for the year. My brain is ready to move on, but there are still two months to go and other resolutions to, well, resolve.
To that end, the November TBR is mostly a continuation of the October theme – a list of books to finish out my reading challenges. I recognize that it’s a bit unhinged in length. However, I have finished a few on the list already (on account-a already having met with two book clubs and also some of these were started as part of the TBR for previous months and I’m just now finishing them up). And my car book is not on this list at all because I’ve been waiting patiently for the audio of Cackle by Rachel Harrison to become available at the library and it finally did. Plus I’m starting off the month re-reading Legends and Lattes and Bookshops and Bonedustbecause I’m going to a book signing and getting Travis Baldree’s third book in the series – Brigands and Breadknives – this month!
I’m a bit all over the place. And I kinda love it. If my reading life isn’t bursting at the seams, am I even really alive?
The good news is that, if I manage to even read half of this list before the end of the year, I will still achieve my overall reading goal of 180 books (and then some). Yippee!
I hope you get to read as many books as you want this month.
Happy Halloween! This year’s costumes are Winnie the Pooh (featured at book club since I was not feeling well for the actual Halloween party I typically go to), and a version of the Mad Hatter for work today. I hope you are having a fun day!
Some things I enjoyed reading this week (and a bit of last week):
Abbott: Rainbows gotta go… Oak Lawn Methodist Church: …on our steps. “It’s important because silence is not neutral — silence in the face of harm always sides with the oppressor. At Oak Lawn UMC, we believe love belongs in public. Painting our steps in the colors of the rainbow is a visible witness to the gospel we preach: that every person is created in the image of God and worthy of safety, dignity, and belonging,” Love this.
Wearing my new boots and long sleeves today. It may be in the 80s still, but I am trying to bring in autumn through sheer force of will. Even if I have to keep the fan on in the office all day.
I love Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, but I suck at morning pages. Nothing has made me want to quit writing altogether more than trying to churn out three pages of stream-of-consciousness every single day (yes, I’ve tweaked it and tried it all sorts of ways. It’s just not for me at this stage of my life. Maybe I’ll try again later when I don’t have to spend most of my mornings rushing to get to my job.). I do enjoy a writing exercise/prompt, though. I’m a bit late to Laini Taylor’s September 2024 challenge, but I’m trying them out over this month and next, and I’ll see how far I get. I tend to collect and use small journals as commonplace books, so I have all I need to get started. Maybe this will inspire me to finish my goal of writing 50,000 words this year.
“The wisdom of prayer is the genesis of all poetry, I think.” And “Time gets holier by the minute.” I love this gorgeous piece – When to call the witches by Joy Sullivan.
Matthew Bound’s chicken and dumplings. Y’all. I made these last week, and it really did take less than 30 minutes. I love my standard low-and-slow chicken and dumplings recipe, but this version is almost as good. I subbed water + an onion soup packet for the broth/stock, and I do not roll out my dumplings (I just pinch off bits of dough into some flour so they get lightly dusted and then fish them out and add them to the pot- if you do it this way, simmer for five-ish minutes more before you add the chicken to compensate for the chonkier dumplings this will make). I followed the recipe the same otherwise, right up to doing that same little dance he does in the video when I took my first bite. Also, I recently read his cookbook Keep It Simple, Y’all, and it is full of fantastic, easy recipes and would be a great gift for a new adult, or anyone who is new to cooking, or anyone who is in a rut, or anyone who likes quick meals…really, anyone.
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
This is the first October in a while that I’m not even attempting a 31 Days project. A few days ago, I mused on what I could do, but I dismissed the thought pretty quickly. I feel like I have enough projects underway. I’m satisfied with the number of goals I’m already working toward at this point in time. I did entertain the idea of talking through the process of taking a project from idea to completion, but…I don’t wanna. At least not right now.
I have a ridiculous number of library books checked out and on hold. I console myself with the knowledge that I’m returning about the same number as I check out each time I go. I’ve been reading up a storm lately – the streak continues! I don’t know if it’s due to an actual increase in focus or if it’s comfort-seeking due to the state of the world. Either way, both are typical anxiety responses for me, so that’s where I’m at.
Here’s what’s up next. I’ve started a lot of these already, so I should be able to complete quite a chunk of this list this month.
Book Clubs
Two of my book clubs are reading books that I read with other clubs previously, so it will be fun to hear what a different group of folks has to say about each one. Ah, the joy of multiple book clubs!
The Women by Kristin Hannah – probably won’t re-read but excited to talk about it with this book club!
James by Percival Everett – ditto on the probably not re-reading it (although the audio was pretty great – maybe I will give it another listen at some point), but I’m also excited to talk about it again
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado – fulfills both the choose-your-own-adventure spooky selection for book club and a Libro.fm prompt (see below)
Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell – this month’s theme is colorful covers!
On Our Best Behavior by Elise Loehnen – reading with my financial literacy community – fantastic so far, although some of the chapters are more heavily focused on women with children than I expected. I may not be the primary audience, but I’m still learning valuable things from it.
The end of the year is nigh, and I’ve got some reading challenges to finish up! There are so, so many prompts left to finish, but hope springs eternal. This month, my goal is to at least make an impressive dent in what I have left of Nowhere’s Book Bingo (including bonuses) and the Libro.fm Listening Challenge.
Nowhere
Book that takes place entirely outside of the US – When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
A bookish memoir/biography – Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry
A childhood favorite – Runaway Ralph by Beverly Cleary
Your favorite author’s favorite book – Both Roxane Gay and Ann Patchett have listed Pachinko by Min Jin Lee as one of their favorites, so I feel like that’s the one!
I recognize that I’m probably not going to make it through all of these this month (unless some generous benefactor wants to pay me to read so I can quit my job and devote my whole life to it – I’m open to that), but I enjoy having a plan mapped out, even if it blatantly ignores all semblance of reality and the sticky construct of time.
This week holds more news than Friday Five. This week has been…whew. So I bring you the Sunday Seven.
First, my car has decided it is tired, so I have been shopping around for a new one, and I found it! Soon, a sweet little Nissan Versa will join the family. That’s a fun/nerve-wracking/expensive process, but as soon as the necessary paperwork is finalized, she’s mine!
Here are five other things I read/watched/have been pondering this week:
Full co-sign on this article on letting your college kid decorate their own dorm. I have such great memories of working with my freshman roommate and suitemates to curate our own space. We had a collage of pictures in the bathroom that we created from magazines. It was epic and a great conversation piece. Remember that this is the first time a lot of new adults get to make all the decisions about what their home looks like. As a seasoned university housing professional, I beg of you – don’t rob your kids of this experience! Talk to them and follow their lead on how much (if any) help they want (PSA – advice not limited to housing. They’re grown. You did a good job raising them to be adults. Trust yourself and them, and let them do it!).
I’m rewatching Scandal these days. It’s one of my comfort shows. If I were still writing fanfiction when Scandal came out, I would have shipped Liv and Mellie so hard. I love Scandal in general, but if I were to list my top ten favorite scenes, their scenes together would make up more than half of them.
I agree with Brigid Misselhorn of MMD. I do enjoy seasonal reading. I usually try to sneak in a few seasonal reads every month. For the record, spooky season (which ranges from cozy fantasy to dark academia to horror) is August through January. I said what I said, and I will not be taking any questions on the matter.
I also have seasonal to-do lists. I like this one from Joy Wilson (aka Joy the Baker). Since I rent, most of the maintenance is done by my property management, so I don’t have to worry about the specific seasonal things homeowners do (one thing off my to-do list – I’ll take it.). These are mostly things I do at the beginning of every season, but there are a few fall-specific things I like to complete each September:
Step 4 of my Epic Meal Planning process – Snowed-in Meals. Clean out pantry/fridge/freezer by making as many weird meals as I can with what I have to make room for groceries for the upcoming season (yay soup!).
Speaking of soup, chop/bag/freeze several rounds of the trinity (onion, carrots, celery) so that they are ready to go. I also would like to take a page out of JTB’s book and do this with cookie dough. Maybe I will be that person someday. That sounds perfect, especially for cozier months.
Clean off tables/surfaces. Piles accumulate so easily in my home, and this is where they land. Right now, I think my efforts have just resulted in different, more organized piles, but over the next few weeks, everything I actually keep will hopefully get to where it belongs.
Change my air filter.
Clean out closets and assess what needs to be donated/repaired/replaced.
Look at this year’s resolutions and assess progress. Tweak as needed. Specifically, start to organize next-ten-years bucket list into categories.
Find three fun fall things to enjoy.
Start thinking about holiday plans, including travel, writing, cooking/baking. Looking forward to how my theme of wonder is going to show up this year!
I am looking forward to more fall(ish) weather that we’re supposed to have pretty soon. I hope you have had a good weekend and have a smooth week ahead!
Hello, and happy September! I read more in August than I read in June and July combined. I think this “I do what I want” approach is helping me get out of my mini-slump. So I’ll be continuing my list from last month and adding a few more.
Rise and Shine’s prompt for this month is “Reader’s Choice,” and I have a lot of great books I read last month to choose from.
Other Reading
These are mostly books I’ve checked out from the library. Some of them fulfill prompts from my reading challenges (and at least one of them will do quite nicely for 52 Book Club’s prompt “read in a “-ber” month), but most of them are just books I put on hold because someone said, “Hey, I bet you’d enjoy this.” I am happy to continue another month of reading for enjoyment. Here are more books I’ve added to the library pile:
The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li (52 Book Club – Lunar New Year Mini Challenge – I know, I’m a little behind, but in my defense, I didn’t know the mini-challenges existed until I scrolled down on StoryGraph and saw the prompts last month – “by an Asian author”)
Happy Friday! I’m looking forward to some fun friend hangs over the next few days, as I enjoy a long weekend. Otherwise, I’ll be hunkered down with some good books and rewatching Scandal. Good times.
Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower was one of my book clubs’ selections this month. More and more, when I read dystopian fiction (and this book in particular seems less fiction than prediction, which is upsetting), I find myself thinking, “No, thanks.” I’m not sure I’d want to survive. Like, I’d like to think I’d want to. I’d like to think that I would use all these things I know to rough it and get my apocalypse on and rebuild society, but realistically? I’m so tired. I mean, I would do my best and help as much as I could before I shuffled off this mortal coil. But I don’t even particularly enjoy taking walks outside (I mean, it’s alright. Just not my first choice. Even exercising is better inside.). Why would I want to live there, or how committed am I to learning how to build a house (which I would eventually have to do if I ever wanted to not live outside)? And if I had to clean my own water, or do without indoor plumbing or A/C? It’s just so much. If others want to make this grand effort to save the species, that’s fine. I get it. Good for them, I guess. But if most of the people I love are dead and the best I have to hope for is living off the land, it just seems like a lot of work for a life I wouldn’t want.
I enjoy that this article on why Gen Z loves Gilmore Girls is full of not only unabashed adoration but also common critiques of the show.
I like a good pairing. Cheese and wine. Boots and leggings. Coffee and…anything. I am intrigued by Modern Mrs. Darcy’s recommendations on which nonfiction and fiction books to read in tandem. I ordered Philosophy for Polar Explorers, as The Ministry of Time is on my TBR in a couple of months.
Here are some short reads and happy news that have made things easier for me this week/month.
I’m so happy Addie Zierman is writing on the internet again – The Notebook Years
A wonderful gift in my inbox this morning in the Shondaland newsletter – Rachel Simon’s series on moments and characters in TV that make us feel less alone. She’s specifically focusing on Grey’s Anatomy, and I especially like this one, but it would be easy to make the point for so many shows.
I appreciate this article on The Tyranny of Being Reachable so much. I feel this in my bones. “In today’s culture, your responsiveness equals your worth. It’s a proxy for your love, your professionalism, your care.” And a paragraph down from that – “You’re not unreliable. The human brain just wasn’t built for this.” Thank you, Miski Omar from The Guardian. Thank you.
Simplified’s fall collection comes out next week. This includes 2026 planners, and I’m delighted that they brought back the bookbound ones this year!
Tonight we have our Summerween (Summer Halloween, if you will. Halloween is forever.) cookbook club. I made Butterfinger fudge because the colors match the theme, and I made a nice cheat-y recipe. Still delicious. It really is easy to make a passable fudge as long as you have a combo of sugar, milk, fat, and cocoa. Or, in this case, sweetened condensed milk (sugar and milk) and chocolate chips (fat and cocoa).
M. Suzanne Terry 