Week in Review: December 14

Posted on by missprint

missprintweekreview

This week on the blog you can check out:

This week had a lot of ups and downs. Sometimes it feels like my commute is trying to kill me–something that seemed true for most of this week. That combined with a lot of allergy problems and a lack of sleep made a lousy combination. I’ve been feeling really high strung and stressed in general lately. I wasn’t sure why but I think it’s just hold over anxiety thinking about the first time my mom was in the hospital majorly sick (not for the brain surgery). I just realized today that she was in and out the hospital for most of December and she was released on Christmas Eve that year and re-admitted on New Year’s Eve. I have a good memory but I wish I could forget things like that because it doesn’t really serve any purpose. Intellectually I know everything is fine. Emotionally . . . I’m working on it.

I don’t remember if I blogged about this but back when I read We Were Liars I was very struck by an idea one of the characters had for a life philosophy: be a little kinder than you have to be. Through serendipity, Lockhart used that phrase when she signed my arc and it’s something that has stuck with me. I’ve been trying to remember to be a little kinder daily and I’m not going to say it’s completely changed my personality (I’d like to think I was generally kind and nice beforehand) but it’s satisfying to hold on to the positive things and be nice instead of focusing on negative things beyond my control. I always try to reframe things to be optimistic which was incredibly hard for the last couple of years but it’s something I’ve been trying to hold onto and I think it’s helping. Not everyone has to be kinder, but I do hope everyone finds an outlook that works for them.

I am finished with all of my Christmas shopping and 95% of my gift wrapping as well as planning cookie baking. I decided I wasn’t up to hosting a cookie swap this year and I’m feeling guilty about it and about not giving my friends a heads up about it. But that’s how it goes. Let me know if you want to talk at length with me about my new cookie cutters and my new cookie press. Few things make me as happy as new baking supplies and tools.

I’m also getting ready to do another big sweep of my owned books to see what I really, really need. Which is going to be awful and torturous but will give me some shelf space and maybe keep my mom from comparing our apartment to a bookstore.

This week I read Dearest by Alethea Kontis and The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord. Both are extremely early ARCs but should be on your radar come March 2015. I’m hoping to put together a “Put Up or Shut Up” kind of challenge for myself to read books that have languished for years on my TBR list. I’m still figuring out logistics but if you have ideas (or what to join me?) let me know in the comments.

Nicole and I have decided to end Monday Memories because it’s a lot of work without a lot of return on investment. We’re finishing out December and that’s it. I thought I’d feel sad about it but mostly I’m just relieved because it’s going to free up a lot of time and will make my posting schedule a little more easy to maintain.