Week in Review January 27: End of month checkin

Posted on by missprint

missprintweekreviewThis week on the blog you can check out:

Lots of fairy stuff this week on the blog–I love these books and am very pleased with my reviews, so do check them out if you haven’t yet.

This was a really hard week. My mom has had some setbacks with her recovery (she isn’t where the doctor wanted her to be at this point) and it was really demoralizing because it really has nothing to do with my post-op care or anything Mom did. But it still felt like they were saying it was our fault. And it’s a little scary too. Every once in a while when something like this happens I have what I can only think of as existential despair as I realize this is it. Nothing is going to ever get any better or any easier. There is nothing else. I’m trying to not stay in that headspace because it’s not healthy obviously. But it’s just so damn hard to be an optimist sometimes. I’m wearing myself out. What do you do when things aren’t going your way but you know the only way out is through?

It didn’t help that this was my first week back at work after my mom’s surgery–with a big work program to boot. But in better news my library’s Mock Printz went really well! The presenters were awesome and we had great attendance. I was resident timekeeper and discussion facilitator which are two roles I enjoy. I also got quite a few commendations on keeping things on track and on the questions I asked to move the discussions along. Which is really nice. I feel like if I could monetize my interviewer skills in a way that wasn’t journalism (I just don’t have the drive–something I came to terms with in college) I’d be in really good shape. What’s something you’re really good at that is not part of your job or typical hobbies?

I’m not sure how I feel about my planner. I am going to use a habit tracker again for February and see how it goes but I already am realizing I just don’t want to track some things in an analog notebook. For instance I already moved all of my spending notes to a phone app (which is a mess because I haven’t sat down to add any income). The good thing is I am developing that habit at least. I have been having good success tracking reading (all amazon vine books done, one review book, one BEA arc, and one nonfiction read this month) but I might not like my reading journal planner thing–I think it might be too precious for me to take seriously. Do you journal or use a planner? What kind of things do you track? Do you have as many things logged on your phone as I do?

I’m still posting daily to instagram but this week was kind of a downer as I was tracking likes and follower counts more actively. I just feel like it’s a fool’s game to try and get ahead. And I’m kind of tired of all these supposedly open-minded rep searches that come up on “bookstagram” that are really just popularity contests. Because of course they are. That’s the whole point. Anyway. I’m trying to reframe this posting daily thing as more about improving myself as a photographer because that’s something I can control. Visibility and analytics are not.

Here are two of my favorites from Instagram this week:

If you you want to see how my month in reading is shaking out be sure to check out my January reading tracker.

How was your week? What are you reading?