Monday Malarkey - Kitty flashback, reading, reviews and slow progress on the old house

Kitty Flashback:

The photo above is a shot of our dearly-departed Miss Spooky, taken in 2006.  Since I still don't have a new hard drive, I figured I might as well go way back in time to see what I've got in the files.  Wasn't she a beauty?

New Arrivals (link to description via each title):

• Help for the Haunted by John Searles - from William Morrow for  review
• Arlo's Artrageous Adventures by David La Rochelle and
• The Buccaneering Book of Pirates by Saviour Pirotta and Mark Robertson - both unsolicited from Sterling Children's Books for review
• The Intercept by Dick Wolf (autographed finished copy) and The Tilted World by Tom Franklin & Beth Ann Fennelly (ARC) - in a prize pack from HarperCollins won in their summer giveaway.  I already had an ARC of The Tilted World so I gave the extra to my F2F group's fearless leader.  We're technically a Southern fiction group, although the group has been around a long time and discussions are no longer limited to Southern authors/titles.  I figured she'd appreciate it (and maybe consider it for future discussion).  She was thrilled.
• Paperboy by Tony McCauley - from Harper for review

Reading:

I had another terrific week, even though I took a lot of time and flipped through who-knows-how-many books, between reads.  Maybe it's an August thing, this distractibility.  I read:

• The Fairest of Them All by Carolyn Turgeon
• Players by Terrance Dicks (a Dr. Who book)
• The Book of Someday by Dianne Dixon

I enjoyed them all, but The Book of Someday was my favorite of that lot.  In the midst of this, I read 53 pages of Paris Was the Place by Susan Conley and DNF'd it.  I disliked the author's style from page 1, which surprised me.  I've read quite a few tweets by people who thought it was a great read and the book gets high ratings at Goodreads.  Oh, well.  To each his own.

Last week's reviews:

We Go Together by Todd Dunn and Miki Sakamoto (a children's board book)

The Curiosity by Stephen P. Kiernan

Rufus Goes to School by Griswell and Gorbachev 

Novel Ideas by K. B. Dixon

The only other post:

Fiona Friday featuring River lounging in my desk chair

The old house:

Still taking forever.  We can only work on one room for a time, then paint, glue or spackling has to dry and we move on to removing wallpaper or patching walls, changing out outlets or ceiling fans or whatever else needs work.  Some flooring has had to be replaced and lots of trim and doors painted to match (one of the things we never got around to -- doors, ugh). We've got to remove grunge our renter left behind on floors and carpets (some is Really Bad), sweep, mop, clean toilets, etc.  It's funny; the entire time we lived in that house we were updating, yet every room still has a list of at least 12 upgrades or cleaning items that need to be accomplished.  

And, we haven't even begun to work on the outside of the house! Hopefully, we'll have an early fall so that we can tolerate the outdoors when it comes to tackling the outdoor jobs (yard, window cleaning, replacing the porch columns, touch-up painting -- we hope it'll just require touch-up -- and sprucing up the gardens).  It'll be exciting when we're finally finished and able to put the house on the market.

Kitten:

Still here.  Bought a Furminator (brush meant to help remove the cat's undercoat) to reduce shedding, since she has such long fur.  I haven't heard from the shelter since I told them we were not planning to keep her, almost a month ago.  I sent updated photos but she still has not appeared at their website as an adoptable pet.  Hmm.

Reading group:

My F2F group met last week and discussed Burial Rites by Hannah Kent.  I'll write about the meeting, soon.

Other news:

Not much other news, here.  Kiddo has returned to school.  I'm enjoying the quiet, although I always love having him around.  What's up in your world?

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