Monday, March 12, 2018

Monday Malarkey



Recent arrivals:


  • None. But, clearly spring has arrived so you get a glimpse of tulips, this week. 


Books finished since last Malarkey:


  • Nothing Left to Burn by Heather Ezell
  • The Broken Girls by Simone St. James


Both of these were excellent and almost impossible to put down. I stayed up late one night to finish Nothing Left to Burn and blew off most of my chores on Saturday to finish reading The Broken Girls.


Currently reading:


  • Don Quixote by Cervantes 
  • The Saboteur by Paul Kix
  • Orphan Monster Spy by Matt Killeen


I am absolutely loving everything I'm reading, right now, and last week was a terrific reading week. As of last night, I'm 48% into Don Quixote. Nearing the halfway point! And, I'm still every bit as entertained as I was, at first. In fact, I think pages 350 - 400 of the Edith Grossman translation I'm reading were among the best so far. Don Quixote's second visit to the inn where Sancho Panza was tossed into the air by some men with a blanket was masterful.

The Saboteur is nonfiction about a man who was in the French Resistance during WWII and Orphan Monster Spy is a YA novel about a blonde Jewish girl working in the Resistance, as well (but in Germany).  Both are so amazing that I'd really be happy to just ignore the chores, again. But, no. Someone left me a really messy kitchen (Huzzybuns experimented with his first attempt at making gyro meat) so I've done Round 1 of tackling the kitchen and Round 2 is coming up. So much scrubbing and sweeping and dishwashing to be done.


Last week's posts:


  • None. I took the week off. Did you miss me?


In other news:

The week off helped restore my urges to read and write but I didn't manage to totally shut off social media. I closed Facebook completely for about 5 days and have mostly succeeded at avoiding it, so that was good. Twitter, though . . . total failure. I continued to tweet and read tweets, all week, and I really need to walk away from it for a while. I'll try to just post blog links to Twitter, this week. Wish me luck.

Otherwise, the week was a huge success. What is it about Facebook that's so stressful? I can't figure it out but I always feel better when I close Facebook. I don't think it's merely that it's a time suck -- that's problem enough, though, and just closing Facebook really helped me to spend my time more wisely. I got some tidying done in the guest room before Kiddo arrived home for Spring Break, caught up completely on laundry for a day, enjoyed my reading more than I have in weeks, and spent more time at the gym. It's been sunny and gorgeous, most of the time, with a couple random days of heavy rain. The sunshine is always helpful for restoring one's soul.

I watched Saving Mr. Banks, last week, and am still watching the first Dr. Who, now on Season 2 of William Hartnell, because I only watch an episode on occasion, usually when I sit down with my lunch. We watched Thor: Ragnarok and Logan's Run, this weekend. All were great but I found Saving Mr. Banks a little too sad for my taste and it was the first time I've actually felt like Tom Hanks slipped up. He just didn't sound like Walt Disney, to me. Yes, I'm old enough to remember Walt Disney introducing movies on Sunday nights, although I was young enough that the Walt Disney voice I hear in my head may not be accurate.

The tulip photo above is from the gardens around our Whole Foods, of all places. They always have the most gorgeous tulips in spring. Here's another one:


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4 comments:

  1. I admire that you can walk away from any sort of social media for any amount of time. Go you! Saving Mr Banks made me cry like a baby. It was a hard one to watch. Thor made me laugh. A lot. Loved it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm still having trouble with Twitter. Must stop retweeting!!!!

      Oh, good, I'm glad it wasn't just me. Saving Mr. Banks turned me into a total puddle. It was heartbreaking. Thor is loads of fun. Mark Ruffalo was particularly entertaining, I thought.

      Delete
  2. I walked away from Twitter several months ago, but Facebook is another story. It doesn't help that I follow a couple of groups and they can be quite chatty!

    I'm loving what I'm reading right now, too. I just need to make more time for my books. I'm working out almost every day (6 of the 7), too. Feels good to be active and I have a lot more energy. Got out on our bikes this weekend, which made me very happy!

    I used to have tulips that looked just like the one at the top of this post. I love the yellow/red combo!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Twitter is harder for me to leave. I think it might partly be the brevity and the humor. There are so many funny, wise tweets. And, I tend to like it when there's breaking news because there is always someone (if not hundreds of someones - as on the day the plane crash on the Hudson River happened and I saw the tweets before the news broke elsewhere) on the scene.

      I just read at night, usually, but there are days I wish I could carve out more time to read. There's just too much else calling for my time. Glad you're enjoying your outdoor time! It's gorgeous, here, but it won't last long.

      Those tulips are gorgeous. I need to start planting tulip bulbs in the fall. They're annuals, here, unfortunately, so you have to buy fresh bulbs every year and I just haven't felt like bothering. But, they're so pretty.

      Delete

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