New Year, New Goals?

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Happy New Year! 

I'm back! I had both an awful and wonderful break – awful because surgery sucks, wonderful because I allowed myself to read whatever called to me and I enjoyed almost everything I read (there was just one book that didn't thrill me). I'll probably do a lot of mini reviews of what I've read in the coming days, partly because I mostly read books I've purchased -- so no need to do do full reviews unless I feel like it -- and partly so I can move on into 2020 without getting too bogged down by what remains of 2019.

There's a question mark after "New Goals" in the subject line because I've decided this year is going to be one in which I don't write down reading goals, apart from the usual Goodreads goal. I have some things in mind, though, like I want to read more writing by indigenous authors and at least one classic per month. Since I pretty much failed at last year's elaborate list of goals, I'm going to just mentally fold some of 2019's reading goals over into 2020. If I don't manage to read what I hope to, I'm not going to worry about it. 

The same goes for the ARCs I didn't get to after I fell behind and then fell apart (the cancer diagnosis halfway through the year did not help my backlog of ARCs). I'll fold them over into the new year, as well, but I'm not going to stress myself about them. I already do have a few ARCs coming, this year, but if I can't keep up with the new ones I'll shut down acceptance of them completely. I think it's important to keep the burden light, at this point in my life. I'm not done dealing with my illness and won't be for a while, but I do love authors, publishers, and being part of anything that draws attention to wonderful storytelling. So, I'll do what I can cope with and no more. 

In other news, I am currently without a phone because I left my phone in a shop. Fortunately, it's a small shop and they know it's mine. It'll be a few days before I can get back over there because we're expecting heavy rain for the next two days and the store is 30 miles away (I avoid driving in the rain if it's not critical) but that's not entirely a bad thing, having to do without a phone. It does, however, mean that I have no access to photos to upload, here, and I'll have to wait to take photos of any books I finish. So, no Instagramming for me, either. 

First good belly laugh of the year was a couple hours ago when husband opened a can of coffee that was apparently under some pressure, a Christmas gift. It had a key-tab opening for the sealed lid and when he pulled the key tab back, a fountain of finely-ground coffee shot up in the air, coating his shirt, hands, face, the counter, and a little of the floor. It was a mess but it was also hilarious. And, wow, does that coffee smell good. 

I hope Christmas was a good one for you, my friends. Wishes for a safe, happy, healthy, and fulfilling year to all my readers!

©2020 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

I'm back! How's everyone?

We just returned from vacation on Sunday and, of course, I've been away from the blog for about 6 weeks. So, I have a bit of book sorting to do (lots of arrivals - they just finally trickled down to nothing, this past 2 weeks) along with locating my calendar (still packed) and figuring out what exactly I read in August. When I step away from the Internet, I really step away. I didn't even log my reads, here, as I usually do. Thank goodness for the portability of Goodreads. 

Here's a cheetah blep (the tongue out of the mouth thing is called a "blep" in my kitty Facebook group - not sure if it's called that elsewhere):

I may have to do my usual Malarkey-type post in installments. Not sure how I'm going to work this, but at any rate, I hope to get my reads and arrivals posted very soon (starting tomorrow) and then return to writing reviews and putting up the normal posts. My reading suffered dramatically during vacation. We had long days and fell into bed exhausted at night so I only finished one book while we were in South Africa and finished another the night we arrived home.

Recent stats (to be updated with the full month's reads in August, soon) . . .


Books I finished:

• Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore
• Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lies by Dick Gregory

Currently reading:

• The Goddess of Mtwara and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing, 2017 - purchased in O. R. Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg - and there's another book I meant to buy but couldn't find on the return trip, darn it. 
• The Way to London: A Novel of WWII by Alix Rickloff

We had three flights for the return trip (about 30-something hours of travel) and my ankles and feet always swell so badly that I have to take a day off to just rest up and let the swelling go down, so yesterday was spent trying to read and relax without falling asleep. But, I kept nodding off and dropping The Way to London on my face, which was pretty funny. We always try very hard to readjust to local time so I was fighting sleep hard. Apart from waking up at 3:30 AM, we both feel pretty normal, today, so I guess it mostly worked. We're shifting back to home time quickly.

The kitties are so happy we're home. I was showered with affection (kitty kisses, lots of chattering about how happy she was to see me from Isabel, lots of rubbing and being climbed upon and a good bit of fur up my nose) from both girls but they were calm and clearly well cared for while we were away.

To any Texas friends impacted by Harvey, I've been thinking about you. Having lived through Katrina and her aftermath, I understand that the recovery is a long and painful process. Here's hoping that Hurricane Irma is not as catastrophic to the U.S. as expected.

Hopefully, I'll get myself organized and start posting book photos, tomorrow! How has everyone been? Read anything fabulous?

©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Random chatter and Fiona Friday

Just out of curiosity, is there anyone out there who remembers when I used to regularly post bird and flower photos? I haven't done that in a while. I was inspired to grab my camera by the red-headed woodpecker who has begun to regularly perch on our lamppost. I've only been able to snap him from the front door, so far, but isn't he pretty?

So . . . explanation about this post . . . I'm having the kind of week when you open the blog, load a book image, and then just sit staring at the monitor thinking, "Uhhh," and nothing comes. I could have taken off and just pre-posted my Fiona Friday cat pic but I really never write about my everyday life, anymore, so I thought I'd write a little about that and just tuck in a few pictures. Maybe writing about nothing much will loosen me up a bit and help break the problem I'm having with writing reviews.

We have mums growing. I'm loving the fiery burst of color:

We also have tomatoes, thanks to the spouse's optimism. After the first couple of years of planting things in pots on our deck and watching the squirrels strip even the flowers to the stems, I confess I gave up trying to grow anything at all in the backyard. We'll see if the squirrels run off with our tomatoes the moment they ripen.

Yesterday, my best buddy and I went to a monthly event sponsored by our town. We ate lunch in front of a local artist's studio while he painted and talked about . . . well, everything. He basically told us his life story with focus on how he became a successful artist, why he's a plein air painter and only paints from life (never photographs). His name is Wyatt Waters. Here he is, sketching:

Below, he stopped to talk a bit, possibly tired of sitting and talking. My friend and I had to cut out early and he's a meticulous craftsman, so what you see on the paper is the last we saw of the painting he was working on, before we left:

He painted the street in front of him -- a building and cars. I would have happily watched him all day (but only if there was some shade available; the sun was brutal) if I could have. I was fascinated by his careful attention to detail. I have a tendency to get so excited when I paint that globs go flying.

Speaking of painting, I don't remember whether or not I mentioned that I've just recently started painting. I painted in oils before my second pregnancy but quit when I found out I was expecting because I didn't want to expose the Kiddo to nasty chemicals. This time, I'm painting with acrylics because there's less fuss. I have no training, apart from a handful of workshops taken back in my oil painting days, but I'm having an awful lot of fun. Unlike Wyatt, I'm most comfortable painting from a photograph. I'm mostly dipping into my own files and I guess this guy (from a picture taken on my deck) is one of my favorites, so far, although an abstract that Kiddo named and has asked to have for his apartment wall (!!!!) is my runner-up:

Anyway, hopefully, this post will have purged my mind a little and I'll get back to writing reviews, next week. One of my favorite cat photos of the week gets to be today's Fiona Friday. This is a phone shot of Fiona. She was thinking about jumping up onto the couch but right after I snapped this, she got distracted, batted at something (neither of us know what) and accidentally knocked over an empty soda can, which hit the floor with such a resounding clatter that it scared her right out of the room. Crazy cat.

Happy Weekend to All!

©2016 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Maybe It's Just the Method: Thoughts on The Future of Bookfoolery

This is how I've felt about my own blog, for the past year or so:

Well, no wonder I'm burnt out. If you're bored by your own blog, for crying out loud, what's the point?

I must say, I was very relieved to find that I'm not the only one who has been going through this angsty stage. Andi at Estella's Revenge, Heather of Capricious Reader, Beth Fish Reads and Shannon of River City Reading have all talked about being bored with their blogs, wanting to shake things up, switching to "free range reading". I had no idea that so many blog buddies were going through the same thing, primarily because I've been staying away from blogs in the hopes that un-internetting myself would help.

So, here's what I'm thinking. When I began writing this blog, my reviews were deliberately casual online journal entries about my reading and my family. I didn't spend a lot of time on them. This review of London Transports by Maeve Binchy, for example, was my first post. I wrote my thoughts and moved on. Sometimes I just posted a photo with a few words or told an anecdote.

I've been thinking about blogging a lot and I'm pretty sure that the only way I'm going to be able to carry on is to return to a simpler blogging style, keep my posts brief, allow myself to be more random, do away with the formality of reviewing (which keeps creeping back; this part may be a struggle). What do you think? Think that will work? Am I crazy even thinking about sticking around?

Addendum: Fist pumps to "free range reading".

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Not-quite-a-week update

Just thought I'd drop by my blog. Hello anyone who reads this. Hello, blog. The blog break is helping, already. I've only finished one book, this week: Spillover by David Quammen. I didn't feel much like reading, at the beginning of the week, but I'm slowly getting back my reading mojo. Spillover, about zoonotic diseases (those that cross over from animal to human -- which is most of them), is excellent and will make you want to get the annual flu shot, wash your hands regularly, wear a mask, possibly hide from people. I'm reading Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck, now.

I'm going to take another week off but I have this sneaking suspicion that I'll be okay when that ends. I'll keep updating. I'm happy that I feel fine sitting to type an update. My brain was starting to feel like the photo above. I'm shooting for this:

I'm going to make this next week an internet-free staycation week and we'll see if that gets the brain clutter down to reflective pond with beautiful trees and a mountain backdrop or, at least, small-town traffic level. If not, I'll stay away a bit longer.

Here are the books I plan to dip into, this week:

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell - There's a Sparrow Read-Along going on  [#SparrowRAL on Twitter] and I'm already behind but I'm hoping to get started reading The Sparrow, this week.

California by Edan Lepucki - The copy of California in my house is a book that's traveling and since it has one more stop after my home, I need to get going on it so it can move on to the next reader.

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Steadman is my F2F book group's September selection. Last month, I screwed up and waited too late to get started reading and I'm not sure if I'll make it to the meeting but I still want to get the book read in time, just in case.















OK, off to stick my head back into the sand. Bye for now!

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Fiona Friday - Surprising sight and some other news

If Fiona has ever climbed inside the cubby in her kitty tree, I sure don't remember it.  Maybe when she was a kitten?

Cool site I found:

Unusual Words

News of the week:

You know how sometimes people who begin as book bloggers eventually opt to "divorce" their blog from books as a focus, suddenly stop blogging or just shut down their book blogs and start up a new one, sometimes without sharing the URL with anyone?  It took me quite some time to understand why anyone would make those choices.  But, now I get it.  

I've been realizing, recently, that I'm in a terrible rut.  I've mentioned that I'm at an odd place in my life with the empty nest and not knowing quite what to do next.  Well, I think I figured it out.  But, I can't explore that here.  There are things I don't feel comfortable talking about at this blog, partly because  I've pigeon-holed my blog, in many ways.  My blog theme is "books, family, life" but it's mostly become "book reviews" and "cat photos" with little else.  That's because of that awkward place I've inhabited for the last few years.  I hardly even see family, now that one child has married and moved to New Jersey, the other is in college, and the husband is commuting to work.  

The things I want to express . . . I don't know, they just don't feel right, here.  I'm not giving up the blog.  I still read, of course.  I still want to write about books.  And, obviously, I still have cats.  :)  So, this blog will continue, as is.  But, I've started a new blog for working on my creative side and some other things (sigh . . . cooking, for example . . . I just don't feel comfortable joining in on the Weekend Cooking posts when I've been away from cooking for so long that I'm pretty much back to being a beginner in the kitchen).  

I also started a Pinterest account through the new email associated with my new blog -- but only because I didn't want a Pinterest account associated with my Facebook account.  I don't understand Pinterest, yet, not at all.  As a new account holder, Pinterest made me select five categories and I have all this crap (good stuff, but overwhelming!) pinned by Pinterest to my page when, honestly, I wanted to start with a clean board.  Any suggestions how to fix that?  Have you set up a Pinterest account associated with Facebook?  Is it troublesome in any way?  I may reconsider the way I've set things up.  

There's other news and it breaks my heart.  We decided to continue fostering Prissy but her photo is going to be restored to the rescue website; she is available for adoption. My entire family accepts this, although we all love her to death and it took a few heartfelt family discussions to come to a decision.  In the meantime, she's still around and I'll continue to post photos of her as long as she stays with us.  

That is all.  Happy weekend to you!

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Monday Malarkey - Yes, we still have a kitten in the house and other stuff

The kitten is full of malarkey.  She has not yet taken a drink of my tea, but that's not for lack of trying.

This week was not a big week for reading and certainly not one for writing as I went out of my way to avoid the computer (somewhat successfully, although not entirely), but we'll start with what little there is to talk about, book-wise.  Appearances aside, this still is not a cat blog.  

Recent arrivals (2 weeks' worth):

We Go Together by Dunn & Sakamoto and

Rufus Goes to School by Griswell and Gorbachev - both from Sterling Kids for review and/or tour

Rufus is a pig.  PIG BOOK!  Sorry to shout.  Pigs are such fun.  And, a couple more . . . 

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent and

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt - both from Little, Brown and Co. for F2F discussion and review (the former in August, the latter in October). 

We only got 10 copies of each title, this time, and that's not enough to go around -- my F2F group is well-established and quite large, although attendance varies.  So, I had to set aside my plans to reread The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Gaiman to read Burial Rites.  We'll have to share so I wanted to get that done in time to give someone else a chance to read it.  It's excellent, in case you're wondering.  I'm really looking forward to the discussion.

Last week's reading:

As per my plan, I jumped into The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway and enjoyed my swim.  I hope to review that, soon.  I followed it up with a read of the pig book, Rufus Goes to School, pretty much the moment it walked in.  And, then I read Burial Rites by Hannah Kent.  After that, I started reading The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan and The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winter.  I'm close to halfway through the latter but not far into The Girls of Atomic City.  I'm enjoying both.  

The Last Policeman is a mystery -- a genre which most of you probably know I seldom read -- but this particular mystery has an unusual twist in that a single policeman (the hero, naturally) suspects murder and everyone else believes the death was a suicide.  Suicide is not particularly surprising or unusual in this story because Earth will be struck by an asteroid in 6 months. Everyone's going to die anyway.  So, a lot of people don't give a flip about the law and some people are choosing to go out sooner rather than wait for the Final Bang.  The Last Policeman is definitely a unique and entertaining diversion and The Girls of Atomic City is fascinating so it's likely I've got a pleasant reading week ahead of me.  

Kitten-wise:

Four weeks and counting.  Last week, we came to the conclusion that we'd done enough kitty juggling and it was time for the cats to spend time working out their differences.  So, Prissy (or River, depending on who you're talking to) has been out and about except at night when she goes back into her bedroom.  Things have not substantially improved, unfortunately.  The kitties can eat together but there's some growling on one side and threatening poses on the other.  The rest of the time, if Isabel's awake there is a great deal of chase/fight/hide going on.  Nap time is awesome.  The little one stays away from the kitty tree, where the two big girls hang out.  I think Isabel does wear herself out chasing poor Prissy/River and is napping a bit more than usual.  

The kitten also has resisted efforts to train her to scratch a cardboard or fabric scratching pad and has pretty much torn the hell out of our living room rug.  So, if she stays, it's likely she'll be the first declawed kitty we've ever owned.  We are against declawing, in general, but she is simply not getting it -- and we have scratching stations literally all over the house.  The other two kitties are very well-behaved when it comes to scratching in the right places.

We will have to make a decision about whether or not we can keep Prissy very soon because she's now about 16 weeks old.  Kittens are very adoptable; older cats are not.  If she's going to another home, she'll need to find a family before she gets too big -- and judging from her appetite, she's likely to be a very large, delightfully droopy cat.  Everyone loves her, so we're all wrestling with the decision but I think we all know in our hearts that it would be best for her to find a different home, if only because Isabel's attitude toward her is not softening.

Not much else is happening, here:

I'm hoping Huzzybuns will soon take a full week off work so we can work day and night getting the old house ready to sell.  Weekends alone are just not enough when you have two houses and yards to maintain and improve.  Everything we're doing is fairly minor but very time-consuming so a dedicated stretch of time would be really helpful.  Please pray or cross your fingers or send positive vibes that we'll quickly finish and get that house on the market . . . and that it will sell.  Although the housing market has improved elsewhere, houses do not appear to be moving at all in Vicksburg at the moment.  

Enough about me:

What's up in your world?  I'm sorry I haven't been able to visit other blogs.  That will probably continue at least until our old house goes on the market.  There's just too much going on.  Today, our excitement of the day was finding out we had a gas leak.  I would not have known, had the gas company not made a mistake on our bill that quadrupled the usual monthly cost.  So, thanks be to God Almighty that we didn't have to get blown up in order to find out about the gas leak.  I've never been so grateful for an erroneous statement in my life.  

Happy Monday!

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

This week

Still can't seem to get myself to write reviews, so I've been mostly avoiding the computer, falling farther and farther behind. I may have to go with mini reviews, soon.  We shall see.  In the meantime, I'll just chatter a bit about life.

Gardening:

We thought we were going to have a bumper crop of tomatoes this year because our 5 tomato plants grew like weeds and bore a rather stunning number of buds.  Then, we harvested a few and the crop seemed to slowly disappear.  What on earth was happening to our little green tomatoes?  I found out, yesterday, when I opened the windows and saw a squirrel running from our deck.  He had a little round green thing in his mouth.  It looked like a tiny apple.  I followed his path up the tree for a bit and then I figured it out, of course.  It was one of our tomatoes, just a little over an inch in diameter.  I walked out to the patio and saw that our one decent green pepper was still fine.  There were a couple smaller peppers, still a handful of tomatoes.

Today, the green peppers were gone . . . and there are probably a whopping three tomatoes remaining. Apparently, we're not going to have a bumper harvest, after all. But we did enjoy the few tomatoes that we managed to pick before the squirrels got to them and our single harvested green pepper tasted great.

Books:

One of the books that disappeared during our parcel-theft crisis (which I hope has ended, but I can't say for sure) was The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway. It was sent by a friend in a bubble-wrap envelope with two other books.  One arrived -- the only older title of the three.  I've been particularly mourning the loss of The River of No Return because it's been on my wish list since long before publication.  I couldn't even recall why, but I've read some fabulous reviews and was excited when my friend Paula offered me her copy.  Last week, I tweeted about the fact that it was the most longed-for of the stolen books, completely forgetting that I'm Twitter friends with Bee Ridgway (which is why I originally placed her book on my wishlist -- I looked it up when she posted her image of the upcoming cover).  

Bee saw my mournful post and generously offered to replace the missing book. It arrived safely, yesterday (via UPS).  I can hardly bear to keep my hands off it.  There are two or three books I absolutely must read before I get to it.  But, when they're done, I'm going to bury myself in The River of No Return.

That sounds scary, doesn't it?  Maybe "dive into" The River of No Return would be a better way to put it.

Reviews:

Gah.  You can see how far I'm falling behind by looking at my sidebar.  The trouble is . . . I've read so many fabulous books that I'm afraid I can't possibly describe adequately. They are that good.  The best books are always the most difficult to write about.  That hasn't stopped me from barreling ahead with my reading, though. Wish me luck catching up.

Cats:

Fi and Prissy are still getting along (except when Prissy plays with the laser, which is Fiona's greatest joy in life).  Still no progress with Isabel.  She is clearly not going to accept the kitten anytime soon, if ever.  Yesterday, Isabel managed to sneak into Prissy's room and munched on some of her kitten chow.  Somehow, it escaped her notice that Prissy was present.  I stood between them, watching Isabel occasionally turn her head, thinking that if Izzy made threatening moves I would sweep Prissy off the floor, as always.  Ohmygosh.  Cats sure can move like lightning. Fortunately, Prissy is just as fast as Isabel and much smaller.  She dashed under the West Elm sofa when Isabel finally spotted her and chased in Full Fury mode. I clapped my hands, told Izzy to leave and the crisis ended.  

Friends:

I went to lunch with my new friend, Mary Alice, today.  We met at 11:30 and finally left the restaurant at 3:30.  She is an avid reader.  No wonder we get along so well.

Maybe boring:

We have two Bradford pear trees in front of our house.  I thought they were beautiful when we moved in, but recently 1/4 of one of the trees split off and we realized they're both either diseased or infested.  Kiddo chopped up the fallen portion with the help of our neighbor and I've been hacking away at the limbs I can reach to try to prevent further splitting of the damaged tree.  But last week another chunk fell and crushed our yard lamp (which didn't work, but it was pretty).  The guys hacked away at that mess and cut a few more limbs down over the weekend but the tree is 14 years old -- large enough to take time to remove and the guys aren't always around.  I went out to pick up some small fallen limbs, yesterday, and one of my neighbors came over to ask me how the removal was going.  I told him slowly but surely then he generously offered to bring over his chainsaw when I mentioned my concern about the limbs still hanging over the driveway.

I fetched my clippers and between the two of us, we got another 1/4 of the tree down, chopped and placed at the curb for pick-up.  1/4 to go.  Boy, do I appreciate my new neighbor!  

That's all:

Well, it's not all, but bills, cooking and cleaning are boring and there are only so many cat stories to be shared.  Hope you're having a fabulous week!

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.