I’m back! God, I’ve missed blogging but also I’m still completely uncertain how I’m going to do it. This past week I had posts all scheduled (go me) and I have like one post sorted for next week but after that nothing. I feel like I’ve started strong and I may lose steam along the way but what can you do? I do feel like I’m buzzing with ideas and struggling to form them into actual posts (anyone else have that problem where you're writing about something but completely uncertain where you’re trying to go with it?).
I know I’ve been gone a while but there is no chance I can get you all caught up on the past couple of months. I can barely remember everything that has happened so we’ll stick with the past week instead. Is that ok? I will probably try and include the books I’ve read since I’ve been away but that’s only because I’ve some I want to to talk about. And this week hasn’t been too bad so I’m totally happy to chat about it. We’ll start with the bad and work our way up.
The bad? Well, we got told this week that the board of directors has decided they won’t allow us the usual early finish at work on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve but they’re instead a normal working day. Last year we had to work until 2pm, I think it was, and now we’re stuck working until 5pm! It caused an uproar, as you can imagine. I’ve not actually worked a full day on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve the past 5 years I’ve worked there so I’m not best pleased, it scuppers all plans for me to be able to do anything for New Year and I can see the number of folks skiving off of work on those two days increasing. Not that I can blame them, a lot of folks have kids as well so it’s really inconsiderate.
But enough with the bad, the good things are as follows. We got treated to a meal out with work on Thursday to a nice restaurant. And we got to leave the office early to go. It was a late lunch and the only thing I bought was a couple of drinks so I honestly can’t complain. The food was lovely and I had a delicious warm chocolate brownie with ice cream for dessert. I was only so happy, especially as I didn't have to go into work the next day (I’d booked some annual leave, we didn’t all get treated to a day off) and so it was a great way to finish my working week. It was nice to go out as a team and chat with folks, although it had its awkward moments. It was still a nice free meal so I can’t complain.
And what else good happened? Well, I had more paperwork through in regards to the house. I’m still hesitant to buy anything to go in the house, but I’ve had stuff to read and a couple of things to sign and send back so that was fun. I’m still so nervous about it all but I think that’s because I have no clue what I’m doing. I have another phone call with my conveyancer next week and I’m hoping speaking to them will help calm my nerves as I figure out what the hell is going on. I hate how much of buying a house is hanging around.
I went to a bonfire on Friday, as well. My best friend and I have a tradition of going to the same bonfire every year come rain or shine and this year it was very much rain. My poor Dr Martens got all muddy and my coat was wet. I forgot to take an umbrella with me and had to make a quick dash to the shop to buy myself a cheap one as well and I am so glad I did because I would have been soaked otherwise. It was a really nice evening. This year it wasn’t just the two of us as her boyfriend and his dad was there (yes, weird group of people but I’ve met both of them before so it wasn’t weird). It was nice seeing this bonfire we always go to through another person’s perspective and they both seemed to really enjoy it.
What I’ve Been Reading
I decided to include everything I’ve read since my last Sunday post so this is a whole heap of books. I’ve broken them down into the ones I actually finished and some DNFs. I’ve been working to clear my Kindle shelf of the 400+ unread books. I think I now have less than 400 to read, so go me! It has involved a lot of being honest with myself and moving books to a ‘never gonna read’ shelf and marking them as read to remove them from my Kindle shelves. It’s kind of satisfying in a weird way. It just makes me sad there are all these ebooks on there which I can’t give away to charity or whatever because I’m sure plenty of these others would want to read instead.
As you can see, there were a few DNFs and I do feel bad. I’m kind of becoming brutal with DNFing if a book doesn’t grab my attention immediately. I know some may actually have been 3/3.5 star reads and they weren’t necessarily bad but I’m currently raising the bar for all books which I plan to finish. I mean, I’ll still have lower rated books, but a book doesn’t need to be 5 stars to be enjoyable, but they just aren’t grabbing my attention enough for me to want to finish.
But the read pile is way bigger… but this is also from the end of September and I’m used to reading way more than this. But the slump is (hopefully) mostly gone and I’ll have two or three finished books a week (and hopefully a few more DNFs as well). I think these have all been 4 and 5 star reads, as well. The biggest surprise was My Sister’s Grave, a crime mystery/thriller whatever type book I’d got as a Kindle First book ages ago and it ended up totally hooking me and I was even crying at parts! I love surprise book like that so that’s the biggest surprise.
New To Me
I’m trying to be more responsible with my book buying. It’s tough going and I do have a whole heap of books on preorder but I’ve tried to buy less. And The Last Dance was my free Kindle First book so I feel like that can be ignored. Fingers crossed for me, I’ve read one but if you can give me the motivation to pick up one of the others please do (although I don’t need much motivation to start The Art of Theft, that’ll be read soon, I think).
And that is my week (and then some), what have you been up to? Any good books to recommend? And please try and help me choose what to read next because currently, it’s going to be Northern Lights by Philip Pullman.
Posts
Social Icons