It’s Christmas so Merry Christmas to those who celebrate and happy holidays to those who don’t – blessings to one and all!
The one thing I dislike about Christmas is the traffic and short tempers/patience of people rushing to do things. I try to avoid going to the malls the two days before Christmas just to avoid being in a stressed out mood. It’s Christmas! We shouldn’t be so stressed out. But it never fails to give me some sort of stress from gift buying, delivering the gifts and trying to meet up with people, etc…but I do love the joy it brings my kids when they see the decorations. It’s winter break so and I got my kids the board game Life for Hanukkah and we have been playing Life (on repeat), Twister (someone else gifted that to my kids for Hanukkah), dreidel because it’s Hanukkah and my daughter can’t pass up trying to win chocolate! And speaking of chocolates…I’ve been getting so much treats and I try to give them away and then I get more treats back. 😅 My hubby isn’t here to help me indulge and I need to watch myself – he told me to just pack it up and send it to him in Okinawa.
He’s settling in fine, his job seems to be soooo much less stressful than the one here. I said he better relish this mental vacation because when he comes back in 2 years he’ll have to get used to the amount of work and the pace of work he did back here in Hawaii. And it’s crazy to think Hawaii as a stressful place to work, but it can be – he literally went from one island to another island just in different countries lol. He face-times us twice a day – and sometimes he gets on Minecraft with the kids (he created a personal server for them to use while he is away so they can be on together), and then he even played Life with the kids today 😅. So they are doing fine. When he starts work and the kids get back to school schedule it will be more difficult to face time but we’ll make it work.
Anyway that was my week – the stress of the holidays! Now it’s time to plan my daughter’s birthday sigh…the money spending never ends for me in November-January! 😩
Emily in Paris – Season 3 (Netflix) – I’m halfway through the season! I’m trying to watch it while on the treadmill.
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
The idea is pretty simple, every week you dedicate a post to the three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
What are you going to read next?
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
What are you going to read next?
I slowed down on reading this month! There was just so much to do with the end of school before Winter Break and then my hubby left this weekend for his 2 year contract in Okinawa, Japan. There was a crazy storm system moving over Hawaii since Sunday – lots of rain and wind! My husband left on a red-eye on Sunday night and his flight took him through 3 hours of turbulence to San Francisco where he was delayed almost 2 hours – then an 11 hour flight from there to Haneda airport in Japan, where he missed his connecting flight to Okinawa, but had a chance to book a ticket on a later one. Yesterday he finally face-timed me at 6am, my son came running into the room to say hi to him (Okinawa is like 43 hours ahead of Hawaii) so he’s in “the future” as I like to tell my kids. 😅 Anyway I’m glad he made it. I don’t envy him having to travel for 30 hours (yuck) – maybe now I can settle down, relax and read more books.
The kids are officially on Winter Break – my daughter caught another cold, I went to see the show Hamilton yesterday which was amazing and today is when my husband leaves for Okinawa, Japan to work for 2 years.
So now starts a journey I never thought I’d be in since he’s already out of the military – I really didn’t think I’d be doing the whole single-parent thing…but it’s the thought of trying to keep my kids happy and okay during the holidays and I mean more emotionally than physically. It’s Hanukkah week (Happy Hanukkah) and my hubby usually does the candles and prayer every night. And then there is Christmas morning of course – but we usually head over to my mom’s for lunch so they will be surrounded by family and New Year’s we usually stay in because the fireworks terrifies my dog and Hawaii on NYE is bonkers. But right after New Year’s is our daughter’s 6th birthday. SO he’s going to miss a lot of family moments and I know I’ll do the best I can…but sometimes the thought of doing everything alone is daunting and overwhelming. I just have to learn to ask for help more (and I have plenty help – my family lives 30 minutes away, I have friends too). It is what it is and I guess I should start planning for that Japan trip which we are tentatively planning for October 2023!
Anyway I hope your week was wonderful and you have a fabulous start of the new week – it’s the countdown to Christmas! 😆
It’s been a busy week! So I haven’t done much reading – hoping I can do much more reading this week but we shall see!
Books I Read:
Currently Reading:
Shows/Movies I Watched:
The Hills (Hulu) – I binged Laguna Beach and now been working my way through The Hills while working on my Etsy keychains. I think it’s crazy to look back and see the fashions of the early 2000’s. I’m SO old lol…
Harry & Meghan (Netflix) – I love their love story and really can the press just leave them alone? It’s awful to live that way…
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
The idea is pretty simple, every week you dedicate a post to the three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
What are you going to read next?
It’s the busy holiday month and we’ll see how much I can get done when it comes to reading and everything else. 😆
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
What are you going to read next?
I’m excited I got this ebook on sale!
I’m working on arcs due in January but there is so much going on in my life right now I think I’ll come down to the wire on those. I also wanted to fit in some holidays reads so we’ll see how much I can fit into my schedule this month.
I didn’t have a break after coming home from vacation – it’s back to normal as usual except I was dealing with an upper respiratory illness. I don’t know if it was a cold or rsv or what not – I didn’t have much nasal congestion, mostly a cough and finally my voice is 90% back to normal! I do still cough in the early, early morning probably due to the colder air and post nasal drip but most of the day I’m fine.
Another contributor to my cough/sinus/etc…is that Mauna Loa, a volcano, on the Big Island is erupting. I live on Oahu which is about a 30 minutes flight away – you literally go up and down! I haven’t been there in 20 years which is kind of a shame – I have relatives there and my dad often goes but we stopped making casual trips when flights got expensive. Anyway, the smoke from the volcano makes it’s way over to our island and there is vog in the air – it’s like smog, but not brown polluted air – it’s hazy and when there is no wind it lingers over the island, my allergies go into high gear, I get a headache sometimes. It’s been windy since yesterday so I feel much better but I’m not looking forward to the days where there will be no wind.
My kids have one more week of school then it is Winter Break, plus my husband is moving to Okinawa next Sunday – I’m just taking it day by day! But he’s stressed about what to bring and what to expect when he gets there, and I’m not super stressed unless I look at the calendar and think of the things I have to do by myself. 🙄 I’m in a half annoyed and half “oh well it is what it is” mood. He won’t be here for Christmas and our daughter’s 6th birthday first week of January and yes…I still have to plan it. 😕 So my calendar stresses me out right now! lol…so I try not to look at it! 😜
It’s been a busy week! So I haven’t done much reading – hoping I can do much more reading this week but we shall see!
Books I Read:
Currently Reading:
Shows/Movies I Watched:
Laguna Beach (Netflix) – talk about nostalgia!!! Just seeing all of the people on the show using Motorola flip phones made me miss that time. I loved my Motorola flip phone lol.
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
Well it happened – my family and I survived out first family trip together! We flew into JFK airport in New York – where my son threw up during the descent. It was an 8 hour flight and my daughter’s first time on a plane – I was exhausted but we still had to get to Philadelphia. So we get our rental where my hubby freaks out because he thinks he left his phone on the airplane. Let’s just say…it was a tense moment – so tense that he didn’t realize until 15 minutes later after having someone help him at the rental place to call the airlines and asked if there was a lost phone…that said phone – had fallen to the floor under the car’s steering wheel. 🤦🏻♀️ After that we made the 2 hour drive to Philly, hungry, anxious – trying to listen to my husband’s old GPS device (dunno why he just didn’t use his phone – seriously…) -made it to our air bnb after getting turned around a few times, and dealing with aggressive drivers. My son barfed one more time when we reached our final destination – thank god I took the extra barf bags from the plane!
Philadelphia Skyline
Philadelphia ZooPlease Touch MuseumPlease Touch Museum Space Room
Oh and we went from 85 degrees in Hawaii to like 40 degrees. So that was fun! 😅 I did not pack enough warm clothes – we learned to layer! Our air bnb was an old house but close to where my husband grew up so it was the perfect place and not too far from Center City in Philadelphia. We had a busy week in Philly. We went to The Philadelphia Zoo, the Please Touch Museum, The Academy of Natural Sciences and the kids favorite The Franklin Institute! We even drove down to Delaware to visit my husband’s cousin and visited a best friend of his as well. Philadelphia was lots of fun, just super cold while we were there.
Freezing at the Zoo! Luminature at Philadelphia ZooPhiladelphia Museum of ArtAcademy of Natural Sciences of Drexel UniversityThe Franklin InstitutePendulumThis made me feel so old LOL
The day before Thanksgiving we made the trek almost 5 hours up to Poughkeepsie, New York where my sister and mother-in-law lives. For the most part it was a nice drive – kind of long but we made it. I wish we had seen fall leaves but they had fallen by then. I can imagine how beautiful a drive it would be with the changing leaves. Thanksgiving was a family affair and a success despite all the chaos of 3 families in the house. We did one activity in Poughkeepsie which was the Walkway Over the Hudson. It was a lovely walk on a bridge over the Hudson river until it got super cold and I felt like I couldn’t get warm enough – I think that’s when I actually caught a cold. The rest of the week we hung out at the house with family and my daughter had a wonderful time playing with their cat, Harry.
Harry – my sister in law’s handsome cat!Kitty my mother-in-law’s catReady to walk over the Hudson River
Walkway over the Hudson River
The day before our flight we drove from Poughkeepsie to Tarrytown (or Sleepy Hollow) to visit another best friend of my husband’s. I was feeling pretty poorly – my throat hurt but I had no fever or body chills thank goodness. I wish it was day time so we could actually see the town but it was night time. After that we drove another hour into New York City to a hotel next to the airport. I barely survived – barely got any sleep before it was morning and we had to eat breakfast, and get to the airport. Our flight home was 11 hours long and of course my period decided to come 6 days early! I bought some bottled water, wore my mask on the plane – tried to sleep. I was so proud of my kids for surviving that long of a flight. 🙏🏼 We got home with me barely having a voice. I’m still trying to recover my voice. I have some coughing but glad there is no fever and body aches or chills!
My dog, Atlas, is back to trying to figure out his routine. They had fireworks going on in my parents’ neighborhood so he was freaked out over that and lost some weight – he needed to lose weight anyway lol. My family said Atlas shadowed my mom a lot around the house. He picked up some interesting new behaviors – I think my dad let him run wild. So I’m trying to retrain him on some things! But other than that – my kids went back to school, I’m trying to deal with jet lag and waking up too early. Trying to blog! I finished the laundry and unpacking, I even wrapped xmas gifts. I still have half my xmas list to finish! 😆 And my hubby leaves for Okinawa at a later date, Dec. 18th…but still…so much to do, so little time.
But it’s nice to be home! How have you all been? I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving if you celebrated!
I managed to finish only 2 books while on vacation – there was just too much to do and family to meet with.
Books I Read:
Currently Reading:
Shows/Movies I Watched:
Wednesday (Netflix) – I managed to watch 2 episodes on the plane but I’m just that person who starts watching something on the plane and start falling asleep. Same for reading – I just cannot do it on the plane. Next time I should just do coloring books or word search puzzles or something! Anyway I finished the whole series when I came home and love it. Wednesday speaks to my Scorpio soul lol.
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
We got through this week! Almost thought my daughter’s cold was coming back but it’s been allergies because mine has been acting up too so Flonase for her and Claritin for me has helped. She did get eaten by mosquitoes on Thursday when she went on her first field trip – she doesn’t get a break does she? 😅 But she is a trooper!
I’ve started packing just to see what will fit in my luggage and honestly, packing warm clothing is taking lots room (our summer trip would have been filled with shorts and tank tops 😅). And it’s so sad – my kids barely own any long pants and definitely no long sleeves. My daughter always tells me her feet sweat in socks and I told her oh well she’ll be wearing them on the trip! It will be such an experience for them. My son has been to Nebraska to visit relatives but this will be my daughter’s first plane trip and it’s an 8 hour one. I guess it will be practice for when we visit their dad in Japan next year! We are excited, but I’m excited/anxious/worried – mostly because my indoor dog will have to be an outdoor dog for a few days when he goes to my mom’s house. So I’m worried my spoiled boy will be a little stressed. He gets to hang out with his cousin Tucker who is fully an outside dog. 😆
So I’ll be gone on Wednesday – I’ll still have post go live while I’m gone because they are pre-written but I won’t be replying to any messages until I come back Nov. 30th.
My sister also wanted to do an early Thanksgiving Lunch today since we won’t be here for actual Thanksgiving, so we get to eat today! I don’t think we’ll have turkey but we will have food and pumpkin pie.
I was kind of in the mood for rom-coms and started on some arcs that I was gonna save for later. But it works out and helps me knock them off my list!
Books I Read:
Currently Reading:
Shows/Movies I Watched:
Falling for Christmas (Netflix) – it’s kinda nice to see Lindsay Lohan doing movies again. This one was cute and christmassy.
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
The idea is pretty simple, every week you dedicate a post to the three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
What are you going to read next?
My mind is trying to make sure my kids get through this week of school and trying to find someone to dog sit for us when we go on vacay and actually packing for vacay! My brain is everywhere….😅
Another month, another book haul! Have you gotten a lot of good books lately?
NETGALLEY::
A cynical tarot card reader seeks to uncover the truth about her friend’s mysterious death in this delightfully clever whodunit.
For Katie True, a keen gut and quick wit are just tools of the trade. After a failed attempt at adulting in Chicago, she’s back in the suburbs living a bit too close to her overbearing parents, jumping from one dead-end job to the next, and flipping through her tarot deck for guidance. Then along comes Marley.
Mysterious, worldly, and comfortable in her own skin, Marley takes a job at the mall where Katie peddles Russian tchotchkes. The two just get each other. Marley doesn’t try to fix Katie’s life or pretend to be someone she’s not, and Katie thinks that with Marley’s friendship she just might make it through this rough patch after all. So one day, having been encouraged by Marley to practice soothsaying, Katie reads tarot for someone who stumbles into her shop. But when she sneaks a glance at his phone, she finds more than just clairvoyant intel. She finds a photo. Of Marley. With a gunshot wound to the head.
The bottom falls out of Katie’s world. Her best friend is dead? Who killed her? She quickly realizes there are some things her tarot cards can’t foresee, and she must put her razor-sharp instincts to the ultimate test. But the truth has deadly consequences, and Katie’s recklessness lands her in the crossfire of a threat she never saw coming. Now Katie must use her street smarts and her inner Strength card to solve Marley’s murder—or risk losing everything.
Maude is the daughter of witches. She spent her childhood running wild with her best friend, Odette, weaving stories of girls who slayed dragons and saved princes. Then Maude grew up and lost her magic—and her best friend.
These days, magic is toothless, reduced to glamour patches and psychic energy drinks found in supermarkets and shopping malls. Odette has always hungered for forbidden, dangerous magic, and two weeks ago she went searching for it. Now she’s missing, and everyone says she’s dead. Everyone except Maude.
Storytelling has always been Maude’s gift, so she knows all about girls who get lost in the woods. She’s sure she can find Odette inside the ruins of Sicklehurst, an abandoned power plant built over an ancient magical forest—a place nobody else seems to remember is there. The danger is, no one knows what remains inside Sicklehurst, either. And every good story is sure to have a monster.
Nova Albright was going to be the first Black homecoming queen at Lovett High—but now she’s dead. Murdered on coronation night. Fans of One of Us Is Lying and The Other Black Girl will love this unputdownable thriller.
Nova Albright, the first Black homecoming queen at Lovett High, is dead. Murdered the night of her coronation, her body found the next morning in the old slave cemetery she spent her weekends rehabilitating.
Tinsley McArthur was supposed to be queen. Not only is she beautiful, wealthy, and white, it’s her legacy—her grandmother, her mother, and even her sister wore the crown before her. Everyone in Lovett knows Tinsley would do anything to carry on the McArthur tradition.
No one is more certain of that than Duchess Simmons, Nova’s best friend. Duchess’s father is the first Black police captain in Lovett. For Duchess, Nova’s crown was more than just a win for Nova. It was a win for all the Black kids. Now her best friend is dead, and her father won’t fact the fact that the main suspect is right in front of him. Duchess is convinced that Tinsley killed Nova—and that Tinsley is privileged enough to think she can get away with it. But Duchess’s father seems to be doing what he always does: fall behind the blue line. Which means that the white girl is going to walk.
Duchess is determined to prove Tinsley’s guilt. And to do that, she’ll have to get close to her.
But Tinsley has an agenda, too.
Everyone loved Nova. And sometimes, love is exactly what gets you killed.
A damsel in distress takes on the dragon herself in this epic twist on classic fantasy—a groundbreaking collaboration between New York Times bestselling author Evelyn Skye and the team behind the upcoming Netflix film Damsel, starring Millie Bobbie Brown.
Elodie never dreamed of a lavish palace or a handsome prince. Growing up in the famine-stricken realm of Inophe, her deepest wish was to help her people survive each winter. So when a representative from a rich, reclusive kingdom offers her family enough wealth to save Inophe in exchange for Elodie’s hand in marriage, she accepts without hesitation. Swept away to the glistening kingdom of Aurea, Elodie is quickly taken in by the beauty of the realm—and of her betrothed, Prince Henry.
But as Elodie undertakes the rituals to become an Aurean princess, doubts prick at her mind as cracks in the kingdom’s perfect veneer begin to show: A young girl who appears and vanishes from the castle tower. A parade of torches weaving through the mountains. Markings left behind in a mysterious “V.” Too late, she discovers that Aurea’s prosperity has been purchased at a heavy cost—each harvest season, the kingdom sacrifices its princesses to a hungry dragon. And Elodie is the next sacrifice.
This ancient arrangement has persisted for centuries, leading hundreds of women to their deaths. But the women who came before Elodie did not go quietly. Their blood pulses with power and memory, and their experiences hold the key to Elodie’s survival. Forced to fight for her life, this damsel must use her wits to defeat a dragon, uncover Aurea’s past, and save not only herself, but the future of her new kingdom as well.
KINDLE UNLIMITED: 0
KINDLE Bought E-Books: 0
ONLINE LIBRARY:: 0
PHYSICALLIBRARY BOOKS: 0
PHYSICAL BOOKS Gifted by Author:
Immortality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially for the 3,375-year-old virgin of Mount Olympus.
Day after day, the God of Love launches his arrows, then watches from the sidelines while everyone else has all the fun. On a mischievous whim, Cupid sends a love-tipped arrow into the wrong rump—and the gods sentence him to a taste of his own medicine.
Banished from the only home he’s ever known, Cupid plunges to Earth and lands in present-day Tarra, Indiana, where mortals go on about their daily routines, oblivious to the capricious gods stirring the pot from above. Delighted to discover his wings and pubescent pudge have been transformed into a magnificent human body, Cupid swiftly leaves his virginity behind.
But his carnal spree is cut short when he falls passionately in love for the first time in his immortal life, and he understands the full measure of his punishment: he must find the Right Love match for the mortal he desperately loves, and then he must let her go.
Caught between two worlds on a quest to fix Love, Cupid must survive the violent throes of his own coming of age and triumph over the powerful gods conspiring against him. Failure will not be tolerated; success will cost him everything.
First Quiver is an irreverent, contemporary twist on mythology and the struggle between duty and love, a battle as old as the gods themselves. Content Advisory: This book is intended for mature audiences and contains explicit sexual activity and strong language
Past Midnight Book Reviews & More 