#i havent started book 7 till now so im trying to catch up

[utoveria]

DONT DO THAT????

[kissmymongoose]

Life update: half bro is out and about but at least taking his meds some days. He hasnt bothered me too badly ever since he came over here and tried to steal my 7 year olds bike 😒. I literally jumped on him and knocked him off before he got out of the yard. It made me mad, cause the only reason he did it was to start some shit. Like, you have a no trespassing order, go the fuck on 😑 anywho. Off that topic now.

In other news, my snow peas are doing pretty good even with the wild bunnies chomping on them.

I got my copy of Practical Magic this week, and hubbs is holding on to the prequel of it along with a copy of The Hobbit for me. Im already getting christmas presents 😂 but for real though, i want him to hold on to then for me till christmas. The past few years we havent been able to get each other anything we really wanted to. And no, Christmas isnt about gifts, but when your special someone has a chance and goes out of their way to order the things youve mentioned (and havent asked for) its a really nice feeling. I feel heard and valued. I mentioned the books and i mentioned a nail polish set i really really liked- im not one for beauty products normally- and without a second though he ordered it. I basically just talked avout the items saying i would like to wait till my birthday and maybe get one of the books and eff the nail polish cause even though i love it i would feel bad for spending the money on a product i dont use every day. Wellll, he ordered the nail polish (it is the loud laquer Bailey Sarian Aqua Tofana set) and started his search for the books. He actually felt bad that he couldn't get them all in hardback, which doesnt even bother me 😂

Well of course im like save it for christmas! But, he convinced me to pick a book and take the polish now. 😁😁 lets just say ive already done my nails twice and my toes are done 😂

I have psoriasis on my some of my nail beds, so thats while you'll see pitting on the pointer finger nail, but honestly it covers so well! There are a few polishes ive uses before that seem to make the imperfections more obvious, but these polishes, even the glitter polish have amazing color with only one or two coats.

As for my book, im waiting patiently to start reading. I get very angry if im interrupted while im reading, and seeing as I have two kids under 10, i am gonna have to find the perfect time to start reading. Probably after they go to bed 😂

Weve gotten the kitchen moved around some and today I get to go get our new washing machine. Ours was nice enough to flood the kitchen a few times before i finally got pissed. I tried to repair it at home, i really did. But for this type of washer, you really need to remove it from your house first. There is no easy way to drain it. No filter catch or anything. Just two pipes connected to the pump, and located literally beneath the drum 😬 if you dont know, then that means the only way youre gonna drain the bitch is if you have a large wetvac to handle the mess. Oh excuse me, the only way without making a huge mess. Just ask my kitchen floor 🙁 buuut, we are gonna go get a brand spanking new one, because we learned a valuable lesson a few years ago with buying used machinery. Ill just go ahead and make it a long story short--- we got fucking roaches a while back from a used washing machine. It took us almost a year and several visits from pest control to solve the problem. To this day I dont trust leaving my drink out. Ill waste it instead of drinking it if i set it down for more than say 2 minutes. It was literally a fucking nightmare and i felt like my house wasnt my own. It took months to try to get rid of the filth and destruction they caused. So yeah, NOT doing that shit again. The cost for a new one is worth not having to risk a pest outbreak again. It seriously cost a lot more to deal with the bugs than to avoid the bugs altogether. Anyway. Not trying to get tied up on that lol, just want to stress it because I never would have imagined the horrors I would have to deal with just for getting a used machine. if this helpes someone else not make that mistake then great. And heres the thing, no one is gonna tell you if its got bugs, and sometimes theyre kept in storage and the owners dont know they have bugs. But its still a nasty shock to the people who get the machine and bring it into their house.

Onto some other shit: the kids are used to their bunk bed now, and it has opened up a lot of space for us in that bedroom. Im extremely happy with how it all turned out, because i was afraid they would be climbing all over it or jumping around and being rough, but they know its their bed and that we have to respect it and take care of it. I went through the kids clothes last week and got rid of stuff that doesnt fit, and organized everything. I have a lot more i want done by Christmas, but this is definitely a good start.

[book-disorder]

Reading Meme

Thanks so much @obscure-affection for tagging me. I’m in a real reading slump at the moment, but Im trying to work my way out of, and focused thinking about books can’t hurt.

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?

Periodically I do clean outs of books I don’t want to reread anymore, so I don’t think I have many super old ones. Probably my copy of The Hobbit would be the oldest. I got it in high school, and I’m always thinking about rereading it.

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?

I’m currently reading a couple of books; The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante, When the Sick Rule the World by Dodie Bellamy, and I just started The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin.

I last read, well reread Dept of Speculation by Jenny Offill

I’m going to start next The Guardians by Sarah Manguso

3. Which book does everyone like and you hated?

I have a whole thing about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I slogged through the whole thing because of how people raved about it, one friend in particular, and it just was so self serving and bullshit. It wasnt a good novel, it wasnt a good philosophy, it just was a terrible book.

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?

I have it in my head that I “should” read all the victorian era womens classics, in like solidarity for women writers, all the George Elliots, and Jane Austens, and Bronte sisters, and Elizabeth Gaskells. But I just, I mean I’ve read a couple of them, and some of the short stories. Theyre okay. I liked the ghost nun in Villette, but you have to slog through so much other stuff to get to the good stuff in them. And I just don’t know that I will ever actually read them all.

5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”

none. Thats a weird concept for me. Saving until I have.. time? Until I’m so bored I will read anything? I don’t save books, I just read them when they catch me and I have access to them.

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?

I only ever think to look ahead if the book is getting slow or I’m thinking of putting it down. I don’t mind the idea of spoilers or whatever though. I feel like, if the getting there isn’t interesting enough in its own right, then the outcome isn’t worth anything anyway.

7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?

They can be interesting, sometimes you recognise names of other authors and don’t realise they know each other, sometimes they can reveal more about the way a book came about, difficulties or whatever. I think authors don’t think its a waste of ink.

8. Which book character would you switch places with?

None. I don’t want to live a life that would make a good book, it sounds very stressful.

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?

I remember vividly reading a small paperback copy of Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger while sitting on some steps at uni waiting for a lecture theatre to open up, and trying so hard to concentrate on the book instead of my (at the time) crippling fear of being trapped in a room full of people for hours. It was a poor choice of books, I don’t think I stayed in the lecture very long that day.

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.

I stole a copy of The Book Thief by Marcus Zuzak when I was a teenager, no one tell the cops

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?

Not really. I lend books, and buy them as gifts. But I don’t tend to give away my own copies.

12. Which book has been with you to the most places?

The most different places, The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa - I carried that around Europe, despite barely reading it.

13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?

I liked most of the books we had to read in school. Except Seamus Heaneys poetry and a book about a teenager sailing around the world. I havent revisited either. I think I might come around on Heaney but the sailing book was very poorly written.

14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?

mostly receipts or little notes, nothing interesting

15. Used or brand new?

Used for price reasons. Although I really dont mind. As long as a books pages havent gone yellow, I’m pretty happy.

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?

I’ve only read one book by him. It was okay. His horror writing isnt my jam.

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?

I definitely have. But I’m totally blanking on what it is now. Oh Practical Magic. I read the book after seeing the movie a dozen times, and was like.. this is a totally different thing. Its hard when you see the movie first though, and love it. I think there have been others though.

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?

I can’t think of anything specific. But I think often stories which feature a lot of internal dialogue and not much interaction are translated poorly into movies. Voice-overs and monologues can be overused.

19. Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?

no, not that I can recall. Food descriptions don’t really do much for me. Sometimes a description of a landscape can make me want to be outside noticing nature though? If thats a similar compulsion?

20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?

I wish I talked to more people about books these days. I still want to join a book club. I think I take most peoples book advice, especially if I know we have book loves in common. But I also know that even the most similar tastes diverge a lot.

This was a lot of fun. Thanks @obscure-affection , I appreciate that you thought of me for this :)

I’m not gonna tag anyone because its huge, but if you want to do it please tag me so I can read it!