Life Archives - Brooke's Reviews and Sweeps

Books I May Spring Clean

By Brookelorren on March 9, 2021March 8, 2021Leave a Comment

Hello! It’s Tuesday again, which means it’s Top Ten Tuesday! Time to talk about books again! Today is a Spring Cleaning Freebie. I decided to talk about books that I may end up spring cleaning, or giving away. It’s amazing how many books a book blogger tends to pile up. I have so many books in my garage, and while I’ll probably want to get rid of some of them eventually too, books seem to multiply in my house as well. I literally only have a shelf in a closet as a formal “bookshelf;” the others are scattered throughout my house. The books on this list are typically books that I’ve read but have no intention of reading again.

1920: The Year of the Six Presidents – David Pietrusza. I learned a lot from this book. It was well written and humorous at times. However, do I think I’ll read it again? Probably not. There are some books, even in the nonfiction genre, that leave me with a feeling of awe and that I must read it again. This one–probably not.

Hanger Management – Susan Albers. This was a book I got for free from Bookish First (thank you). While it was interesting, a lot of the information in here is fairly basic. While there are some health books I don’t plan on getting rid of, like Deep Nutrition, because there’s so much I might want to refer to later, this one is a little too basic for me to hang onto forever.

A History of Wales – John Davies. While I’m glad I read this book, the topic is fairly narrow and I’m unlikely to read it again. I got it at a library book sale. I have so many unread books from library book sales that I have to stop going to those things. Anyway, while I learned a lot, this book isn’t engaging enough for me to keep.

Listen to Your Heart – Kasie West. For today’s list, I’ve been going through my Goodreads profile and have been picking books that I own in physical form. A lot of books I own on Kindle and I’m keeping those, whether I ever plan on reading them again or now. Listen to Your Heart was a good book, but I don’t think it’s one I’m going to read again. It’d be nice to pass this along to someone who would like to read it.

The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life – Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray. This was another book I got at a library book sale. It’s highly unlikely I’m going to want to read this book again. While some of its findings, like our society can sometimes be a little too complex for some people to navigate through, are interesting, others–like there might be a correlation between race and intelligence–seem a little off to me. Especially as someone who’s married to a black person who’s probably in the top decile of the intelligence scale.

Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine – Anne Applebaum. This one I’m a little unsure of. I know I should free up space and donate it, but do I want this as a reference? Maybe? It’s one of those books, like The Great Influenza, that I may want to refer to later. I’ll hold off on this one for now, but I may want to donate this one.

Japan: From Prehistory to Modern Times – John Whitney Hall. This is not the edition I have; the one I have has a yellow cover and came out in the 1960s. I found it to be difficult to read and very narrow in scope. Maybe if I knew a lot about Japanese history it would have been easier for me to read, but it wasn’t.

There’s been a lot of talk about “cancelling” older works of media recently, and while I’m not in favor of destroying art, there are some things that just aren’t relevant to today, and need to be viewed through a different lens. As far as I can tell, there isn’t anything sexist or racist about this work, but it is 50 years old, and perhaps that is why I had such difficulty reading it. It’s more interesting, IMO, from a historical perspective than as something useful for today. And perhaps the same is true of these older works that seem to be horribly outdated today.

Stop Missing Your Life – Cory Muscara. While this book was interesting enough, do I really think I’m going to read this again? Probably not. I know there are a ton of nonfiction books on this week’s list–believe it or not, I actually have tons of nonfiction books that I love and will probably never get rid of–but this book isn’t something I’m likely to want to refer to, or read again. Some books you can read, absorb all you’re going to want to get out of it in one reading, and then you’re ready to move on. I think this is one of those books.

Light from Distant Stars – Shawn Smucker. I liked the book, but out of the thousands of books that I could read, do I want to read this again? Probably not. I’d rather pass this on.

My Mother, Barack Obama… – Keven Powell. While I found this book to be interesting and a glimpse into a life that is completely foreign to mine, I’m probably not going to read this one again. I’d rather pass this on to someone that hasn’t read it yet and would like to.

So there’s 10 books I’m thinking of donating. As my books pile up, I’m trying to make use of the library and my Kindle more, which reduces the amount of books I have to donate. There are some books that I’ll hang onto for years, of course, but these tend to be ones that are either signed or that I plan on rereading.

What did you write about today? Are your shelves overflowing like mine? Do you end up bringing home a bag of library books from those sales and find a lot that need to find new homes?

Next week we’re going to talk about our Spring TBRs. I think these are some of my favorite posts.

Hopes for 2021

By Brookelorren on January 12, 2021January 11, 202116 Comments

Hello! It’s another fine Tuesday in 2021. I hope it’s going well for you. Since it’s a new year, we can make new goals! Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Most of my goals this year involve writing. Here they are!

Get an Agent: This is a goal that I don’t have complete control over. After all, you can never guarantee that someone will like your book enough to want to represent you. Even if they like your book, it might be too much like something they’re already representing, the market for that kind of book isn’t right, etc. But what I can do is submit my book to agents. I figure five a month is good. By the time I run out of agents to submit to, I’ll hopefully have another book ready to try again.

Finish (and publish) Saving Adelinetta: I started writing this Young Elites fanfic nearly five years ago. I wrote nearly 200 pages while watching the Rio Olympics. When I came back to it a couple years later, I felt it was awful. However, I worked on it and finally finished publishing part 2 of the book last week. Now I have to write and publish part 3. I’ve known how it was going to end from the very beginning. Since I started this book five years ago, I’ve become a better writer, so hopefully it won’t be too difficult to finish.

Write The Rift: I think I got the idea for this fanfic before Wildcard came out. I’ve always wondered why June’s name was June, even though he was born in July. If she had been due in June, she would have been way overdue since she was born on the 12th. This book is to answer that question, along with: why is Day’s family impoverished when his ancestor was the incredibly wealthy Asher Wing? I pretty much know how this story will end too. I started this book a couple years ago, but I didn’t like the beginning, so I’m planning on redoing it.

Rewrite Save the Best for Last: I wrote my second “novel” my senior year of high school (it was around 100 pages, so it was more like novella size). It was a best-friends-to-lovers story called Save the Best for Last. I haven’t seen it since high school, but I’m going to “rewrite” it. It will probably turn out completely different, but it will be similar. However, this version is going to be set in The Brightness of Shadow universe. I love being able to expand on this universe. When I created the world, I figured it was too big for just one story. This is actually the second of four stories I’ve thought up in this universe. I haven’t even written about the Walrus people yet! Maybe someday. I hope to write this book during NaNoWriMo this year.

Finish 1st Draft of NaNo20 Duology: I started this duology during NaNoWriMo last year, and am in the second part of the duology. Right now my muse is having me write the rest of Saving Adelinetta (it’s been long enough) but I hope to get this one done too. I’m hoping for a productive writing year!

Read 110 Books: This was my Goodreads goal for last year, and I barely made it. I’m setting this goal this year, and am allowing myself to include The Great Courses audio/video courses in the 110.

Finish Reading The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: This book is 3980 pages long. I’ve been reading it (although not actively the whole time) since September 2017. It’s time to finish it.

Finish the Duolingo Welsh Tree: I have finished the Spanish, German, French, and Portuguese trees. If I finish one skill a day, I can finish the Welsh tree in about three months. Why Welsh? Will Herondale speaks it. Actually, I started learning it a little before I started reading The Infernal Devices for the first time. But I might as well finish. I started learning it because it was kind of obscure, but I like it.

Increase My Zazzle Products: One of the things I’d like to do is increase my Zazzle products. Looking back on my first (now completed) ten-year journal, I realized I used to make hundreds of dollars a month from it. I stopped making products for several years, and this year I’d like to increase my products and make some money. I don’t plan on working on it for hours a day like I used to, but spending a little bit of time on it several times a week will help me make some money.

Do More Craft Projects: Something that brings me joy is creating things for people. I love when people read my stories (especially if they enjoy them). Sure, I like making money from my Zazzle products, but I also think it’s pretty cool that people have things in their homes (or are wearing shirts) that I created. I’m also kind of picky about the things I make though. If I wouldn’t want to buy it in the store, I wouldn’t want to make it either. Right now I’m making my first sweater. I’d like to make this Sherb later on this year. Perhaps I may finish that dolphin cross-stitch I’ve been working on.

So those are ten goals I have for the new year! So what are you hoping to accomplish this year? Next week’s topic is “Books I Meant to Read in 2020 But Didn’t Get To.” There really aren’t that many, so I’m going to do “Books that have been in the TBR Lottery the Longest” instead.

December 2020 Wrap-Up

By Brookelorren on January 2, 2021January 2, 2021Leave a Comment

Hello! Another month is done, and it’s time for the monthly wrap-up! It’s the last month of the year too.

Books Read:

I finished my Goodreads goal! Yes! I actually went several books beyond that.

Goodreads tracks these audio/video classes I’ve been taking by The Great Courses, in addition to audiobooks and print books. It feels like cheating to count them, even though I often listen to them on my walks in lieu of listening to an audiobook. But going over My Year in Books, I still would have reached my Goodreads goal even without them. I don’t list them here (although maybe I should… I’ll start next month). I’m setting my Goodreads goal for 2021 assuming that I’m including them. Although I’m keeping my goal the same. I don’t want the Goodreads goal to be stressful.

Anyway, I read 12 books this month (not counting audio/video courses). This was the most of any month this year!

A Sky Beyond the Storm – Sabaa Tahir
Fireblood – Elly Blake
The Promised Neverland Volume 1
The Heavenly Man – Brother Yun (reread)
Starfish – Akemi Dawn Bowman
Enchantée – Gita Trelease (reread)
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
Golden Poppies – Laila Ibrahim
The Language of Thorns – Leigh Bardugo
Everything That Burns – Gita Trelease
Clockwork Angel – Cassandra Clare (reread)
The Promised Neverland Volume 2

I finished the last three books on December 31st, but they were all partially read. My dh was like “uh, we were planning on doing family stuff tonight” and I was like “not until 8!” And I managed to finish them all before then.

Writing:

Last month, I wrote two Shadowhunter’s fanfics: “A Walk in the Snow,” which takes place on Christmas Eve, and “The End of a Marriage Blanc.” They’re both post-Chain of Gold Jordelia fics. I probably should be finishing my NaNo20 duology, but I didn’t.

I sent my first queries!

I already know what I’m going to write for NaNo21 though. When I was in high school, I wrote a best-friends-to-lovers story called Save the Best for Last. Even though I haven’t seen the story since high school, and don’t know where it is, I’m going to rewrite it. Obviously, it’s going to be a lot different, especially since the original was a self-insert rpf. This one is going to take place in The Brightness of Shadow universe, 6000 years before that story takes place.

Originally, I was going to write a story about the evil queen Katerina and her daughter Elena for NaNoWriMo in 2018. In August, something told me “Don’t write that story yet. Turn that fanfic you wrote in April into a story about elves and humans.” So I did. Later, I found out that Katerina and Elena were in the same universe, just ~6000 years before The Brightness of Shadow.

Save the Best for Last is going to take place a few years before Katerina and Elena’s story. What I think is the coolest part, though, is that I’m discovering more about how the elves came to take over Erenya while I’m thinking about Save the Best for Last. Had I written Katerina and Elena’s story first, I would have made a mess of things. Some of the events that take place in Save the Best for Last will affect both my rewrites of The Brightness of Shadow and my unwritten story of Elena and Katerina. The characters in Save the Best for Last (I don’t know their names yet) aren’t politically important (they’re just simple villagers) but the times they live in will be important for the other stories.

Life:

My dh got a job! His new boss definitely needed an HR manager. My dh is already making improvements, and has ideas to help increase its rating on Yelp and reduce turnover.

We finished school for the year and have been off for a couple weeks. So nice having a vacation. But we start again on Monday. Homeschool coop doesn’t start again till later in January though. I don’t know if I’ll end up with enough students to teach the German class again, but I’ll probably teach the second semester of the Spanish class.

For Christmas, I ended up finishing FOUR scarves. One, for my sister-in-law, was almost done, and I just finished it. Then I made a maroon one for my daughter. Then I designed one with Seahawks colors for my brother. Finally, on December 21st, my dh was like “we need to spend my paycheck this week on the mortgage. We don’t have any money for Christmas.” Uh… so that night, I started making a scarf for him. I only worked on it while he was at work, and I finished it two hours before he came home on Christmas Eve (we eventually got a mortgage forbearance and were able to get a few Christmas presents).

2020 decided to give us one last gift. On December 29th, my dh blew a tire by running over something that was covered with snow. We didn’t have enough money in our bank account. So I went to my boy and told him “we have an emergency, we need to borrow your money!” With his help, we managed to scape together $188, which was $2 more than the final bill.

And I think the motor in our heater blower isn’t working (my dh doesn’t think so, but I believe he’s mistaken). So I’m looking forward to the coronabucks we’re getting on Monday. We’ll finally be able to get our 2nd car up and running again too! We stopped using it last April after my dh lost his job; we didn’t need it, and one of the windshield wipers is broken. Now that he’s working again, we can get it registered and insured and start using it again.

So that was December! How was your month? Did 2020 leave you with any parting gifts? Are you glad it’s 2021?

What I’ve Learned From Six NaNoWriMos

By Brookelorren on November 30, 2020November 30, 2020Leave a Comment

It’s November 30th again, and if you’re like me and participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), hopefully you’re finishing up your 50,000 words you need for the win. If not, you’re still a winner in a way, because you tried! This was my sixth NaNoWriMo, and each year, I learned something new. So if you didn’t get to 50k, that’s okay! Here’s what I learned in six years of NaNoWriMos (and four wins).

2014

I won my first NaNoWriMo! It was my second fanfiction novel and fourth longer work overall (the first three I think are technically novellas). Even though it’s published on Archive of Our Own to this day, it’s probably terrible. But you know what? I finished. After wanting to write since elementary school, I had never written a story of this length before.

2015 – First “Failure”

This year, I attempted to write original fiction (as opposed to fanfiction). I didn’t have a plan, only got past the magical 1,666 words on three days, only wrote 7,652 words total, and stopped writing on day 8. Even though I didn’t win, that’s okay! I’m not really a pantser.

2016 – Second “Failure”

This year, I made it a whole seven days before giving up, but I wrote more on each typical day. Writing the story was like pulling teeth though. I wrote a little over 10,000 words though.

That January, I had started writing a fanfic called Like Normal People. I wrote 13 chapters, stopped when we moved, and then forgot about it. I didn’t write for nearly the entire year.

2017

I didn’t even attempt NaNoWriMo. I don’t think I wrote any fiction that entire year. I’m not 100% sure though, but at this point I didn’t know if I was capable of writing an actual full-length novel. My dreams of being a writer shriveled up.

It’s funny though, because even though I didn’t write fiction, that didn’t mean I didn’t write. I wrote journal entries (lots of these). Blog posts. At some point very early in 2018, I realized that I was writing, even though I wasn’t writing for publication. If I was going to write anyway, why not write towards my dream?

2018

2018 was a very productive year, even though I was working “part time,” which often amounted to between 30 and 36 hours a week. Way more than I wanted to be writing. A very lovely person commented on Like Normal People, hoping I’d finish it. This was at the same time that I felt compelled to write Saving Adelinetta, which is still only 2/3rds done but is partially published on AO3. I wrote five short stories, one of them which was “Happy Birthday,” and two novellas.

I wrote the fanfic “Happy Birthday” on April 22. That summer, I was planning on writing a story for NaNoWriMo again. It was going to be based on the English civil war, but with a Russian feel to it. In August, I had a vision to change the characters from my story “Happy Birthday,” add elves and magic, and turn it into a full length novel. This became my second NaNoWriMo win. I ended up incorporating the original story I was going to write into the backstory for what is now THE BRIGHTNESS OF SHADOW, which I’m going to start querying tomorrow.

2019

After the previous year, I knew to plan more thoroughly for NaNoWriMo. I wrote a fanfic novel earlier in the year and then won NaNoWriMo with my… still untitled book. Yes, I wrote the 50,000 words I needed for my 3rd win, but the story seemed to go off the rails. I love the characters and the idea of this story, it just wasn’t well thought out enough. But you know what? I learned that I could write another original novel this year. And someday, I hope to go back and rewrite this story, with more planning.

2020

I started planning THE BALLAD OF COCONUTS AND SNAKES in the summer of 2019. This was the first book I wrote a query to before starting the book. I had no idea how I was going to write the book at the time, because the original query had amorphous ideas of a guy being held by a god on a desert island and being rescued by a girl (I had to edit this to avoid spoilers), but I had a general idea of how this would turn out before the month began. And this became my fourth NaNoWriMo win.

I’m not sure if this will be a single book or a duology. It has a natural breaking point in the middle, but I’m an underwriter and at this point, I’m not sure it will be long enough to make two books. Since I know the basics of the entire twoish-book story, I’m going to go ahead and write the first draft of both halves of the book and then just edit what I think will be book 1 before querying. And I think this one will reach the query stage too.

So that’s been my NaNoWriMo journey so far. If you’ve won this year, wonderful! But if you gave up, or didn’t make it to 50k, that’s okay too. We’re all growing in our writing journey and if you didn’t do it this year, or aren’t happy with your story, try again next year! The more you write, the more confidence you have that you’ll be able to do it again. At one point, I never thought I’d be able to write a novel at all, even though I desperately wanted to.

Thankfulness (Covid Edition)

By Brookelorren on November 24, 2020November 23, 20209 Comments

Hello! It’s Tuesday again, and time for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl). Sorry I didn’t post last week, I so wanted to post about the pets and kids that I named after book characters, but I was so darned busy. Maybe I’ll use it next freebie week. Anyway, this week is Thanksgiving in the US. Some people have suggested cancelling Thanksgiving, but I don’t think you can cancel it any more than you can cancel your birthday. You can choose to go to work, cross out the word “Thanksgiving” on your calendar, and eat hamburgers instead of turkey on that day, but that doesn’t change the day. Besides, it’s good to be thankful.

So this week we’re posting about things we’re thankful for. This year it might be more difficult. Last year I posted about more bookish things, so this year I’ll post about more 2020 related things. Some of them are still a little bookish.

Financial Miracles. This has actually happened to me twice in approximately the last month. And these aren’t isolated incidents either.

So about a month ago, I needed to pay for my sponsor child. We started sponsoring him last year, when money was (relatively) okay. If I would have paid the bill, we would have been left with about $7 in the bank account. I paid it anyway, because we could survive on $7 until the next unemployment check came in. Two days later, we got a check in the mail: my mom had sent us $1000 because she didn’t want us buying groceries with a credit card.

Last week, it happened again. We usually make a shoebox for Operation Christmas Child. It costs $25 to pack a shoebox online. I’ve been wanting a nice DSLR camera for about 10 years now; I’ve been trying to save up for one with my Zazzle money, but it always seems like my boy needs school books or something. Anyway, I felt that I needed to spend some of my savings on making a box for a kid, and a day later, I got a check for $95 (it’s the money I get teaching for half a semester).

Health. I think this is one thing we often take for granted, but not so much this year. My family has (so far) escaped the coronavirus plague. I like to think that I selfishly wear a mask whenever I leave my house (I consider it a selfish, yet harmless to others act because even though other people benefit, I’m protecting myself), but there are some people that do everything right and still get sick. And even though I bought masks in January, I didn’t start wearing them until March 20th.

I Didn’t Give Marie Lu Coronavirus. This seems like a weird thing to be thankful for, but here’s the story for this. The Penguin Teen Tour came to Denver on March 5. I was already starting to get concerned about the coronavirus. About my only precaution at the time was I wasn’t touching door handles. Anyway, the next day I felt a little nauseous. Even though nausea isn’t a symptom of coronavirus, my writer brain starts thinking “what if I got people there sick yesterday?” Because there was a huge crowd there. Fortunately, the book signing was not a super-spreader event. Two weeks later, there had only been a total of 363 cases and 4 deaths in my state (those were the days, right?).

I’m Completing My Legend Set! Some of you may know that I love the Legend series by Marie Lu. One thing I didn’t have was the short story “Life After Legend.” I had read it (I went out and bought the Warcross paperback edition specifically for that), but I really wanted the original booklet. It came out before I started book blogging and pre-ordering books by my favorite authors. Anyway, last week someone posted about how they had a difficult bookish wish. I posted that I had a difficult bookish wish too. My friend Mary on Twitter asked me what my bookish wish was, and when I said it was “Life After Legend,” she said she had a copy to give to me.

It gets better. I’ve been looking for “Life After Legend” on eBay periodically for a couple years now. I never find it. After I posted on Twitter about my bookish wish, I checked eBay again. No, they didn’t have “Life After Legend,” but they did have a physical copy of “Life Before Legend.” I didn’t even know that was a thing except as a Kindle book. So I picked that up and it’s sitting on my bed right now.

The End to my Reading Slump? If you’ve seen my seasonal TBRs and Monthly Wrap-Ups this year, you know that my reading has been horrible this year. I went from reading 11 books in January to six books last month. Six. I’ve already read seven books this month! My fall TBR is finished with the exception of A Sky Beyond the Storm (which doesn’t come out until next week). Now if I could only start blogging more.

Online Teaching is a Success? I teach Spanish and German to homeschoolers. When they said they were going to move all classes online this year, I was skeptical. I had never taught anything online before. Well, it turns out that it’s so easy to teach online! It allows me to put in all these pretty pictures and stuff. Part of it sucks because class prep takes forever, and sometimes the kids have their cameras off and I feel like I’m talking to myself, but it’s been working out. Right now we’re supposed to return to in-person instruction next year (don’t know if that will actually happen), but I’ve already requested a TV for the class, because it’s so helpful for me to put all the information on the screen.

No Coop This Week! I know I just said that online teaching is going well, but it’s also a lot of work. This week is fall break, I have two weeks after that, and then I can relax. If I was smart, I’d start class prep for next week, so I’m not in a rush Sunday and Monday next week.

37,470. That’s the number of words I’ve written in NaNoWriMo (so far). And I haven’t written today. I have a post scheduled for November 30th about this, but there were two years that I failed NaNoWriMo, and one year I didn’t write at all. So I’m thankful that I’m on track to win again.

Photo by Neil Cummings. Creative Commons License

It’s Time to Query! Every year, agents always say never to query your NaNoWriMo letter on December 1st. So last year, what did I say? “It’d be funny to start querying my NaNoWriMo novel on December 1st.” And so, I am. I have two queries ready, I plan to send out five.

The reason why they tell people not to query their NaNoWriMo books on December 1st is because they don’t want people hitting 50k on November 30th, winning NaNoWriMo, and sending out their unedited first draft the next day. The NaNoWriMo novel I’m planning on sending out was finished sometime in January of 2019, and I’m on my seventh draft.

Pandemics Don’t Last Forever. I think some people have a hard time understanding this one. I’ve heard people say “I won’t leave my house until there’s a vaccine!” As if they still plan on holing up in their houses in 2050 when nobody’s even contracted the virus in over a decade (they were saying this before scientists even knew if a vaccine was possible or not).

People aren’t still afraid of the 1918 H1N1 virus, are they? With that particular strain of the virus, people could be healthy at breakfast and drop dead by lunchtime. I’ve had multiple people say to me “but H1N1 is still around!” H1N1 is a particular description of what the virus looks like. There’s multiple H1N1 virii, just like there’s more than one coronavirus. The particular strain of H1N1-1918 is no longer out killing people. And the coronavirus that’s ravaging the world right now will simply be a memory in a couple years.

And I’m very thankful about that.

Next week, we’re going to talk about books I want to read again. I’m often rereading books and typically have one book I’m rereading (although right now because of NaNoWriMo I’m not). See you then!

What? People Do Things Other than Read?

By Brookelorren on November 3, 2020November 3, 202024 Comments

It’s Tuesday, and you know what that means! Time for another Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl). Today we’re supposed to talk about non-bookish hobbies (does writing count? LOL). So I’m left with a conundrum because I spend most of my free time reading. I don’t really consider making dinner or teaching my boy algebra a hobby. Today I see this as maybe a wish list of things I’d do if I had unlimited time and (perhaps) money.

Postcard by BrookeLorren

Photography. This is something I actually have time for sometimes. I take some of my photographs and turn them into Zazzle products (like this squirrel postcard). My phone case is of a dolphin photo I took several years ago; I actually bought two phone cases with the same design, because I love it so much. Probably when it comes time to replace my iPhone XR, I’ll get the same dolphin case. Unless I take another photo I like better.

My Phone Case

And this is pretty much exactly what my current phone case looks like.

Seeing New Places. This is one of those “yeah, I know I want to do this, but do I really do this?” sort of hobbies. I really want to get better at this one though. For Columbus Day/Indiginous People’s Day, my dh and I took a drive to see all the beautiful leaves, and we went to this place about three hours away and tried to walk alongside the river. We didn’t exactly get there because the land along the river was too muddy. And of course, I took pictures.

Sunset over the Gunnison River Mouse Pad

Sunset over the Gunnison River
by Brookelorren

We drove to Kansas that Saturday, because I’ve never been. I decided I was going to try to see one new place one Saturday every month. My dh wants to come with me. When I mentioned I wanted to go to the Denver Art Museum in November (there’s an exhibit I’d like to see that’s there until December 7th), he wasn’t too thrilled about that. So I’ll go two places this month: one that I’ll go to by myself, and one we can enjoy together. Without making the conscious effort to go, I’ll stay home and read books all afternoon.

Exercise. Another thing I don’t do nearly enough, but I try. We had to let our gym membership lapse last month. I loved being able to go swimming two or three times a week. The river to the right (the picture is of my dd (with the orange hair) and her friend) is fed by glacier water. I was hypothermic when I got out of that water. My doctor upped my thyroid medicine by 50% once I got back from this camping trip, so that might have been why. I like to go hiking when I get the chance, but usually I only find time to walk to the Pokéstop at our local park. I try to do that every day though.

Photo credit: fhp_vf_alexander_0481 — Credit: fhp_vf_alexander_0481
CC License

Genealogy. This is a “hobby” I haven’t touched in at least six years. But I do like it. I like history, and think it’s interesting to learn about all my ancestors. I’ve been able to trace my ancestors to Ivar the Boneless, which was pretty cool. I was fiddling around in Ancestry and found an ancestor that lived in Jamestown, but I didn’t document it right. Perhaps I’ll get the chance to track that ancestor down again someday.

Scrapbooking - gnet — Credit: gnet
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Scrapbooking. Another hobby I haven’t touched in years. I just never think to do so. Plus then I have to get out all the supplies, which are buried under about 20 books. Someday I’ll probably work on this more, when I’m not spending half the day teaching my boy.

Transcription. This is actually something I’ve done in the last year, but I don’t do it as often as I’d like. I occasionally volunteer as a transcriber for the Smithsonian Institution. I think it’s kind of awesome how I’m helping researchers make historical discoveries. Last time I did this I transcribed some of the Freedmen’s Bureau papers during Black History Month. While most of the time I’m not transcribing any juicy historical tidbits, I know that my contribution, added with others, makes a difference. I have also worked on Project Gutenberg, but much less recently.

Needle Crafts. This is something I tend to do about one week a year. I’ve been working on this one cross-stitch project for probably at least 10 years. I have some projects that I’ve lost, so then I go buy new ones. I always go for these mega-large projects too. I have no interest in little squares that say “God bless this house” or whatever. My current project has dolphins.

Languages. Me and Duo are buds. I have… 24 flags after my name in my Duolingo account. I don’t know them all well (my best languages are Spanish, German, and Russian), but I dabble in several languages. I have a 2,039 day streak on Duolingo, which amounts to a little over 5 1/2 years. I have had to use streak freezes during that time, I admit. I also paid to get my streak back once or twice. So I guess I can say this is one hobby I engage in almost daily.

Learning. Now, you may say this is a bookish hobby and I’m cheating, but that’s not necessarily true. There are video courses I take. Then I often listen to audiobook classes when I go for a walk or cook dinner. What better motivation to make one go for a walk, than to know you have something to listen to? Sometimes I listen to audiobooks on my walks, but that’s a bookish hobby; we’ll just ignore that. I guess I do this hobby almost every day too.

Word Puzzle Bill Smith — Credit: Bill Smith
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Puzzles. I don’t usually do many jigsaw puzzles, but I do like to do other kinds of puzzles and brain games. I’ve been making a little bit of money playing timed crossword puzzles, but not very much.

So that’s a list of several hobbies that I don’t usually make time for. I just started playing Animal Crossing with my kids about a week ago, but since I haven’t been playing that long, I didn’t really count it. Maybe if Top Ten Tuesday does this again at some point in the future.

What are your non-bookish hobbies? Are you like me, saying “what’s that?” Or are you a normal person where books is only a ~~small~~–er–medium part of your life? Next week, it’s back to books, with “Book Titles that Will Make Great Song Titles.” See you then!

October 2020 Monthly Wrap-Up

By Brookelorren on November 1, 2020November 1, 20204 Comments

Hello! It’s November 1st, and time to say hello to the holiday season and hustle and bustle until the end of the year. But before we get there, what happened last month?