So Many Books, So Little Time

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  I participated in Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon on Saturday and it was great!  I've been in a terrible reading funk lately but I managed to get a lot of reading in and I think I busted out of my funk.   The last week was pretty quiet; we didn't look at any houses so it was nice to just be in our normal day to day routine.  The hubs and I had a super fun date night with friends on Friday but we definitely paid for it on Saturday when Julia came home tired and grumpy from my mother-in-laws.  Oh well, I guess that's just life with a 3 year old! Finished Reading: The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova Bobbins and Boots by Shanna Hatfield Under the Approaching Dark by Anna Belfrage Currently Reading: Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession by Alison Weir I totally blew my book buying ban again this week so here I am with another Mailbox Monday post.  I got an email from Barnes and Noble by mistake indicating that

I have a back log of NetGalley reads so I thought I would do a Mini Review post. Stolen Beauty by Laurie Lico Albanese I am fascinated by the story of the Adele Bloch-Bauer painting by Gustav Klimt so I was very excited to read this book.  I've seen the movie and a couple documentaries, read some books and even have some Klimt reproductions in my office.   I enjoyed the discussion of fin de siecle Vienna and all the creative movements (artistic and otherwise) that were blossoming during Klimt's life.  It was really interesting to read about how society was changing and art was changing with it.  As a whole, I enjoyed the story but I think the characters were hard to relate to.  At times, I really liked Adele's character and other times, she seemed very whiny and I had a hard time feeling sympathetic to her plight.  The story also jumped back and forth between different time periods and that transition wasn't very smooth.  It was an interesting story as a whole

I really didn't want to have another Mailbox Monday post for a long while but I caved and bought a couple of books this week.  YIKES.  I think I only made it two or three weeks without buying books.  Work continues to be busy and and the week was crazy with house hunting.  We looked at several houses and even put an offer on one but nothing came of it.  So back to the drawing board! I also started watching '13 Reasons Why' on NetFlix and then the hubs got really into it and binge watched the whole season.  I didn't see all of it but I'm pretty sure I've seen enough.  I didn't dislike it but it was pretty dark and makes me terrified of sending my daughter to school.  I think I'll just stick with getting caught up on 'This is Us'.  Because of all that, it was a really slow reading week. I'd like to finish two more books before the month is over so I better get on it! Finished Reading: A Bridge Across the Ocean by Susan Meissner Cu

Lilli de Jong by Janet Benton Publication Date: May 16, 2017 Nan A. Talese Hardcover & eBook; 352 Pages Genre: Fiction/Historical/Literary READ AN EXCERPT . A young woman finds the most powerful love of her life when she gives birth at an institution for unwed mothers in 1883 Philadelphia. She is told she must give up her daughter to avoid lifelong poverty and shame. But she chooses to keep her. Pregnant, left behind by her lover, and banished from her Quaker home and teaching position, Lilli de Jong enters a home for wronged women to deliver her child. She is stunned at how much her infant needs her and at how quickly their bond overtakes her heart. Mothers in her position face disabling prejudice, which is why most give up their newborns. But Lilli can’t accept such an outcome. Instead, she braves moral condemnation and financial ruin in a quest to keep herself and her baby alive. Confiding their story to her diary as it unfolds, Lilli takes readers from an impoverished charity

So I have to be honest, we completely bombed the reintroduction period.  I really don't want to post about my epic fail but I figure it's best to be honest.  We started reintroducing legumes and it went okay though they gave me a stomachache and I thought the peanut butter was bland.  Then we went on to non-gluten grains and that's where things went wrong.  We went to Chipotle for dinner that night and were able to add in rice and tortilla chips. Bad move.  I think tortilla chips are a gateway drug for me.  I ate so many chips and then I couldn't stop craving ice cream...so we went to Dairy Queen.  And then it was all down hill from there.  I'm bummed about this up because now I don't have a good handle on what upsets my stomach.  My husband has been having a really hard time since we've stopped doing Whole30 a hundred percent of the time and it would be nice to know what his problem foods are (we think gluten but we can't be sure).  I also tend

 Hello!  I think this may be one of my last Mailbox Monday posts for a while as I transition to just reading books I own and catching up on reviews.  I got some great books this week so I just had to share. This week was a whirlwind!  I work at a university and it was the first week of enrollment so we were incredibly busy.  I'm also planning some big family celebrations in the next few months so it feels like there is always something that needs to be done.  I only finished one book this week ( Forever A Hero by Linda Lael Miller) and barely made progress on anything else.  I'm hoping that next week will be a tiny bit less busy but we'll see!   Goodreads Giveaway: The Baker's Secret by Stephen P. Kiernan     I hardly ever enter giveaways on goodreads anymore because I haven't won in years. I was so excited to win this book because it sounds so good. For Review (from HFBVT):   Under the Approaching Dark by Anna Belfrage I've read

2017 is already a quarter of the way over!  That's nuts! I did a terrible job of keeping up with my monthly wrap up posts this year so I decided to combine the first three months into a wrap up of the whole quarter.  I'm doing great with reading so far this year and when March was over, I was perfectly on track to meet my reading goal for the year.  I'm shooting for 100 books again this year and I finished March with 25 so I'm very pleased.  Stats for January through March: -25 books read    - 6 non-fiction    - 6 historical fiction    - 2 review books    -16 library books    -5 books I own    -17 ebooks While I'm staying on track with my main reading goal, I'm really slacking in other areas.  I started a reading journal (which I've been neglecting) and for this year I set out to read 25 non-fiction books and 30 books I own.  I'm doing okay with making the non-fiction book goal but I really need to work on reading books I own.