I never have as many hours in a day as I think I do. I have been on vacation since Friday, returning to work tomorrow: one of my high school friends got married on Friday, and I seized the opportunity to create a little post-wedding, semi-productive staycation for myself. I have been productive, but my schedule has not gone at all according to plan. This is partly because I’m lazy and prone to improvisation, but mostly because I was incapacitated for most of Sunday by a surprise migraine. I therefore spent the first day of October sleeping on my couch instead of cleaning my bathroom and kitchen, which was a bit of a bummer considering October is one of my favorite months. (As for the bathroom and kitchen, they got cleaned the following day, but my very ambitious schedule was completely destroyed.) I was a little upset because I’d originally envisioned myself getting my cleaning and shopping done between Sunday and Monday and then spending yesterday and today just vegging; but on the other hand, I did manage to get in some solid vegging, even if it wasn’t exactly to schedule.
And now back to September, in which the highlight of the month was my kitchen blinds. Yes, really. Hear me out: my kitchen blinds have been driving me crazy for the last year and a half because they used to hang right in front of the open window, which meant that they would rattle like a goddamn skeleton every time there was even just the slightest breeze. I finally remembered to ask if they could be flipped, and it turned out they could be, and now windy days are that much more peaceful.
Before:
After:
I’m so happy.
September Reading Stats
Books Finished:
- Chobits 4 – CLAMP
- Chobits 5 – CLAMP
- Chobits 6 – CLAMP
- Chobits 7 – CLAMP
- Chobits 8 – CLAMP
- Loamhedge – Brian Jacques
- The Night Tiger – Yangsze Choo
- Rakkety Tam – Brian Jacques
- Odder – Katherine Applegate
- High Rhulain – Brian Jacques
- Eulalia! – Brian Jacques
- I Await the Devil’s Coming – Mary MacLane
Total Pages Read: 3,236
Yes, this is still a blog about books and not blinds, even if lately I’ve begun to realize that my book reviews are not actually reviews in the sense that most people think of reviews. This blog is more like my book diary, and, given that my platform is maybe two or three people, the reviews are mostly written for my own recordkeeping purposes.
Anyway, September was a shockingly good reading month, though I can’t give myself too much credit because a large chunk of that page count was taken up by the Chobits mangas. While I recognize mangas as books – I’m a snob, but I’m not quite that bad – I don’t count them towards my personal reading goals because they have a lot of pictures and they usually take no more than 30 minutes to read, and the whole reason I started the reading challenges was to hold myself accountable for reading books without pictures. However, I did still read quite a few non-mangas this month, the best of which might actually have been Odder. I love that book and I want to read it again.
Now: I am currently at 67 books for the year out of an original goal of 72, and this year’s reading challenge has been going so well that I raised my goal to 82 (to make up for the ten mangas included in my read count) because I apparently have no respect for my own time. However, I have decided that I am not going to set a reading challenge for next year. The original goal with the challenges was to low-key learn to read again, because my reading skills went into a serious decline after college (and with the arrival of my first iPhone), and it was a long, hard road getting them back. It’s been six years and I’m more or less back to normal now, and I’ve realized that, with this goal fulfilled, there’s no real need to force myself to read an arbitrary number of books in one year. I have discovered through trial and error that I cannot read and blog and write and get back into drawing and work a full-time job. I want to start focusing on other things next year, so I will skip the reading challenge and let the chips fall where they may.
Currently Reading
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Suzanne Collins
I mean, the review says it all. This is a reread, because the movie is coming out in November and goddammit I’m gonna be ready.
Doomwyte
Brian Jacques
Current rating: 4-4.5 stars. This is book 20 in the Redwall series, and I’m not ready to let go. I have been pleasantly surprised so far: High Rhulain was completely awful and Eulalia! had a better story but was badly written, so I wasn’t expecting much from Doomwyte. I’m not too far along, but the story has me interested and the writing isn’t as bad as it was in the last book. At the very least it has fewer comma splices.
Fall Hauls
I was at H Mart yesterday, and I saw some hilarious labels on the gochugaru jars while I was in the spice aisle, and then some “chicken paws” in the freezer section. I love Asian markets.
This has been a big weekend for shopping. In my defense, it was supposed to be, at least as far as groceries went; it’s been a while since I’ve been to H Mart, and I’ve actually been really good about making monthly shopping lists and not zipping down to Ellicott City every weekend just because I happen to be bored. I’ve also been so, so good about not spending my paychecks at Home Goods the minute they drop into my hands, which is why I’m posting my H Mart and Home Goods hauls here. I want some documentation in case I get any smart ideas about going on another spree. I do not need more groceries or cooking pots. I am fine.
I wasn’t even planning to pick up the cooking pots, because I originally was going to go to Safeway when I cleaned the kitchen and realized I was out of dish sponges. En route I switched to Wegmans because I remembered that I also wanted to buy mason jars, and my Wegmans is right next door to Home Goods. Fast forward an hour or so, and I ended up with the jars, a carbon steel wok that I’m going to use to make chili oil, a small pot that I’m going to use as a one-person nabe, and a larger pot that I am currently justifying as my dedicated curry pot because it looked cozy and I have absolutely no self-control. (And I have the sponges. It wasn’t a total disgrace.) Long story short, I’m going to have to try to organize my pot cabinet. Again.
And lunch, picked up on the way home because I can never resist Taiwanese popcorn chicken and am good at finding excuses to buy some.
In book-related hauls, you may start noticing a pattern right about now, because I haven’t been to the bookstore recently but had to reset the counter after this weekend. The top of the stack came from the Green Valley Book Fair; the bottom half – starting with Land of Milk and Honey, whose release I have been anticipating – came from Barnes & Noble, which just happened to be in close proximity to the H Mart. I got suckered into the new membership at the register, so I got a free tote as well and was promised another one when I renew next year.
The book gods are good.
