So there I was, happily minding my own business, and then Heather reminded me that I have a game where you literally can be a little crow who flies around shitting on random people and I got hooked all over again and then I had to restart it from the beginning because I’m crazy and I wanted a clean start, DAMMIT, Heather. (Also pictured: a reading journal vlog, one of my new favorite things.)
And here is the cat doing floor ballet for no reason.
And here is her huge puffy tail, seen right after she heard a dog barking on the TV while we were rewatching The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Baby girl was ready to FIGHT. Her tail got so big it put me in mind of Masha, the floofy-tailed subject of My Beloved Monster (Caleb Carr). Everybody needs a Masha tail.
I don’t have much to report in the way of an unemployment update this month, but I’ve been trying and failing to get through a video editing course on Skillshare. It’s not hard to follow, but I think I missed a step somewhere, so now I have to start all over and that’s annoying. I keep pushing it off, so who knows when it’ll get done.
March Reading Stats
Books Finished:
- Last Violent Call – Chloe Gong
- The Fox Wife – Yangsze Choo
- The Bullet That Missed – Richard Osman
- Summers End – Juneau Black
- Sunrise on the Reaping – Suzanne Collins
- The Last Devil to Die – Richard Osman
Total Pages Read: 2,166
I have been on such a Northern China kick because of the Secret Shanghai books, which I am trying to finish this year. Last Violent Call gave me such a craving that I had to immediately reread The Fox Wife even though it has zilch to do with Secret Shanghai, and it still slaps. I actually managed to have that rare month where every book was a five-star read, though it helps that a couple of them were very beloved rereads.
I am also happy to announce that I have finished my first series for the year, that being the Thursday Murder Club, at least until book five comes out. But for now every book in the series has been read and reviewed and those reviews will be posted over the next few months, and I’m feeling good about my 2025 series challenge. I wasn’t sure if I’d stick to it. That being said, I still need to finish Secret Shanghai and Between Earth and Sky and I really have no idea why I keep dragging my feet on both, except that I get distracted by other books with absurd ease. Jurassic Park, for instance, though that isn’t anywhere near the priorities list.
One of the few perks of now-long-term unemployment: I’ve had plenty of time to start my 2025 reading journal, which is coming along nicely. The background illos and stickers came from Freepik – I am not a great believer in reinventing the wheel – but everything else was done by me. And I’ve gotta admit, layout design is my bread and butter. I could do this all day, and in fact I did until I got tossed out of my last real job. Long story short, all those reading journal vlogs were time well spent. I did fiddle with the idea of updating my ratings to something more like the CAWPILE system, but that sounded complicated and I like being able to just give five stars if I feel like it, so in the end I didn’t bother. Anyway, here’s some of my favorite spreads.
Reading Goal Tracker/Ratings/Preorders
Must-Review Series
This one will let me track my progress on the series challenge. Pink dots have been read and reviewed (though looking at this I’ve just realized I forgot to switch the final Thursday Murder Club dot but I’m too lazy to go back and fix it and re-export it and everything so too bad). Series headers will also be turned pink as I finish them.
2025 Book Bracket
Huge thanks to Erin Smith for giving me this idea, even if it didn’t end up working for her journal. Love her videos.
Monthly Reads
I can’t wait to see this all filled in. I was also going to do one of those spreads where you actually draw out an entire bookshelf and label the spines of the books as you go, but then I realized that would be redundant to this spread, and I liked this idea better. Each month has been assigned its own color, which repeats throughout the journal. This actually is a modification of a spread I did when I was still doing the Pocket Books challenge: I ended up quitting the challenge, but I loved the spread so much that I had to keep it.
Book Reviews
Monthly Dashboards
My original layouts for the monthly spreads were more in line with the kind of thing I used to do when I was still employed, and they looked so soullessly corporate that I had to completely change them. They’re so much better now. The calendar idea also came from Erin Smith, who does absolutely gorgeous reading journals complete with calendars tracking her reading time from start to finish. At first I thought why shame myself like that, but I had empty page space to fill in so I went for it. So far it’s been fun, and I love how it looks.
That’s all for now. More updates to come.
Currently Reading
Sherlock Holmes Complete Collection
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
No progress this month. It kinda comes and goes.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
J.K. Rowling
Chugging along. Finally got to the actual Goblet of Fire.
Jurassic Park
Michael Crichton
Rereading in preparation for The Lost World.
Blogkeeping Notes
This blog has so few followers that it’s always a surprise when I get a comment. March 28 marked a milestone: I got my first comment tantrum from a semiliterate undesirable.
I wouldn’t have thought something as basic as the SPOILER WARNINGS I put at the beginning of every review would require an explanation, but I am now providing one for anyone else too stupid to understand. Yes, I give spoilers. Yes, I explain the entire book/movie/show. No, I am not going to stop (until I get tired of writing Wikipedia-length summaries). And, yes, every review post now includes a note specifically for stupid people who don’t understand SPOILER WARNINGS. And by the way, “fed up” is two words.
This feedback could have been expressed more kindly, but it was not, so I see no reason to react with kindness. In conclusion, I hope this idiot is in a position to seek professional help, because they clearly need it.
Spring Things
Here’s a first: I actually managed to celebrate Pi Day with pie! This is noteworthy because my first Pi Day was celebrated with cake, and it was an embarrassing failure. The $1 Safeway pies were actually quite good and I’d buy them again, though I find it both hilarious and alarming that they go out of their way to point out that they were made with real fruit.
One reason to look forward to spring, which I normally hate due to allergies (currently coked up on Claritin and feeling more charitable): I actually looooooove the spring color palette. I have been wanting a mechanical keyboard for years, and now I finally have this gorgeous spring-colored Dustsilver keyboard. It took longer than expected to get to me since it shipped from China, but I got it half off so I have no complaints because I couldn’t have bought it otherwise. I have been loving this keyboard, and I regret nothing.
In spring cleaning news, I finally made myself go through my bookcases and pull out the books I know I’m never actually going to read. It came to quite a pile and I don’t have a picture which is weird when I take pictures of everything??? I don’t feel like taking one now, but I suppose I probably will before I sell the books. I also rearranged the bedroom reading corner I set up back in August, not because I didn’t like it but because I did the rug wrong and it had this permanent bump right in front of the couch legs and it was driving me CRAZY. Like, you literally can see it in this before shot.
The other problem was that the TV cart was turned to face the couch, which means all those cables were sticking out in the breeze and they were also driving me crazy because I am a huge proponent of never seeing cables. In the end I had to give up on the idea of having the couch and the TV face each other, so the TV is now back in its original spot (i.e., facing the bed) and the couch is in the same place and the rug is gone. That red cart was originally between the TV and the door but then I realized that was stupid when the cart has the reading lamp, so I scooted it between the couch and the TV instead. I needed a place to stash my reading list anyway. Now if only I would actually use this reading corner.
Don’t worry about the rug, he’s fine. He is now back in his original spot in the living room YES IT STILL HAS BUMPS but I can live with those. It’s almost like August’s activities were a huge waste of time and Carolynpower, though I don’t regret moving the couch into my room. I even scraped all that white fur off the cushions. It was like taking off a whole cat.
And here is the cat being confused at the couch being sideways while I was removing the rug and then indignant when I tried to remove her from the sideways couch so I could turn it back right side up.
Cat Café
‘Tis still the season for birthdays and the latest one belonged to Heather, who in her wisdom wished to visit our first-ever cat café! Unfortunately there weren’t as many kitties out as usual because there was some unspecified incident a few hours before our visit, from which the bulk of the kitties still needed to decompress. I’m taking this to mean that some asshole ruined it for the rest of us, but I still managed to make friends with the loveliest little calico (yes I have a type). Her name is Tori and I would commit fraud for her. If I were on the lookout for another cat (which I am not) and if Circe were at all amenable to the idea of a little sister (which she is not), Tori would’ve come home with me. ;_; Even better, Crumbs & Whiskers partners with Levain which makes the greatest chocolate chip walnut cookies in the world and I have absolutely zero complaints except that 70 minutes was way too short. The admission sticker is now in my planner.
Then after we played with the kitties we went across the street to Barnes & Noble, where I saw the best book sign I’ve ever seen and a bunch of hilarious gift bags. The final pic is my haul (including the Crumbs & Whiskers shirt and complimentary sticker) and I swear I was not meaning to buy If Cats Disappeared from the World but they made me an offer I couldn’t resist. The thing is, that weekend they were running a “sweet reads” deal, so if I got a chocolate bar I could get the cat book for $5 instead of the normal $15, and, well, suffice it to say I was tempted beyond my strength. I mean, it was on my TBR anyway. I was going to have to buy it at some point. (and no the chocolate bar was not $15 I know what you’re all thinking lmao)
Cooking Corner
Speaking of things I’ve fallen for recently GDI
I am a Reese’s devotee, so if I see a new flavor you’d better believe I’m going to try it. At the same time I don’t know why I bother because I’ve never met a Reese’s flavor I like better than the original, but these were 54¢ off at the register with my Safeway membership so I don’t feel too bad about buying three of them. They were fine, I guess. I liked the strawberry better than the grape, but ultimately I will be sticking to the OG.
Anyway, it is once again that time of the month where I remind myself that I’m doing quite well cooking for myself and avoiding DoorDash. Did I recently slip up and buy Chinese takeout? I can neither confirm nor deny. The point is that last month I was threatening to make meatloaf after rereading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes where fucking Coriolanus indulges in several meatloaf sandwiches that sound so delicious I always renew my vow to try making meatloaf. This time I actually followed through, and I get the hype. Those sandwiches were delicious. I wish I had one now. I will be making this again. (Also was not expecting my first meatloaf to hold its shape so well so that was a nice surprise, in case you were wondering why I have a picture of a hunk of raw meat.) These glazed carrots were pretty good too.
Also: I have not had homemade lasagna in over a decade, but I had a lot of tomato paste that needed to get used up, so I found this recipe that uses six tablespoons of tomato paste. It was so good that I’ve already made another lasagna with the remaining noodles and the little container of tomato paste I kept forgetting in the freezer, I have issues, okay. I am now out of tomato paste except for maybe a tablespoon or so in a tube in the fridge, but that one’s still new enough that I’m not worried about it. I am very pleased to be rid of that years-old frozen tomato paste. It bothers me when things sit around too long, though the paste was perfectly fine.
Other new recipe tries: chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, which were so like the ones my mom used to make that my brother pillaged the cookie jar while he was helping me make the lasagna, and Korean potato soup from Future Neighbor. I actually haven’t tried too many Future Neighbor recipes even though I love their YouTube channel, but I want to change that. This soup was so simple and takes so few ingredients but it was so good, and I will be making this one again as well. The final picture is blueberry streusel muffins that came out of a box, so I wasn’t sure if I should include them or not but I gave myself some slight points for busting out the scone pan I bought in a fit of insanity at a Scottish festival. I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t run out of muffin tin space because in fact I forgot I had a scone pan until I went looking for more muffin tins and found the scone pan in the cabinet instead, but it’s nice when things work out.
Restarting my unofficial no-takeout challenge. We’ll see how I do this month.
