Book Love
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What’s Up, Thursday?
Because we’ve had a bunch of pre-scheduled posts in a row, I wanted to do a quick “currently” post yesterday (The title “What’s Up, Wednesday?” just sounds SO MUCH BETTER), but I kiiiinnnndddd of let yesterday get away from me. It all started when I started trying to find the text of the eyewitness testimony by John S. Smith about the Sand Creek Massacre to share with my students. Then before I realized it was happening, I found myself in the middle of a four hour primary document bender. Historian problems. Psh. But anyway, better late than never, I guess. Currently I’m… …working on: some book reviews for on here.…
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Magpie’s Adventures in Bullet Journaling
Bullet Journaling has really fascinated me ever since Jenn from With Luck Blog brought it to my attention way back when I posted about planners. The concept seemed to work really well with the system I was currently using for my to-do lists, but there was one big issue with it – the inability to plan ahead by more than a month or so. As a freelance musician, I sometimes book weddings and masses months and even years in advance (funerals, not so much), so the lack of a static monthly calendar in the system was a major flaw for me. But everything else seemed so great… so I decided…
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12 Books for 2015
As I said in my New Year’s Goals post, I read a ton throughout the year – but rarely get the opportunity to read a whole book solely for myself. I’ve just slipped out of the habit of using my free time for pleasure reading. And I miss it. So this year I made it a goal to read at least 12 books that I don’t NEED to read. Specifically: The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers by Thomas Fleming I picked this book up several years ago when Borders went out of business, and like most of the stuff I picked up during that sale, it’s just kind of…
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Monday Update
It’s been a looonnnnggg but boring and busy few weeks, with minimal time for creating bloggy material and content happening in my life, so I figure it’s time for a quick update on what’s been keeping me occupied. I’m… …working on: grading research papers. I’ve got 105 five to seven page papers to work through. Even just looking at the stack is overwhelming. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s all for the greater good. And that the massive amounts of unpaid time I use notating and commenting on their writing will help them in the future because they’ll take what they learn from this experience and apply it…
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Torn…
So yesterday I went grocery shopping, and as I was passing by the book section in our Wegman’s (love Wegman’s) I ended up spending literally 10 minutes fighting with myself about whether to buy and read The Fault in Our Stars. I kept picking it up, and putting it down again. Picking it up, reading the back cover, and putting it down again. Picking it back up, putting it in my cart, walking three steps before shaking my head and putting it back. In the end I ended up leaving without it because I remembered my no-book pledge and forced myself to just walk away. But I’m still torn about…
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Library Book Sale Day is a Very Dangerous Day
This post is majorly late in the making – library book sale season is the end of April – but belated though it may be, I can’t help but want to share my haul from this year. I know my spending fast rules specifically outlaw book purchases, but I had stashed $20 away months ago just for this purpose. Afterall, where else other than a library sale can you get antique books for a buck a piece AND support your local libraries? This year I ended up finding some real gems. Or at least some real gems as far as a book nerd like me is concerned. First we have…
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Redoing the Bookshelf
I don’t know what it is, but something about the sun shining in and the ability to have the windows open and a breeze rushing through the apartment just makes me want to clean and decorate. Unfortunately, satisfying that urge can be difficult when you’re on a strict spending fast – no, I can’t buy those new throw pillows; no, that bookcase is not purchasable right now… So to satisfy my urge I set my sights on rearranging our single big bookcase – it belongs to the apartmentmate, and is a beautiful, antique behemoth that has its home in our dining room and doubles as a liquor cabinet. Me and…
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The Book Jar
I have a book problem. A very big book problem. An “I have filled my parents’ basement with storage containers full of books that I don’t have enough bookcases to house” kind of problem. And the reality is that recently my reading habits have not been able to justify the book accumulating habits I have. So, as already covered in my New Years Post, this year I resolved to read more. On that front, so far, so good. I’ve finished 6 books already over the month of January (although in the interest of full disclosure, one was a silly Doctor Who novel that took a total of maybe 4 hours,…