Sunday Salon/Sunday Post - August 25, 2024: Four Months til Christmas?

Happy Sunday! (note to self - post Senior Sunday pic of oldest when I get done with this post...) Today I'm joining Readerbuzz and the Caffeinated Reviewer for Sunday Salon and Sunday Post (are there peeps who would really do one and not the other??) As I filled in my title last night, the date struck me - the 25th is always [blank] months til Christmas, right? But waking up this morning, it has occurred to me that this is now a weekend of lessons.

The first was regarding my oldest - it is her senior year in high school! While she's always been mature for her age and is regularly taking on adult responsibilities, I think some people - now including me - are taking this for granted. She did a t-shirt order for the show she's directing, and she has the confidence of youth. The actual program director (who did the previous shirt orders) told her it isn't complicated, and she should go ahead and do it herself this time. So she did. But the director didn't warn her about minimums. The price of each shirt is set by how many you expect to have ordered, and if that isn't met, they charge the one running the order, the difference. Yeah. You see where this is going. Mom to the rescue, but I asked to review anything with dollar signs before she sets it up next time.

Lesson number two was of course from the other child. The one who crawls into my king-sized bed while hubby travels for work (which is most weekends). Since I usually am at work at 6am, I still wake up a bit earlier than the rest of the house on the day each work that I don't work. So I just got up and pottied, but wanted to sleep a bit more. Alas, the whole comforter was wrapped around one 12-year-old, but at least I had a sheet left? The cat got up to snuggle with me, so that was a bonus. But then he rolled back toward me, with comforter at least twice as big as him wadded up in the rolling. To get to the point, the cat panicked and scratched MY FOREHEAD trying to get away. Yes. I do love staring me day by bleeding from the head. Ugh.

But now I'm up, ready to be productive-ish.

What I'm reading this week:

This week the battle of the books is all in my rearview mirror. At the battle, there were 40 points possible, and the two teams who tied for first-place had 37 points. The team I'm on - the No Pressure Book Club - had 36. Not too shabby, eh? The four books again, in order of my ratings, were Recursion by Blake Crouch (LOVED this one! - ☆☆☆☆☆), Miss Spitfire by Sarah Miller (nice book - easy read - ☆☆☆☆), Lore Olympus: Volume One by Rachel Smythe (very neat graphic novel, but graphic novels are just not my jam - ☆☆☆), and Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby (I don't think I really liked much of anything about this book - sorry! - ☆☆, cuz writing a book is hard). I did finish reading all four books, even if the last two were a few days after the battle. 

Now I'm reading a kindle copy of The Witch's Secret by Stacie Murphy which was published a couple weeks ago. I am a witch and love witch stories, good and bad. I have less than a couple hours left, and so far I'm really liking this one. It's a witch in U.S. civil war times trying to single-handedly deal with some group that is summoning demons to eliminate their opposition. How rude, am I right??

The two print books currently in my work tote bag are Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and The Hedgerow by Anne Leigh Parrish. I'm reading Little Women because the theatre troupe is doing the play in November (auditions for my daughter and her friends in just a few weeks, and I want to understand the characters and better enjoy the show). The Hedgerow is for review, and I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't realize it's a sequel. I've made it my policy to not start with something other than the first book in a series, but so far it's reading all right without the background.

Three Good Things:

1. Super fun time with the kids yesterday! After I got done working six hours (and finished a truly dreaded draft that combined EIGHT complaints), my daughter had suggested checking out our local Dragon on the Lake festival. The food trucks seemed to be waiting for the beer tent before they opened, so we had a nice lunch on the patio of one of our favorite restaurants, then visited the chalk art competition and a bunch of the craft and merchant tents. My favorites were these fantastic wings commissioned and drawn by a theatre friend (who also won her division of the chalk art competition), and visiting the booth for Black Cat Beanery, where we donated and won a half-off entry to the cafe later, and a $30 gift card!

2. I am LOVING the DNC 2024 Roll Call playlist on Spotify. I saw it recommended and couldn't find it on Spotify, but searching it on Google got me to it. So I'm sharing. It's an amazing variety full of such uplifting, energetic, and optimistic vibes.

3. The weather is finally warmer again! Last week it was getting a bit cooler and gloomy in Michigan. I really strongly dislike winter and snow, so as summer ends, I'm prone to being pretty bummed. Yesterday and today are a little bit warmer than 80 degrees, and yesterday was even sunny! I know it won't last much longer, but I'll take what I can get. 

Three Goals for this week/month/whatever:

Last time's goals were mostly a bust. But it does help with my focus ;)

1. Finish my Haunted Mansion Lego house. I'm starting step/section three of four.

2. Get tickets to Sweeney Todd, which is showing Sept 6 - 21 weekends in a town near me!

3. Keep on keeping on in that blasted office. I've got a few tasks I want the kids' help with first (moving some kitchen clutter around), and I promised to watch a Marvel movie (yesterday was Iron Man, not sure what he has planned for today), but then I should get some me-time and should make a bit more progress.