Around Here | I’m writing this post on Wednesday evening, after a long day of staff training at my day job. We spent the day doing activities related to the StrengthsFinder assessment, which was interesting, but also pretty draining – it’s hard for this introvert to be on and conversational all day! I’m definitely glad to be home, settled in for an evening of writing and reading.
Reading | April has been a pretty slow reading month so far. I’ve only finished three books – The Song Poet by Kao Kalia Yang (memoir of a Hmong family in Minnesota), Bachelor Nation by Amy Kaufman (a journalist explains how The Bachelor gets made), and Circe by Madeline Miller (a fictional revisiting of the witch from Greek mythology). Up next is The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil, a memoir of two sisters fleeing a 1994 massacre in Rwanda.
Watching | I just started watching Splitting Up Together, an ABC comedy about a couple who divorce but continue to live together to care for their kids. Jenna Fisher (aka Pam from The Office) is one of the leads, and she’s totally charming.
Listening | I’ve been very slowly making my way through Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, his memoir growing up as a mixed-race kid in South Africa during Apartheid. It’s really great, I just keep getting distracted by podcasts. (Did you know I now host a podcast for Book Riot? For Real!)
Loving | My 100 Day Project (100 Days in a Notebook) has been so much fun so far. I appreciate making a little bit of time each day to do something creative, even if it’s just doodling with colored pencils or playing around with watercolors. It seems like I’ve been pulling out my notebook in the evenings when I’m watching tv, and spending some time filling a page instead of also scrolling on social media. I haven’t done anything super ambitious yet, but for now I’m ok with using that space to just play.
Hating | Last weekend we had a massive snowstorm in Minnesota. From Friday evening until Sunday evening, the storm dropped about 16 inches of snow in our neighborhood, which is truly ridiculous at any time, but especially in April. It’s also been like the coldest April on record… so that’s something too. Spring cannot come soon enough!
Anticipating | Readathon!! Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon is April 28 and I am psyched! My mom and sister are also participating again this year, so we’ll have a full house of readers all day. I’m slowly putting together my book pile, thinking about my snacks, and making a plan for the day. It’s gonna be fun!
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I chose Circe and Girl Who Smiled Beads for my April BOTMs! Looking forward to diving into both!
Great minds! Circe was so great, I loved it. I’m hoping to start The Girl Who Smiled Beads this weekend.
Our weather’s been crazy but not that crazy. Stay warm!
Fingers crossed for some warm sunshine this weekend!
We’re into spring down here in Texas with wildflowers, etc. However, it has been a lot cooler overall. Usually by this point, we’ve had several days of over 90 temps, but this year I think we’ve had only one.
It’s been cold here, but it seems like we might be at a turning point — reports of 60 this weekend!
I’m not in Minnesota, and we have had relatively little snow this year, but I am SOOO tired of this cold weather. Bring on summer….PLEASE!
I’ve yet to read the Trevor Noah book, though I want to. Somehow I’ve checked out 3 biographies of Ulysses Grant and I want to finish at least one before I take on any more nonfiction!
Good luck on those biographies! I tried to read Ron Chernow’s new Grant biography, but I just couldn’t get into it — bit presidential biographies are just not my thing I guess 🙂
I can relate about the weather — it’s been a bummer! I’m hoping we had our last snowstorm on Monday but who can say?! Regardless we changed out our winter tires to summer ones! How was the novel Circe? Did it live up to all the hype & expectations? hmm
I think Circe did live up to the hype! It was interesting to see all of these stories from a different perspective, and I felt like the personality she gave to Circe was rich and complicated. I really liked it.
That is a lot of snow! We’ve had regular dustings in Ohio and have taken to saying that it’s the 96th or 106th of January.
Whew, that is exactly what it was starting to feel like!
I absolutely loved Born a Crime! I am so sad for you guys about all that snow. My entire family is in Chicago and I watch the weather there super closely. It’s been a crazy horrible “spring”. I really hope it warms up for you guys soon!
Born a Crime is so great — I’m so close to finishing it and I don’t want it to end.
We’re wildly swinging from summer to winter and back again. ENOUGH ALREADY! I’m not sure if I’ll do the readathon, but I know it’s a great time to connect with other readers. How great that your mom and sister are joining you again.
I wish I could do podcasts because so many of friends (like you) are hosting programs I’m interested in. I’m just more of a book person!
Yes, it’s always fun to spend time reading and connecting — I have a hard time balancing it out but it’s also a good problem to have.
Ehhhh, we are doing StrengthsFinder at my job too; it, along with reading the Bucket book, is part of our summer project. I am not thrilled, partly for the same reason as you – I am an introvert and do not enjoy these very public, very excited, very loud conversations. This is not my first run through with something like this (we did Meyers Briggs years ago) so I can already vividly see the coming meetings.
It does take a lot to be “on” for the trainings and experiences as part of doing the exercises, but I did generally like the approach of StrengthsFinder and thinking about how teams work together. We’ll see how it all goes!
But what were your strengths? What strengths did you find in your strength-finding endeavors? Did you find “awesome talking about nonfiction” as one of your strengths?
I wish! Mine were Empathy, Harmony, Responsibility, Relator, Deliberative, which are all very relational strengths, I think. It was interesting, not always what I expected!
The snowy pictures are beautiful but I can imagine but this time of the year you must be so over it! My reading seems to be going pretty slowly too but oh well. So happy to hear you are enjoying your artsy endeavors and hope you’ll show us some of your efforts!
Exactly, it’s the time of year. In December? I’m all over a blizzard that keeps you home all weekend 🙂