Morning all and happy Sunday and Happy Mother’s Day to everyone in the UK and anywhere else in the world celebrating motherhood today. Mine was supposed to start with a lie in and breakfast in bed. Unfortunately, the cat had other ideas and decided the best mother’s day present would be a live bird flying around the living room. Cue my six o’clock wake up and a very tired me. Hopefully afternoon tea this afternoon will perk me up a bit. It will be a nice end to a busy-ish week, one that didn’t see me do much blogging beyond reviews – though, I still got three of those in so I’m not complaining….
Tag: its Monday what are you reading
Weekly update: 28th January, 2018
Morning all and welcome to the last Sunday in January. It’s hard to believe the month is almost over, but given time goes quicker the older you get and I’m not getting any younger, it’s probably no surprise. Still, for me, it’s been quite a good month – getting my first freelance jobs was a big and brilliant thing. This week, it was also a tiring thing as I took on two jobs afraid to say no. I am sure that will change as I become more confident the work will come and I figure out my limits but it meant this week I had later nights that I have had for a while. Still, it’s better than week-in-week-out 9:5 so I’m not complaining (honest!).
The work did impact the blog a little bit, with posts early in the week but then nothing until Saturday, with my stacking shelves post – which was nice and short because I only picked up two books this week.
Weekly update: 14th January, 2018
Morning all and welcome to my first weekly update in a month…time flies when you are celebrating Christmas and New Year I guess – and then have another week of school holidays to contend with. I still don’t feel like I’ve quite gotten over the holidays, even though technically this week everything was back to normal for us.
Hopefully next week will be better and I’ll be back into some type of routine. What that will be I’m not sure as I picked up my first batch of freelance work this week (yay!) and I don’t know till Monday just what or how much time that will involve. Still, it’s exciting and a bit of a relief to know that there is work out there and that my leap of faith into the world of self-employment is paying some dividends.
Weekly update: 27th November, 2017
Morning all and welcome to another weekly update post, though this one is being posted on a Monday rather than a Sunday. I’m a bit behind with my posting because I was away this week, visiting friends (which was lovely) and, thanks to a slight blogging slump last week, hadn’t gotten round to writing up my post in advance. It was drafted though so I thought I would get it up anyway and check in with all you lovely people out there and see how you were doing…good, I hope?
Weekly update: 12th November, 2017
Morning all and welcome to another Sunday post. I hope you had a good week and weekend. Week wise, I didn’t do much if I’m honest though I also don’t know where the time went as all of a sudden it was Friday and I was jumping on a train to London – but not for work (yay!).
Every year a group of us who used to work together get together and have a girls night out. We’ve been doing it for six years now (after we all got made redundant at the same time) and it’s always a blast. I laughed more than I have in a long time and drank way too much wine – you couldn’t ask for more really. Another plus side is two four hour train journeys, which made for a lot of reading!
Weekly update: 15th October, 2017
Morning all and welcome to another Sunday – I hope you’ve had a good week. Mine was good, pretty relaxing. And the sun shone, which was nice to see, even when the days were cold. I’ve been trying to winterise the garden – taking advantage of the lack of rain – and am pretty much done. I have maybe a day left so keep your fingers crossed for me that my luck continues!
Other than that, there hasn’t been much going on, which feels kind of nice. I got a fair bit of reading done, stuck to my plan to not pick up any new books this week (avoiding NetGalley like the plague), and caught up a little on the reviews I was behind on. I should be completely caught up by the end of next week if I can keep the reading rate up but we’ll see.
This meant last week I got three reviews posted…
It was nice to have three so different books as well. Lie to Me by J. T. Ellison is a psychological thriller, so right up my usual reading street. It was a good read, keeping me guessing right to the end as to just what was happening. It had a bit of a sense of humour too, which you don’t normally find in this type of book, and I liked that.
The Flexible Vegetarian by Jo Pratt is a cookbook (probably obvious but I like to be clear), one that shows you how to make meatless meat with meat if needed to meet the needs of a variety of tastes. It worked well in my house where I’m the sole veggie. I made two recipes from it, one of which I can safely say was one of the best soups I have ever eaten – making the book a winner for me!
Queens of the Conquest by Alison Weir is the first of four books looking at the Queens of England / Britain. This one focuses on medieval queens – a lot of whom (all?) seem to be called Matilda. I found the fact that so many of them had the same name but other than that really enjoyed this book, which was well research, well written, and shed light on a group of women I knew very little about but whose actions helped shape my country.
And that was it post wise, other than sharing my most recent read in the Tuesday Intro: The Fall of Lisa Bellow by Susan Perabo.
And that’s it for me this week. How about you – how was your week, reading and otherwise? Let me know, I’m nosey!
Emma x
This week, I’m linking in with Kimba at the Caffeinated Book Reviewer and her Sunday Post and with Katherine at Book Date for It’s Monday, What Are you Reading? Head over by clicking on their badges below to see what other bloggers have read, written about or just added to their shelves.
Weekly update: 8th October, 2017
Morning all and welcome to another Sunday – I hope you’ve had a good week. Mine was a lot better than the one before, in large part because I think I caught up on the sleep that I have been missing these last two years. I feel rested and relaxed and that is a lovely thing.
Not that it was all smooth going as I transition into my new life – I had a few panicky moments – but for the most part, I am convinced I’ve made the right decision, especially after taking a training course Friday and seeing that, whilst I may not have the formal qualifications, I definitely have the skills…now I just need to get some work! If you do want to know more about how my new life is going, I wrote about it on my non-book blog here.
Weekly update: 1st October, 2017
Morning all and welcome to another Sunday and another weekly update. It’s been a bit of an odd week for me I have to say. Last week, my aunt died, with the funeral this Monday just gone. It’s been sad and also shocking as she got ill and passed very quickly and I’m not sure anyone in my family has really gotten their heads around it yet.
Add to that this was my last week of work and I spent three days in London handing over to my replacement and I have felt completely out of sync with life. The good news on that front though is, after months and months (I worked a five month notice period!) I am finally done and able to start my new life come tomorrow – I can’t wait for this but with my aunt it feels like I haven’t been able to get as excited as I might…hopefully that will come.
Weekly update: 24th September, 2017
Morning all and welcome to another Sunday and another weekly update. I hope you had a good one. Mine wasn’t bad at all if I do say so myself. I was back in the blogging swing after a week off to catch up on reading (which was much needed and gave me a bit of my oomph back as I had been feeling a bit flat about the blog if I’m honest).
I also did my final proper week of work, which felt strange but also pretty good. I’m still employed for another week but the rest of my time will be taken up training up and handing over to the “new me”, so there won’t be much real work involved – I won’t have a laptop or phone after Wednesday for a start, which will make it kinda difficult to do anything!
Weekly update: 11th September, 2017
Hi all and welcome to a slightly later than normal weekly update. We were away this weekend – camping in the rain and away from all WiFi – and I wasn’t organised enough to get my post pre-written and scheduled. So, I hope everyone had a good weekend and Happy Monday!
Last week was a good one for me and the camping, despite the wet and the cold, was actually a lot of fun because we got to spend it with friends we don’t get to see that often since we moved. Work wise, it’s still quiet as I plan my exit so I’m just preparing for my replacement with a big handover list. And new life wise, I just registered as self-employed which was a gulp but in a good way. Now I just need to get some work in!
On the blog, I posted four times. First up was my review of Close to Home by Robert Dugoni, one of my favourite detective series with one of my favourite female detectives (Tracy Crosswhite). Here she is trying to solve a seemingly simple case of hit and run but things get complicated quickly when the Navy get involved.
I also reviewed Follow You Home by Mark Edwards, which I’d been looking forward to reading as it was my first book by the author, who I know other bloggers out there rave about. Unfortunately, this just didn’t hit the spot for me. I got confused by a plot with one too many twists and I couldn’t get away with the characters, meaning I found it harder to care.
Following on from my naming Tracy Crosswhite one of my favourite female detectives I decided to name my top five on Wednesday. They weren’t in any particular order and people’s comments made me realise I should have gone for a top ten as I missed out some really good women on there!
And finally, on Friday, I joined in with Billy at The Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer with his book blogger hop, writing about how I do choose books for their covers. This is something I have written about before so here I just shared some of my latest favourite covers.
And that was it for this week posting wise. Book wise, I managed a trip to the library where I loaned out way to many books (clicking on the covers will take you to goodreads to find out more)
Not sure where I’ll start but they all look good so maybe it doesn’t matter?
What about you – what have you been up to this week, reading and otherwise?
Emma x
This week, I’m linking in with Kimba at the Caffeinated Book Reviewer and her Sunday Post and with Katherine at Book Date for It’s Monday, What Are you Reading? Head over by clicking on their badges below to see what other bloggers have read, written about or just added to their shelves.