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Welcome to my weekly update for July 11, 2021!
We didn’t really do anything for the holiday last week but my husband is off this week. We spent the holiday weekend making plans for our vacation and for trips with our family and friends when they visit. Everyone we know seems excited to visit us in Alaska! We’re looking forward to welcoming them. Unfortunately, the weather for our vacation week looks cool and rainy so we’ve booked our hotels in Homer and near Denali National Park but we haven’t made many other firm plans. We’ll have to take it day by day.
I consider myself to be an average housekeeper but I can’t relax in a space I consider to be “mine” until I’ve done a deep, deep, deep clean. So I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time scrubbing our little studio apartment. My husband says it’s a good thing we normally live in our RV while he’s working; I’d kill myself cleaning if I did this every three months! He’s not wrong. So I’ve finished a lot of audiobooks while I’ve been tracking down every last dog hair (the former renter had at least one long-haired dog) but I haven’t sat down to review anything in a while.
Posted:
Ten Books That Have Been on My TBR the Longest
Read:
The Umbrella Academy: Dallas by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá–4 Stars
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, read by Del Roy–3.5 Stars
Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II by Liza Mundy–4 Stars
Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World by Joan Druett, read by David Colacci–4 Stars
Currently Reading:
Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich
The Land of Forgotten Girls by Erin Entrada Kelly, read by Lulu Lam
Paying the Land by Joe Sacco
Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic by Jennifer Niven
Up Next:
I’ve downloaded Changes (The Dresden Files #12) by Jim Butcher and Smoke Bitten (Mercy Thompson #12) by Patricia Briggs in case we get rained out on vacation.
What did your week look like?
Deb Nance at Readerbuzz hosts The Sunday Salon and Kimberly at Caffeinated Book Reviewer hosts Sunday Post. Kathryn at Book Date hosts It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in beautiful Asheville, NC. I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase merchandise through links on my site.
20 Comments
That deep cleaning thing seems to be common. It’s one reason I’m really glad I haven’t needed to move houses in the past 10 years… though I imagine it’s going to hit extra hard when we do eventually move.
Best of luck with your weather!
I found Paying the Land interesting and since you’re up in Alaska, which is near(ish) to where the book takes place, I think you’ll like it as well. I have also heard good things about Ada Blackjack.
Wow! Alaska sounds exciting, although it’s not on my bucket list, I guess. I’m definitely a below-average housekeeper, but I wouldn’t like to have dog hair around. (Yuck!) Surprisingly, I haven’t read a single book on your list, although I’m putting The Good House on my TBR. I thought I might have read it, but the only Tananarive Due I’ve read is My Soul To Keep. Have a great vacation!
Alaska would be such a fun adventure! And I would probably be the same way about cleaning lol!
The Good House looks…good! Lol. And the Ada Blackjack book has been on my list for a bit too.
I hope you get time to read this week!
Nice looking assortment of books. While your backup plans for poor weather are both good stories, I hope the weather is good. Come see my week here. Happy reading!
Your books look really good! Thanks for sharing. I can relate the need for cleaning spaces before settling in. I’m out of practice now, since I have a regular housekeeper. (But I still do regular touch-ups!).
Enjoy your new space, and here are my WEEKLY UPDATES
I hope you have good weather for your vacation. We are talking about an RV trip to Alaska next June/July and I’m starting to make lists of places to go, places to stay, which routes to travel, etc. It’s a bit daunting, but it’s been on my bucket list for ages and I think we’re ready! Please share as many details about your time there as you possibly can. 🙂
Can’t wait to hear about your Alaska adventures!!!
I enjoyed Ada Blackjack – a good one. Happy reading.
I’m not familiar with any of your books but I did read one similar to Code Girls. I’ll be checking some of the others out to see if I want to read them.
I hope you have a great week!
I fully intended to listen to stacks of audiobooks over the last two weeks while packing and sorting out, but I mostly forgot or got so distracted that I had to rewind like a whole chapter.
This week will hopefully be a bit better!
Glad you are enjoying your stay in Alaska and I am glad you are getting visitors! Looking forward to all the photos I know we are going to get!
Elza Reads
It’s exciting the time you have to experience Alaska. I listen while I do chores and have to agree that I need to clean to make a place mine.
Anne – Books of My Heart This is my Sunday Post
Have fun exploring Alaska!
How exciting to be in Alaska… I’m not surprised all your friends and family want to visit! It’s on our bucket list, too. Good idea to listen to audiobooks while you cleaned – definitly a win/win situation.
Have you read The Rose Code by Kate Quinn? I picked that up shortly after reading Code Girls. It was a really good nonfiction/fiction pairing.
It sounds like you’ve been busy! I completely understand the need to deep clean your space. I do the same.
https://simplyangelarenee.blogspot.com/
Haha, I know all about the deep clean issue! I’ve lived in rented places pretty much all my life, and that deep cleaning goes every time. Great that you managed to read so much alongside that. And it was fun to see Janet Evanovich here, those books used to be so trendsetting and popular a few years back. Did they also make a movie or show on it? I think they might have!
I bet you are excited to be preparing for a vacation. Everyone I know talks about visiting Alaska. One of the big birding people down here in Galveston is up in Alaska leading bird tours, so there are apparently lots of cool birds in Alaska, too. I hope you have fabulous weather for your vacation.
I am one of those odd folks who loves to clean. Our son and his family have been staying with us, and they left for the weekend, so I went into hyper-cleaning mode while they were gone. I love to see the results.
I’m curious about Land of Forgotten Girls. I look forward to seeing your thoughts about this one.
Wow lots of reading and posting, considering you have been busy cleaning and making holiday plans. I really hope the weather will be good for your trip and continued happy reading in the coming week. 🙂
I hope your weather holds for your vacation! And I can totally understand wanting to clean a new place. You just never know what was there before! Although yeah that would be tough every few months haha!
Benedict Society looks fun- I think they just adapted that into a show if I’m not mistaken?
You’ve been reading a lot of intriguing books.