Tag: Life

Life… it happens!

Valerie @ Valerie's Musings6 Comments

I know I haven’t posted a lot lately, and I’m sorry for that. Life has been… well, life. Here’s what’s been going on in the last month or so.

I took some vacation time over the holidays. I’m usually not online much during my vacation, whether I go away or stay home. I might flip through Facebook once a day on my phone, but that’s about it. My best friend was supposed to come for New Year’s but car problems prevented that from happening. I spent the time working on what is seemingly the never-ending room project.

For those of you who are newer to my blog, I’ve been working on deep cleaning/throwing stuff out/donating stuff/decluttering/reorganizing my room for months now. To say it’s never-ending is a bit of a misnomer, I know, because I really am so close to the end. I’m down to two tubs and a pile to get thru plus a few other things that need to get put away. It’s really not much. However, since I’ve been working on this since JUNE (on the weekends mostly), it seems like it’s never-ending! My mom keeps reminding me tho’ that it took me 2+ years to get it to the level of disaster that it was so, 7 1/2 months really isn’t bad since I can only work on it on the weekends and sometimes that just doesn’t happen due to mental health, physical health or prior plans.

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 On top of the seemingly never-ending room project, things have been quite crazy at work. Over New Year’s weekend, we migrated to a new software system for our library. If you’ve ever migrated to a completely different software system at work, you know it’s not precisely easy. Nor does it usually go off without a few hitches. We had to switch. Our old software was being discontinued by the manufactured. However, our new software is drastically different from the old and it’s really taking some getting used to. Not only do I have to figure out cataloging of regular items to do my main job in acquisitions, but I also have to figure out the cataloging of Inter-library Loan items since I’m a part of the ILL team and the only ILL team member with cataloging knowledge. It’s been challenging to say the least and by the time I come home at night, I’m pretty dead tired.

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I was also sick the week that I went back to work, so that didn’t help my trying to get used to the new software. I had no patience for things that didn’t work like I wanted them to!

Finally, this winter is actually getting to me and wreaking havoc on my depression. Usually I do okay in winter. I even like winter most years. But this year we’ve had weeks and weeks of single digit temperatures with wind chills below freezing. It’s the kind of cold that just zaps your strength if you’re out in it at all. Supposedly the rest of January is supposed to warm up and be better. I hope it is. Maybe it’ll help me get out of this funk I’m feeling lately. It’s definitely warmer today so it’s a good start. 🙂

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Hopefully the warmer weather will help me get back to feeling more human and less like a popsicle. I have reviews I want to write, I just haven’t had the momentum/energy to do them recently. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

 

Just a few musings…

Valerie @ Valerie's Musings2 Comments

While I’m still working on some reviews for various books I’ve read, my next blog tour isn’t until Thursday so I thought I’d post a little about my water garden and life. 🙂

I talked a little bit about my water garden in April’s end of the month review. This is either the 9th or 10th season I’ve had it now. It’s small – just a little 50-gallon pond, but it allows me to have a waterlily which is my favorite flower. 🙂 This is my water garden and the area around it in spring 2014.  Below that is my waterlily in bloom in summer 2014.

Small pond with waterlily pads, fountain, two other plants in it - surrounded by rocks, columbine, and ceramic items including a fairy door.

Closeup shot of a pink waterlily surrounded by lily pads

I mentioned in my end of the month review that I’ve been hesitant to put the fountain in my pond because of a nesting robin. The planter they’re nesting in is just to the left of the pink columbine on the brick wall and almost directly over top the outlet I need to plug into.  I was finally able to get the fountain in after I got home from a bridal shower for a cousin yesterday (May 6). I didn’t put the fountain in right away. I started just by working in the pond – cleaning out the algae and any rogue sticks/leaves/blossoms from nearby flowers.  Mama and Papa robin both were scolding me for being so close to their nest for about the first 10-15 minutes I was out there. I just kept working and staying away from the end closest to their nest. After maybe 20-30 minutes, they finally decided I wasn’t a threat and each came and fed the babies. Only after that did I plug the fountain in. They didn’t protest to that at all and now it’s up and running! Yay! 🙂

I tend not to read as much during the summer because fighting the algae is a never-ending battle, plus I like to take photographs of my dad’s flowers and go to the park for other nature photography.

Other than work, my pond, and reading, my life lately has been filled with the little munchkins that are my adorable niece and sweet nephew.  For those who don’t know me, I live with my parents because of some of my health issues. My parents watch my adorable niece and sweet nephew on Fridays, so I get to see them in the mornings before I go to work. I love it! This week, we also had them on Tuesday due to their daycare provider having something else going that day. I was thrilled because Tuesday happened to be my day off this week. 🙂 I’m always thrilled when I get to spend more time with them. 🙂

My adorable niece is 4 years old. She’s this adorable, sweet, precocious bundle of energy and I love her to pieces. My nephew is 20 months old and just the sweetest little guy. He has a very tender heart and is very loving. They are pretty much the joy of my life. 🙂 My brother and sister-in-law have asked that no pictures be shared of them so you’ll just have to take my word on how adorable they are. 😉

While I’m worried about all the changes in healthcare that are happening here in my country (USA), I’m trying to focus on these positives and not worry too much. 🙂 As long as I succeed in not worrying, all is good.

 

 

End of the month review – APRIL 2017

Valerie @ Valerie's MusingsLeave a comment

Here we are at the end of another month already! Goodness, where did the time go?! It’s hard to believe that tomorrow will be May 1st, but here we are!

We hit a milestone here on this blog in the last few days – *50* followers here on WordPress!! Thank you to all of you who follow my blog here and sometimes on other areas of social media as well!

In life outside of my blog and reading, I’m working on getting my water garden up and running for the season. Mostly that means cleaning out all the dead leaves and algae that have built up in the winter, putting the fountain in so the water aerates, fix the rocks that birds and animals knocked over in the winter, and fertilize the plants. My only drawback right now is there’s a mother robin nesting right above the electrical outlet where I plug my fountain in. I hate to disturb her, but I need to get the fountain in the pool so it aerates the water for the plants. I cleaned out a bunch of debris last week on my day off. This week I’m hoping to at the very least get the fountain in the water. If I can get the rocks reset and the plants fertilized as well, excellent. If I can’t, I’ll do it another day.

Spring also tends to be a time when my depression and anxiety are higher so it makes it harder to keep up with things. This year hasn’t been as bad as last year, thankfully, but sometimes it’s still hard to get myself to read instead of playing mindless, stupid computer games like Mahjongg.

graphic illustration of alternating pink and yellow waterlilies with pads in a line
©Cute Colors

However, I still managed to read 15 books this month – 7 cozy mysteries (1 of which was a novella), 7 romance books (1 of which was actually a novella & 1 was a short story), and 1 picture book.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been quite as good at keeping up with the reviews of what I’ve read. I only wrote 9 reviews in the month of April. I have 3 reviews that are still in draft format and a fourth that I plan to start at some point! I also participated in 1 blog tour and had 2 other posts. One on a few housekeeping things and the other a post about recommendations for Reluctant Readers in the Middle Grades (ages 8-12).

As far as Reading Challenges go, I made progress on 5 of my challenges:

  • Goodreads 2017 Challenge – up to 64 total out of my goal of 175
  • Craving for Cozies Challenge – up to 38 total out of my goal of 80
  • Cruising Thru the Cozies Challenge – I have completed two categories and am still working on the other eight.
  • Pages Read Challenge – up to 17,540 pages out of my goal of 48,001-60,000 pages
  • eBook Challenge – up to 37 total out of my goal of 50 (which I may raise to 75)

Looking Ahead to May

In May, I will be participating in 5 blog tours, one spotlight post, the others with books to review. In fact a couple of stops have multiple books to review. On top of that I’ll be reading one other book for review for another review crew I’m apart of. The books included in these blog tours and reviews are:

As you can see, I’ll be busy reading this month!  On top of the blog tours and Daryl Wood Gerber’s newest, I’m finishing up reading some flash fiction for our teen writing contest, “It’s All Write!” at my library. Flash fiction are super short stories, usually less than about 200-250 words. They’re very interesting to read and I’m enjoying it immensely. 🙂

On top of all the books above, I still need to finish reviews for the following books:

Since I have so many books to read for review this month, I doubt that I’ll get much of my backlog read, but maybe. I suppose it depends on how rainy and cold it is and whether or not I can be outside!

Thanks for joining me along my journey!