Books and Movies Finished in July 2023

Books

Nettle and Bone - T. Kingfisher

All the Beauty in the World - Patrick Bringley

How's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones

Movies

Legally Blonde 

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory 

^ Both were re-watches after I discovered that C had never seen either of them despite being a ~*cinefile*~ and vaguely knowing other later pop culture references resulting from these movies. Also it seemed like a good thing to watch again before the new Willy Wonka prequel comes out.

Weekend Recap

It was an extra-long weekend for me (though I didn't know it would be until I was leaving work on Friday afternoon) when the attending graciously said I didn't need to head in on Monday. And having made it through more than enough years of working in hospitals to have learned to never question an offer to not be in the hospital, I basically replied, "Sweet, thanks!" before skipping off into my four-day weekend. 

Friday -- planned out the rest of the weekend. 

Saturday

•  Went on an early morning adventure down to Chinatown to hunt down some bakery, dim sum, and roasted pork goodness. Returned with a feast of take-out including enough stuffed buns to establish a nice freezer stash of grab and go workday lunches.
  
• Took an impromptu stroll to the local Bed Bath and Beyond, as they're finally at the going-out-of-business stage where everything is at least 50% off so there are some pretty good deals to be found (we'd previously been browsing shortly after they'd declared bankruptcy and found absolutely nothing worth buying at the time). We ended up buying a few things and resolving to return the next day with the car for some bigger items that we didn't think we'd be able to carry on foot.
• A lot of napping happened this day.
  

Sunday

• Booked the hotel for the wedding of a close friend happening later this year. Very much looking forward to this trip, as we'll get to visit with friends we only ever see at big life events like this (curse you, geography!). 
• Spent the morning making a few trips to pick up some bigger (also: bulkier) items at Bed Bath and Beyond -- namely a couple bookshelves to help contain the absolute sprawl of books that started taking over our office floor as we unpacked after the move to our current home. We'd never found it worth the money or effort to move our bookshelves during prior moves, so the ones we brought back are much-needed. Just need to figure out now what type of rug to buy to put underneath them (right now it's just some cardboard as a placeholder, as I'm not excited about the prospect of a bunch of rough heavy wooden planks scraping against the wood floors all the time), but we'll probably start using them before I settle on a rug with the right dimensions anyway. 
• Had some friends over to try out the crepe maker -- definitely a single-use type of item, but not a bad white elephant present from last Christmas overall.
  

Monday 

• Spent this surprise day off doing........ housework and various internet-based tasks for work. Updated a poster for work that's due at the end of the month (I'd say it's about 80% complete at this point). Also mandatory trainings for work for topics like How to Not Harass People and Cybersecurity Awareness. So basically I spent most of my day off working anyway. Oh well -- it's all the type of work that I would have had to do in my off-hours anyway, but at least I was able to do it from home while the laundry cycled this time. So I guess if anyone tries to force me to burn a vacation day on this day after the fact, I will actually have multiple things to point to (training completions, remote logins to the on-site work computer, etc.) to prove that I was, in fact, actually working just doing so remotely.
  
• Went on a mini grocery run. Always good to get some steps in. This was nice.
  

Tuesday 

• Getting together with a friend to catch up. It's a new academic year as of this past weekend, which means big changes for many people in my life even though everything about my job is staying exactly the same. 
• Small progress on various miscellanea, none of which produced anything substantial enough to be worth cataloguing individually.  
  
• Prepping things for the sweetest short work-week that I'll be heading back in to tomorrow.
  

So Many Updates

A quick / abridged recap of what's been going on the past third of the year or so:

Submitted the grant application in the middle of February (nearly at the last possible minute -- but again, what can you do when multiple factors beyond your own control prevent you from submitting it earlier despite your best efforts?). Anyway, we got a borderline-ish score and the comments are back. Won't know if it's going to be funded until the fall, but in the meantime there are meetings to be had about what the reviewer comments mean and what we should be preparing in anticipation of a possible resubmission.

A week after submitting the application, it was OFF TO VACATION for the first time in nearly a year. The break was much needed and much appreciated. The travel itself was relatively smooth, and I was again reminded of what a luxury it is to live in a place where direct flights to real places actually exist. 

After vacation it was back to work but also an immediate (and much-needed) switch over to a series of new teams at work. I've been learning a lot while working "upstairs" as compared to working in the research fishbowl/dungeon and overall am happier despite longer hours on the job (there's also less that spills over into my weekends, so possibly it's the same total time commitment just apportioned more pleasantly). I've definitely not been reading as much these days, partly due to the longer weekday hours I think, but hopefully I'll be able to change that up in the coming weeks as I've switched over to what I think is basically going to be my favorite team for the year and will hopefully stay with them until the fall.

In home news, we've gotten sample patches painted on the walls, various other tiny home-improvement projects mostly accomplished, and hopefully in the coming weeks some of the actual holes in the walls will start getting repaired (all cosmetic issues; not structural, hence the excessive delay in getting around to addressing them). 

The rest of our free time has been filled with small life things -- spending time with family, planning travel for a friend's wedding later this year, setting up some longer term stuff to better manage our finances, etc. We've been trying to incorporate tiny food adventures into our weekends when running errands takes us beyond our corner of the city. We also had a lovely Mother's Day, Father's Day, and a funeral trip since getting back from vacation that have served as nice occasions on which to hang out with relatives. 

Overall, life is good.

Books and Movies Finished in June 2023

Books:

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby

Movies: 

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (do not necessarily recommend)

Books and Movies Finished in March 2023

Books:

On Rotation - Shirlene Obuobi

Circe - Madeline Miller 

Movies: 

Spiderman Into the Spiderverse (airplane movie) 

Catherine Called Birdy (airplane movie) 

 

And then I proceeded to finish no books over April and May 2023... or at least none that I can remember.