It’s Been, One Week…

Week of April 15th – 19th.

It’s Friday once again, and that means it’s time for an update on this week’s happenin’s.

All in all, it was a pretty standard thing. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Nap time with a one, almost two year old is still an extreme sport. You never know if they’ll drop like a rock, or if they’re going to wail uncontrollably until finally falling asleep.

When you get the latter, it’s hard not to get frustrated, but when they fall asleep because you were able to hold it together and calm them down, it makes it worth the headache.

And boy, am I rocking a banger of a headache as I finish this post up before it’s scheduled to go live.

Thankfully, my allergies finally calmed down. What a relief. It was touch and go there for a while. And I finally dealt with a Worker’s Comp billing issue that’s been hanging over my head back from when I was still working. Talk about an emotional rollercoaster.

On a semi-related note, I’ve been cleared to start exercising again! Particularly lifting weights. Since I injured myself back in July of last year (details aren’t necessary, but I’m still feeling it my back), I’ve been scared to start working out again beyond the physical stuff required in order for me to function on a daily basis. But my chiropractor told me it’s time to shake the fear and pump some iron. Mind blown 🤯

I’m not really a lifter of the weights, but I was told to do kettlebells instead. I have some experience with those, and I owned a couple at one point, but I don’t think I have them anymore. My only reservation was that I was told to start with 35 pounds, and if you know anything about kettlebells, then you know they are solid hunks of metal.

As a not so experienced lifter of heavy things, I never went beyond about 20-25 pounds when it came to dumbbells. So, I’m on a quest to find a 35 pounder for the house and start bulletproofing my body (specifically my back) again. It’ll be nice to have some modicum of the fitness I enjoyed in my early twenties when I was still climbing trees for a living.

Yes, it’s true.

This used to be me. But that’s not me. Just an example.

Alright, enough waffling about the mundane things. Let’s get into the good stuff!

Admin Business

Before we get too deep into what I’m working my way through, I want to start with a quick administrative update. This isn’t super important, but I feel it’s necessary to keep my small audience in the loop.

I’m still mastering the art of featured images. The biggest thing I want to avoid especially with review posts, is a featured image immediately followed by that same image at the start of the post itself. Looks a bit lazy in the final product. So to avoid that, I’ve been experimenting and had an epiphany that’s worked out so far.

I’ve decided that all of my reviews are going to have a featured image, more likely a featured GIF, that expresses my feelings at the end of the book. Check out my review for HellSans by Ever Dundas if you want an example I’m most happy with. I think the goal is to find a set of standard GIFs to use, but I’m sure I’ll have varied enough reactions, so I’m probably going to need more than a few different GIFs.

Book Stuff

So, I obviously finished HellSans. My full thoughts are in the review, but it was…a book. Almost (I had to let HellSans breathe for a second) right after finishing that, I picked up Binti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor. It’s a gooder. I’m done with the first book and an included short story. Okorafor’s writing is the reason to read any of the Binti novels. They’re also short if you need another reason.

I ended up calling an audible on The Empire’s Ruin and Wild Massive.

The Empire’s Ruin is wildly massive (ha! did you catch that one?) The first chapter alone was 30 pages and the font was teeny tiny. But the biggest reason I chickened out was that it’s the first of a sequel series. I need to read the series before first. So I suppose it’s a soft DNF for now. Is it possible to DNF if you haven’t actually started a book? 🤔

I don’t really know what happened with Wild Massive. But by the time I was finished with other things, and it was on the table for reading, I lost interest.

New Biblioteca Book(s) Alert!! 🚨🚨

That’s right folks, I returned to the library once again and scored some new reads. I kind of panicked because I had to pick fast and the SFF section was much larger than the library my daughter and I typically frequent. For one, she was ready to run and fed up with the stroller. For two, we had to make it back down the elevator for story time. Can’t miss that. All things considered, I think I did pretty good.

Instead of going through them all, just take them in for a second. Go ahead. I’ll wait…

…

Welcome back! This is an interesting stack of books. Mostly because I seem to have gone down a pretty dark path. I hadn’t intended to pick up so many books that I know are grimdark or just violent, but it’s clear I couldn’t engage in my normal library selection process. That being said, I’m actually excited to dive in and get a little grit between my toes and under my nails. The only series here I’m unfamiliar with is The Breaking Worlds by David Dalglish and Robert DuPerre. I grabbed books one and two because you never know who might grab the next one and make you wait longer than expected.

It’s a good thing I held on to Binti. I think I’m going to need her to brighten things up a bit while slogging my way through the darkness of that stack of books.

I’m going to kick things off with The Combat Codes because it’s the one I’m most familiar with. Then we’ll go from there.

Catch you next week! Look for upcoming reviews of my latest finds when I finish them.