Time flies...

How is it already 2025? 

It's been more than a hot minute since I last opened up a post and rambled. In the last... nearly 2 years!, I've had some ups and downs. Firstly, I had a few health issues that were finally diagnosed in 2023. No cures, but treatments and other dos and don'ts that help keep the worst of the symptoms at bay. Then at the beginning of 2024 I got a casual job. This was a big step in my life after so many years suffering from chronic pain. I've been working in the records departments (well, I am the records department), and it's been a real sharp learning curve, but I'm enjoying getting out of the house and earning some extra money.

On the reading front I have been diligently reading every day. While I dislike a lot about e-reading, it does a wonderful job of keeping track of my reading. I'm not terribly active on Goodreads anymore. I post my reviews (when I bother to write one), and just go with the flow on that front. Amazon is still my go-to bookstore of choice. Unfortunately there is still no bookshop in my nearby big town. It closed in 2015, and there has been nothing to take it's place. Big W has been steadily getting worse for books and book selections, so I'm left online shopping and, well, beggars can't be too choosy as books in Australia are still rather expensive.

Thankfully, being quasi-employed has meant that I now have a little bit more disposable income to treat myself to the occasional book haul. I've been rather enjoying my UF Cozies, or Cozy Mysteries in recent months. Am currently rereading the Chronicles of an Urban Druid series by Tempest & Anderle. I discovered this series during the pandemic, and it kept me sane during some of my loneliest points (well, this and other series). Love the characters, love that it is NOT set in the US - like a lot of other people I'm kinda mad about what's going on in the US at the moment, and what it means on a global scale. The series is longish, but not overly long, and if you want more they authors did a spin-off series that deals with the world after the big secret is out. 

 

On the home front, well, things are just as they were. The biggest change, after the job, was that my old Ford Focus (22yo) finally had to go. It was hard to find parts for the old girl, and a lot of them had to come from the wreckers as Ford no longer made new parts for a car of her vintage. Unfortunately, thanks to the pandemic, the used car market in my part of QLD was almost extortionate when it came to prices. When I worked at a newspaper in the mid 2000s a brand new Ford Focus was about $20k, and I was typing ads (worked in pre-press) for Suzuki Swifts and Nissan Micras that were $12-16k brand new! Now a used sedan with over 100k on the clock was getting over $20k! Ridiculous. So, we waited and waited. Finally we ended up getting a car where my aunt bought her car, and got a better deal than in a rural location which has minimal stock. Miss that old Ford though as the new car just isn't as powerful, nor is it as convenient. PS I do not like keyless entry. I like it when I can get in and out of a car without wondering if the battery will crap out that day!

 

 

Now for the fun bit... my fur-babies. I still have the four cats. I love them dearly, and I think they got me through the four years of COVID crap that had us quarantined for so long in the beginning of the pandemic. It was inconvenient, but closing the QLD border, and having a stay-at-home order was probably the best thing as it kept a lot of people safe. Then the borders opened up, people rushed up from NSW & VIC, and the number of COVID cases in QLD skyrocketed. Anyway, I digress. My cats kept me entertained when I couldn't see family for months on end, and they were a reason to get up and moving when I did feel down. Thankfully that happened rarely, but they were a source of comfort and companionship. My beautiful EvieNyxx is now classed as a senior cat. She has just turned 12. I got her at 12 weeks and 4 days from the RSPCA QLD, and she has been with me for just about every day since then. I may have left her for a total of 4-5 nights in the 12 years I've had her. She is my little shadow, and such a personality. The others are lovely in their own ways, but there is often an animal in your life that is just so special that they carve out a place in your heart, and I think that EvieNyxx is one of those.

Okaaaay... I think I've blabbed enough for now. Hopefully I can get myself back into the swing of things and start blogging, or making my little video updates, in the near future. I get the urge to film a review, or haul, or something book related all the time, but it's having the motivation to edit it, and upload it that is my sticking point. Finger's crossed that I can get a new computer in the next couple of weeks (this old girl is 10 now and getting rather sloooow), so it won't be such a tedious process.

 So on that note, thanks for popping in, and until I see you next time, 

Summer comes early, but there’s no rain in sight.

Wow, things are just crazy right now. While Winter was quite chilly, there was little rain - which we desperately need - and by the time August rolled around, well, the temperatures shot up. It was almost as if the last week or so of July was Spring, and then… BOOM! Summer, baby! I’m completely over it.

Which leads me to the next item in my “things be crazy” list. Water. Yes, that life giving liquid that everyone needs to live. It seems like I’m out. That’s correct. My tank runneth dry. It has been my biggest stressor over the last few days since I discovered that I had but mere inches left in the water tank. That facilitated a phone call to a recommended water carrier who was happy to schedule a delivery for 2000 gallons - for the Friday, 13th October! Honestly, the demand for water at the moment is unreal. We haven’t had any decent rain for nearly 7+weeks, and even then it only filled the one tank to about 2/3 full. Then yesterday I went out to the tank to check, and thanks to a blocked toilet over the weekend, my tank is down about an inch or two of water. So today, Monday, I called the water carriers early to see if I could get any leftover water from a delivery that didn’t use the full water tank’s worth, and nope. But I could go on the wait list for a cancelled order - with 40 other customers. It just isn’t my week for this shit.

So that leaves me with a few bottles of bought water until I can go into town next (where I can hopefully but a few 10L bottles) and eeking out what little water I can scrape together from other sources. There is a small tank on a stand at the back of the house, but I only used that for the plants so I’m not game to drink that, but it will be fine for flushing the toilet. So if anyone does read this, keep your fingers crossed for me as it’s going to be a bumpy 11 days until delivery. On the plus side, I’m shuffling along pretty well. I still get very fatigued and the brain fog is no joke at times, but my achilles tendon has settled down to the best it’s been in years, so I’ll take this as a small victory in the face of having limited bathing opportunities for the next week. 

Now, onto the reading front. I’ve been fairly restrained over the last couple of weeks on the book buying front. There has not been a huge amount of books that have caught my eye, but some of the ones that did are well and truly out of my price range. I just can’t get over the economy at the moment. Prices are ridiculous on all consumption fronts. A mass market paperback should not cost $20+, and I’m completely pissed off at the meteoric rise in food prices and petrol. I bought petrol last Friday and it was $2/L (or over $7.55 per gallon). Anyway, rant tangent aside, although I haven’t been buying up big on the book front, I have been reading some interesting books. I’ve gone off the fantasy books at the moment, and have had a real desire to dive into some Urban Fantasy, as well as some Paranormal Cosy Mysteries. So I’ve been rereading some old favourites as well as trying some new recommendations. Once I get through my current KU reads I might go back through my finished books and put together a recommendations list… yes?

So that brings me to right now as I come to the end of this post. I’m rather sporadic in my uploading, and I’m still on the hunt for an affordable replacement laptop, or desktop, so that I can get back into filming some videos for BookTube. Until then, I’ll leave you here. I need to start closing off some of the windows and curtains on the back of the house so that I don’t get roasted as the sun starts to scorch the back of the house in an hour or so.  So, it’s goodbye from me, and until I see you next time,

Getting Back Into The Saddle

Okay then.  Let’s see long I remember to do this ;D

It’s been a rather weird week.  I cleaned as much as my creaky body could stand last week because on Friday my mum and her sister came for a visit for the first time in months. That was fine, it wasn’t too bad - until Friday when I sat on a hard chair while we had a rather scrummy lunch at our local pub. That set off my lower back, but unfortunately I had forgotten that I still had to start my mum’s mower (mine was having a time out at the local repair place) so they could show me how to get it going. Big mistake. The awkward pulling position, plus the low handles really chucked a spanner in the works. I spent Saturday with back spasms around the waist area, and it has only slightly improved since then. I’m using my Nurofen frequently, and if I didn’t have to do other things I might have considered cracking open the Panadine Forte for this.

But physical health aside, I was able to enjoy quite a few rereads - as well as discovering that one of my favourite shows has finally made it’s streaming debut on a platform I use! On the book front, I’m rereading the Kitty Underhay Mystery series by Helena Dixon. It’s an engrossing cosy mystery series set back in the 1930s. The characters are fun, and I just adore the setting of the Dolphin Hotel. A great series to curl up with on a chilly winters day. Then I made the mistake of starting to watch the remakes of Blithe Spirit and Rebecca yesterday and OMG, what a train wreck those are. I love the originals of both movies, plus the book/play, and I can’t believe how they screwed them up! So, I ordered the 80th anniversary edition of Rebecca (it was on special, and I couldn’t find my paperback) which should arrive by the end of the week *fingers crossed* for a reread. Thankfully I didn’t have to shell out anything for Blithe Spirit because when I moved my massive bookcase last week I remember tucking the small blue paperback of Blithe Spirit onto the shelf so I must dig that out (and my old dvd of the Rex Harrison adaptation) as a palate cleanser. The remake characters were not only totally over the top and cliched. It was truly a shock to watch these actors striving to recapture the magic of Rex Harrison, Margaret Rutherford, Kay Hammond and Constance Cummings and completely missing the mark! If you can’t improve on the original, then don’t touch it! Which then led me back down the rabbit hole that is YT as I searched for old videos I’d watched years ago as members of the booktube community ripped these to shreds - and rightly so. I honestly miss the days when Hollywood actually had original content and wasn’t full of shitty remakes, reboots or crappy sequels that nobody asked for *sigh*.

So that has been my week in a nutshell. Nothing exciting, just day to day life. Hopefully when I can get my butt organised and get a new desktop/laptop so I can start venturing back into making my little bookish videos. I do miss that interaction. And on that note, it’s late (for me) and my eyelids are just about dragging on the floor. So it’s goodnight, and until I see you next time,

My, how the time flies!

Well, isn’t this a weird feeling.  It has been so long since I’ve posted anything on this blog that I really don’t know where to begin.  It’s been nearly three and a half years since I the spicy flu started, and while a lot of people took to YouTube, social media, blogs or other sites to make connections and feel like they were still a part of the world, I retreated into my own little sphere. I isolated with a vengeance (even thought Covid barely reached my neck of the woods for quite some time), and fell into my home library, Netflix/Stan/Amazon Prime, and the ever comforting BookTube. I just couldn’t deal with all the outside ‘noise’ that was just bombarding me in the form of the ever present Covid updates on the tv, the worldwide tracking of the pandemic, and watching idiots going to extremes to deny Covid was a thing, and paying for it with their lives, and the lives of the others that they infected.

So, my house became my fortress from the outside stresses. And while you would think that might mean that I joined to millions who decided to throw themselves into home renovations and other lifelong projects that they just hadn’t gotten around to starting, my happy little arse just noped out of all that and I retreated into my books and the normality I could still find there. No covid, no pandemic - avoided rereading The Stand by Stephen King for this very reason - and that is how I kept my sanity during these very trying and strange times. Thankfully neither my mother, my aunt, nor myself had to deal with the spicy flu, but I can tell you that the vaccine kicked my arse. My first shot was okay until it wasn’t. Thankfully I’d asked my mum to come up for a few days just in case. I ended up with a large red reaction at the injection site, plus I had a doozy of a fever for about 36-48 hours. Then I just felt like crap for the remainder of the week. Then about 4 months later (I think) I hauled my butt in for shot 2. Again, my mum came up to stay with me as my arm felt horrible, and I got a worse red reaction on my arm where the nurse jabbed me. The fever was worse. I felt miserable for longer, and took longer to feel better. However, it was  the 3rd shot that really drove home that I just wasn’t having the usual reaction to this vaccine nonsense.

As it happened, when I went to go in for that third vaccine (booster) and then waiting the required 30 minutes before leaving the drs surgery I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to like what was in store for me.  My arm felt a bit off during the 15 minute drive home, and by that afternoon the fever was already kicking in. I was a sweaty mess for the next three days, and not only that, I had a bigger reaction at the injection site. My arm was not only red where the nice lady had stuck me with the needle, but I had a secondary reaction on my inner bicep with a nice little lump under it, but my lymph gland under my arm had a lovely big lump, and to add insult to injury I also had a lymph reaction in my right armpit too! But it didn’t stop there, no, I also ended up with freaking chronic fatigue. Now I had chronic fatigue as a 12 year old and was told it might come back later in my life, but I certainly didn’t expect the freaking vaccine to resurrect it! So, after about three weeks of feeling miserable thanks to the fever and the lymph glands being all swollen and tender, it was now the chronic fatigue that was kicking my butt.

So, here we are. It’s now almost 16 months since my third shot, and I am staying away from the 4th shot for the moment as I really do not want to endure any more worsening symptoms. I still am wary of being in the wide world after three years of diligently avoiding crowds and only going to town when I needed to shop or keep an appointment. My outlook on life in general has changed, and while I was pretty introverted before, I can honestly say that if my local Woolworths would have delivered to my address during the pandemic, I would avoid going into town as much as possible.

But, alas, that is where I fell down the Amazon rabbit hole. With everything either being shut during the quarantines we had in Australia, or businesses being shut in general (or the shortages that resulted from the shutdowns worldwide), Amazon became a comfort resource. They were selling books for ridiculously cheap prices - especially during the first 12 months - that I honestly bought more books than I needed and could have filled a big bookcase or two with all the stuff I bought. My reasoning at the time was basically “they’re cheap, and I want to read them one day”. Ah, yes. The famous ‘one day’. This led me to acquiring more books, and it became a little addicting to rock up to the post office nearly every day and walk out with a parcel - or 5! - full of all the books that I could find cheap that took my fancy. I found so many great books for as little as $2.84 (I think that was one of my Modern Library editions). I filled shelves with all the classics I could get my hands on. Penguin Modern Classics, Penguin Classics Deluxe, Vintage Red Spine classics, Modern Library editions, and all for less than $8 a book. Sadly, the days of Amazon almost giving them away has disappeared. Now books are becoming so expensive that I will wait for months, checking the prices periodically, until I find a sale and then I strike. However, even that is becoming a rare thing as the pricers continue to soar.

Anyway, that is a rant for another post. I have no idea if anyone will even read this, but I feel like it is slightly cathartic to finally start getting my thoughts out into a post. Perhaps this is a sign that I might feel like getting back to filming and posting some bookish content back on YouTube… 🤷🏻‍♀️  Oh well, if you read this, than thank you for making it through to the end of this weird little snapshot of my thoughts on the covid years. I wish I could say that the worst was behind us, but I heard a rumbling about a new variant that originated in the US that has apparently been in Australia since April… it seems to be never-ending at this point. But it doesn’t do me any good to dwell on all the negative things, so here’s hoping that this to shall pass. 

In the meantime, here’s a cute cat pic to soothe the soul ;-D

Jan-Feb Book Haul - Part 1

Hello, my lovelies!

I am so far behind the 8 ball this year, in regards to videos I want to make, that it's not even funny.  So far 2020 has not been a stellar start to a new decade. Although, during all this mayhem in my everyday life I have managed to read at a ridiculous rate, smashing my Goodreads reading challenge goal by February.

In this first of two parts, I have just gone over all the new books that I have added to my library, and the few that I have already read.  Sadly, after filming Part 2 (up soon) I have already accumulated a few more books.  It's a sickness, I tell you.  Then there is Kindle Unlimited... and I think you can guess how my reading month for February went.

Outside of my reading life, things have been chugging along as always. Chronic pain is never fun, but it has really kicked my butt this summer. The hot and humid weather we've experienced here (it's not humid here!) plus the bushfires, etc., just wrecked havoc with my system.  Thankfully with autumn temperatures kicking in, I'm feeling a lot better, but still not yet 100%... well, as good as I'm going to get at the moment anyway.

I'm hoping to do to a big unhaul, or weeding my shelves, in a couple of weeks so if you're interested in that, let me know and I'll see if I can get something up.

Thank you for watching, and until I see you next time, 

 

My 2020 Reading Goals

Well, hello there!

Welcome to my first video for 2020.  I still can't believe we're into the roaring 20's of the 21st century.  This decade there are so many books that I have read that were considered modern classics when I was reading them for high school, or for pleasure, that are turning 100.

For this video I'm just going over my fairly laid back goals for 2020.  I'm relaxing my restrictions for my #BigBook2020 and my #aclassicamonth challenges. For the Big Book challenge I will consider any book over 800 pages.  Yep, I've dropped it back from the 1000 I previously used as I'm running out of those big a$$ books, so... and on the Classic a Month side, my only rule is that I pick a classic a month. Not that hard. I have the choice of any book that is considered a classic. Western or Eastern canons, translated, modern, childrens, you name it, it's fair game.

My Goodreads goal is a do-able 150 books. I usually fly through January with at least 60-70+ books because a hot Australian Summer + AC = lots of reading inside. May up it to 200 if needed, but I'm not planning on repeating a monster of a result like last year (still can't believe I wracked up 443!).

Now, in regards to my channel, uh, nothing major. Just hoping to be a bit more consistent in filming and posting videos. Hoping to get the grey cells up and firing soon so I can decide on perhaps a few future set ideas (Halloween, seasonal recommendations, uh, series recommendations, etc.), that may take a bit more time. I'd be well and truly screwed if I scripted any of my videos.

So, that's it. My 2020 Reading Goals in a nutshell.  I'd just like to say thank you for watching, and until I see you next time,

Greetings 2020!

Hello, everyone!

I can’t believe that 2020 is here.  A new year, and a new decade to boot. Things have been motoring on while I try to finalise my 2020 Reading Goals for an upcoming video. 

I’ve already started on my Goodreads Challenge by submitting the goal I’d like to reach this year... well, at least my jumping off point if previous years are any guide. So 150 is my first target to reach, and then we’ll see what happens from there. And while I would love to surpass last years amazing tallies (443 books and 124k+ pages), I’m not going into this years challenge with that in mind.

So far I have completed 3 books, and before you say anything, they were small cozy mystery novels, two of which were average, and one that I adored. In fact I enjoyed it so much that I’m going to purchase a paperback edition for my shelves (I read it from OverDrive), and I can’t wait for the second book to come out in June.  Death in a Budapest Butterfly is the first book in Julia Buckley’s A Hungarian Tea House Mystery series, and I think I’ll give it a post of it’s own to highlight what a great cozy mystery I think it is. However that may have to wait a few days until my back/hip sorts itself out and I can sit at my desk to fire up the desktop and either film a review, or do some fancy-smancy stuff on PS to tizzy up the picture for y’all.

Oh, so you caught my little slip of the keyboard. Yes, after mentioning in my last video that I’m feeling a lot better I managed to pull a muscle or tendon while washing my hair in the shower - of all things! I feel like such a dink, but there I was, rinsing out my hair, sitting on the bench seat, when I felt a ‘pop’ in my rump and felt a hot and tingling sensation. I had to get out of there asap while I could still move! Spent the evening with a cold pack on my butt, and this morning it feels like someone has punched my hard in the hip. But I’ll take a deep muscle pain over a pinched nerve any day of the week.  At least I can move and get myself out of bed, etc.

So, this latest adventure in my chronic pain journey has me reassessing how I’m going to try and live my life, even my social media/online life, in a normal fashion when my body is rebelling. I think I’ll have to save up and invest in a laptop (my old one died about 5 years ago. RIP my HP laptop) so that I can at least edit and upload my videos while confined to the bed or couch. My trusty iPad was just not made for editing videos.

Anyway, I think I’ve jabbered on enough for the moment and had better get back to brainstorming those 2020 Reading Goals.

I hope to see you guys soon. So until next time

Reading Wrap Up 2019

 

OMG! I can't believe it's the end of the year already. Time to get those end of year wrap up videos filmed and edited, and figure out what I'm going to do for my 2020 reading challenges.

But, today is about my Goodreads year in review, and boy, did I surpass my goals in 2019.

My goal for 2019 was to read 100 books (passed in February), so I upped it to 150 - nailed it! - and then I thought I'd really challenge myself and upped it again to 250 books.  Well, jokes on me because I flew past that and ended the year with a grand total of 440 books and 123,817 pages!

I don't think I'll have that good of a reading year in 2020, but I'm determined to at least give it a red hot go.  I'm so proud of what I accomplished in my reading year, although my reading challenges tanked, and I have so many ideas for next year that I really need to get myself sorted out.

Thanks for watching my videos in 2019.  I appreciate your support, and until I see you next year,

Victober 2019 Wrap Up

Yah! I have finally been able to edit this and get it up - and all before the end of the first week of November, woo-hoo!  Victober was a mixed bag. I did finish the two titles that made up the four challenges, but the other books I'd hoped to read... well, that didn't go so well.

Sorry this is so short.  Hopefully as Christmas gets closer I can find the time to get some more blogging in. Until then, I hope you had a more successful Victober than I did. Let me know what your favourite book was in the comments, and until next time,

 

Victober Quickie & Bookmail

Okey-dokey, then.  Just thought that I'd put together a super quick (for me) video to chat a little bit about where I am with my Victober reading - keeps me honest! - and about the latest book I'll be adding to my TBR shelves after watching Mara's "Where to Start with Classics" video.

One of these days I really need to do a TBR bookshelf tour to see exactly how many books I have that still haven't been read.

Sorry to run off so quickly, but I can hear a bit of thunder, and where there's thunder, there are appliances to unplug ;-D, so a big thank you for watching, and until I see you next time,

 

Uh, Amazon, why did you do this?

So, Amazon did a thing to my book that I'm a little peeved about.

Let me know if this has ever happened to you after ordering online.  I'm genuinely curious as to how often this actually happens, if it does, or did I just get super unlucky?

Thanks for watching, and until next time,

 

Spookathon 2019 TBR

I'm cooking with gas, today! 

Managed to get this filmed and edited yesterday, but just couldn't upload it.  However, that means it is going up on the start date for the readathon, so... ?

Fingers crossed I can get through all these - plus my Victober TBR - by the end of the month.

Thanks for watching, and until I see you next time,

 

Victober 2019 Update

I can't believe it's almost half way through October!  Where has the month gone?

 

My (late) #Victober TBR

Hello there stranger!

Yes, it is I.  It is hard to believe that I have been absent from BookTube, and this blog, for about 2 months.  I have had a rather difficult time with my health - darn that chronic pain! - and that has affected my ability to a) film videos, and b) to sit down for hours to edit them.

However, I couldn't let Victober pass without at least getting a TBR out there... so, here we go.

I have listed all the links to the hosts, and other various sites/videos, for your Victober pleasure, so I won't rehash all that.  But, I will tell you about the books I have decided to read for this Victober.  The first is ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ᴍᴇɴ ɪɴ ᴀ ʙᴏᴀᴛ by Jerome K. Jerome.  Although I only read this book at the start of the year... oops, last August acutally!, and I still think about some of the passages.  The language is beautiful, and the characters are memorable.  I love the lazy storyline, it is so simple an idea and executed so well that I'm surprised that I hear so little about this book online.  A great way to spend a few hours.

Next up is ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ᴍᴇɴ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴜᴍᴍᴇʟ, a sequel to his much earlier novel.  Not surprising since I loved their first outing up the Thames.  This time round, the hypochondriac trio are off to the Black Forest on a cycling tour, with Montmorency in tow.  I don't know anything else about it, and I'm going to go into this with no expectations apart from expecting more beautiful prose.

And finally, there is the underrated, and new to me, offering of Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett with ɴᴇᴡ ᴀᴍᴀᴢᴏɴɪᴀ. Published in 1889, it is a contemporary of Three Men in a Boat, and as I perused the synopsis, I immediately stopped as soon as I saw 'dystopian', and I'm going into this with no idea what it is about other than that.

So, those are the three books that I'm going to be reading this October.  Fingers crossed it all goes well, and I will be devouring other Victober videos so if you have made one, or have posted something on your blog about it, then leave me a link in the comments.

A big thank you for watching, and until I see you next time,

 

Last Bookmail in July

Hi there!

I finally fired up the ol' desktop today and while I was waiting for Norton to update all the anti-virus things, I thought I'd edit another video for you all.

July was a great month for bookmail - I only wish I hadn't ordered all this myself! There are still some items that are currently MIA, however, I have high hopes that the AbeBooks will arrive in the next week or so... but that Powell's order from the US is still not here, and I am getting rather antsy about it.

Okay, I'm off now.  Hope your July reading was wonderful, and that you found something new and interesting, or rediscovered an old favourite.  Thanks for watching, and until I see you next time,