April Wrap-Up

April Overview

1. If I die at my desk, please put pants on my corpse before the coroner arrives. Thanks. Can blogging kill you? I spent all of April trying to find out. I did the Blogging From A To Z Challenge and blogged every day. I don’t know how daily bloggers do it. The challenge involved a lot of late nights, early mornings, half-cooked ideas, and minor existential crises. It was worth it, though. No regrets. I’m already thinking of themes for next year’s challenge. If you’re one of the people who read every post I wrote, you deserve chocolate and a session with a good therapist. Thank you! We survived, and I have the badge to prove it. There will (hopefully) be a challenge reflections post on May 8.

2. It’s not marijuana, I swear. If you live in Colorado, and you have grow lights in your basement, there’s a chance you’re up to something naughty. I swear I’m not. The grow lights in my basement are completely innocent. I’m growing sunflowers. They’re supposed to get 12 feet tall, so they can’t live in the basement forever. They’ll go in the garden as soon as the snow melts.

3. Sometimes you’re the bird; sometimes you’re the window. April started off with a literal bang. A huge bird crashed into my house during a windstorm. It sounded like a bomb going off. I thought the bird was dead, but it wasn’t! It just chilled on the deck for a while and then flew away. Bird: 1, Window: 0.

Does anyone know what kind of bird it is?

4. Foods that left me confused and disappointed. I ate a Twinkie! I’ve never had one before because they always looked so unappetizing. Turns out, they look unappetizing because they are unappetizing. I’m still tempted to try a deep-fried Twinkie. Everything tastes better fried, right?

I also tried gravy-flavored potato chips. They did taste like gravy, but I’m not sure why they exist. Is there a market for crunchy, portable gravy? Are all the cool kids eating their gravy crunchy now? What’s wrong with potato-flavored potato chips? I am so confused.

5. Advice from me (in Tweet form):

6. Thundersnow? I experienced thundersnow for the first time ever in April. What is thundersnow? It’s thunder during a blizzard. Why should you care? Because it’s a rare weather phenomenon. I was more impressed with the weather than I was with Twinkies.

7. Twitter tomfoolery and half-followed directions. April 29 was Dewey’s 24-hour Read-a-thon. This was my first time participating. I read 3 books in 24 hours and had too much fun with the mini challenges. I didn’t win any of the challenges because I’m terrible at following directions, but I enjoyed failing at them.

Books I Read

I read 12 books in April.

Sleeping Giants – Sylvain Neuvel

The Optician of Lampedusa – Emma-Jane Kirby

The Hero with A Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – J.K. Rowling (Reread)

Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm – Jacob Grimm & Wilhelm Grimm

Smoke – Dan Vyleta

Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War – Steve Sheinkin

Underground Airlines – Ben H. Winters

Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow – Ted Hughes

A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories – Lucia Berlin

Native Guard: Poems – Natasha Trethewey (Reread)

Rhyolite: The Boom Years – Alan H. Patera

Best Books Of April

1. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – J.K. Rowling (Reread)

2. Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War – Steve Sheinkin

3. Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm – Jacob Grimm & Wilhelm Grimm

Most-Viewed April Posts

1. O is for “Ones I Read Over and Over”

2. S is for “Special Ed.”

3. Q is for “Quitting”

4. M is for “Minimalism”

5. L is for “Longest Book”

6. A is for “Margaret Atwood”

All The Things!

All The Things! (AKA number of unread books on my TBR shelf) = 33 books.

I’m currently reading The Library At Mount Char by Scott Hawkins and The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson.

What did you do in April?