January Currently . . .

It’s been a long time since I’ve done one of these. Here’s what I’ve been up to in January.

I’m Currently . . .

Reading: Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Revelry, and Revenge by Eleanor Herman and I See Reality: Twelve Short Stories about Real Life. Two books with very long titles.

Eating: Nothing yummy. All those people who claim that diet food tastes good are liars. Nachos taste good. Chocolate cake tastes good. Lettuce tastes like disappointment.

Photographing: The last photo I took was a random one of my dog under my desk. I’ve been trying to get some pictures of squirrels because there are tons of them around here. They don’t stay still long enough for photos. Especially when the dogs notice them.

Watching: Squirrel sex. I’m not intentionally watching it. I’m trying to take photos of squirrels, but they keep jumping each other’s bones right in front of me. Dirty critters. I’m trying to make nature photography, not squirrel porn.

Watching II: Children’s movies. They’re less depressing than the real world. In the past week, I’ve seen parts of A Bug’s Life, The Incredibles, Frozen, Hercules, and Mulan.

Getting rid of: Books. I don’t like having more books than shelf space. I’m thinking about taking a giant box of books to the used bookstore. Then, the store will give me money or credits for more books. It’s an endless cycle.

Exercising: I’m doing well with Couch to 5K. Back in November, I quit at week 7 because I was traveling, then I got bronchitis, then it was the holidays, and excuses, excuses. I started over. I’m on week 3 right now.

Learning: That I need better shoes. Have you ever tried walking big, enthusiastic dogs on icy sidewalks? It’s like figure skating, but less elegant and more deadly.

What did you do in January?

October Currently . . .

I’m Currently . . .

Reading: Leaving Fishers by Margaret Peterson Haddix.

Watching: I binge-watched all six seasons of Game of Thrones this month. I need to know what happens next! They can’t just stop there! Also, I’m tempted to read the books, which is completely ridiculous. There are about 200 books on my TBR list right now. I don’t need more.

Planning: To graduate from grad school. This is happening in 24 days. Holy crap. I have a lot of stuff to do.

Stocking up on: Nonfiction books. I’m going to read more nonfiction next year. I tell myself that every year, but I’m actually going to do it this time. Maybe. Hopefully.

Getting rid of: Fiction books. I’m trading them for nonfiction books. And probably some young adult books because I have no self-control.

Wishing for: No more politics, please. Just put us out of our misery already.

Looking forward to: My trip to Mammoth Cave National Park. I’m going the day after I graduate, and I’ll probably be an exhaustion zombie, but I don’t care. I’m going to zombie my way through some caves.

Blogging: I have to take a blogging hiatus next month. There won’t be any posts between November 11 and November 21. After the 21^st, things will slowly go back to normal.

Obsessing over: The Blogging from A to Z Challenge. It doesn’t happen until next April, but I’m trying to plan ahead because I have 26 posts to write for it. It’s really hard to come up with bookish topics for some of the letters.

Celebrating: Halloween! Well, not yet, but soon. I’ll probably spend it eating candy and reading a book. Sounds like a good holiday to me.

What have you been doing in October? 

September Currently . . .

Here’s what I’ve been up to in September.

I’m Currently . . .

 Reading: All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven.

Watching: Book-to-movie adaptations. I’m not a big movie fan, but I have HBO right now, so I should probably use it, right? I’m also watching all the horrible reality shows: Survivor, Hell’s Kitchen, Project Runway, Worst Cooks In America, 90 Day Fiancé . . .

Stalking: Are you guys following Boats Against the Current? If you’re not, you should be. Laura writes interesting discussions and has a very pretty blog.

Looking forward to: October. It’s my favorite month. I love Halloween, and cold weather, and crunchy leaves, and bonfires, and ghost stories, and the lull before the Christmas storm. Basically, I’m one of those annoying people on social media who obsesses over all the fall things.

Exercising: Are you sick of hearing about Couch to 5K yet? I’m doing the training slower than I’m supposed to, but it’s actually working! I’ve always been a terrible runner (just ask my high school gym teachers), so I’m impressed that I’m learning how to run a 5K.

Enjoying: Hiking in the mountains. It makes me happy to get away from technology for a weekend.

Photographing: I can’t go hiking without dragging the camera along.

Eating: Caramel apples and Nutella strawberries. If there’s a way to make healthy food unhealthy, I can find it.

Blogging: I’m going to be traveling at the end of this year, so I’m trying to blog ahead. If you have any recommendations for tags, memes, or discussion topics, I badly need them. I’m going to be on a blogging hiatus for most of November, but I don’t want the blog to be *crickets, crickets.* I’m blogging as fast as I can to get ahead.

Laughing at: Twitter. I tweeted about my patronus and was promptly followed by a company that makes nacho cheese. *Insert lame nacho cheese joke here.*

What have you been doing in September?

August Currently . . .

Here’s what I’ve been doing in August.

I’m Currently . . .

Reading: More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera. It’s finally time to read the books that have been sitting on my TBR shelf for over a year.

Watching: 90 Day Fiancé and Bachelor in Paradise. Yes, I feel like trash for watching these shows. For some reason, their train-wreck-style drama entertains me.

Stalking: Shattering Stigmas on It Starts At Midnight. If you’re not reading these posts about mental illness representation in books, you totally need to. I kinda want to write my own Shattering Stigmas post, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to share my bizarre mental health history with the Internet. Maybe next year. (I’m not lying when I say it’s bizarre. You guys will seriously cringe at me.)

Discovering: Did you know there’s a calculator that will tell you how long it will take to read all the books on your TBR? If you’re brave enough, click here to go to the calculator. If I don’t add any new books, it’ll take me 3 months to get through all my unread ones.

Enjoying: New challenges. My grad school thesis is done (holy crap, guys), so now I get to experiment and try out some new types of writing I’ve never done before. I’m currently working on a lecture about nonlinear narrative structures.

Learning: That making videos is hard. I now have a whole lot more respect for YouTubers. I have to make a video of my lecture, and I’m way too self-conscious and awkward to do it. Once the lecture is done, I’m never making a video of myself again. Making videos is awful in every imaginable way.

Goal setting: Goals for the rest of 2016: read at least 30 more books, run 5k without dropping dead, acquire a master’s degree.

Thinking about: How much a person can change in 10 years. Also, how you can’t assume you know everything about a person’s life just by looking at it from the outside.

Wishing: I had time to reread all the Harry Potter books. I’m not sure if I’m feeling nostalgic, or if I just need to get the taste of Cursed Child out of my mouth.

Photographing: Books! I’m so envious of people who can take awesome bookish photos.

What did you do in August? 

July Currently . . .

I did nothing interesting in July. I barely even left the house. This is entirely school’s fault. Until November, I’m going to be a researching/writing/literature dissecting machine. Since I’ve been so boring lately, writing this post was difficult, but here are a few non-school-related things I did this month:

I’m Currently . . .

Reading: Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Watching: The Great British Bake Off is back on American TV! I have no idea which season this is, and I don’t want to look it up because of spoilers. It probably aired in the UK a thousand years ago. It’s new to me, though, so I’m excited. You gotta love pretentious desserts.

Catching up on: This season’s episodes of The Simpsons and Bob’s Burgers. I don’t watch much TV, but when I do, I binge it.

Listening to: I recently heard the song ‘The Road Less Traveled’ by Lauren Alaina. It’s fun and upbeat. I had it on repeat while I did school stuff.

Eating: Fried green beans at this restaurant near my house. All vegetables should be deep fried. Seriously.

Stocking up on: Books. I’ve been on a book-buying ban all year, and I actually started to run out of things I wanted to read. I don’t want my TBR pile to be completely gone, so I went on Book Outlet and bought some cheap books.

Goal setting: Be sane about book-buying. I don’t want my TBR pile to be gone, but I don’t want it to be huge, either.

Getting rid of: Books on my wish list. Cutting down the wish list was my compromise for buying new books. If I’m being realistic, there’s no way I can read everything on my wish list. I cut the list down from nearly 200 books to fewer than 100. That’s still more than I can read, but it’s slightly saner.

Blogging: Bloglovin’ is still broken for me, so I’ve been spending more time looking at blogs in link-ups. I’ve discovered so many new blogs. It’s crazy how many book blogs are out there.

Learning: To space out war books. I read three books about war over the span of two weeks. This was extremely anxiety-producing. Then I went on Twitter to look at funny pictures of cats, but my feed was full of people saying, “If you’re not tweeting about (insert current world tragedy here), then you’re a terrible, selfish person.” Sigh. Not enough cats.

Wishing for: World peace.

What did you do in July?

June Currently . . .

I can’t believe that June is already over. This month was one of the hardest I’ve had in a long time. I was sick, busy, traveling, and generally exhausted for most of it. But, I’m hoping that July will be better. Here’s what I did in June.

I’m currently . . .

Reading: Charm & Strange by Stephanie Kuehn.

Planning: To hike often this summer.

Eating: Everything bad. I totally fell off the healthy-eating wagon, and then Snickers ice cream happened. Multiple times.

Watching: Gordon Ramsay shows. For some reason, it’s entertaining to watch him scream at people. Also, if you’ve never looked up Ramsay memes, they’re hilarious.

Stalking: Read Diverse Books. I’m pretty sure that Naz is a superhero. His blog and Twitter are bringing attention to the need for diversity in the bookish/writing/publishing community. Go check out his blog and the #DiverseBookBloggers hashtag.

Wishing For: My mom’s computer to stop having problems . . .

Goal Setting: Find balance. I’m a very driven person. If I want something, nothing will stop me. This isn’t always good for my health or sanity.

Blogging: I finally caught up on book reviews, and now I’m trying to get ahead on other posts. I don’t like writing a post the night before it goes up. I can’t handle that kind of pressure.

Learning: This middlegrade book taught me a whole lot about jellyfish. I’m a little bit scared of them now. They are pretty interesting, though . . . in a painful, deadly way.

What did you do in June?

April Currently . . .

Here’s what I’ve been doing in April. I’ve decided to switch up a few of the categories because the old ones were getting boring.

I’m Currently . . .

Reading: A Guide to being Born by Ramona Ausubel.

Listening to: Spirits by The Strumbellas and Giants by Matt Nathanson. I think both of these songs are extremely well-written. Check them out if you haven’t heard them yet.

Stalking: Falconer’s Library. Wendy writes really good posts, and her blog needs more love. Go follow it. 

Eating: Low-fat pudding. I want to lose weight, but life’s not worth living without chocolate.

Blogging: I’ve been experimenting with my book reviews. Have you noticed that some of the recent ones are slightly longer and include a tiny bit more discussion of the books’ themes? I have a theory that nobody actually reads long reviews on blogs, so we’ll see how it goes. The changes are pretty subtle. I want my reviews to have depth, but I don't want them to sound like essays.

Enjoying: Spring break! Well, I live in Colorado, so “spring” doesn’t mean what you think it does.

  

Looking forward to: My full-book workshop at my next school residency. I’ve been editing short stories, essays, and poetry for years, but I don’t have much experience with critiquing full-length novels-in-progress. It should be interesting.

Exercising: I’ve been walking 1-2 miles a day on a 12% treadmill incline. I’ve also found a free 7-minute workout app made by Wahoo. I had no idea how long 7 minutes was until that app started kicking my butt.

Wishing for: Warmer weather. I want to go hiking.

Obsessing over: The Unwind series by Neal Shusterman. I’m actually going to read an entire series, guys. Be proud of me. This doesn’t usually happen. I don’t have a series-length attention span.

Learning: To trust my instincts.

Laughing at: I usually try to keep naughty words off the blog, but I’m immature enough that I burst out laughing when I saw this meme:

What have you been doing in April?

March Currently . . .

Here’s what I’ve been doing in March.

I’m Currently . . .

Reading: A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis.

Watching: I’ve been trying to watch political stuff so that I can be an informed American citizen, but it’s mostly just stressing me out.

Stalking: You guys should check out Carole’s Random Life. Carole has the greatest book hauls ever, and she writes helpful reviews, too.

Planning: Discussion posts for the next few months. Coming up with topics that haven’t been discussed to death is difficult for me. I don’t think the blogosphere needs any more posts about how much we all hate insta-love.

Making: It recently took me 6 hours to make one blog post. The post required a lot of research, and then I had to make graphics, which I suck at. You’ll see the post next month, but you probably won’t be able to tell that it took 6 hours. It doesn’t look like much. I loved doing the research, though. The one good thing about spending my entire life in college is that I know how to research like a boss. When I want to know something, nothing can stop me.  

Stocking up on: Nothing, really. I have been putting all of my classic horror books in one place. I’m hoping that seeing a big stack of them will motivate me to read them. I guess I’m stocking up on classic horror books, even though I already own them.

Wishing for: World peace.
 

Enjoying: Not going to the dentist. I spent way too much time at the dentist in February. My teeth don’t hurt now, so I guess it was worth it.

Trying: Not to freak out about all the stuff happening in the next few months. I’m going to be doing some things that I’ve never done before, and new responsibilities always make me feel squirrely.

Eating: Not very much because I’m trying to lose weight. I did eat some ribs from the pig truck a few weeks ago. You gotta love food trucks.

Goal setting: Get better at commenting on blogs. I’ve been really slacking on this lately. I also need to find some new blogs instead of just sticking to my favorites. Spread the comment love.

Learning: That sometimes I need a break. I’m not a robot. (Even though it might be cool to be a robot.)

What have you been doing in March?