Work took Jon to Alabama this weekend, and I found myself alone in the apartment without a voice of reason. This is how I am accepting the fact that I once again decided to give Books & Tea a makeover, I just spent $100 at Joanne Fabrics on a craft I have zero experience with, and I didn’t complete nearly as many chores as I had intended; although, in my defense, I’ve also completed more chores than I normally do in one weekend, so there is that.
I don’t know what I was thinking when I accepted an invitation to visit Chicago at “month end” (ie. the beginning of October. Accounting is weird like that). It’s the worst time to be away from work when you’re a bookkeeper, but I decided to ignore the anxiety brewing in my chest anyway; I submitted a time off request, booked a round-trip train ticket for $54 (how can you beat that price?!), and tried to push the thought of having to complete three days worth of work in 1.5 days out of my mind.
There were two reasons why I didn’t read Percy Jackson the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan when it was released:
So, I’m not sure why, at the age of 27, I felt compelled to buy this middle grade novel (other than, it was on sale, and I’m notoriously impulsive when it comes to buying and borrowing books). Once I brought the book home with me, it spent a few months sitting on the floor beside my bed before I even considered actually reading it. It was because of mentions on two blogs, Reviews and Cake and J.Bookish, that I took as a sign and decided to finally give the book a read. Right from chapter one, I was totally engrossed in The Lightning Thief. Normally I can’t read in bed because I get drowsy really quickly, but this book had me thinking just one more chapter before lights out, and before I knew it, the clock read midnight. I even read this book with the teevee on, and I wasn’t distracted at all.
I guess you could say I’m fascinated by the Oregon Trail. Like many youngsters growing up in America during the 1990s, I was in love with the Oregon Trail computer game. My knowledge of survival was poor, of course; In Independence, Missouri, often the main starting place for the Oregon Trail, I would always spend too much money on salt pork (that’s practically bacon, right?), and oxen—mostly for lugging a wagon full of salt pork, but that would eventually run out… I also treated every scrape, gouge, and disease with turpentine—good for runny noses, not so good for dysentery. It’s a miracle my party ever made it to Oregon (most of the time they didn’t).
There was also that time in college when I would escape to the library on cold, blustery days and try to read the Lewis and Clark journals—not quite as engaging as one would think—wait, does anyone even think that?
I’m convinced there is a mystery novel for everyone– for cat lovers, for tea lovers, for book club lovers, for Florida Keys lovers, for baking lovers. The list goes on! So, I’m not really sure why I was surprised to discover a mystery series that followed ghost hunters filming for a TV show. It wasn’t even a question whether or not I was going to pick a book from Victoria Laurie’s Ghost Hunter Myster series; I knew I had to have it. It was however, a question of which book do I choose? Unfortunately, my library didn’t have the complete series, so I started with the first book they had, which was number five, Ghouls, Ghouls, Ghouls.
My name is Jackie, and I am a millennial / mother / Michigander / blogger / wannabe runner / accountant / local library enthusiast / gamer, kinda. This is a personal blog, which means I’m not entirely certain what you’ll find here, but it will definitely not show up on the first page of Google search results.
By Golly, Ollie! 