Hi friends, I know I disappeared for a bit. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, these last few weeks have been a lot. I’m been using all my coping mechanisms, but it just ended up that I needed to take a break. When reading no longer becomes fun, that’s when I know that it’s time to take a step back and relax for a bit. Set my expectations of myself as low as possible, and go into battery saving mode. So what have I been up to? Playing a LOT of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Sometimes it’s…

How are we holding up my friends? Okay, I hope! I started working on a review for The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap, but my brain has decided to strike. It’s been a long week already and so I’m focusing the rest of my energy on walking that thin line between balance and burnout. Last year I took a step back and learned a lot about myself. I learned good coping mechanisms and how to spot when I’m about to descend into a burnout period so that I can reverse it before it starts. Little did I know that I’d…

Hi there, it’s me again! Rambling at you, because my brain is full of notes for book reviews and yet work is so busy that I don’t have time to sit down and actually write them. Some day I’ll show you the random notes I scribble, hurriedly jotting my feelings down as I read and try to figure out how to aptly explain how a certain part of a book makes me feel. It’s a lot of fun to get so caught up in a book that I forget, but then it also makes it harder for me to write…

How are we feeling now that we’ve almost reached the mid-point of the month my friends? I’m feeling a little overwhelmed if I’m being honest. We’re 12 days in and I have yet to actually finish a book. Although, to be fair, it doesn’t help much that all the books I started were long. I should be done with one later today, and another late tomorrow, and so I’ll have reviews for you soon! I’m just not going to rush myself this year. We get there when we get there. Of course it hasn’t helped at all that LA has…

Well, best laid plans and all that. I didn’t schedule my 2024 wrap-up posts ahead of time because I knew I’d be off and have plenty of time to write them…. and then I got sick. Like, stuck in bed, tissues everywhere, head feels like it might explode sick. So yeah, at least we got wrap-up post up! But here’s a quick summary of 2024: Now did I actually read the books on my shelves? Well… not so much. So that’s going on my goals for this year. I want to: I’ll be honest, I’m not great at sticking to…

I know I keep saying this, but it keeps being true, work has been insane. We’re finally getting a new person signed on to train and hopefully give us some relief, but for the moment it’s all hands on deck and all of us are skirting the edge of burnout. Happily, I’m finally nearing my Christmas vacation! All I want to do is snuggle under some blankets, drink something warm, and read a good book. I still haven’t finished The Book That Wouldn’t Burn so that’s top priority. And napping. So much napping. Well and also drafting my darn end…

Oh man, seriously. We had two days off last week for the holiday and I was so excited about the long weekend. Then Monday came, and reality set in. This week was absolute madness. We were busy non-stop and at the end of the day the last thing I wanted to do was look a computer. So, yeah. Past Jessica definitely should have scheduled some posts instead of eating more King’s Hawaiian rolls haha. I blinked, and suddenly it was Friday. On a bright note, I actually managed to finish two audio books this week while I was attacking spreadsheets…

It has been an absolutely lovely long weekend so far. Full of friends, family and of course entirely too much food. We zipped around to different the homes of different people, and now we’re finally cozy and warm back at home. I’m looking forward to tomorrow! Our only plans are to decorate our house for Christmas, watch movies, and drink hot cocoa. A perfectly wonderful end to a weekend, before it’s back to the grind. On the reading front, I took The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence with me on our vacation. I actually managed to read roughly…

Ah, November. I’m not going to lie to you, my favorite holiday is (and will forever be) Christmas. So all November is to me is the month that I must endure in order to get to the part of the year where my neighborhood deems it socially acceptable for me to put up my Christmas decorations. I can already feel the vibes though! Cozy season is in full swing, and my reading bug is back in a huge way honestly. Since last I posted I managed to read a whopping 4 books in a row. Now I know that to…

I swear I blinked and it’s already the holiday season. It didn’t really click for me until it started getting darker earlier, and the morning temps are finally down into the 50’s. October in California is a weird beast. It’ll be 53 degrees overnight and then 87 degrees in the middle of the day. Oof. You have to figure out what outfit to wear that will allow you to be comfortable in both those temps and not have to carry around a sweater or a jacket haha. It drives me a bit nuts if I’m being honest. But this is…