March in Review

All right, let me get this month started

Week 1

I spent the first week of March organizing my pantry. That took three trips to Ikea, which mainly involved buying more of those big plastic tubs. The first trip, I bought 4 of the big tubs and several of the smaller tubs. Then I figured out I wanted a shelf on the bottom, and bought those shelving units, and finally I returned the smaller tubs and bought more of the bigger tubs. All the while, I kept throwing out stale chips or opened tubs of things that I was wondering why we had this food.

Mainly, it was just organizing things so I could find them. And now I think our pantry is functional again.

In the middle of that, I headed out to vote in the Texas primary, which was two hours of reading up on all the people running in the primaries and figuring out just who I wanted to vote for. I voted for very few people still in office as I’m becoming more and more convinced I don’t want people in office for decades on end. Most people should be in office for 1 or 2 terms, or in the case of congressman 4-6 (trying to allow them the same number of years as a senator). But we’ve got congressmen and senators who have been in office longer than I’ve lived in Texas.

Jeff and I went to go see the most recent Scream movie, which led to a discussion with my Mom on how she didn’t realize I liked the movie, and that brought my brother in and talking about how that movie is very definitive for our generation and it’s THE horror movie for our age, and even people who don’t like horror like it (which is true because I don’t like horror and I like it).

Going back up to the top, I FINALLY got a picture of the outfit I more or less finished in February. I like how it turned out, even if I don’t love that particular picture of it. I love the details on the tunic and the trim I added to the skirt. I’m actually about to go add another dart to the skirt because I want to take it in a bit more, but don’t want to mess with the side seams as I finally got those just right so they lay perfectly.

And that final picture is of notes from the very first D&D game I ever played in, which one of the other players took, and they are so much fun to read. Jeff found them as he was cleaning out his office at work, and they are so much fun to read. I’m thinking of trying to write them up into a book of some sort, but I don’t know if I have the skill to do that, but it would be fun to try.

Books read:

• Star Blessed– This was such a cute story, and I loved the idea of what happened after Rumplestiltskin. Also it has a fun magic system. I was laughing because I read a review of it that was someone who very clearly didn’t understand what Christian fantasy could be.
• Battleground– The last book in rereading the Dresden Files, I technically read this before Star Blessed.
• Serendipity– This series was on sale for 99 cents per book, so I picked them up. Overall, the series was okay, none of the books were anything that I super loved.

Games played

• also good guess

Oh goodness, this is April 8 and I haven’t written anything else. I guess I better get writing. It’s been a bit of a busy month.

Darn, I haven’t even made the collages like I thought I had. Oops…

Week 2

The second week of March started with Leezard and I going to the vet to figure out a new diet for her. She peeked through the little cargo net I have to keep her from coming to the front seat, so I need to get that better secured now so she doesn’t actually clim up to the front, but also it made for a cute picture.

Then we headed up to Dallas for the weekend to visit Jeff’s parents and for the kids to visit Jeff’s Dad in his hospice home. We took Jeff’s Mom up to the Dallas Arboretum which was a lot of fun. The top right and bottom left pictures are from sitting and watching cozy mysteries in their apartment. The bottom middle picture is of this one statue someone has is this cute little kid reading, and the person just has a stash of books rotated around for people to borrow and read.

And the final picture is my slowly evolving fairy/herb garden. I’ve been slowly putting new plants in there, and enjoying what I’ve found there. In my most recent attempts I’ve figured out I need to get some fire ant killer because it’s hard to do much in the way of weeding if there are fire ants trying to eat me alive.

Books read

• Cupid Chronicles– book 2 in the series, I think this book was one of the cutest in this series
• Petals and Plot Twists– book 3, vaguely amusing, I liked this one.
• Misfortune and Mr. Right– book 4, and I didn’t remember to write these down so I’m just shoving them all to here. I felt like this book had a theoretically good concept, but also didn’t quite work right.
• Clean out of Luck– book 5, this was the book that I was rolling my eyes at. A magical mop? Also, I wasn’t quite sold on their romance.
• Off the Wall– book 6, again this didn’t quite work right for me, there was nothing wrong, but I wasn’t quite sold on it.
• Signed, Sealed, and Smitten– book 7, I’m no the fence about this one. There were parts I really liked and parts I wasn’t sure of. It may have been at this point I had read a couple of books I wasn’t super excited by, so at this point I wasn’t as interested in it
• The Escape Plan– book 8, maybe part of it was I read this entire series in a little over a week and towards the end I was just so done with this idea.

Games played

I did not write it down, but I think Smash Up, and maybe some other stuff

Week 3

Continuing Spring Break.

We got the first box of Leezard’s new food, which is just kind of funny to get in the mail.

Okay, so I don’t know if I’ve talked about it on here, but my aunt died, it’s a very weird and long story, but my Mom had all of us over to go through her clothes and see what we would want to keep. So we had lots of fun going through her clothes trying them on and being mightily amused at the various clothes. That is the top picture.

Then to continue the clothes idea, I went shopping with The Artist to find her graduation dress and while there I saw this sequined shirt that is the same colors as ACU’s colors so took a picture and sent it off to my college friends.

The giant picture is the fun little bag I sewed to hold my mini tea tins with the items I try to keep on hand in my purse. This keeps the tea tins all held together and easy to keep together. I didn’t measure it ahead of time, sort of freehanding the project as we were driving up to Dallas, so the bag ended up bigger than I needed it, so I threw in my mini-medicine box.

And finally, we celebrated Superman’s 21st birthday with my family. I don’t have any pictures of his celebration with his friends.

Books Read

• Lightshed- This is the second book in a trilogy, and I spent the first half of the book yelling at the female protagonist, “Stop making all of these stupid decisions,” and then she realized, “I am being stupid,” and got hit with what would be the consqeunces if she kept making these decisions so she changed, and the last half of the book was her changing her actions and all of the consequences of that, and man I loved how this changed. The pay off was well done. I need to get the final book in the trilogy.
• Bookwyrm Acquisitions- the first in a cozy fantasy series about a bookworm dragon librarian that has decided to make books her hoard, and I finished book 1 and was so disappointed to discover book 2 doesn’t come out until December.

Week 4

On the list of weirdest things ever. Recently, there has been a man who comes and sets up a drum kit in the Sam’s Club/Hobby Lobby parking lot and just plays there. I don’t see him every time I’m there, but he’s there fairly often, and it’s wildly amusing each time I see him.

I made whipped cream for the pies, and also just for hot chocolate in general, and Leezard helped herself to what was left in the bowl. I was not pleased.

And then for a funny story, when we were up in Dallas we stopped at this on giant Half Price Books and I found this silly looking game that I thought looked fun to play, and Jeff and I have been playing through the storyline, and I have been quite enjoying it.

Jeff has been rolling his eyes sometimes because it is quite clearly storylines that parents with young children deal with and there are certain ways in which they set it up that imply they want it played with young kids, but also at the same time, you need to be able to read to play the games.

And then finally we’ve got the last picture here is of my super helpful little calendar. I don’t remember why I took the picture, but I’ve been working at consistently writing out what is happening for the week and the meal plans, which is slowly getting better.

Books Read

• Stale Mate- this is book 1 of a trilogy, and I got book 1 for free which convinced me to get the rest of a fun urban fantasy with lots of fun banter and silliness
• Bond Mate- book 2, I burned through these books very fast
• Check Mate- book 3, and I thought it was very well done
• Magic in the Mix- This is part of a series that I read taking place on an island where some people have magic, which really just read as mutant powers that can do some fun quirky things. This one was about a bakery shop owner and I enjoyed it more or less
• One Enchanted Evening- what’s interesting is these are all part of a series, but she did not mark them as part of a series, this was cute, and a second chance romance which I liked but was not in love with
• Charming Charlie- this is the third one in this series I read and while in many ways I liked it the most, it was also the one I liked the least because I really hated how she kept talked about how much her ovaries were responding to things or her desperate need to have babies
• Unlikely Housemate- first in a series, but an adult book with high schoolers as the main characters, which was weird. I only finished it because it was 150 pages. My dissatisfaction with it should have kept me from reading the second in the series but I gave it a chance
• Popstar Next Door- I gave this 2 stars, and I should have given it 1 star. I felt like the author’s only experience with teachers was when she was a teacher as a kid and TV shows or movies, none of what she wrote would happen in a real school today. It is not that easy to get into a school today. Teachers don’t have the money to buy snacks for their class at a coffee shop. Teachers don’t just randomly get to leave school right when it gets out. Ugh, I just can’t with this book and its characters. Again I only finished it because it was so short.