I‘m alive! Life‘s been busy lately and I haven‘t had a lot of time to read. The Wyrmling is growing up SO fast! It‘ll be a year in June. I absolutely cannot believe it. We‘ve been going on a lot of hikes. I want him to have as much of a love for the outdoors as possible.

I hope you‘re all doing well! I can‘t promise I‘ll start being regular on here again, but I‘m certainly going to try. I miss all my bookish friends! 🥰

Pic from our hike today.

1. We‘re going hiking with friends on Saturday and after I get off work Monday we‘re going to my parents house for a cookout.
2. Oh gosh! Ok…I‘m going to be selfish for this question because it‘s boring to say things like “end world hunger”. 😅 I‘d wish for the ability to speak any language of any creature, the ability to travel anywhere in the universe with a thought, and to not have to breathe to survive.

#Two4Tuesday

1. Westland
2. Hmm, not really. I do get unreasonably giddy when something takes place in my home state of Indiana, even if the characters just drive through it on their way to somewhere else. 🤣
3. The Weasley‘s house from the Harry Potter books. I want to live there SO bad!

#WondrousWednesday

My Litsyversary came and went! 😅 I can‘t believe it‘s been three years! ❤️😱❤️

1. Keeping a sleep schedule.
2. Snacking.
3. Historical. I‘m always amazed and inspired by everyone and everything that has come before us.

Playing catch up since I‘ve been so inactive. Apologies!

April‘s #BookSpinBingo board! I‘ve marked my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin along with my #Roll100 picks. Let‘s hope April is a better reading month for me than March. 🫣

My three #Roll100 picks for April.

48- Fish in a Tree
33- Wizard‘s First Rule
40- The Hound of the Baskervilles

My #Bookspin list for April. I‘m not giving any predictions for how I‘ll do. I learned my lesson in March. 😅

This is my life right now. I tempted the reading gods and they sent me a test for my arrogance. 🤣😂

I‘ve read maybe three pages in the past week… but hey, my followers on fanfiction.net will be THRILLED. 🤦‍♀️😅

3 ⭐️s
A surprisingly short read. It felt like something you‘d find in a literature textbook in High School. It wasn‘t bad, but I also don‘t think it lived up to the hype from Stephen King on the back cover. Much of it read like a fever dream, being creepy for the sake of being creepy. I think it would be GREAT to read out loud around a campfire at night. It at least intrigued me enough to be open to picking up another Hubbard novel in the future.

Starting my first L. Ron Hubbard book today. The high praise from these other authors is what got me to buy the book years ago, so here‘s hoping it lives up to my expectations… 😬

I feel VERY optimistic about this months bingo! I‘m feeling pretty confident that I can get through quite a few of these. Let‘s hope that‘s not just the spring weather making me ambitious. 😅 I‘ll also be participating in the #MarchMadness Readathon and bingo.
#BookSpinBingo

My list for my March #BookSpinBingo! Most are carried over from February.

My final look at my February #BookSpinBingo. No bingo, but I‘m happy with my progress nonetheless.

4 ⭐️s
I absolutely love Renille and Jathondi and would happily read more about them, unfortunately this book is a stand alone. A dark cult, whose faltering god consumes its own descendants to give it life, pushes a country to the point of war. The skeptical Renille witnesses horrors that make him wonder if gods and the supernatural may actually be real. Princess Jathondi believes they are, but are they worthy of the devout worship of her people?

My #Roll100 picks for March. 🥰

One chapter in and I am simping HARD for Renille… 😍

3 ⭐️s
I think my high expectations strike again. The tangents at the beginning didn‘t bother me so much because she always looped it back around to being relevant. Unfortunately it seems she lost her grip towards the end. Someone said it well in a review on Goodreads and likened it to needing to write a 20 page essay about a subject but only having 3 pages worth of actual things to say. Interesting enough to not be a pan, but barely.
#Naturalitsy

3 ⭐️s
Full disclosure, I do not typically enjoy poetry, so take this review as you will… 😅 Mostly I didn‘t like the poems, but as it usually is with me, the ones I found I connected with, I LOVED. My two favorites were “The Discovery of The Madeiras” and “A Question”. I re-read the latter several times even though it‘s only four lines. It spoke to me in a way none of the wordier poems did.
This was my #DoubleBookSpin for February.
#Naturalitsy

4 ⭐️s
I love Dor and Jumper. Oh to have a giant green spider companion! ❤️🥰 This adventure follows Dor, the 12-year-old son of Bink and Chameleon, as he goes back in time to find a potion that will turn a zombie back into a human, and matures along the way. As always there‘s plenty of wordplay and puns littered throughout the book. I hope we see more of Dor and his talent of talking to objects in the next books.
#SeriesLove2023

My #FabulousFebruary goal is to read at least one hour a day. I have numerous buddy reads/challenges I‘d like to keep up with, so hopefully I do alright. 🤞❤️

I didn‘t get to as many of my series‘ in January as I had hoped. My plan for February is to keep plugging away at Animorphs and Xanth. I might also try and pick up The Vampire Lestat and/or The Girl Who Played With Fire, to also continue a series, but we‘ll see. I‘m trying not to put too much on my plate but at the same time wish I could be reading fifty different books at once right now. 😅🤣
#SeriesLove2023

Bit late with this one. 😅🤦‍♀️

1. I‘d say my ability to find the humor in the worst of things.
2. The Wyrmling, my husband, animals, a book sale, yarn/anything to do with it.
3. Writing, spinning yarn, playing RPG video games, sculpting (I guess I should put ANY craft, really…)

Thank you for the tag @Eggs 🥰
#WondrousWednesday

4 ⭐️s
As a fan of prehistoric life, I admit I usually don‘t pay too much attention to our closest relatives. It‘s fascinating to imagine a time where we shared the planet with other human species. There have been multiple advancements in our understanding of these extinct relatives, but this book still holds up. The work that went into recreating the faces of each species was really impressive.
Read for the #Historathon2023 challenge on YouTube.

My February #BookSpinBingo board! I‘ve marked my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin with hearts.

My February #BookSpin list. Can‘t believe how quickly January flew by!

I absolutely love when the dice @PuddleJumper rolls end up somewhat color coordinating with my books. 😅🤣 Hopefully I can get to these, I‘ve got quite a few buddy reads/other challenges going on this month, so fingers crossed!
#Roll100

3 ⭐️s
I feel like this started off strong with both the informational chapters and memoir chapters working well together. Unfortunately I feel that it fell apart the further I went. For someone that says he‘s non-religious, I felt the author spent quite a bit of time quoting the Bible and talking about faith. Not exactly what I signed up for…😅 It still taught me plenty about eels that I never knew before and I‘m still glad I read it.
#Naturalitsy

Forgot to post my goals for #JoyousJanuary!

I honestly just want to stay on top of my reads for #NaturalLitsy and the YouTube book challenge #Historathon2023. Other than that, I hope to finish Castle Roogna and keep progressing towards a bingo for #BookSpinBingo.

5 ⭐️s
This is a childhood favorite that sparked my love of prehistoric life. My original copy is long gone, having been read to literal pieces. I found this at a second hand store one day and nostalgia hit me like a truck. Though rather outdated, the little vignettes of prehistoric life were still enjoyable to revisit. I look forward to sharing this with The Wyrmling someday.

This fits the #NaturalLitsyBingo2023 prompt for “Childhood Favorite”.

5 ⭐️s
This is told from Marco‘s perspective and involves the team meeting up with an unlikely ally, Erek the android. Erek is a Chee, created by a race of aliens that are now extinct. Incapable of violence, Erek and a few other Chee wish to reprogram themselves to fight using a stolen technology the Yeerks have in their possession. It‘s up to the Animorphs to steal back the tech and change the future of an entire race.

#SeriesLove2023 #BookSpin

4 ⭐️s
I loved starting out the year with this one! A dark holiday novel about the great Yule Lord, Krampus. I couldn‘t put it down! The characters were great, especially Krampus, of course. Jesse was an entertaining hero. I also enjoyed Brom‘s take on the Santa/Krampus lore and his weaving in of Norse mythology. And of course I loved the gore! 😜😈🤣 There were a few clunky exposition parts, but other than that, a great fast read.

My #BookSpinBingo for January! I‘m already more than halfway through Krampus. Loving it so far though there were some choppy bits of exposition. I‘ve marked my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin so I won‘t forget them. Looking forward to another great year of reading.

Ready to start a new year with some great reads! I‘m taking part in several challenges in 2023 and hope I can keep up with them. I feel like I‘m always overly optimistic when making my resolutions, then everything peters out mid year. 😅 2023 will be different!! Probably…hopefully…maybe…

Anyway! This is my #BookSpinBingo list for January!

Edit: switched out Sapiens for The Last Human, it fits one of the challenges better.

4 ⭐️s
Not my favorite work by Jordan, but still enjoyable. I‘m only familiar with the Conan character through the Schwarzenegger films and a handful of comics my dad had from his childhood. I quite enjoyed the three adventures in this book. I‘ll be hunting for the second book and am intrigued enough to start picking up more Conan books, especially stories by the original creator, Robert E. Howard.

My final read of 2022!

My January #Roll100 picks. I‘m reusing the list from 2022 because I fell off the bandwagon halfway through. I‘m hoping to do better this year. 😅

This is my list of multiple series that I‘ve either started and want to finish or ones I‘ve not started yet, but desperately want to. I‘m hoping that the #SeriesLove2023 challenge keeps me motivated to focus on them.

5 ⭐️s
This is one of those rare books that once I finish it, I want to buy up several hundred copies and get it into as many people‘s hands as possible. Every essay spoke to me and I will carry this book in my heart for the rest of my life. I urge anyone who loves nature to pick it up sometime. Even if you take away half of what it has filled me with, you will be the better for it. I‘ll be buying a personal copy since this was a library read.

Mini haul from HPB last night! I hadn‘t been able to just browse a bookstore in months! My parents were watching the Wyrmling so the hubby and I could have a date night. We got some Starbucks then went Christmas shopping for nieces and nephews. I ended up splurging a wee bit on myself. 🤫😅

Books for ongoing series‘ that I‘m reading and two first books for one‘s I‘ve been wanting to start. It was heaven to just be in a bookstore again. 🥰

Overdue appreciation post!! Thank you so, so, SO much for this surprise, Sarah!! I‘m looking forward to diving into this soon.
🐉❤️

Apologies, time has totally lost all meaning to me this past month. 😅 So here‘s my #WondrousWednesday answers on a Saturday.

1. Bill Bryson has always come across as someone I could definitely hang out with.
2. All of the above, although it‘s been a minute since I was able to just browse in a physical bookstore.
3. The tagged definitely came out of left field for me.

1. I used to only be able to read one at a time, but the past few years I‘ve gotten into the habit of reading one fiction and one nonfiction at the same time.
2. A favorite was The Graveyard Book by Gaiman. 😍 I bailed on Madame Bovary.

Thank you for the tag @TheSpineView ❤️

I never know who to tag, so if you see this and would like to participate, consider yourself tagged! 🤗

#wondrouswednesday

1. Music!
2. I‘m very eclectic, but usually on long drives/road trips it‘s all hard rock. I hate slow music when I‘m driving. The day after Thanksgiving I switch to all Christmas music, all the time until the day after Christmas. 😅

#Two4Tuesday

Thanks for the tag @The_Penniless_Author

4 ⭐️s
The first Animorph book that I haven‘t given 5 stars… The story was kind of weak in this one. Mostly we follow Cassie‘s struggle with whether what they‘re doing is morally right or not. An incident with a termite colony has her questioning if she‘s no better than a Yeerk. I don‘t see how she can be confused, but it does cause the story to touch on conservation issues and humanity‘s role in saving the planet.

Maps in books make me giddy. 😍😅

4 ⭐️s
Not as scary as I usually like from King, and I prefer the larger cast of characters in other books. Other than that, this ticked all the boxes. I always fly through his books no matter how long they are. The creepiness in this is much more psychological than many of his other works I‘ve read. I‘ll never look at a kitchen sink garbage disposal the same, that‘s for sure… 😖 My heart broke for Charlie. I wanted to scoop her up and protect her.

My total score for #TeamMonsterMash #Scarathlon2022 is 6,468 points!

I was so close to finishing Firestarter which not only would have given me more readathon points, but would have given me a bingo. Ah well, I still had fun with the festivities. We had a fantastic first Halloween yesterday with our Wyrmling and I‘m looking forward to all the future Halloweens!

❤️🎃❤️

#Scarathlon2022 bucket list finals!

Pictured are my husband and The Wyrmling in his dragon costume, our pumpkins for this year, and the one surviving pumpkin empanada. We ran around seeing family last night and delivering our goodies, and didn‘t think to take a photo of them until this morning. 😅 They‘re our first attempt and got thumbs up from everybody. We‘ll definitely be making more for Thanksgiving.

#TeamMonsterMash

My final watched collage for #TeamMonsterMash #Scarathlon2022

Troll Hunter 5pts
Zombie For Sale 5pts
Attack on Titan 5pts x 27 episodes
Train to Busan 5pts
Interview with the Vampire 5pts
Day Shift 5pts
Resident Evil 5pts
Nightmare Before Christmas 5pts
Total: 170

4 ⭐️s
This book and I had a rough start at first. I wasn‘t sure about the author moving back and forth between life stories and the scientific work she was doing. But by the midpoint, it makes sense why her family‘s stories are so tightly interwoven with the rest of the book. Although I think it should be marketed more as a memoir, it‘s still an amazing book that opens your eyes to how connected everything in nature is.

#Naturalitsy