March in Review

My Reading

# of books read: Fourteen. A lot? A little? Hard to say these days.
Best(s):(In which I tell you all my favorite reads and make up categories so they each win something)

Best modern adaptation of MacBeth featuring a very angry Lady MacBeth: Foul is Fair
Best sequel I didn't know was a sequel, which also happens to be the best first book in a series that I didn't realize didn't have the next book out yet, ARGH: Courting Darkness
Best sequel I didn't know is a sequel, with multiple points of view: Light It Up
Best snarky essays: We Are Never Meeting in Real Life
Best romance-slash-examination of class and poverty in our county: Jackpot

Wow, every single book on this list features one or more women who are absolutely seething with rage.  I wonder what draws me to that right now?  Hmm, a mystery indeed. 

There were a lot of books that almost made this list too: Half Brother, Bibliophile, Mary's Monster, It's All Relative, and The Lie Tree were all solid four star books.

It is weird to look at the books I read this month, because the "before" books seem SO LONG AGO.

Bookish Events and Happenings

I started to write a novel. So that's one thing. I also spent several hours at school one day bagging up books my students were reading before they left one Thursday and never came back, to have available to them if they came in to pick up packets this week or next week.

See that giant cardboard box to the side? Those are all books for one of my OBOB readers. Covid-19 really got going in Oregon the week before we were to have our Battle of the Books competition, and we were so crushed that it was cancelled. WE COULDA BEEN A CONTENDER!  

On the Blog

I posted eight times which is Normal? I think? Who knows any more? I started with my February wrap-up (go me for doing this two months in a row then), and participated in one Sunday post (boo me for not realizing there's more than one Sunday per month). I did two official TTT posts: single word titles, for which I came up with a title for each letter of the alphabet, and my spring TBR, which hey! Several of the books I read this month were on that! And I did one top ten list that just happened on a Thursday of my own accord, which was ten books to probably avoid right now, unless you are one of those people (hello Nicole!) who are drawn to apocalyptic fiction at the moment. I borrowed a quick tag from Anne of My Head is Full of Books, and I wrote a post about my affection for the Printz award, in which I use what might be a few too many gifs. 

IRL

Um, same as you, I assume. I've been in my house for three weeks now, other than the one day I went into school, after making an appointment so I wouldn't overlap with anyone else being on my hallway. In the quarantine bingo, things I've done include: bake bread, stay up until 3 am frantically refreshing Twitter and the news, go for walks, pick up and put down books because I can't focus, video conference with my colleagues, wear sweats or PJs all the time, play Settlers of Catan, and Completely Random Household Task which in my case was polishing my late mother's souvenir spoon collection. Squares I have yet to check off include: watching Tiger King (I tried, but one episode made me ill), hoarding TP, and watching that vile man's press conferences. Snippets are more than enough for me. 

And I'm lucky in that no Covid-19 cases, let alone deaths, have touched my immediate circle, or even the next layer out. It could still change, I know.  If you're up for a little Coronavirus humor, complete with liberal use of the f word, here are some tweets I've collected that made me laugh. If you're not, skip to the end for something sweet.

A chickadee pair has started excavating a next in the apple tree right outside our kitchen window. I did not know this is a thing, but here it is:

The only trouble is that my window is filthy dirty, and obviously I want to wash it so I can enjoy the show better--this is the same window we often see Jimmy Bunny out of as well--but I don't want to give the birds little birdie heart attacks by wedging myself next to their site.

All right, take care. Remember to breathe and give yourself grace.

My monthly summaries are always linked to the Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up on Feed Your Fiction Addiction and It Starts at Midnight, as are terrific blogs' monthly reflections.  Nicole and Shannon usually put together a fun scavenger hunt giveaway too, so go check it out!