I am so happy to have two books off of my to-read shelf at home this past month. I currently sit at 30 books to-read from my personal library. I don’t tend to reread books, so these are all books that I bought or were bought as gifts for me brand new that are sitting on my to-read shelf. I am still working on my to-read Goodreads shelf, which currently stores 700 books. I know that I cannot read all of those and I might not be interested in them anymore. I have been slowly going through it book by book, page by page and have found that some of them I have read and just forgot to switch it from to-read to read. Others, I am no longer interested in. I think I have currently combed through 120 titles to keep on my shelf. I am happy to have two physical books out of the way that I did very much enjoy.
Hope in a Jar by Beth Harbison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I don’t read that many adult books. I have been sticking to the YA novels, because I really love reading most of them. However, I have been getting into adult books lately and this one was the best mix of YA and Adult together. The book occurs in flashbacks from middle school and high school and goes back into the reality of being in your 30s. It was a quirky book with so many layers to it. It is very much a coming of age story and you get to play detective to see why two best friends from high school drifted about over one event in their lives. I did not see it coming and I don’t want to spoil it. This book goes DEEP without giving you all of the details. I won’t say that I was invested in any of the characters. The book doesn’t go deep enough for that. It just skims the surface of every character and no one really has that much dimension. It was still an enjoyable book and I do recommend it for those days that you just want to read a book without feeling guilty about it being chick lit.
The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Wow. It only took me 16 days to read this book. I was obsessed with reading it. From the first chapter, Dessen hooked me right in and her familiar story arc didn’t seem old and tired. I really enjoyed the characters and how the story flowed. I stopped watching Netflix, because I enjoyed this story more. It takes a really good book for me to chose it over my current obsession Lost Girl. I could relate to the main character Em with her daddy issues. I have a similar tale with my own biological dad. It might have been the familiarity that got me hooked, but it was the way Dessen made her main character so human that kept me reading. She didn’t state every few pages that Em was “beautiful” or “smart”. It is implied in the way she goes about finding solutions and her attitude towards her brother. Dessen doesn’t need a “beautiful” man character that all the boys in the book flock to. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed it so much. Em is such a real girl, a real character that I didn’t feel like anything was forced about her. Yes, there were some cringe worthy moments that I wished she would have reacted differently, but it made her more real that she didn’t react in the most ideal way. She is for sure one of the more reserved characters in Dessen’s novels.
I am unsure of how many books I will be reading in the future with school occupying a lot of my spare time. I think I will either be reading or watching my shows on Netflix and only binge watching my Youtube shows once a week. Youtube has been a major time suck recently and I need to cut down on it. I have never been obsessed with social media before and Youtube seems to be the one that I enjoy most. If I cut down on that time, I believe that I will be able to read a book a month. I am also subscribed to Audible now and I am enjoying the last book in the Meg Cabot series Airhead as I walk on my manual treadmill. Combining reading and exercise is keeping me motivated to workout at least twice if not three times a week at 30 minute intervals. I am already looking through my to-read list for the next book that I should listen to. $14.99 a month is not that expensive for an audiobook if it is also your exercise program.
With Love,
Home Sweet Phoenix Cove 
I am glad you liked the book!
It was very good, so thank you!
Capstone course! That’s the C word!
I’m glad you remembered it! It’s basically just another word for a senior seminar like class. It generally wraps everything up, and is one, if not the, last class you take before you’re done with the degree.
YES! Two of my senior classes are called Senior Capstone Course 1 & 2. I wonder what it will entail. I don’t think I could actually handle an internship on top of work. UGH!
I don’t think you would absolutely have to do an internship unless you were taking graduate classes so I wouldn’t worry about it yet. It sounds like it’s just split up. Maybe it’s a major paper or something like that. I know if you take the paper option at my school, there’s a class you have to take first where you write a 15 page research proposal.
Yeah, but your semesters are also longer than mine, so probably about half of those pages. lol. I think mine are half of yours. Mine are 8 and yours are 16 weeks right?
Mine are generally 15, but for the classes that are only 7 it’s the same amount of work, you’re just doing it twice as fast. But we’re also completing degrees on a different level so it may be different for you, I don’t really know.
All mine are 8 semesters long and none of the projects are really long papers. My Social Science research paper is 6-8 pages or 8-10 pages with the reference list. I think it is half as much work for a final project, but mine are also 3 credits and not 4.
Mine are all three credits a piece. I think it just boils down to different schools and different study levels. Undergrad papers are generally shorter, as they should be.
Ugh my social science paper is 2 to 4 pages and I have 6. My professor says that 6 is the absolute maximum and I still have stuff to add to it next week. I’ll need to cut it down some where I can.
I’ve always found that annoying but I get it when a professor has to read 20+ papers on the same topic.
I’ll edit it down after this progress check. At the first one my paper was 2 pages long. I wrote I guess 4 more with this one. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll also submit it to the writing center to ask for help in cutting the material down.
Wasn’t Serena supposed to get her teeth cleaned? How did it go?
*sigh* I’m not going to write a blog post about it, because it was really scary and it is still too raw to me. When we dropped Serena off, the vet was concerned about the murmur that she heard in March, so she did a test for $40 and it concerned that she has a heart murmur. We said to go ahead with it since it was only a slight murmur. When the vet put her under, Serena died. Her heart stopped….the vet put in the stuff that takes the anesthetic out immediately and Serena’s heart started pumping again. But she was dead for about a minute. The vet called and said that they would not be putting her under and that they don’t recommend it because it will kill her. Her heart cannot take being put under. They didn’t pull any of her teeth, but since she was still woozy, they did a cleaning and then asked to do a more invasive procedure to look at her heart while she was still under. We said yes, as long as it doesn’t go over $300, we don’t have more money than that. That is when I found out that Serena has a congenital heart defect and she is in heart failure. She’s dying. Fast. She needs to see a cardiologist for more testing in Salem MA for $125. This vet place was so nice and caring that they took less than $150 for everything that they did. They gave us $200 back, but we had to buy her heart pills (she has a 6% chance of dying on them) and special food (12 cans of low sodium wet food for $10). So, we ended up with $160 or so. Plenty for gas for the trip to Salem. They have to call for the appointment first and then, we get permission to call. Probably in August. It will tell us how much time we have left with her and if there is other, better meds she could be taking to extend her life. No more running outside or getting too excited. I haven’t cried so much since Shadow passed.
😦 Oh no. I’m so sorry. At the very least, you were made aware of it early enough to hopefully extend her life some, but thats still very sad. She is such a lively dog so I’m sure it is hard for her too. Its so difficult to see dogs age and get sick. It happened with two of our dogs before Ellie, except they both got sick at around 6-8 years old and it was a surprise. I’m sorry.
Thank you. I am just enjoying the time we have left with her. She is very loved. I can’t get mad or annoyed at her now.
That is true. Do you think that is why she was going to the bathroom in the house?
No, that was before she started taking the meds and we knew what was wrong with her. She just had a bug that was going around.