I'm A Voracious Reader : AVR Weekly News ~ 612th Edition

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by
Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer.
~ Recap the past week ~
~ Show what's upcoming ~
~ Share news ~
~ Display book hauls ~

Sunday ~ Meme ~ AVR Weekly News ~ 611th Edition
Tuesday ~ Cover Reveal ~ Arvia: Fangs of Frost by D.H. Willison
Wednesday ~ Tour Spotlight ~ Clues To You by Claire Huston
Friday ~ Meme ~ Friday Featured Spotlight ~ The Write Reads Blog Tour ~ Maria's Shadow

Tuesday ~ Tour Spotlight ~ The Tortured Kingdom by Bryan Asher
Friday ~ Meme ~ Friday Featured Spotlight ~ BBNYA2024 Winner Blog Tour ~ Clues to You
Sunday ~ Meme ~ AVR Weekly News ~ 613th Edition

Hello and Happy Sunday!

Happy 28th birthday to my beautiful daughter!

Gotta love non-traditional birthday treats.

On the Home Front

Sunday ~ Stopped by Irene's to pick up her wrought iron patio chairs and a wrought iron spring rocker. The rocker needs some sanding, but the chairs aren't bad since they were on her screened-in porch. I'll probably sandblast and paint them or something like that. It rained the rest of the day. I spent many hours going through several boxes of papers. Some from the last century! lmao but also *weeps in old woman* Anyway, I found some of my eldest spawn's report cards and he turned 40 in July. I wonder if he wants them. lol I managed to condense several boxes of shit that didn't need to be saved into one largish plastic tub. I will condense that down further some other day when I can put dates in a spreadsheet. One of my many many projects. I went to bed way too late and sore from sitting on the floor for hours (with some breaks) then laid there with my mind racing with all I had to do this coming week.

Monday ~ Anna tested positive for Covid, so I called and rescheduled her eye doctor appointment (for the 11th) again. The contractor and cabinet guy, Hunter and Andy, came by around 8:30 to go over the cabinets one last time before he Andy orders material. Good thing, too because we needed to tweak a few things. Just when I thought the only thing left to decide upon was the pulls, I now need to pick cabinet doors and my barn doors that will be used for the pantry. Gah! I'm so over making decisions! lol After they left Trip and I got our Pokestop and I swung in to CVS to pick up cough medicine, Covid tests, and wraps for Anna's toes. My test was negative, Trip's was positive, and Kyle's (after he got home from work) was negative. The wasband stopped by with Anna's birthday card and picked up some stuff I had boxed up for him. I packed up stuff from the old living room and some stuff in the kitchen.

Tuesday ~ After dropping Kyle at work I stopped at Lowe's to have them shake the 5 gallon bucket of stain I had bought in 2022 for the front porch before it turned out to be a piece of shit that I didn't want to waste over $100 of stain on. It's been sitting in the house and never opened so should be fine. Then I swung by NC Jelly donuts because why the fuck not? Am I craving those sweet sweet carbs because I'm so stressed right now? Maybe. Continued to pack up the old living room and various other shit. My bedroom is piling up the boxes and getting crowded again. Just when I'd cleared stuff out. Same with the front dining area that we never ever used as a dining area. lol I had it cleared out and now I'm staging things there to go in the Pack Rat when it is delivered Friday. Raul came and did the first coat of stain on the back deck. It looks good! I had forgotten what color I picked. Picked Kyle up, came home, and Nancy was there to do the dogs' nails. Then I put a chicken pot pie in the oven.

This is the first coat. I can't believe I forgot to get pics of the 2nd coat.

First coat soaked up pretty good, second coat makes it look more like a milk chocolate.

I love it. And I'll try to remember to share pics next Sunday.

Wednesday ~ Raul came and applied the 2nd coat of stain to the back deck. It looks great! I spent the day working on the office, making room for the shoe shelves.

Thursday ~ Finished up the tidying of the office then got to work on the kitchen. It feels like I won't be ready in time. I'm exhausted and just fucking sick of everyone in this world who think Charlie Kirk was a fucking hero when he was a vile piece of shit. Kind of ironic that he quite unequivocally stated that deaths were worth having the 2nd Amendment only to be killed by a gun. "Live by the sword, die by the sword." I have no empathy for him - something he stated was "woke", so I'll save my empathy for the people who actually deserve it. Also, when is the White House going to admit that Felon47 has stroked out. It's so fucking obvious by his face and movements. They think we are stupid like MAGA, I guess? This country is so fucked. Hello Hitler's Germany. Anyway, Kyle brought tamales home from work, so no cooking for me. Yay! Read 3 of the 10 2nd Round excerpts for BBNYA2025 that were technically due on the 10th but got extended to the 14th.

Friday ~ In the morning took the spare desk, Kyle's old computer, and other misc stuff to the wasband. Stopped at Lowe's to get some tubs for books and boxes for other stuff. Cut the wood for Anna's birdhouse that she wanted to build before she turned 28 - which is tomorrow. Worked the rest of the day on packing up. Sorting, packing, shifting. Waited for the Pack Rat to show up. Sent Anna to pick up Kyle from work because it still hadn't come. It showed up around 4:00. Yay! Read the last 7 excerpts for BBNYA2025 and sent the last score in at midnight. So glad that's done. It was weighing on me that I hadn't gotten to them. They were each 10K words, so I read 100K in 2 days. Eeek! There are some really good books in this year's entries. Ok, there's always great books, so that shouldn't be surprising. 😃

Saturday ~ It's Anna's 28th Birthday! 🎉🥳Up at 7:00am. Fed the furries, walked the dogs then left to go to Lowe's because I was in a hurry and ignored one of my life's rules: Make sure the lids you pick up with your tubs actually fit before you buy them. The ones I grabbed were too big. And the screws we bought for the birdhouse were too short. My fault! So I returned the lids and got the correct ones and picked up the longer screws. Then swung by Nothing Bundt Cakes to pick up Anna's birthday order - mini bundts instead of a regular cake. It was ready at 9:00. Then I met Anna and the boys at IHOP for birthday breakfast. After scrapping Pokemon in April of 2023, Kyle finally decides to rejoin so he can join the party Anna made. We're a bad influence. lol Kyle and I came home to get started on the packing and Anna and Trip went to the rest of Kyleigh's soccer game then on to Oliver's before coming home to help. Shelby picked Anna up and they went to the park where they met up with Jess for presents and gossip. She came home around 5:00, I fed the furries, Trip walked the dogs then we went to Crab & Caught for dinner. First time there for us all. Pretty good food! Rested a bit after getting home to let our food digest then she opened presents and we had mini-bundts. Afterwards I worked on this post.

We got a LOT done and my feet are killing me. There's still much to do, but I'm feeling optimistic that it will all be done by the time the guys get here around 8:30 Monday morning.

Today I'm really hoping a hard push in the morning will get things done in just a half-day. The kids are going to see the Demon Slayer movie at noon, so anything not done will need to be after they get home. Though Anna is going over to April's for her birthday presents after the movie, dropping the boys at home first.

Construction News ~ Demo is set to start tomorrow! Next week I'll share pics of the packing progress and demo. I'm too tired right now to sort through them. I am so exhausted. I haven't been this consistently exhausted since I was delivering the newspaper, going to school full-time, and taking care of a home and too many spawn (mine, his, ours). I'll be glad when this year is over. Because after the contractors are all done (hopefully around Oct 17th) and leave us with one-half of a sparkling new house, we'll have to unpack all our shit. We'll need desks for the new computer area and after salvaging all our hodgepodge collection of homemade shelves I'll need to see what we need for the new craft area. Then Kyle is kicking Trip out of their room and into the "cat room" so their rooms will need to be worked on. By us though. Maybe paint and some rearranging. They'll both need a bed because right now they have a full size bunkbed. At some point I need to do my own bedroom, but it can wait for awhile.

Touching Nature: High pollen, a bit of humidity, some rain, and rising temps. I think we hit low 80s nearly every day. Honestly, I haven't paid much attention since I've been inside packing, sorting, and panicking.

Book News: Nothing to report here. I am so fucking far behind on everything.

Don't Touch That Dial!: Watched some Buffy while eating dinner. Two more episodes until she dies. Again.

At the Flicks: Not for me, but the kids saw the Demon Slayer movie.

Cyberspace Playground: Wordle, Word Lots, Crossword Jam, Solitaire, jigsaw puzzles, the Finch app - is anyone wants to be friends just let me know.

Randomness:

Carol's Nuggets of Wisdom: Live your life with kindness and people will be sad when you leave this mortal coil. Live your life spreading hate and lies and people won't give a fuck when you croak.

That's it for me. AVR News Update signing off. May all your books enthrall you.