I'm A Voracious Reader : AVR Weekly News ~ 638th 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 ~ 637th Edition
Monday ~ Audiobook Review ~ Manners and Monsters by Tilly Wallace
Wednesday ~ BBNYA Tour Review ~ The Yamanaka Factors by Jed Henson

Friday ~ Meme ~ Friday Featured Spotlight ~ BBNYA Finalists Blog Tours: 13 & 12
Sunday ~ Meme ~ AVR Weekly News ~ 639th Edition

Hello and Happy Sunday!

A little early.

Also Happy Birthday 🎂 to me coming up this Thursday. 😎

On the Home Front

Sunday ~ Puttered around the house. Rained really hard for about an hour. Trip and I will need to tidy the drive a bit tomorrow. Made Mississippi pot roast for dinner.

Monday ~ Trip and I moved some gravel around for the driveway. Rebuilt the speed bump that keeps most of the rain flowing down the drive from coming into the main area by the house. It directs it to a side trench instead, which we also cleaned up. Drafted a few posts, wrote a review, went through emails. Basically, just farted around on the computer the rest of the day. lol

Tuesday ~ Worked on the blog for a bit then Trip and I moved gravel to under the back deck. But first we built a small firewood rack to restock up on the deck. Since we're building an equipment shed in a few weeks we can keep the bulk of our firewood in there and it will stay dry. Keeping some under the deck for convenience and some on the deck for immediate access. I used the Kubota to dump the gravel close then we used shovels to toss it under and rakes to smooth it. Oh! Wait. Let me copy what I shared on Facebook. I thought it was pretty funny. Trip thought I wasn't dramatic enough. lmao

Trip and I moved gravel under the deck. I used the Kubota to get it as close as possible then we used shovels to toss it and rakes to smooth it. The work was hard and the temperature was rising. At one point we lost the will to live and as we fell to the ground face up we saw our souls floating gracefully into the Carolina Blue Sky. Not yet ready to leave this mortal plane I yelled skyward: "If you come back we'll go to Waffle House to fuel up!" For a dark moment we feared our souls would give us the proverbial finger, but then, as we despaired, they yeeted themselves back into our meatsacks giving us just the jolt we needed to finish our task, take a shower, and proceed to our just reward.

Anyway, by the time we were done the temp was in the 80s. And I had a blister on my thumb. I fried up some kielbasi to go with the leftover rice for dinner.

In the 2nd set of pics, above where that pole is, the deck is covered by a roof, so I wasn't as concerned with it getting muddy towards the house there and we don't use that access panel anymore since we have actual doors under the additions. I figured it wasn't worth killing ourselves to cover it. lol

Wednesday ~ As a reward for yesterday's hard work, I took Trip to McKay's so he could shop for Funko Pops. Then we did the grocery shopping and had lunch at Blue Ribbon dinner. I did a couple of loads of towels and Nancy came at 3:30 to do the dogs' nails. Around 9:30pm I was finishing up a Mentalist episode when the power suddenly went out. My first thought, for some stupid reason, was "Did I pay the electric bill??" Of course I did. lol I called to report the outage and discovered 539 people out with an estimate of 1:15am return of power. So, Trip and I went out and fired up the generator. Back in business. Anna had napped all evening and was just getting ready to cook something on the stove. I told her sorry. No oven while on the generator. Too much drag. So she went to McD's instead and discovered a tree on the lines on our road. She said the lines were screwed up for several poles. At 10:30 I got a text saying there were now only 164 people out, but estimate was still 1:15. I figured I'd just stay up so I could turn off the generator when the power returned. At 11:15 a text said now only 19 people were out, but 1:15 still estimated. I checked the outage map and, well, looky there. All on our road. Figures. lol At 1:00am a text said new estimate of 4:00am. Wow. Must really be fucked up. I decided to just go to bed and hoped I'd hear the the power restored text. I did not. lol Continued on Thursday...

Thursday ~ The text came in around 3:30, but I woke up at 4:04 for some reason. Before I checked the texts I noticed the outside pole light was shining in through the bathroom skylight and thus through the cat door. I close the bathroom door because the light shines into the bathroom otherwise. I put my crocs on, grabbed a flashlight, and went out to turn off the generator and flip the main breaker back on. Anna texted me while I was doing that asking if that was me turning it off. It is on the outside wall right by her bed. And it's LOUD. lol So I said yep, came in, and went back to sleep. Then when Kyle and Anna got up to go to work (5:15) I got up and asked Kyle to help me put the house back over the generator in case it started raining before I got up yet again. Back to bed again then I woke up at 7:20. A look at the weather showed a storm moving in so I got up, fed the furries, walked the dogs to some ominous clouds then woke Trip up to help me gas up the generator because I realized it was probably almost empty. Yep. It took a whole 5 gallon can. It was starting to sprinkle and the rain was cold. Temp was dropping fast. Very tired from so little sleep. Did as little as possible. I did go to Food Lion in the morning and bought stuff for a friend's work food pantry. But that's about it. Made turkey lasagna for dinner. Chris came to pick up Anna for some errands then she went to spend the night at his house and they'd ride in to work together.

Friday ~ Friday the 13th! Kyle took the day off. Another quick run to Food Lion because I forgot (twice!) to get Trip's Danimals. Dropped two packages off at Goin' Postal and picked up Biscuitville for us. Started on taxes. Got Kyle's completely done. The ex came to pick up the air compressor. Good. That huge thing is now out of my way. I bought myself a more compact one. Then I started on Anna's taxes, but hit a snag, so we'll have to finish them together. Then started on the ex's and my taxes. What a royal pain in the ass. I worked my way through both returns but I'm not entirely sure I did them right, so Ill revisit after my birthday week. Folded two loads of towels. Leftovers for dinner. I finished the last two episodes of The Mentalist. Now I'm sad. I love that show. Went to bed around midnight. Anna spent the night at Chris's.

Saturday ~ Up late, about 9:15. Oops. Saw on the Ring Anna got home around 6am. Did the morning stuff, fed the furries, and walked the dogs. Oliver's soccerr game was postponed so Anna and Trip didn't go. I started on the laundry room. It was a bit of a mess, so I had to tidy before I could actually clean. lol Anna's turn for litterboxes this weekend. After that was all done I cleaned my bathroom then took a shower. Did a load of pet stuff and two loads of towels. It was Community Day on Pokemon (featuring Scorbunny) so I played that from about 2:00-5:00. Fed the furries and Trip walked the dogs. We left to go to a Greensboro Gargoyles game at 6:00pm for Star Wars night. They lost 0-6. Booo! But we got our lightsabers, so it's all good. Came home and finished up this post.

Today I plan to change the sheets on my bed. If it's nice I'll put the dirty rugs out on the deck and use the carpet shampooer on them. I may power wash the wrought iron patio chairs I picked up at Irene's so they can dry and I can paint them. If I do all that I may power wash the back deck and give it a scrub. We'll see.

Monday will begin my Birthday Week of Doing the Bare Minimum. Kyle has an 8:30 am appointment Monday and Hunter is coming by around 1:00 to talk about the equipment shed. Other than that I have nothing planned all week.

New Year's Resolutions/Goals
I thought I'd keep a weekly record of these so I can see if anything is getting done. 😆
More reading, less tv ~ Not really.
Go back to the beginning and revamp old blog posts ~ Nothing this week.
Exercise ~ Not yet. I'm working up to it.
Tidy up outside ~ We fixed the driveway and moved gravel to under the back deck. Also, built a firewood rack there.

Touching Nature: HOT. 80's in March. Really, Ma Nature? Really?! Then a cold front stopped by Thursday night and I woke up to frost everywhere. *sigh* Friday and Saturday turned out very nice! 70s. That's what I'm talking about.

Book News: Not much going on here.

Don't Touch That Dial!: Finished The Mentalist. Now what?

At the Flicks: Nope.

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

Randomness: Duuuuude...

Carol's Nuggets of Wisdom: I've been following coachjohnnoel on Instagram for easy to do exercises since I haven't exercised in years and I'm really out of shape. I haven't started them yet, but they look easy enough to do. Bonus that his voice is so soothing. I mean, wow. Go check him out and next week I'll share a funny and cute guy who tries recipes so we don't have to experiment.

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