All I really have to say is, wow. School started in mid-August and I am both loving it and somehow feel like I have absolutely no time left! I didn’t do a formal August wrap-up, so today’s is covering both August and September. And it’s just as well, since if this were only September, it would be extremely short. So, here’s how my last two months have gone!

Books Completed in August
Lodestar (Keeper of the Lost Cities #5) by Shannon Messenger – Middle Grade/Young Adult Fantasy ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Naamah by Sarah Blake – historical/mythological fiction ⭐⭐
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas – Young Adult Contemporary Fiction ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- The New Plant Parent: Develop Your Green Thumb and Care for Your House-Plant Family by Darryl Cheng – Nonfiction, Plant Care ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Hearts on Lonely Mountain (Librarians of Willow Hollow #3) by A.M. Heath – Historical/Christian/Clean Romance Fiction ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger – Young Adult Fiction ⭐⭐⭐
- The Bridge by Karen Kingsbury – Christmas, Clean Romance Fiction ⭐⭐⭐
- Nightfall (Keeper of the Lost Cities #6) by Shannon Messenger – Middle Grade/Young Adult Fantasy ⭐⭐⭐
Average Rating: 3.4 stars
Books Read but Not Completed August / September
- A Girl’s Guide to the Outback by Jessica Kate
- Making Sense of God by Timothy Keller
- Be Thou My Vision (Hymns of the West #2) by Faith Blum
- Flashback (Keeper of the Lost Cities #7) by Shannon Messenger (audiobook)
- Libraries and Gardens: Growing Together by Carrie Scott Banks
August Goals Follow Up
(originally posted here)
- Get my planner completely set up for this semester – ✔
- Get 3 more “study music” CDs – ✔
- Complete 2 moderate-sized projects with Staff Association – sort of. The timeline for our projects changed, so I got everything done that needed to be.
- Celebrate the launch of I Love to Tell the Story by Faith Blum – ✔ See my review/blog tour post here
- Start grad school – I didn’t really have any options here, so, ✔!
- Post ~12 blog posts – I only managed seven in August, but I don’t feel bad about it because of how busy everything became once school started and the library moved to our next phase of opening.
- Replace the brake pads on my car – ✔ Dad and I did this over Labor Day weekend.
Books Completed in September
I just wanted to keep up with my school readings and return all of my library books on time 😂
That means I didn’t actually finish reading anything this month. This is very weird to me, but I’m not upset about it. That might just be the way things are while working full time and going to school full time and everything else life entails.
September Goals Follow-Up
Although I never posted about them, these are goals I set for this month.
- post 8 times (approximately twice a week) – ✔ Today’s post is the tenth of this month!
- Finish making my nephew’s birthday present – ✔
- plan October’s blogging and reading, outline posts – ✔ (mostly)
- Keep up with schoolwork – ✔
- pick a Halloween costume -❌
- start making lists/outlines of projects, gifts, etc for the upcoming holiday season – ✔
- Send out random happy mail to several friends (minimum of 5)
- Four! Close enough for this month.
Other Highlights
- My Pampered Chef order from mid-summer finally came in!
- I got a new fish tank and some aquatic plants. I’m calling this my underwater terrarium because I don’t currently have any fish.
- I found a strand of fall-themed lights at Dollar General, and it is the perfect autumnal decoration for my desk!
- Movies watched: Little Women (2019), The Public (2018), True Love Blooms (2020)
- Music of the moment: soundtracks for studying
- I used a lot of my peppers and made pizza-stuffed mini peppers, which turned out yummy
- Starting a new Virtual book club with two of my friends from undergrad! We picked a book and decided to videochat once a month, starting in October.
- FINDING OUT DUNKIN HAS CHAI AND CAN MAKE A NEARLY-SUGAR-FREE ICED CHAI LATTE
- My best friend had a baby ❤

And that’s it for me! These two months have FLOWN by for me.
How are you doing? Separately, how was this month for you? Did any interesting books cross your desk in September?
Until the next chapter,
Jana
A busy two months for you from the sound of it, but seems like you are having fun. For me life is good considering- mostly outside in the garden and lots of reading, crafting,walking, family safe visits, things are fine.
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Those all sound like very nice and calming activities!
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The Public is such a good movie!!! I love it and I’m glad that the library system has it, I think a lot more people to need to watch it and it gives plenty of places to laugh as someone who works at the library XD
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We discussed it in class the other day, and it was really interesting!
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