Wrapping Up January 2021

I almost never get my monthly wrap-up posts out early, so I guess I’m starting the year with something different! It just fit the calendar best to post this today, and I don’t expect to finish anything else before Monday, so I hope you don’t mind.

This month was full! I got through more books than usual, watched more movies, and had a few interesting things happen along the way. Of the books I read, only one was below 4 stars. I’m very pleased to have started off 2021 this way! Here’s hoping the rest of the year follows suit.

Books Completed This Month

📚 A Very Bookish Thanksgiving by Various Authors ⭐⭐⭐⭐

📚 Chi’s Sweet Home Vol. 2 by Kanata Komani ⭐⭐⭐⭐

📚 The Common Rule by Justin Whitmel Earley ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

📚 Eubeltic Quest by Nadine C. Keels ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

📚 Mend: A Refashioning Manual and Manifesto by Kate Sekules ⭐⭐⭐⭐

📚 A Beginner’s Guide to Succulent Gardening by Taku Furuya ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

📚 The Boba Cookbook: Delicious, Easy Recipes for Amazing Bubble Tea by Wendy Leung ⭐⭐⭐.5

📚 Lapse Americana by Benjamin P. Myers ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Average Rating: 4.4⭐s

Books Read but Not Completed This Month

📚 House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski – experimental fiction – DNF at page 154

🎧 The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart – juvenile/middle-grade fiction

📚 Laddie: A True Blue Story by Gene Stratton-Porter – historical/classic fiction

📚 Shuttle, Houston: My Life in the Center Seat of Mission Control by Paul Dye – Nonfiction, Memoir

📚 Tune It Out by Jamie Sumner – Middle Grade Contemporary Fiction

📚 For the Common Good: Redefining Civic Leadership by David D. Chrislip and Ed O’Malley

Goals Follow-Up

(Originally posted here)

• Participate in #NewYearsReads2021 and post every day for the first week of the year. Then, post 3 times per week ✔✔
• Keep watching lots of Hallmark movies until my subscription expires on the 15th ✔ (see list below)
• Start Spring classes well. Have books, supplies, and a general schedule figured out before the first day of classes. ✔
• Put away Christmas decorations before classes start ✔
• Clean (and possibly improve the functionality of) the typewriter ✔ Cleaned as best I can, but functionally it seems to be the same as before.
• Prepare for 3 important birthdays in February. ❔ Not as much preparation as I would have liked, but I’ll make it.

Other Highlights from January

Movies Watched: The Christmas Carousel (2020) ⭐⭐⭐.5; The Bridge Parts 1 & 2 (2015, 2016) ⭐⭐⭐.5; ⭐⭐⭐⭐; Christmas Comes Twice (2020) ⭐⭐.5; Two Turtle Doves (2019) ⭐⭐⭐⭐; Northern Lights of Christmas (2018) ⭐⭐⭐; Unlocking Christmas (2020) ⭐⭐⭐⭐; Just My Type (2020) DNF due to disc or player malfunction; The Secret Garden (2020) ⭐⭐⭐; Just Mercy (2019) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Podcasts Listened to: None, surprisingly

Music on Repeat: Wild Blue album (Especially “Still” and “Madness”) & The One That Got Away by Hunter Hayes, Billy Graham In Memorium playlist from Spotify

My Favorite Post This Month: Bookshelf Garden Tour

Most Liked Post This Month: Announcing My 2021 Reading and Blogging Goals

• Had several sort of bonus days off work due to quarantining from possible COVID exposure. It was stressful but nice at the same time.

• School started back on the 20th. See This Post if you’re curious what my second semester as a library science student entails.

• The US Figure Skating National Championships were this month. Skating is the only sport that I follow, and like everything else it has been in a constant state of flux with a high level of uncertainty due to the pandemic for that past year. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this year’s nationals, with all of the skaters having little to no previous competition experience this season. Everyone delivered and competed so well, this is honestly one of the best competitions that I can remember watching! Nathan Chen has now tied the record for more US championships won in a row (5), and there are a whole host of interesting stories about the athletes who landed on the podium in each discipline. I’ll end this post with two of my favorite programs this year, from the first and second place skaters:

Until the next chapter,

Jana