Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
Wow, I haven’t done a TTT since September 2021. I usually just check out everyone’s lists without making my own.
This week’s topic is Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2023. This was hard to narrow down to just 10 books and this is also a great “reminder” post for myself for if I want to look back on what I meant to read this year.
1. The House at the End of the World by Dean Koontz (January 24, 2023) I love Dean Koontz and used to devour his books but I haven’t read him in a while and this one sounds fantastic. I pre-ordered this already.
3. No Life for a Lady by Hannah Dolby (March 2, 2023) What doesn’t sound good about an 1896 seaside setting where a woman tries to find out the truth about her mom’s disappearance a decade earlier?
The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.
Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists….
Hello all. It’s Monday evening after work now instead of Sunday so my updates are a little late this week. I meant to log in yesterday and get this post ready but was just relaxing. I hope you had a Merry Christmas if you celebrate it and hope you are all doing well. We had a nice quiet Christmas at home. Otherwise, it’s been a busy month. My daughter had all 4 wisdom teeth removed a few weeks ago which she is still healing from believe it or not due to a complication on one side with a dry socket. 😦 I’ve crocheted a lot, I’ve been reading and I’m behind on reviews so I have a few reviews I need to share.
I’m back to working fully remote rather than hybrid since mid-December and my job extended working fully remote through the end of January due to the surge in Covid cases. I cannot believe we’re pushing two years of this pandemic. Several of our friends have tested positive lately so it’s pretty scary. Thankfully, all of them have only had mild head cold like symptoms. I had my booster shot last week which went well aside from the arm pain and body aches, it wasn’t as strong as the full vaccine shots I had in the Spring.
Also, Happy Healthy New Year 🙂 Any plans for the New Year? I should have a yearly wrap up post next week. I didn’t read as much as I would have liked to in 2021 but it’s fun looking back on the reading/blogging year.
Onto my updates….
recently on the blog:
I shared my thoughts on Later by Stephen King which was fantastic.
in my mailbox:
My daughter and I have been sitting down by the Christmas tree these past several weeks and reading in the evenings after work. These are our latest books below. We decided we would both read them so we can discuss. So far we’ve read 1984 which I’ll be reviewing soon and Later by Stephen King (not shown here). She’s ahead of me and read Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom already and she loved it.
crochet:
I made these two hooded shawls and this ear warmer head/wrap this month. Both were on commission and they went under someone’s Christmas tree this year which is nice.
That wraps up my updates for now. Happy Holidays from Otis! We’ll be blog hopping tomorrow. Stay well!
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Disclaimer: Nothing in this post is available for download. Some of these links are affiliate links. If you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission. The photos in this post are my own and not to be removed from here.
The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.
Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists….
Happy weekend everyone. I hope this post finds you well. It’s a nice 3 day weekend so I’m glad for the extra day off. The hybrid schedule at work is permanent so I’m working from home this whole upcoming week. There’s something to be said for being able to take conference calls in your pajamas and going to work with no commute.
It’s been a busy past few weeks and we’ve been doing the Fall things while the pretty season lasts. We went apple picking a few weekends ago which was fun. With the apples we picked and the cider that we bought there we’ve made apple cider pancakes, apple cake and apple muffins.
We also took a road trip and spent a two days in Gettysburg PA this past week which was amazing. I love history specifically Civil War history. I’ll share pics at the end of this post. This visit included a ghost hunting tour at the Gettysburg Orphanage.
Also of note, I met author Nicholas Sparks a few weeks ago! He was on book tour promoting his latest book and his first tour stop was in New Jersey in a bookstore about 30 minutes from us. I’ll share more about that under the mailbox section of this post.
in my mailbox:
My daughter and I met author Nicholas Sparks in September. We attended his book signing event and got autographed copies of his latest The Wish.
This was special since we read his books together it was awesome getting to meet him in person. We got there just 5 minutes early and we were already number 319 in line to meet him. They made everyone wait outside the bookstore then they call people in about 10 at a time to go inside to see him and get a picture with him. Masks were mandatory until it came time to take the pic and there was a glass between himself and us.
Also of note…Fratertest is coming up on the 15th. Are you participating? I have several spooky reads to choose from and I am aiming to read two for this event.
That covers my updates for now, I’ll close with a few photos of our Gettysburg visit. Thanks for stopping in, I’ll be returning visits today and tomorrow. Enjoy your week ahead and happy reading. Let me know in the comments section what you’ve been up to.
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On our trip we visited the Military Park Museum, a few of the battlefields and went on a ghost hunting tour of the orphanage there one night. The ghost tour host was dressed up in Civil War era clothing and was in character as the head mistress at the time. The story surrounding this place is sad to begin with but seeing the historic building and going inside and hearing the children’s stories, seeing their photos, etc. was interesting. However, not mentioned on the tour site is that the tour ends with about a 40 minute visit to the orphanage basement in which the tour guide shut of all the lights while we sat in total darkness for about the longest 5 minutes of my life. Ghost Adventures filmed an episode here.
The tour of the orphanage took place around the outside of the two buildings and inside. This is a view of some of the Soldiers National Cemetery from behind the orphanage.
Our ghost tour guide.
Peaceful view of Cemetery Hill Battlefield early one morning. This was after the rain so it was foggy and added to the atmosphere. Visiting these sites is amazing but also unsettling when you think of all that happened here. Most of Gettysburg feels this way. The hotel we stayed at was used as a Civil War hospital at one point.
A memory tree. They’re called this because they witnessed the battle.
These are some of my favorite pics I took on the battlefields. I lowered the saturation to give them a vintage look. We visited Devil’s Den and Little Round Top this visit as well as Cemetery Hill.
Flag inside the museum. They have so many interesting artifacts on display here.
Union officer’s coat. One side of the photos on the wall behind this are soldiers from the North and the other side are soldiers from the South.
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Disclaimer: Nothing in this post is available for download. Some of these links are affiliate links. If you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission. The photos in this post are my own and not to be removed from here.
I haven’t done a Top Ten Tuesday post since November 2019 and seeing a few fav book bloggers posts reminded me to get in on the fun again. This week’s topic is “Books With Numbers In the Title”. The first 5 on my list are ones I’ve read, the rest are ones I would like to read one day.
The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog… Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists….
Hello and happy weekend. I hope you are doing well. I haven’t been on blog-land as much as I would like to. I like to use up most of my vacation time during the Summer and Fall months so I end up taking 5 day extended weekends which has been nice. We’ve taken a few day trips here and there including a recent trip into NYC. It was our first time in the city since the pandemic began. I’ll include a few photos at the end of the post.
I also have some exciting bookish news to share. Author Ivy Keating has generously offered to do a giveaway here on my blog. The giveaway post will be up on Monday September 6th. Please come back for that you won’t want to miss out. There will be 2 winners. If you are a regular here at my blog you might remember I reviewed Ivy’s book Sarana and the Dark King this past June.
in my mailbox: Ivy Keating kindly sent me hard copies of both her books Camouflauge and Sarana and the Dark King, as well as bookmarks and pens. How nice is that 🙂 I’ve happily added these two to my book collection. As I mentioned, please stop in on September 6th for the upcoming giveaway details.
crochet: I have several projects I want to share and here is one I finished up this summer, a tank top for my daughter.
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That wraps up my updates for now. What have you been up to? How is your summer going? Thanks for stopping in, I’ll close with a few NYC pics.
We recently went to the new Harry Potter store in New York. There’s a virtual que you wait on and the wait was a little over 3 hours to get in but it gave us plenty of time to walk around NYC and have a nice lunch outdoors. They text you when it’s your turn to enter the store.
The empire State Building in the pic above.
This is inside the store.
Here I am. It’s me. I love this cool archway of books in the store.
My house is Slytherin, here are a few of the souvenirs I came home with. Among my souvenirs is Snape’s wand. I couldn’t help myself. Then I was inspired to crochet Otis a little blanket in Slytherin house colors. Otis says enjoy your week and tell us what you’ve been up to.
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Disclaimer: Nothing in this post is available for download. Some of these links are affiliate links. If you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission. The photos in this post are my own and not to be removed from here.
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