Girl Plus Books: book haul

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

It's a chance to share news: a post to recap the past week on your blog, showcase books,

and share what's coming up on your blog in the week ahead.

Happy Sunday, friends. I'm in the midst of a four-day weekend so life is good. :) I'm actually a little bummed because it was supposed to rain All. Day. Long. today (it's Saturday evening as I write this) and it didn't happen. A few random raindrops here and there but otherwise... nada. I feel cheated! I want my dreary, gloomy, rainy day! Better luck tomorrow...

Both The Husband and my mom have had their second doses of the COVID vaccine. I have such a major feeling of relief - and gratitude - that they are taken care of and are now that much safer. Neither of them had significant side effects with either dose. A sore arm both times - the same as with any other vaccination - and that was it.

We ordered new furniture this weekend (living room and dining room) and I'm excited about redecorating. The orders probably won't be in until sometime in April, but I'm already scouring my home décor boards on Pinterest, browsing online for new rugs, and generally getting itchy for new decorating projects. I'll totally be in my happy zone when the time comes to start pulling it all together.

This week's 80's music fix is Two of Hearts (1968) by Stacey Q. Bonus points if you remember her guest-starring on Facts of Life! :)

Tuesday, February 9

Top Ten Tuesday: Love Is the Answer

Books with Love in the Title

WHAT I COMPLETED IN THE LAST WEEK

Read:

The Things We Leave Unfinished - Rebecca Yarros

This one floored me. My favorite by Yarros to date. And it will, without a doubt, be among my favorites of the year. Oh, and my first 5-star read of the year.

Listened to:

Without You - Marley Valentine

I knew very little about this one when I borrowed it from Hoopla but it ended up being a solid read. It was surprisingly heavy at times (dealing a lot with grief) and there were some tricky family dynamics, while also focusing on two people who were so accepting of one another.

WHAT I'M CURRENTLY READING

Reading:

Love at First - Kate Clayborn

At 100 pages in, I still feel like I'm struggling a bit to connect with the main characters, but I am enjoying it. I'm really curious to know more about Will's background, though.

Listening:

Torn - Carian Cole

I picked this one up after a Booktuber's recommendation. It's an age-gap romance and I'm pretty impressed with the the way it's being handled. There's nothing salacious about it, and I like the way the author has both characters really examining their decisions and the possible outcomes before they act.

PHYSICAL BOOKS:

The Four Winds - Kristin Hannah

KINDLE BOOKS:

Southern Chance - Natasha Madison

The Wedding Game - Meghan Quinn

AUDIO BOOKS

The Theory of Second Best (Cake #2) - J. Bengtsson

Missing in Action - Kate Canterbary

eARC FOR REVIEW:

Return To Us - Corinne Michaels

How was your week? Any new books? Any news to share?

I'd love to hear about it!

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

It's a chance to share news: a post to recap the past week on your blog, showcase books,

and share what's coming up on your blog in the week ahead.

It's been a month since my last Sunday Post and I've enjoyed the break. I don't know that I'll return to posting every single Sunday. I'm enjoying my new, relaxed blogging style too much to lock myself back in to any kind of definitive schedule. But I still enjoy checking in on everyone else's Sunday Posts and I'll contribute my own when the mood strikes. :)

Spending so much time in my home office over the last six months had me itching to revamp the decor and I completed a couple projects in there this week. I finished the gallery wall that I've been working on for a couple weeks (finding the right art pieces, the right frames, painting the frames, etc.) and I'm in love with how it turned out. I find myself staring at it constantly. And The Husband put in floating shelves on the wall behind my desk. I'm not sure if I'm quite done styling those yet (I keep adding and subtracting and moving things around) but I'm happy with how it's looking so far.

Gallery wall

Floating shelves

I used my library's curbside pick-up service for the first time this week. I've long used Overdrive but this is the first time I wanted a physical copy since the pandemic. I had to reserve a pick-up time, park in a designated spot, put down the back window for them to drop the book in (it really was no-contact). They have a great system in place. The book I got was Dear Emmie Blue and hopefully I'll get to it before it's due back. :)

Feel free to skip ahead if you don't care about hockey. :) But my team is in the Stanley Cup Finals!! The Tampa Bay Lightning are killing it! They beat Columbus in the first round, they beat Boston (bahaha!) in the second round, and they beat the NY Islanders in the conference final. Last night was game one in the Stanley Cup finals (it's Saturday afternoon as I'm typing this and the game is tonight) so hopefully by the time you're reading this the Lightning will have their first win against Dallas already under their belt. Have you been watching the play-offs?