A Hiatus

This past week has been difficult. Not only am I still dealing with the pain in my arm, I’m now also dealing with hives all over my body.

We’re not sure what’s causing the hives. It could be the turmeric I was taking to help the inflammation in my arm. It could be ibuprofen or the creams I’m using for pain relief. (I don’t think it’s the creams because the hives aren’t where I put the cream.) It could be Luci, even though I’ve never reacted to cats before. It could be something I’m eating. Or, it could be something else completely.

I can’t get into an immunologist until early December, which means I have to suffer through these hives until then or hope they go away by stopping the turmeric and ibuprofen, keeping Luci away from me for a few days, and / or changing my diet.

Right now, blogging, commenting, Instagramming, and even reading are the things I want to do the least. I really don’t feel like doing much more than vegging out in front of the TV. Consequently, I’m sad to tell you that I’m taking a hiatus from blogging and maybe social media in general until I’m in a better space. I’m not sure how long my hiatus will be. Hopefully, not too long because I love blogging and the blogging community too much! (If I do any reading, I’ll post to Goodreads if you want to be my friend there.)

Because I’ve already stopped taking turmeric, the inflammation in my arm’s back, which makes it much more difficult to stop the ibuprofen. I did get a cortisone shot yesterday. Hopefully, it will help with the pain. It may take up to two weeks for me to get the full benefits, however.

Thanks for understanding!

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Top Ten Tuesday #39

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
Favorite Unlikeable Characters I Can’t Help Love

This week’s prompt is “Favorite ‘Awww’ Moments in Books” and I was going to try doing it. I realized I can’t remember enough details in most of the books I’ve read to come up with anything that fits the prompt. Going rogue seems like the best option. I haven’t been able to participate in the last couple of TTTs so I’m going with one of those topics–“Favorite Unlikeable Characters I Can’t Help Love.” Here are my top characters:

Severus Snape

Harry Potter by JK Rowling

Sebastian Morgenstern

The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare

Cole

Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Dolores Umbridge

Harry Potter by JK Rowling

Annie Wilkes

Misery by Stephen King

Mrs. Danvers

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Eustace Scrubbs

The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis

Julian

Wonder: The Julian Chapter by RJ Palacio

Miranda Priestly

The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

What about you? Which unlikeable characters made your list? Do we have any in common?

I learned in DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) that life is full of dialectics, or two opposing truths. In this case, the two opposing truths are: 1) I don’t agree with JKR’s stance regarding trans people, and 2) I still love Harry Potter.

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Goodreads Popular Books List

I love lists. It’s one of the reasons I participate in Top Ten Tuesday most weeks. One of my favorite lists was BBC’s The Big Read Top 100. Every few years I’d take stock and post the list highlighting the books I had read since the last time I posted it. It was a lot of fun and I miss doing it.

Anyway, back in May, Goodreads posted a similar list. This list is a collection of the 100 most popular books since 1922 and is sorted by publication year. You can click the link to see how Goodreads determined each year’s book.

I didn’t see the original post back in May. I did see Susan’s post on Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books. Because I love lists so much, I decided to join the fun. I’ll put a next to the ones I’ve read, a next to the ones on my TBR, and an next to the ones I’ve attempted and haven’t finished. Without further ado, here’s Goodreads’ list:

  1. Ulysses by James Joyce
  2. The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
  3. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
  4. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
  5. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
  6. To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
  7. The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
  8. Passing by Nella Larsen
  9. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
  10. The Joy of Cooking by Irma S Rombauer
  11. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  12. In Praise of Shadows by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki
  13. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
  14. Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers
  15. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
  16. Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
  17. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
  18. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  19. Native Son by Richard Wright
  20. The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges
  21. The Stranger by Albert Camus
  22. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
  23. Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
  24. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
  25. The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
  26. No Exit by Jean Paul-Sartre
  27. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
  28. 1984 by George Orwell
  29. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
  30. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
  31. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
  32. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  33. The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien
  34. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
  35. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
  36. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
  37. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
  38. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
  39. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  40. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  41. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
  42. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
  43. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
  44. Dune by Frank Herbert
  45. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
  46. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
  47. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
  48. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  49. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
  50. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson
  51. Ways of Seeing by John Berger
  52. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
  53. Carrie by Stephen King
  54. Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
  55. The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
  56. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
  57. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
  58. Kindred by Octavia E Butler
  59. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
  60. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
  61. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  62. The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
  63. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
  64. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
  65. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
  66. Watchmen by Alan Moore
  67. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
  68. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
  69. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
  70. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
  71. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
  72. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
  73. The Wind Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami
  74. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
  75. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
  76. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
  77. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
  78. Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
  79. House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielwski
  80. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
  81. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
  82. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
  83. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
  84. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
  85. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  86. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  87. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
  88. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
  89. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
  90. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
  91. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
  92. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
  93. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
  94. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  95. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
  96. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
  97. Educated by Tara Westover
  98. Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
  99. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
  100. Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This is a very interesting list, isn’t it? I’m surprised that none of the Harry Potter books or Twilight Saga are on it. Harry Potter probably didn’t make the cut because of the controversy with JKR, which is a real shame. I imagine that Twilight wasn’t included because of the polarization the series causes. Are there any books you expected to be on the list that aren’t?

I learned in DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) that life is full of dialectics, or two opposing truths. In this case, the two opposing truths are: 1) I don’t agree with JKR’s stance regarding trans people, and 2) I still love Harry Potter.

If my count is correct, I’ve read 14 of the 100 and I have 27 on my TBR. What about you? How many have you read? How many are on your TBR?

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Sunday News #43

Sunday Post and Sunday Salon are blog news memes hosted at Caffeinated Reviewer and Reader Buzz, respectively. It’s a chance to share news, recap the past week on your blog, and showcase books and other things.
Feeling

I’m feeling much better. Someone recommended I take turmeric to help with the inflammation in my arm. I bought some pills on Monday and my pain lessened about 80% of what it was by Tuesday evening. Honestly, I don’t know if turmeric’s the cause or if it’s just coincidence. I’ll take it, though!

Because I’m feeling a lot better, I’m going to start my NaNo month on Tuesday. By starting on Tuesday, I’ll be two weeks behind the original commencement and go two weeks into December, ending on the 14th. I think that’s doable!

Blogging

This week on the blog:

Reading

I started reading my book club’s pick for November this week. It’s THE MAID by Nita Prose. I’m still not really sure what I think about it as I’m not very far into it yet. I’m also still listening to the ECLIPSE audiobook. I’m about a third of the way in.

Listening

This week, I listened to an interesting cover of “We are Young” by Fun. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it on YouTube so I’m sharing the original instead. The cover I’m talking about is part of the soundtrack for the Netflix movie LOOK BOTH WAYS.

Watching

As I mentioned above, I watched LOOK BOTH WAYS, a Netflix movie starring Lili Reinhart, Danny Ramirez, David Corenswet, and Luke Wilson. I really enjoyed the idea of looking at how one decision could impact your life. I also loved the message of life being what you make of it (i.e., happy, fulfilling) even if it doesn’t turn out how planned it to.

Corey and I binged CELEBRITY JEOPARDY and got caught up this week. It was a lot of fun. Some of the actors / comedians are so quick-witted. They play off each other so well. I loved Wil Wheaton’s wager for Final Jeopardy. It was $1701, which references the number on the Enterprise’s hull on Star Trek.

We also saw BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER on Thursday. We were very pleased with it. I thought it honored Chadwick Boseman’s memory nicely while still moving forward into a new era. I got teary a few times. I’m excited to see what happens now.

Loving

I love watching Luci play, discovering the world around her, and interacting with Izzy. (For those who didn’t see the change I made to last week’s post, Corey and I decided that “Luci” fit our new kitten better. Her new official name is Luci McGonagall.) Luci’s fearless whereas Izzy’s a scaredy cat. Luci’s also a jumper whereas Izzy has a mental block and thinks she can’t jump. She can; she just chooses not to jump any higher than the couch or bed. Luci’s already getting on top of things Izzy “couldn’t” at 4 months old.

Wanting

Both Izzy and Luci are sick. Luci has a cold and Izzy has been vomiting and acting lethargic. Izzy seems to be doing a bit better today. We think she may be constipated, but we’re not positive. And, poor Luci can hardly breathe because she’s so stuffed up. They have an appointment scheduled with our vet Monday morning, but I want them to feel better now. I always feel so helpless when my furbabies are sick.

Needing

Even though the turmeric pills have been helping with the pain in my arm, it’s still tingling like it’s asleep whenever I do menial tasks. I need to talk to my primary care physician and figure out what’s causing the problem. Hopefully, it can be fixed without surgery. Corey thinks I’ll probably get a cortisone shot.

How was your week? Anything exciting happen?

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Book Blogger Hop #5

Book Blogger Hop is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Jennifer at Crazy-for-Books in March 2010. As of February 2013, it’s hosted by Billy at Coffee Addicted Writer.
Today’s Question(s) is …

Which do you prefer to be known as: a voracious reader or a book nerd?

My Answer(s) is …

Honestly, I’m okay with either. However, I don’t read nearly as many books as most book bloggers because I’m a slow reader. Because of that, some people may not think I qualify as a voracious reader. It’s okay, though. I really like the idea of being a book nerd.

What about you? What do you prefer to be known as?

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