Week in Review: Week 172

We’re on Week 26 of 2019 – exactly halfway through. How did we get here So Fast? How is June practically GONE?! (Why are the question mark and exclamation point keys so far apart on the keyboard when they’re so often used together?! I think you could actually combine them and call them The Incredulous Mark.) If anyone asks “what’dya do in June??” My answer will be “get rained on,” cuz that’s all I remember of this month. There was Memorial Day, then a lot of rain, and now it’s the last week of June.

I started out the week pretty well with my walking challenge. I walked Saturday, Sunday, Monday…then the rains came. I discovered that the parking lot by the nearby beach is exactly half a mile once around so I can build on that in neat half-mile increments.

I just love a neat increment.

Plus, it’s scenic.

I’m trying to do Outfit of the Day (OOTD) posts on IG again. Some days it just doesn’t happen, but. I got some new khaki linen pants from J Jill. They’re supposed to be cropped – ha ha ha, I have The Shortest Legs! And I know (Jodie!) I could have them shortened but I think the calf is not the right width for a crop. I think crops are cute either very narrow or very wide. These are sort of a sloppy in-between. Plus, they’ll shrink a bit when washed, so…leaving them as-is for now. Could always do it later.

I’m coveting these bags, they keep saying they’ll be listed on the website and every day I check and so far, nothing. I love the non-color and the casualness of them.

My magical Anthropologie top finally arrived. Not so magical on me! Ha. I’d been watching it and watching it and it finally went on sale…but the 3x was sold out, so since the reviews all said to size down, I took the chance and. NOPE. It was lovely in person. The bodice felt like a silk rayon, and the peplum part just a lightweight rayon. But that empire waist seam should be loose,  and you can see how it’s pulling across the bust. I felt like my body was going to bust it open, like The Hulk. So it has been returned and if I see the 3x back in stock I’ll try it again.

It was Spirit Week at work and Tuesday was Red White and Blue day. One of the few theme days I ever manage to dress appropriately for.

Speaking of Gloria Vanderbilt, I was sad to hear of her passing last week. “She” has certainly been in my life for a very long time with her jeans that fit my body when no others did. I was moved to watch Anderson Cooper’s tribute to his mother.

Remember last month how sick to my stomach nervous I was about teaching a photography lesson to some of our adult clients? Well, I volunteered to do it again, ha. Glutton for punishment, right here. And now I’m the proud owner of the brand new NSSA Camera Club,  ha ha! I have a lot of ideas and projects in mind.

Here are a couple of my favorite photos from our first lesson. Very arty! I’m looking into having notecards made with the photographs on the front.

One evening that it didn’t rain I just sat out on the patio. The humidity had dropped and there was a little breeze and I had gotten these mosquito repellant punk things that actually worked, so I just had a little outdoor quiet time, which was nice after being cooped up for so long.

This was my Gwynnie Bee item of the week, that I really did like a lot. The fit was magical – small enough in the shoulders and armholes, but loose and swingy at the hips. Plus, I felt like our friend Julia in the blue floral print 🙂

Friday after work I was back at the dreaded laundromat. This time I added the bleach right at the beginning with the detergent since I now know that the “add bleach now” light doesn’t work (!), so at least the sheets feel (and smell!) CLEAN. But afterward, it just felt like the right thing to do to reward myself for adulting, so…

I’ve been reading A Lot.

This week I finished The Huntress by Kate Quinn, which I really liked. A really good, long, exciting story. I liked it even better than her other recent book, The Alice Network. I would give it a 4.25, which is pretty high praise from me. Fives are reserved for life-changing books, books that truly inspire, motivate, or really move me.

I read The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards. It was an interesting premise, shocking really, and then the story is about how the characters lived within that shocking reality. So it started out as OHMYGOD but sort of fizzled towards the end and I felt a little cheated that there was never the big showdown that you kept expecting. Still, a good story. 3.5.

AND…Something Blue by Emily Giffin, which, as soon as I started reading I had the feeling I’d read before, but I couldn’t quite recall how the story went so I just went ahead and read it again. Her books are light, quick reads about contemporary relationships, which used to be my reading jam, though now I’m more inclined to read historical fiction based around WWII or China or Japan or fiction about people from other cultures.

I recently started using PaperBackSwap. It’s essentially a site for people who have books they want to pass along…and people looking for books – and then they swap. When you *give* a book, you pay the shipping (USPS Media Mail, so low cost – most paperbacks are under $3), and when you *get* a book, you pay nothing. So, it’s nice to know someone wants a book I’m looking to rehome…and it’s extremely low-cost. The downsides are media mail shipping is slow, so books can take a while to get to you. And, relatively speaking, there are few new books listed, and that’s mostly what’s on my wish lists. But, between this and my one audiobook a month on Audible, and my niece sharing her Nook library with me, I almost always have something to read.

Alrighty…hope you all have a good week!