Plant My Butt and Read: My Five Favorite Places

I tend to switch up where I’m reading, depending on my mood that day. Sometimes I want to be laying in bed, other times I like to be out and about in town reading. There’s something satisfying about finding that perfect position and devouring a book for hours on end. I did just this the last couple of days because I finally read The Book Thief.  Finally. After it being on my TBR for since high school.

1. My reading chair. This is one of those things I wonder if I should get rid of so I can have more room and then I sit in it. It’s broken, the seat sinks on one side. I am hardly the first owner, it’s old and the fabric is outdated. The footstool doesn’t always stay where it is but when I curl up with a blanket and my coffee on the table next to it, it’s perfect. (And where I am as I type this.) This is where I do about 75 percent of my reading so it would be stupid to get rid of it.
2. My floor by my bed. When I last rearranged my room I really really felt like reading on the floor, but I needed pillows so my back wouldn’t hurt as much so I put some pillows in a corner with my lamp in it and my knees can rest on my bed, and sometimes I just need to be on the floor for some reason. I don’t use this spot very often but when I do I love it.
3. Local coffeehouse. I tend to go once a week and get a cup of tea and read. I tend to do this when I start reading a book because it forces me to concentrate on it for an extended period of time. Also there is nothing more comforting than a hot cup of tea in your hands and steady background noise.
4. The side of the hot tub. A lot of my friends complain it’s to hot for the hot tub but that’s not always true. The hot tub is so relaxing to just stick my feet in and read my book. I don’t even have to change into a swimsuit and if it gets too hot then I can lay out on the deck for a bit or walk the five feet to go in the air conditioning.
5. My bed. I can lay out, stretch and have a ton of comfortable space. Sometimes I read here in the middle of the day, or when I say “I”m going to read until I get tired” and then I get tired so I put my book away and can’t fall asleep for two or three more hours.

Yeah, a lot of these places are in the same room, but what can I say? It’s where I’m comfiest.

I really wanted to put by the water on here since I tend to read when I’m on beaches or on vacation but then I get really hot from the sun, have to stop what I’m doing to go in the water and cool off etc. Bookworm problems right?

What’s your favorite place to read? Any types of places I should try out?

The Book Ban(ish)

I’m pretty sure most people know this by now, but I have eight bookshelves. Mainly full. They would all be full but one of them I use for books I own that I’ve read in the current year. This bookcase so far has six books, plus two others that people are borrowing, and one I’m in the middle of. I’ve probably only read 3 percent of the books I own. To counteract this emptiness the rest of the shelves are double shelved

I also have a bookcase dedicated to books I’ve acquired in 2017 and haven’t read yet. There are three stacks on the floor next to it. So with all of these books lying around unread I have decided I desperately need to stop buying and borrowing books from the store, library and friends. However, sometimes my parents come back with random books for me and I don’t really want that to stop.

To make this worse, I work in a bookstore and get a discount. Plus, I go to almost every used book sale. we had employee appreciation week recently so I spent more than I want to admit, and I haven’t read any of the books I read during the last round of employee appreciation.

Starting last week (June 4th) I decided I’m not going to borrow or buy any more books until July 4th. I do have one out from the library (Irene) that I might read and I had started City of Bones from the library before I decided this, but I finished that one yesterday.

I decided on July 4th because it’s exactly one month from the start date. I think that’s pretty reasonable. Then on July 4th there’s a library book sale up north that has been a tradition my entire life so obviously I can’t stop a tradition. After that I am thinking I’m going to go another month or two of a ban again, but first I’m going to see how June goes. I’ll make sure to update you guys!

Review: Misery by Stephen King

A bestselling author finishes his next book, but crashes his car after celebrating. He is taken in by his crazed number one fan who isn’t happy with the ending of his previous book.

May Wrap Up

I did my wrap up post before a week went by! Success! This may have been the first time in a while that has happened. May was full of hanging out with people and hours and hours of work. I posted a lot more on Instagram and was addicted to twitter, but what else is new?

My month started out having a bonfire with some  friends from high school, the highlight being when the guys decided it would be fun to twirl around flaming hula-hoops. It was actually really cool and the only time it fell it was almost out anyway, so nothing got set on fire.

Partway through the month the entire office took a trip up to Door County to have a meeting with one of the companies we work with. We stopped at a couple places and took amazing photos and a couple different shops. I bought fudge, ate it when I got back and one bite in I realized I should have bought more than 1/4 lb.

I said goodbye to a couple of my friends, but they’re doing some pretty awesome stuff. One of my friends got a job down in Milwaukee, so that’s yet another reason for me to visit. Another is in Spain for a month. I am obviously insanely jealous because Spain is gorgeous.

The Farmers’ Market started up again so I went to the first Saturday and Wednesday ones of the season. I bought some loose leaf tea and lemonade and saw a band and a lot of people from my high school. Most of the time I hate my hometown, but there have been more and more times recently that make me love the place. More things are opening up all the time, I go to more things, etc.

This month I felt as though I was reading more only to look back and realize 99 percent of my time “reading” was actually me having a book open on my lap and my phone on top of it. A habit I need to break. Badly, especially considering all of the books I bought this month.

Books read:
A Court of Wings and Ruin- Sarah J. Maas
Rooms- Lauren Oliver

Like I said. I didn’t read much.

… It’s been a year…

A whole year. 12 months. 52 weeks. 365 days since I graduated college. And it doesn’t feel like it. Some days it feels like I’ve been out for years and other times it feels like it’s been a couple of months.

Looking back it feels like I haven’t done a lot, but then I think about it and I’ve done at lot. I’ve ran my first 5k, traveled around Wisconsin, read A LOT, started talking and catching up with old friends, went to wine tastings and tall ship festivals, celebrated birthdays and marriages, rode a mechanical bull, bought a paddleboard and the list could go on forever.

Unfortunately I haven’t traveled and seen the world like some people I graduated with have (you know who you are), I haven’t gone to grad school and have no desire to), or moved across the country for an externship.

Currently I’m at Barnes & Noble as a barista. If you had told me back in October these girls would become a second family I would have laughed in your face and been like “It’s just a job” but really, when you work 30 hours a week somewhere it’s hard to not become friends with the people you’re with. We rant to each other and complain but we also talk about the good things in life and sometimes hang out outside of work.

I also work at an interactive marketing place in De Pere doing SEO and social media work. It’s a lot of editing and bouncing things off of one another. There’s only a handful of us so everyone gets a voice. It’s a husband and wife that own the company and the husband knows so much about SEO and all of these different aspects of marketing in the digital age that even in just the first month and a half I’m learning so much more than I would at a larger company.

I tried so hard not to put down roots, the last thing I wanted was to move back home when I graduated. But life changes and you can’t predict things. Now I’m glad I moved back.  I’ve gotten a lot closer to my family rather than talking to them once a week and have realized if I move across the country I might actually miss them.

I was thinking California, Washington or Minnesota and what happened was De Pere, Wisconsin. Despite it being only 20 minutes away I never went to De Pere much, we had everything we needed in Green Bay. But seriously. De Pere is gorgeous. I work right by the river and Fox River Trail, there’s a coffee shop three minutes away, I drive through the historic district and it’s great.  So roots are going down… for now and I think my parents are glad they don’t have to worry about me moving across the country anytime soon.

The thing they don’t tell you is you don’t have to go right into the field. About six months after graduation I just started thinking about all the random jobs I could do. One of my co-workers from a couple years ago is now a flight attendant and she gets to see everything. Someone else is teaching in Spain, another grad school in Canada, another in the PeaceCorps (Comoros). I started thinking about random jobs like that or joining AmeriCorps, but I couldn’t decide what.

A lot can happen in a year. Blink and you’ll miss it.

April Wrap Up

Well…. it’s a bit late for a wrap up… but it’s here! Quite honestly, April was so long ago I don’t even fully remember what all happened, but I’ll do my best.

I started my new job at the very beginning of the month and am loving it. There’s four of us in the office and I learned all of the things I have to do and there’s talk of adding on to my responsibilities. It feels so good to be editing again.

I started and almost finished binge-watching Shameless on Netflix. I’ve finished it since the end of the month, and it was pretty amazing. All of the characters are so vibrant. I would root for them and want to scold them and everything. I just always wanted to know what happened next and I can’t wait for the next season to be on Netflix. A couple of my friends have already watched it so I got to go and rant and rave about it all the time which just makes the watching experience so much better.

I went to a library book sale and got a paper bag full of books for three dollars. I still haven’t read any of course, because it’s me and why would I read a book right away?

I also went to Untitled Town, a book festival in my hometown. It was the first year they had it and I only went to the final events which were Sherman Alexie and Margaret Atwood speaking. I got to meet Alexie and he was so hilarious. He would go from jokes about squirrels to how it was to see a language die. He was promoting his memoir and I am so excited to read it when it comes out. Atwood was quite honestly kind of dry. She did a question and answer about Handmaid’s Tale, but it was all read off of a script.

I started the month reading a lot and I was feeling so much better about reading more than I did in March. I finally finished Nevernight, which took me over a month and a half. Then I read A Court of Mist and Fury and major book hangover happened. Thankfully A Court of Wings and Ruin is out and in my hands now.

Books Read:
Nevernight- Jay Kristoff
the princess saves herself in this one- Amanda Lovelace
A Court of Mist and Fury- Sarah J. Maas
Flight- Sherman Alexie

 

March Wrap-Up

I’ve realized that the beginning of my months are a lot more relaxed than the ending of my months and I can’t understand why. The beginning of this month started out chill, I was reading and working on blog posts in coffee shops, got to see my aunt and uncle and basically had no stress.