The Sunday Salon: 6/21/2015

The Sunday Salon was originally started in 2008, but over the years has grown too large to accept new members. They are now a facebook group and open to all. Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them, and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....

Past Week - Personal Stuff

This is covering the last two weeks, instead of the last week.

It seems I'm putting these together lately every two weeks instead of every week. I'm nothing if not inconsistent.

Where I went -

Not as many places as the week before. I've mainly been to the work and a few stores to get some stuff done for home projects and construction.

My computer also broke so I had to have that replaced and upgraded this week. Ugh. So much nicer now but have to do a few payments. Not bad though so I escaped lucky.

What I'm Making - I'm still woefully behind on Tumblr picture challenges and haven't taken anymore still. One day!

My mother has been helping me remodel some of the house. I didn't take pictures of this - it's scary, believe me. We switched out my large bedroom and put my bedroom stuff in my son's smaller room. I got a new portable window unit for that room. The paint and carpet were fine so not much needs to be done besides furniture moving, organizating, and putting up wall decor.

However, on the large room it is now an office and my son's room. We had to rip up the gross, old carpet and paint the floor and put down a rug. We had to paint the wall, which ended up several coats over three days because of a paint glitch. We had to make new wood trim for the walls, paint them, and lay them down. We also had to redo the small bathroom - the wall was caving in due to water damage (sigh, don't ask), so had to fix that, paint, and lay down tile in there. Part of the floor needs replaced but have about a year to worry about that. It looks a lot better but still....when moving the desk my computer, which has been having issues, finally bit the big one. So now all furniture it moved in here, internet cording rerouted under the house, and all is well.

Now...the living room. Before the computer stuff and game system were in there. Now we want to convert it to something I've been talking about for two years - a living room /library. We have all the furniture except the bookshelves. We are wanting to make the center shelving today on what will be the wall-to ceiling bookshelves on the one wall. I bought a new TV to put in there - we have the plans taken out, it's really just going to take some money at this point.

Bitstrip of the Week

What I've Discovered - I've discovered I need a lot of practice with shampooing carpets! Had to watch my mom to figure out what I was doing wrong. Also rediscovered the magic of adding cherries to soda. Unhealthy but a delicious treat. <3

What I'm Watching - Hannibal returned, I'm one episode behind, the first two episodes were well made. Not sure how long they could drag out the seasons. Otherwise not watching much, been too busy. Gage and I watched on Netflix last night Leprechaun: Origins...I'm not a fan of the leprechaun movies, but this was completely different and actually tense. Liked it. Also watcehd the comedy the Interview, which was pretty funny, despite very mixed reviews and ratings on IMDB. Comedy is certainly a mixed bag on how it appeals to everyone.

Reading Updates

Read The last TWO weeks

My reading has slowed down a little from before, been working all day during this last week and then housework when I get home. Between the week before, and odds and ends, was able to finish these books though. A LOT of M/M romance for some reason, got hit by the spark. A big jump from the 12 the previous Sunday Salon. Also read the second book in the YA series for Darren Shan.

I love KJ Charles. It's tragic she only has four books published. Her Magpie Lord series and now Think of England. She has the knack for such great historical characters that are diverse. I checked out her page on Goodreads just to see if a sequel is planned - it is, but sadly not here yet. The Enlightenment trilogy was pretty good. Demon Thief was a good sequel to Lord Loss, ready to start reading this series again.

Currently Reading

Unfortunately I'm not enjoying Middlesex as much as I figured. On page 90. Hoping I get more absorbed soon. I think the switches to tell back story on relatives is what is bugging me. Still, the writer's style is good, it's an almost dark humor sitcom comedy at times. Reading Jaws 2 - funny thing is I didn't know I owned this. Read a friend's review raving on it on Goodreads and put it on my wishlist. Found it hidden on my bookshelf. Since I read Jaws this year, reading the sequel makes sense. Over a hundred pages in. At the beginning of Bending Steel, from Netgalley, a non-fiction book on superheroes and the American lifestyle. Finally, I'm over a hundred pages into The Sun Also Rises, which I'm also finding disappointing and dull.

Next Up

Slawter is the third of the Darren Shan Series, in YA.Trouble is a Friend of mine is a contemporary YA that I got for review from Penguin First to Read. Likewise, from First to Read I got The Enchanted April classic to read. Still need to start Divergent, loaned to me from a friend. And Death by Darjeeling when I dive into mysteries again.