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Update on posts
Somehow I’ve already managed to read something like thirteen books this year and done review on all but a couple of them. I decided not to keep posting here because I don’t want the bulk of the posts to be book reviews. Instead I’m thinking I will pin a post that has links to the reviews or something like that. Or maybe I will just put a link to Goodreads. Too many decisions! :D I will probably remove the other book review posts at some point.
I have procrastinated a bit about editing my post on my found cousin but will try to get that finished and shared again very soon.
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Book Review: The Duke’s Disaster by Grace Burrowes
Note: I discovered this is book 1.5 in a series but it’s not clear why this is so. Usually the .5 books are related to the previous in some way, at least in my experience. That is not the case here.
This was a somewhat better than average historical romance but only enough to push it to 3.5 stars. The Duke of Amselm invested time and energy to court a young lady who ultimately chose another to marry. The Duke, Noah Winters then moves on to the lady’s companion, Lady Thea Collins, who has much to gain at accepting his non-existent courtship and proposal. Thea accepts the proposal, mostly to ensure her younger sister is provided for until marriage. Noah makes things happen to allow them to marry quickly and soon they are married and travelling to one of the Anselm properties.
The wedding night comes and Thea’s big secret is found out and threatens to destroy what was essentially a marriage of convenience for both. Both characters have a stubborn streak and they carry on the best they know how. They come to have a comfortable chemistry and there’s a fair bit of teasing of each other as they go. You always get the sense there is no ill will intended and they come to crave each others’ company. As the story continues there are some trials along the way, mostly related to the duke’s family and Thea. The ending is satisfactory and it seems it will be another happily ever after.
What I liked about the story was the character of the duke, who isn’t all that personable but is fiercely caring and protective of his family and friends. He does have something of a modern mindset which was written well enough that it doesn’t seem too out of place in an historical story. The character of Thea is one that’s commonly seen in these stories. I do like her resolve but she also is able to eventually share with her husband and accept his assistance. It is rather cliched in many ways but I think the best part of the story is the interchanges between the duke and duchess. It’s just so relaxed and comfortable even early on in the relationship.
I wasn’t too keen on the older brother of Thea’s charge early on in the book. It’s clear he’s a villain but I never feel his bad actions have enough motivation to be so vile at times. Also, there is quite a bit of focus on Thea’s brother, the new earl in the family, but rather little of the younger sister she’s meant to be looking after. It just feels the sister is nearly written out of the story from early on and she is mentioned occasionally but almost never seen.
There is the requisite twist in the story which is kind of expected although I didn’t expect the reveal to be quite like it was. My feelings are pretty neutral on this part because it was neither terrible or all that great.
Overall it was an enjoyable read for this rather fluffy genre.
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Revision
I’d made my previous post private for the moment so I can do some revision. I did do some editing but it seems I missed a lot the first time around. The post should be up again in a day or two.
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Reading challenge
Last year on Goodreads, I participated in the reading challenge for the first time. My goal was fifty books and I managed to surpass that. I’ve increased the number of books to sixty this year, partly because I’m pretty sure I started well into the year and succeeded so assume I should be able to add a few more books without too much trouble.
This year I’m extending my challenge to writing a book review for each one I finish. I’ve recently been doing my best to write up a review of each book as I go so I think it’s something I can complete if I stick to it. I’m planning on posting reviews here for the moment but may well set up a separate page for books before long.
I’ve been reading all sorts of books lately but have a soft spot for the young adult genre, be it teen romance or fantasy. I’ve thought this before but I think this may have a lot to do with the fact the young adult genre wasn’t around when I was growing up. I feel a bit deprived really. But until the last few years I felt so far removed from that time of life that I didn’t give too many books a chance.
I do have some regular posts coming up, including one about a rather big connection made very recently through one of the DNA sites.
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body woes
That bite or sting from the bull ant a few weeks ago still hasn’t disappeared. Most of the time it’s not bothersome but if I accidently scratch it, it gets really itchy. I am glad it was just the one ant that bit or stung me as I’ve heard it often happens with several ants at one time. Curious that I only saw the ant on two subsequent days so it makes me wonder if it was the same one. It also makes me less concerned about a nest being close by since I’ve never seen more.
Meanwhile my knee has swollen up the last couple of days and is achy again. It seems I take a couple steps forward and then one back. I’m sure it will be fine in a couple more days but this is a longer term issue than the last times it got sore and improved within a couple days. Still I think it’s okay enough that surgery won’t be necessary to fix the problem.
Well this isn’t a woe exactly but a comment. At 53 I still haven’t reached menopause and it looks like it might still be a bit off. My last menstrual flow was pretty light and lasted for about five days. I think this was around the beginning of the year or so. Last week I did have spotting for several days. I’m not sure how to qualify that in terms of menstrual flow since it really wasn’t a “period” but I wouldn’t say there was nothing either. I’m sure there’s more to come but I wonder if I might expect to find myself at menopause in the next year.
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A few words, finally
My intention back in October was that I would write all about my US trip. So now it’s six months later and the last I wrote was about being ready for Game Fanatic’s birthday.
I do have intentions of writing a bit about my holiday but today I am going to try to just get back into writing again after so long.
Yesterday I bought a pair of Crocs for the first time. I’ve heard many claim wonderful things about Crocs. I don’t know if I would agree but my goal was to replace some thongs that had broken after a couple years of use. I’d been rather frustrated with my efforts to find anything equivalent and then remembered some local markets have a store selling Crocs and Skeechers. (?) and thought they might have something that is suitable. Most of the shoes hanging there weren’t great but there were a few that I liked but didn’t have the right size. Then I found one pair that felt really good to wear. They didn’t require any work from my toes to keep it on and were low stress for wearing. They were pricey but I think they are worth it. At least they have worked well in the one day I’ve worn them, I can only hope they are as durable as the last ones I had to make it good value for money.
Yesterday I was at the library and I decided to finally tackle reading the book Twilight. It’s not that I have been against reading it to date but just hadn’t gotten around to doing it. I really would have liked to get the ebook but our library doesn’t have an electronic version. Alas I am stuck with a 10th anniversary edition of the book that also includes a reimagining of the book. Last night I started reading and got about a third of the way through. I probably could have read through the night but forced myself to close the book and put it aside at one point. So far, I am enjoying it. It’s no great literature but it is engaging and it’s certainly better written than some of the crappy teen fiction I’ve been reading on Wattpad lately. It’s kind of funny because I’ve read some Twilight wannabe books in the last year so now I can compare the original story. After I finish the first book I will likely watch the film. I may update once I finish to comment further. Unless what I have said is all there is to say. :D
Speaking of books, I also recently read The Paper Magician which I’d gotten on sale for my Kindle. I did enjoy some aspects of the story and I might have called it pretty good but the writer had some huge issues with the setting, which is supposed to be early 20th century in England. But it read more like a modern high school setting in many cases. There was never any sense of the social norms for that time included. I find it really shocking the editor failed to flag and correct this before it was published. There are at least two books that continue the story which I will eventually read once I steel myself for further inconsistencies.
In May the Scientist and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. While we were together well before we got married, this is the official date. We didn’t have much of a honeymoon back then due to work commitments so we are doing a bit more of a celebration now. We have a holiday to Thailand booked for five nights and we have splurged on a nice hotel on Koh Lanta. We’ll be leaving the boys on their own for the time we’re gone although there will be family and friends to provide support for them. I’m really looking forward to those days with just us in May. It will be our first real holiday on our own since we came to Australia. We could have gone for more days if we’d gone to Bali but it’s so crowded there and much of the population at any time includes a large percentage of Australians. It’s actually cheaper to go there than to go to other capital cities domestically. Koh Lanta is a lot quieter although it’s also a bit of a tourist area. Our room will have a private pool and there is also a private beach on the property.
Several days ago I had the “pleasure” of being stung by a bull ant. We’d seen it in the house earlier and I had collected it in a container and taken it outside. An hour later I felt something crawling on my leg and it was this creature. About the time I noticed it I was stung. My theory is it was the same ant getting revenge for being flicked onto the ground. The sting was really painful at the time but once it settled down I didn’t notice it much. Well until the next day when it started to swell and become itchy. I was okay until I gave into the temptation to scratch. Then it got much worse. Fortunately the itchiness didn’t last too long and now it’s just a small mark near my ankle that hasn’t completely healed. At first I didn’t think it was a bull ant but then the following night another one crawled up my leg and I caught that one and photographed it. It was clear that it was a bull ant. I didn’t have a bad reaction so guess I am not allergic. That said it was the first time I’ve been stung by one so I can’t guarantee it won’t happen again.
I’m hoping to write about the following topics with regard to my US holiday:
- The journey from Perth to DFW in Texas
- Road trip from Dallas to NC
- The wedding/new family
- Revisiting Charlotte after 20+ years
- UNCG reunion
- Road trip from Charlotte to PA
- Family in PA
- Road trip from PA to Indianapolis
- Visit with my cousin and family
- Road trip from IN back to Texas
- Hanging out in TX
- Journey from DFW back to Perth
I don’t know how much I will cover buy hopefully I will touch on everything above since there was so much that happened and so many people that I met and was reunited with after many years.
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Ready in advance.
I have already bought all the presents for Game Fanatic’s birthday this year. Usually I’m still looking or waiting during the last few days but I had everything finished by late last week. One of the items was a pre-order that was delivered and the others I got on sale. The last one was a particularly good price too.
On a related note, I have already submitted my tax forms and gotten my refund, which is about a month early. I often procrastinate until late October but the Scientist needed the amount of my taxable income so he could complete his tax so I got it done sooner than usual. (He wants this earlier every year but I still manage to put it off…:( .
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Scarred
I was doing weeding in the yard at MIL’s house a few weeks ago ahead of her return when I was attacked by ants. I couldn’t say what sort of ants but I suspect they might have been some sort of fire ants. At first I thought I’d scratched myself on my stomach but when I checked I could see there was evidence of ant bites/stings pretty quickly. Later that day I found there were several on my back too. Usually when I had ant bites they resolve within a few days but these were still pretty itchy a week later and only stopped a bit after that. Itg’s now three weeks and it looks like I might have scars near and on my belly button and a couple on my stomach.
Just feeling a bit annoyed those little creatures may have left such a lasting impression. :(
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Copper
My passport expires in January and there’s no way I can use the current one with so little time left. I think it has to have at least three months left on it. Anyway, the time to renew is now so that I have my new one in time for travel at the end of next month. Before I can renew, I need the all important photo done and so I decided it was time again to get my hair cut. I think the last cut I had was in January just before I got my new driver’s license. Seems the photo requirements are the motivating factor for me to get on to getting hair cuts. :)
I made an appointment for Friday with intentions of a colour job and cut. I did colour my hair with a home kit a while back and it came out pretty well but it didn’t stay the purple for all that long. I think part of the problem is I didn’t take the best care of it and it faded fairly quickly. Exposure to pool water was also a problem. I need to get a cap to wear over my hair at the pool so this doesn’t happen again.
I arrived a bit early for the appointment and there was just the woman I’d seen the day before when making the booking, and a guy who turned out to be the hairdresser. I was surprised because the shops I have gone to haven’t had male hairdressers. In fact I thought it was the first time I’d had a guy do my hair but then I recalled the time when I must have been a teen that my mom took me to a barber to get a perm. I don’t know why that happened that way and it was all weird. But it was a man who did my hair at that time…so not the first time. :)
Anyway, I had to wait for a bit for the guy to finish up with the previous client but was able to sit in the chair for the duration. It wasn’t that long before he got to me and so we discussed what I wanted done. He had a strong accent which seemed European in origin but his English was pretty good. I shouldn’t be surprised by this since English is so widely spoken there. Our first discussion was about the colour I wanted. I asked about going with some sort of purple but he steered and persuaded me to a copper/brown combination which he thought would work better. Then he was gone again for a while to mix up the dyes.
The process of putting the dye on my hair took quite a while to do, longer than I expected. He was quite methodical with his work and it eventually did get done and then I was waiting the thirty minutes for the colour to set while he did someone else’s cut. The next client was a nine-year old girl who had long hair and was getting it cut off.
I spent my waiting time playing games on my phone and occasionally watched the progress with the little girl’s cut. The hairdresser was meticulous with his work on her hair too. When he finished it looked good and was quite cute. Someone else came for a cut during this time and he started on that and soon it was already thirty minutes and I was still sitting. It must have been about forty-five minutes by the time the woman took me off to rinse and treat my hair. Then there was the five-minute wait for the treatment to work. Which was really more like 10-15 minutes, lol…there seemed to be a pattern about the whole place.
He did get back to me and then we had a look at the colour and it really did look nice. The most obvious change was at the roots where he’d put just the copper. Our next step was the hair cut and I gave him license to use his own judgement as to how much to cut. I was happy to lose a fair bit but wanted to keep it below shoulder length. I think he must have cut about three inches or more. Finally all the dry and damaged hair was gone and it looked much better already. He then went on to the blow dry and I thought that would go a bit more quickly but I was wrong again. It was around this time that our conversation picked up a bit and I learned that he had only just moved here, apparently from Italy, and he’s still working on getting things he needs for his day to day living. He said that situation here is much better than in Italy, where it’s hard to make a living and afford basic necessities. All the time we were talking, he would stop regularly from the work to speak and then start working again.
When he finished everything, it really did look nice and healthy again. The colour turned out really well too. I must make a better effort at getting cuts a bit more regularly so that I don’t have so much damage at the end of my hair.
Once I paid, I collected the boys from the library next door (they’d been waiting for over two hours in the end) and then I rushed off to get my photo done at the camera shop in the same complex. That part took very little time but it was late enough I didn’t have time to get to the bank for the cashier’s check for the fees and to the post office to post to the consulate. Instead I decided to wait for Monday when I had more time. Instead we headed off to do our shopping for the week and only just got home a bit after six in the end.
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Rainy season
Typically the winter is the rainy season here in Perth. I think over half of our rain comes during this time of year. So far this year, though, we’ve had quite a bit of rain through the late summer and autumn. In fact the only month that seems to have been spared was June, which was unseasonably dry this year.
The past few weeks we’ve had rain almost every day. Well, at least a forecast of rain and some drizzle most days. It’s rained so much there are lakes within some of the park lands around here. A couple years ago this was a problem due to blocked sewage drains plus rain. I don’t think the drains are particularly blocked now but the rains have continued.
Last week we had a nasty storm that brought heavy rain and thunder and lightning one morning. I will point out that thunderstorms really aren’t all that common here although they aren’t a rarity either. It’s just a lot less than I used to experience while living in North Carolina during the summer. Anyway, that storm came along and the power went out that morning. The lightning never even hit all that close to us so I am surprised we had an outage. I will also point out that we often go a year or more without a power outage here. Well I guess that was the case when we first moved in here but it’s probably a bit more often now. Still it’s pretty rare. Initially I didn’t realise the power was out. I had woken up and I realised my Apple watch needed a charge so I connected it to the charger. I heard the usual ping sound once it connected. Then I connected my phone to its charger and there was no ping. I thought something had happened to the power outlet (which would have been bad since it was only put in last year). Still nothing. I went out to the living room to try it in a different location. I went to turn on the light and nothing happened. A light bulb went off in my head…lol.
The power was out for about an hour and then all was well, or so I thought. I don’t know whether it was an issue from the start or not, but our router/modem seems to have died soon after the power returned. Died as in it wouldn’t power up at all. After an exchange of a few text messages with the Scientist, I went out in search of a new router/modem. The funny part of this is that we were in the shop a couple days before that and the Scientist had spotted one that he said he planned on getting when we next needed one. The expectation, of course, was this was not going to be any time in the immediate future. So this turned out to be the means of getting that really good one sooner than later. It is a much pricier model than the previous one but does have a few bells and whistles that hopefully will make up for it. Also we had a gift card for a retailer that sells these and I was able to reduce the price by $154, which still left it expensive but less so than it started out to be. The new model has been going pretty well so far. I did have a couple problems connecting my iPad at first, until I connected ot the 5G network instead of the usual one. Since then I’ve not had any issues at all.
Meanwhile, there is still a bit of rain in the forecast but I see a break in precipitation for the coming weekend. I’m looking forward to a bit of clearer weather for a few days as we finish up our winter season here. We did have a lovely sunny day last Thursday but it’s not been very nice since then. And before we know it, we will be in spring and the allergy season should ramp up. I suspect the only reason it hasn’t right now is the rains washing off the pollen.
And on a slightly related note, I heard on the radio today that Australia may be in its worst flu season ever recorded. It has been a terrible winter for flu around here. Almost everyone I know has been struck down at some point. I am still not sure that we had the flu here back in June. Whatever it was was pretty nasty but it didn’t include fever and it didn’t include the usual aches and pains that come with flu usually. That reminds me of something else I heard on the radio today at the same time. There was a discussion of the difference between a cold and flu and the doctor they were talking to would say that if you have to ask that question you probably have never had the flu. That reminded me of my first experience of flu when I was a freshman in college. It was February and pretty much everyone else on my floor of the dorm had had it before I finally succumbed. And yes, it was like nothing I’d ever had before and was quite memorable. What I had this year wasn’t at all like that and yet it was just as awful and probably longer lasting. So my thought it was it could have been a totally different type of flu than I had in the past or it was a random, but nasty, upper respiratory infection. One last thing to take away from the interview today was that it was still a good idea to do a flu vaccination so maybe I will see about doing that.