September 2016 Rundown

October! Everybody loves the fall except me! I only love summer, end of story. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I can say that even though October sucks, it is AMAZING for books. I'll have a post of books to look for coming out this month within a few days. GET HYPED. Oh, and Wicked Good Reads is happening this month! Girlxoxo is running it and it's great because there are great book recommendations AND you get to make your own lists and share them! I'll be participating a bit sporadically every week, and I highly encourage you get in on it too! You can check out the schedule here. It's going to be a lot of fun.

September wasn't amazing for reading. There just wasn't really any good way to make it a priority. Our finances got FUCKED at the end of August, and all of September was recovery. Hotel drama in Japan, getting stuck in Hawaii, having to buy additional airline tickets when trapped in Seattle, a cat that wouldn't stop puking and the related vet bills, and our car getting totaled while it was parked and minding its own business were a lot of very bad things to happen to us all within the span of a few weeks. I was previously someone very uninterested in having a routine, for fear of staleness, but this whole time has been spent desperately working toward rebuilding a comfortable foundation. Enough money for food and manageable stress levels. Everything is ok now, so I'm hoping to be able to work reading in as a regular part of the daily routine. It's just been hard when I've felt like there are a million other things I need to do at any given moment that matter more toward my immediate survival.

Luckily, the books that I DID get to read were all great. Except for one, but that's fine. You win some, you lose some.

WHAT I DID

1. // Got a sort of promotion at the bookstore. This resulted in a fixed schedule which is doing wonders to my stress levels. I'm having fun knowing what days I have off. And not clopening.

2. // Got Litsy!! It's seriously so fun. (Again, my username is OutlandishLit. I want to make friends).

3. // Crafted a ton. At least in the last week or two of September, I've been a crafting fiend. Embroidery, weaving, crocheting yoga mat bags, knitting mittens, etc. It's nice to be excited about something so I'm riding the wave.

BOOKS READ

1. // The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (AMAZING - Review coming this week)

2. // Children of the New World by Alexander Weinstein

3. // One Hundred Shadows by Hwang Jungeun

4. // The Subsidiary by Matías Celedón

BOOKS I PLAN TO READ IN OCTOBER

1. // Ghostland by Colin Dickey

2. // Nicotine by Nell Zink

3. // Scratch by Steve Himmer

4. // The Mothers by Brit Bennet

THINGS I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO IN OCTOBER

1. // Twin Cities Book Festival! I'm going to be working the Magers & Quinn booth this year and I'm VERY excited.

2. // Camping? I'm going to try to fit this in this coming weekend, because I'll be devastated if I can't camp one more time before horrible Minnesota forever-winter.

3. // Knitting cute things. Going to be cute af.