The Midway Recap: What's Been Going On And What I'm Planning

Okay, halfway through September!  8 weeks left to go!

Life Recap

I think this is the first time I'm glad that summer is ending.  The end of this pregnancy is coming and I'm impatient for it to end!  Not only will I finally start getting my body back, I'll also have a son.  I've been feeling him kick all this time; how he kicks when the cat lays down on top of him, how he seems to like rock 'n roll music....I've been learning so much about him all this time, and I just can't wait to meet him in person!

Lately, it seems that I've been getting a mixture of extremely busy days (for a pregnant lady), and lovely days off (this is rare for a self-employed individual, by the way).  Over the past couple of weeks there were times that I was working at least five hours in a row, and staying on my feet and dancing for most of it.  Pre-pregnancy-me would have just shrugged this off, but when you have a bun in the oven, those five hours are exhausting and I end up limping back home because my feet, back, and hips are all killing me!

Fortunately, however, those busy days were frequently followed by a day off.  A wonderful, lovely, glorious day off.  And I've been milking those days for all they're worth!

My days off usually go like this:

1. wake up as early as I can (so the day off is nice and long) and have breakfast while I catch up on Goodreads and watch the news
2. catch up on a few chores around the house, eat a snack
3. go to LA Fitness and swim
4. have lunch
5. go to a library or bookstore and read for hours
6. come home and read some more!
7. watch Sons Of Anarchy with Dave while eating dinner
8. read in bed so I can get a little drowsy and fall asleep.

Yup, that's how I roll! (almost literally, my belly looks a giant beach ball!)

In other news, the baby room is finally done!  Dave and I decided to use a free weekend to just Get. It. Done.  3 days of teamwork painting (I focused on the edging with the paintbrush while Dave did everything involving the roller brush), and now Jack's room is a nice happy shade of green!

Before:

(I really didn't like this shade of green!)

After:

(Now it's so much lighter!)

 With Some Furniture:

My brother's first reaction was "wow, that's bright!"  Well, yeah, it's a baby room.  And we didn't want to do the stereotypical blue either, so a light happy green was perfect!

We also have some pictures to put up in that room.  Dave found an awesome coupon for the Muse Paintbar and we decided to take advantage of it and paint something we could hang in Jack's room.  We chose a day where they were going to have us do this painting of a little kid by a tree during a blustery autumn evening.  Excellent!

Our renditions of this painting look....well, ok, let's just say the kid doesn't look like a kid in either of our paintings, and those background splotches were surprisingly difficult.  But we had fun painting this scene, and they'll still look pretty good in the baby room, I think, especially since they were made with love by Jack's mommy and daddy :)



Reading Recap
Okay, so I didn't finish a whole lot of books yet.  In my defense, I started out the month trying to read 4 books at once, which turned out to be a rather difficult endeavor.  I don't know why I do this to myself!  I'm able to read 4 at once, but it's really slow going.  I'm better off sticking with only 2 or 3 at a time (remember this for later Lisa!)

So, so far, I've managed to finish 1 book.  Yup, just the one.  Here it is:

Title: The Bear And The Nightingale (Winternight #1)
Author: Katherine Arden
Date Finished: September 12
My Rating: ★★★ 1/2
Quick Review: Pleasantly surprised by this story!

Full Review | Goodreads | Audible

Goals
So, I'm still determined to finish 8 books this month.  I've got a reading schedule all figured out (so I'm super organized, so sue me), and I'm pretty happy with my current plans.  Here's what I'm hoping to finish by the end of this month (the ones marked with a ☊ are ones I'll be listening to on audiobook)

• ☊ Inheritance (Inheritance #4), by Christopher Paolini (September 1-15)
• I should have finished this yesterday, but I was too busy
• Les Miserables Volume I "Fantine", by Victor Hugo (September 1-30) 
• my long-term reading project.  So far so good!
• A Gentleman In Moscow, by Amor Towles (September 1-17)
• almost done and really enjoying it so far
• ☊ The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, by Neil Gaiman (September 15-17)
• A BOTM that I've been meaning to read for ages
• ☊ A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman (September 17-21)
• Another BOTM that's been on my list for a while.
• Educated: A Memoir, by Tara Westover (September 17-24)
• Yet another BOTM that seems to be rather popular right now
• ☊ Bag Of Bones, by Stephen King (September 21-30)
• A book I've been meaning to re-read and see if it's a favorite
• Wonder, by R.J. Palacio (September 24-30)
• A re-read just for fun!

I have to say I'm pretty proud of this list.  A lot of these books are ones I've been meaning to read for ages, including a couple of reads that I meant to read again to see if they could be a favorite (I don't declare a book a favorite unless it's passed the re-read test).  After a summer full of comfort reads, I feel like I'm finally making progress on my reading list and reading a wide variety of books, rather than a limited selection that I've already read before.

Anyway, it's another day off today, so you know what that means!  It means lots reading of course!  So I'm going to hang out with my hubby and a book.  

Happy reading everyone!

-Lisa the Dancing Bookworm