April Summary
I know I haven't been around much this month. No first blog post or anything like that this month - work was busy, plus I was working on a lot of self-care type stuff (talk about that later), but here is my summary for April! If you want an extra blog post you can read this guest one I wrote for work!
Words Written This Month:
3,158. Not my best, but it was better than last month! Having the camp NaNoWriMo goal really helped, plus I was able to do some sprints and you all know that's my favorite method of writing. No other milestones or updates - just cranking along in the novel!
Books read this month (follow me on Goodreads for full reviews):
I read this as both a way to hopefully get out of my writing slump, but also as a form of self-exploration (something I focused a lot on this month). This book was okay. It was full of some good tips for new or new to wanting to be published authors, but didn't lean as much into the INFJ part as I would have liked.
This was my book clubs pick this month. It's a fairytale retelling which is a fantasy sub-genre that I can wrap my head around which is nice. I liked this book overall. I thought there were some eye-rolling moments (but its YA and I'm a 30+ year old person so ya know, it's not for me), but I thought that this was going to be a case of a really pretty cover, and assumed it was going to be full of pretty words that didn't actually mean anything but it was a little deeper than that. This book had a magical house in it, and I could read an entire book about that house.
Another nonfiction read for this month. This was more for work. A small part of my job (but something I want to be a bigger part) is parent coaching. Reminding parents that they are their kids first teachers and they can be experts in teaching their own kids - so this summer we are doing some parent coaching classes around Storytime and early literacy and we are also having Dana Suskind do a virtual author talk for us. So in preparation for that, I read her book. I thought it was really good. It was full of great information but presented in a way that will be accessible for a lot of parents.
Video Games:
I still haven't finished this game yet. I did play a little bit more of it this month, but not a ton. I will say, that this game is SO much ... maybe not harder...more complicated? Than the first one. But it's fun and I'll be ready to pick it up again soon.
My SO and I have been playing this game together and it's been fun! My SO is definitely much more of a gamer than I am so when we do play games together its usually just Mario Kart which I love, but isn't much of a "real game". This one is though (or at least it's closer to being one)! It's a really fun puzzle type game. Lots of teamwork and problem solving needed. The nice thing is that you can't die which is good for me. The bosses are tricky, and each level you get to learn something new and use a different mechanic. I'm liking it. Plus it's just something new that we can do together.
I'll probably talk about this more for May's Summary, since it came out April 30...but I've been having a blast with this game. I never played the original one so it's really like a brand new experience for me.
Other Highlights:
Like I mentioned earlier, this was a month of a lot of self-exploration. This month had the shortest by my favorite holy season in it - the Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday) which for me is always a time of prayer and meditation.
Then of course there was Easter which I spent with some friends this year since my SO was out of town. I made a really good butternut squash salad and another pretty good watermelon salad.
But mostly I've just been really working on my spiritual self. I bought a new tarot deck, I took a bibliotherapy class, I started working in a workbook that my therapist suggested to me eons ago.
I bought some other nonfiction books that I plan on reading through this year - self-help/therapy books to help me just grow and better myself as a person.
To end, here are some pictures of my new tarot deck. It's so pretty!
Until next time,
B. Strong &;