First wrap up post for 2022!! Wow, its that time already! A lottt happened in Jan I must say, so this might be a long-ish post. Read or skim through or skip altogether..whatever suits your fancy 🙂
Reading
- Under The Whispering Door by T J Klune (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐) – I am in love with TJ Klune’s books. I couldn’t have picked a better book to start my year with. Warm, funny, all about found family and gay love, about love, death, loss, grief and hope. Everything packed up like a warm hug 🙂
- Summer Days and Summer Nights (⭐⭐⭐) – A good book for a pool side or beach read, but I think the stories are more suited for young teenagers or young adults than a 40 year old like me. I do love YA fantasy but somehow I felt aged out of the romance stories.
- A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (⭐⭐⭐) – Book 1 of the Schoolomance trilogy. Imagine a dark Hogwarts mixed with Lord of the Flies. Only, with more helpful children. And a really sarcastic and yet lovely anti heroine as the lead. I managed to read the book because of the main character El/Galadriel, but somehow I didn’t feel much for any of the other characters. Maybe book 2 will solve that?
- The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams (⭐⭐⭐⭐) – I know this book received mixed reviews and I agree there were some issues with the book and the overall writing quality. But my reading experience wasn’t marred by it somehow and I really liked this book. Its a book I read in a single sitting and would recommend to amateur readers.
- The Greatest Odia Stories Ever Told (⭐⭐) – I had high hopes from this translated collection of Odiya short stories, but I was disappointed. There are some really good cultural descriptions but those are mostly of an older Odisha or the villages where the population is still poor and superstitious. Being an Odiya from the 21st Century myself, I didn’t find the stories uplifting or enlightening.
Writing
I still haven’t found a schedule to call my writing time. But lately I have been thinking about not taking my writing as seriously. Between my job, family, health and reading – I am left with no time and I dont want to stress myself out just thinking about the fact that I’m not writing. So I’ve decided not to make any writing goals and write whenever I feel like. In Jan I journaled almost daily and I wrote a few blogs. I feel content with that 🙂
Life
- My entire family was down with Covid for the first two weeks in Jan, so it was mostly a lot of resting and reading and watching shows on screen. Slowly, we started to get out energy back and getting back into the world by the third week. I was glad for the time off from work though, because I had a lot of weakness during the first two weeks
- We went for a couple of treks to a nearby hill top and I cycled my first 20K with friends. I also ran 6.5K and a 5K in Jan and I definitely worked out a lot more once I got better 🙂
- I tried out a lot of different food over the last few days. Ordered Nepali momos from a friend who opened her shop recently, got mom to try Japanese cheesecake, and discovered a food truck selling Vietnamese Pho which is one of my favourite dishes to eat 🙂 I also bought two delicious pork jam and pork thhechha in jars and been relishing them with breakfast and lunch whenever I can 😉 On one weekend, we stepped out for lunch with cousins and it was a lovely day of asian sushi and sunshine 🙂
That’s how my January went. How was yours? I’d love to hear about your highlights or even lowlights from Jan 🙂 Drop in a comment 🙂
Starry Eyed Enigma 