January/February/March 2017 Recap

It has been a very long 2017. I’m not 100% sure where it’s gone because I know I’ve been very busy. I mean this is my first recap of the year and it’s APRIL!! The good part is we took a trip to the Dominican Republic earlier this month and it was a much-needed vacation from the craziness that is work and life.

I read five books while I was there and that’s 1/3 of what I’ve read this entire year! We were in one of those all-inclusive resorts and it was EXACTLY what we needed. We went to a couple of the restaurants but didn’t do any excursions and spent two days in a beach hut (bottom middle photo) reading even in the rain we didn’t have to leave to go be dry.

The good part is the vacation came the week after I accepted a new job. Having spent nearly a year working 50-60 hour weeks constantly and dealing with strong personalities that never met me halfway, I realized it was time. I’m sad to be leaving because of the amazing work we do and the fact that there is a very good chance we will hit our unbelievable goal of nearly $1,000,000, but it’s the right decision. I’ll talk more about where I’m going/the first few weeks in my April recap.

Books and Bookish Things
Now since I haven’t updated since the beginning of the year I’ve actually read quite a bit, but mostly in the last month versus spread out over the first three months. It’s really sad that I didn’t have time to blog, but having made the decision to leave my job I’m starting to find more time to write and read again which is what I need.

I haven’t bought too many books recently outside of book group books and I’ve only accepted a few galleys. I’m in the process of catching up on the last few I got at the end of last year. The one cool thing I did recently was we went to the Amazon Bookstore (physical store) in Dedham, MA. We went to Legacy Place to go to LLBean and finally went in to the only physical Amazon Books on the east coast. It was a neat experience, but I wasn’t too fussed. There were no prices listed because if you’re a Prime member you pay whatever the online price is and if you’re not you pay MSRP, so a little confusing.

Books Read
Since the beginning of the year I’ve read fourteen books and I’m almost done with the fifteenth. Most of them are from either book group or when we were on vacation in the Dominican Republic. I was incredibly impressed by Ray & Joan and enjoyed reading a new-to-me Margaret Atwood novel. I’m also finally starting to enjoy A Series of Unfortunate Events after a slow start.

471. Ray & Joan – Lisa Napoli
472. In the Lake of the Woods – Tim O’Brien
473. Dreadnought (Nemesis #1) – April Daniels
474. The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events #1) – Lemony Snicket
475. Difficult Conversations – Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
476. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Fantastic Beasts #1) – J.K. Rowling
477. Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It – Anne Ishii, Chip Kidd and Graham Kolbeins
478. The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events #2) – Lemony Snicket
479. The Wide Window (A Series of Unfortunate Events #3) – Lemony Snicket
480. Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
481. Dark Places – Gillian Flynn
482. The Miserable Mill (A Series of Unfortunate Events #3) – Lemony Snicket
483. The Austere Academy (A Series of Unfortunate Events #4) – Lemony Snicket
484. The Ersatz Elevator ( A Series of Unfortunate Events #5) – Lemony Snicket

Culture Corner
So of course I’ve been busy with non-blog and non-work stuff which is one of the reasons it’s been a quarter of the year since I last posted an update. I’m just going to throw the photos in and then do a list of what everything is:

From left to right top to bottom:

1. I bought Tim a Museum of Science membership for Christmas and we went to the Da Vinci: The Genius (Museum of Science website) exhibit way back in January.
2. We went on a trip to New York City with a couple of friends in January where we went to the Natural History Museum.
3. Same weekend in NYC we spent time in Times Square.
4. Went to a wonderful Filipino restaurant (Jeepney – website) in the East Village.
5. And we saw two-and-a-half shows: Avenue Q, Puffs (A hilarious Harry Potter parody) and a new parody of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by the same people who did Puffs. SERIOUSLY, go see Puffs if you’re in NYC.
6. Went snow tubing with some friends in New Hampshire.
7. Met Maria Stephanos for a work event and in the middle of our meeting she had to do the news so we got to watch it filmed live and during a commercial break we got to sit in the anchor chairs.
8. Saw the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime which was fantastic. The set was one of the coolest I’ve ever seen.
9. We also watched the Oscar Shorts (Live and Animated) at the ICA-Boston for the second year in a row.

I also forgot that we went to Providence for Valentine’s day which was another much-needed reprieve from work even though it snowed the whole time we were there. We went to a couple of bookstores there, but I only purchased something at Cellar Stories Books (bookstore website). And needless to say after seeing the sign on the right I had second thoughts about purchasing a book there. RUDE.

What’s Next?
I’m hoping to get through a few more of the leftover galleys from last year and then make headway on some of the books on my shelves. I’m looking forward to having a bit more time in my life to read again once my new job starts, but I know it will be a while before that actually happens. We’re also traveling more in May (Liverpool and London for a friend’s wedding) and June (Alaska cruise for Tim’s birthday) so I’m hoping to get some more reading in then too! Either way I hope everyone has had a great start to 2017!