Monday Musings

We found snow!

My week: Jarrod and I spent the week with my parents and brother in Colorado! The only way it could've been a better Thanksgiving is if Alohi were there.

Reading: I'd been looking forward to the latest novel in Samantha Shannon's Bone Season fantasy series, but my library in Hawaii never got it in. So I had my mom get it from the Colorado Springs library for me! It was pretty good, though I didn't love it as much as the second book. I was worried I might not have time to finish it on the trip, but I actually read it in just over two days.

After that I read a book my mom already had checked out, the new Stephanie Plum novel. These books haven't been good in several years, but they're bookish comfort food and I'll keep reading the series til the end. The last 10 or so installments have been ok 3-star reads for me, but this one just fell flat. I didn't really enjoy it at all.

And now I'm back to the book I had been reading, "The Heart's Invisible Furies" by John Boyne. I got a decent amount of reading done on the flight from Colorado to Hawaii and I'm hoping to finish it in the next couple days. So far I'm really liking it, even though it's pretty heartbreaking at times.

Watching: I finally made it to the movie theater! We saw "Murder on the Orient Express" (good) and "Wonder" (fabulous!!!).

On the plane back I watched the first four episodes of Netflix's newish Anne of Green Gables series, "Anne With An E," and I'm totally in love! I know it got mixed reviews, but it's been years since I've seen the movies and I've never read the books, so I didn't really have any expectations going in. (P.S. Did you know you can download some Netflix stuff to watch without an internet connection? I didn't until very recently, and it was a lifesaver on the looooong flights.)

Knitting: I'm making great progress on the Newt Scamander scarf! I'm probably two-thirds of the way done now and I'm sure I'll do a lot of knitting this week -- gotta watch everything we recorded on the DVR while we were gone!

Eating: A bunch of the restaurants we don't have in Hawaii and miss: Red Robin, Chickfila, Rudy's BBQ, Pei Wei, Firehouse Subs and Jimmy John's. Plus a delicious and nostalgic Thanksgiving dinner. I hadn't eaten my mom's holiday feast since 2008!

Deciding: To try to read 100 books this year! I just hit the 85-book mark (more than I've read since I started keeping track) and it's soooo close to that nice, round number that I figured I might as well try to make it! I did cheat a tiny bit and requested a few graphic novels I've been meaning to read. But since my current book is almost 600 pages, I guess it balances out!

Buying: 23andMe kits for Jarrod and me. I'd been looking at them forever (from there and from Ancestry) and I couldn't resist Amazon's Black Friday deal! We ordered the ancestry + health kits since they were 50% off, and I can't wait to see our results.

Blogging:
Monday Musings
Non-Fiction November Week 5: New To My TBR

Looking forward to: Ugh... not sure. I'm still firmly in vacation mode and I'm not looking forward to going back to work -- and to the grocery store -- today! Plus it was so nice to be home in Colorado and off this island, and I'm honestly not all that jazzed to be back in Hawaii. I'll just have to console myself with copious amounts of Starbucks peppermint mochas and Hallmark Christmas movies!

*I'm linking up with Book Date for It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Jarrod and me with my dad, mom and brother. I'm so glad we were able to spend Thanksgiving with them!