Random Things on a Friday and some recent reading

I have decided to change how I use my friends list at Goodreads. Up until now I have accepted friend requests from people I know from the blogging world  and real life but NOT from random strangers. Every morning I get the email of updates and barely glance at it. I realized that I’m really skimming it to find the people who read what I read. I mean, duh.  So even tho I love many of you very much, I’m going to be removing you from my list.

 

This winter is killing me, like it’s killing many of you. It’s been so cold for so long and the very idea of going outside is painful.  In order to feel active again, Mike and I rejoined the YMCA. I am looking forward to zoning out on the treadmill for a bit. To make this even more fun, we both got Fitbits. He has the Fitbit Zip and I ordered a Fitbit Flex (hot pink, thank you!) He is loving his and mine should be here any moment. If you have one I'd love to  hear how you like it and it seems theres is a buddy system on the website, so once I get signed up I'll be looking for people I know.

 I started the year off great with a gratitude journal, but at the end of January I pretty much lost interest. I think I’m going to continue using the journal- I have several other pretty goal sheets and lists in there- and revisit the gratitude idea every couple of months. I found that some days I was grateful for the same things as the day before, and giving it a little breathing room will make it enjoyable and not a chore.

 

What am I reading? Not a lot.  I have no idea where my time is going.

 

I recently finished Incognito by Andrea Raynor. This got my attention because it was about her experience at Harvard Divinity School, and I am always fascinated by religion and by how people experience faith. I was hoping it would be a bit like Girl Meets God- someone struggling with where their faith was leading them, without being a call to the faith- and I suppose it was, but it didn't have the same emotion that Girl Meets God does. It read much more like anyone else struggling to declare a major and I think that dedicating a life to God would be a bit more climatic than this was.  Additionally, the cover copy reads like there's going to be scandalous bits, and she shies off from really going there. I think she's trying to paint herself as a little wild and make her decision to enter the ministry as more of a moral dilemna, but there's really never any doubt. She didn't quite go far enough with her relationship scandals (what scandals?) or her ambivalence. I had a similar reaction to  the one about the weight-lifting librarian.

 

I am nearly done with White Cat by Holly Black.  This one is a YA set in what is to me a very unique world of curse workers. It's a world with organized crime conducted by curses, which is pretty cool. I had to request it by Inter Library Loan, and it's paper, so it took me a while to get back into the habit of a paper book again. There are two more in the series and I suspect that I'll want to read them as well.

 

And I've gotten a good jump into City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. I resisted because have you SEEN how big these books are? Enough people mentioned them as being incredibly romantic that I had to see what they were talking about.  I find that this one reminds me of the "Fever" books by Karen Marie Moning but I can't pinpoint why.

 

I also have a giant  "stack" of NetGalley books waiting on the iPad. I've pretty much completely lost track of what's going on there, so I need to sit down and get it straight.