Hello, readers. I thought I’d take a few minutes to update you what’s going on in my world and with the blog.

A few months ago, my mother was hospitalized for about a week with some health issues. (Click here if you want to read more about it Blog Update: What’s Up in My World) Mom’s been in the hospital twice since then, and spent about two weeks in a rehabilitation facility. She has good days and bad days, and there’s at least one or two doctor’s appointments a week that I take her to and shuffle around my work schedule. She’s still able to live on her own with assistance from in-home nurse visits and my stopping in on the days the nurse or my siblings can’t come visit (most of them live out of town).

One of the amazing things about my mother other than not having any major health issues for 48 years (since I was born) is that she does not have her estate settled in any way. There’s a will that she and my dad drew up in 1974, the year after I was born, but that’s it. Following my father’s death in 1987, we kids assumed she had a new will drawn up but apparently that wasn’t the case. So I’ve been working on getting all her ducks in a row legally. Mom’s kind of organized in a packrat sort of way, so finding things like the deed to the house and other documents she needs is taking some time. You could say that not going to the doctor for decades and not taking care of her estate are forms of avoidance and you would be right. 🙂 We were lucky that she agree to a medical power of attorney the first time she was hospitalized.

In case you didn’t read my previous post, about the same time Mom was hospitalized, I got a promotion. Yay for me, more hours, more benefits like health and dental which we have had through the state since my husband lost his job in January 2020. It’s crazy at work because of the whole supply chain issues worldwide. Stuff we should have taken care of in July is being done now, and we’re gearing up for the holiday season, followed by what could be an extension of the busy season depending upon how some other departments in our organization perform.

So I’m listening to a lot more audiobooks at work, but not having the time to write thoughtful reviews. I
thought of mini-reviews, but for me personally, I don’t mind reading them but would have a hard time writing them. I’m also trying to concentrate on my NetGalley titles and get those done so I can receive a new badge for the blog. The current ARC is so hard to read because every sentence that starts with the word THE is missing the “th”, and every word that has an “f” followed by another letter is missing those two letters. All numbers have been omitted and it’s non-fiction, which makes dates and numbers kind of important. I know I’m not supposed to review the quality of the Advanced Reader’s Copy, but it’s like reading one of those word jumbles you see on social where half the letters are changed, but if you can decipher it, it means you’re a genius! I thought about just buying the book on Kindle since the release day has come and gone, but the publishers are charging $31 for an e-book. The Bargain Sleuth most definitely says no on that front. So I stumble on with this book and hope to finish it next week in order to write a review.

I’ve got a little time this weekend to write, but probably won’t have time because since my mom got sick, the house has slowly become a shambles. We’ve never been one of those families who always has everything in it’s place and you don’t see clutter: it’s a lived-in house. But the ability, or lack thereof, of my kids to properly do their cleaning chores and picking up after themselves leaves something to be desired. This weekend The Bargain Sleuth becomes the General on Saturday while we get this house in shape. My husband, who is semi-retired but will be fully retired in a few weeks, is going to concentrate on leaf removal outside this weekend. I’ll probably have some of the kids help him at times because 67-year old men who aren’t the most robust health-wise should not have to do all the yard work alone, which means more work inside for me. Plus I have to check in with Mom, too. Lucky for me my brother and his wife visited last week and cleaned her house or that would be one more thing to do for me.

We fall back one hour this week, but I don’t sleep in. I’ll probably spend that hour trying to make headway on that blasted ARC that’s overdue for review. I’ve also got some organizing to do with my Nancy Drew book collection. Someone in one of my Nancy Drew Facebook groups just gave away some of the Diaries series, which I only have on audio on my Kindle, so I asked if I could have them for my daughters. It’s a last-ditch effort to get the younger two girls into Nancy Drew. My oldest daughter tried one of the original books but didn’t get too far when she was their age; in hindsight, I think I picked the wrong book to start her out on. And I collected the whole Hardy Boys series Revised Text books years ago in the hopes that if I had a son, he’d take to them. That didn’t happen, either, but I kept the books, and have collected the Original Text versions, as well as many collectibles relating to the 1970’s TV series. I’m pretty much done acquiring the books and only have a few collectibles on my wish list which is good because of lack of space. I’ve got my collectible books itemized on an Excel spreadsheet with approximate value in the event of a catastrophe.

Speaking of space, I’m slowing digitizing our DVD/Blu-Ray collection, too. It all started years ago when Disney had a platform on their website to redeem digital codes so you could stream the movies from any computer. Then they transferred all those movies over to Movies Anywhere. I discovered as I went through our massive DVD collection of grown-up movies, I had a lot of digital codes to redeem from other movie studios, which means we don’t need the physical copies anymore. And whenever I earn a gift card from Honey or Swagbucks, I see what movies are on sale and purchase them through Amazon Prime Video; they’re partnered with Movies Anywhere so I can watch them on any platform that has the app. So far I have five boxes of videos that we can sell/donate and have a lot more shelf space available in the basement. So just as I’ve purchased kindle copies of my favorite books and jettisoned the physical copies, so goes the movies and TV shows, too. I like decluttering.

If you like to shop on Amazon and don’t use Amazon Smile, I’d appreciate it if you’d shop through this link. As I always mention, I’m an Amazon Affiliate. What that means is that if you go to Amazon by clicking any of the links featured in my blog posts and you make a purchase, doesn’t have to be the exact item I mentioned, I earn a small commission. 1%. So if you bought a $.99 kindle book, I’d earn a penny. And it’s all at no additional cost to the buyer. The reason I do this is to try to cover the costs of web hosting; I’m not looking to make a mint. I’m also affiliates with AbeBooks, Booksamillion and Better World Books which can be found on the right hand side of this blog at any time. Don’t want to buy something but want to support the blog? There’s Ko-Fi, which can also be found on the right hand side of the blog. Donations can be as little as $3. I often donate through Ko-Fi to my niece, who does Cosplay for children’s charities and is trying to defray the costs of costume making.

That’s all for now; hope to be reviewing books again in the next week or two! Thanks to Stratemeyer.org for the Nancy Drew meme; it’s a keeper!