An empty house and some reading thoughts
Things didn't go as planned for yesterday's departures. I don't know for sure that 
bosonator's initial flight left on time, but he did make it back to the UK in what seems like a reasonable amount of time...but Ginny's trip back to Ontario involved sitting around at the airport for several hours last night while flight to Toronto after flight to Toronto was canceled, and yet hers was constantly promised, and for ages the airline wouldn't/couldn't simply rebook her because it was still theoretically happening.
They did eventually manage to rebook her for this afternoon, and she got back here around 11:30 PM or so (her flight had been scheduled for around 7 PM), and she went to the airport a couple hours early today, as advised, only for her rebooked flight to be delayed by an hour or two. But! She's safely home now.
And
scruloose and I spent a lot of the evening doing household puttering, including taking down the Christmas tree (a few days earlier than usual, maybe? But tonight's when garbage and compost go out, so...), and now the living room feels both empty and spacious. And the house is so quiet. :/ No more houseguests until Ginny comes back in March.
Some people have already read multiple books this year. Me, I finally finished reading an anthology (My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories), which was fine, but largely served to remind me that short stories just aren't what I prefer to read. Usually if I pick up an anthology it's because an author I really like (and let's be realistic--95% of the time that means seanan_mcguire) has a story in it, and I read...that story. But for some reason I decided to buy this one, and further, the act of buying it despite the lack of a single story I was prioritizing meant I felt like I had to read the entire thing. So I did.
And again, it was fine overall, and some of the stories were really good. It was my first exposure to Rainbow Rowell (possibly a shame--I liked her story well enough, but it didn't really stand out for me), and had stories by a few authors whose work I generally like (Laini Taylor and Holly Black are the ones who come to mind), plus a couple more whose books are on my to-read list. But I could've held off for the library copy to come in (other than the "it's a Christmas anthology and I wouldn't have wanted to read it in March or whenever); I doubt I'll reread it. And I bought it in ebook, so that's that.
Mostly I'm just excited that I get to read a novel next. (I say, although I have four graphic novels out of the library and realistically will probably read through them next so they can go back.) Reading so many "best books of 2014" and "most anticipated books of 2015" lists have me all excited for quite a lot of novels, and I'm still actively working on getting my shiny new spreadsheet up to date (and since that means constantly adding new things to it, more than it means going through miscellaneous lists I have in various places), so it's very much on my mind.
Once I get through the current stack of novels out from the library, I think I'm going to make a real effort to not have any more holds come in for me for a while (a much more plausible notion now that the holds list is down to around 60 books!) and put a dent into the bookcase of purchased unread books. Yes.
Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/568805.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:
bosonator's initial flight left on time, but he did make it back to the UK in what seems like a reasonable amount of time...but Ginny's trip back to Ontario involved sitting around at the airport for several hours last night while flight to Toronto after flight to Toronto was canceled, and yet hers was constantly promised, and for ages the airline wouldn't/couldn't simply rebook her because it was still theoretically happening.
They did eventually manage to rebook her for this afternoon, and she got back here around 11:30 PM or so (her flight had been scheduled for around 7 PM), and she went to the airport a couple hours early today, as advised, only for her rebooked flight to be delayed by an hour or two. But! She's safely home now.
And
scruloose and I spent a lot of the evening doing household puttering, including taking down the Christmas tree (a few days earlier than usual, maybe? But tonight's when garbage and compost go out, so...), and now the living room feels both empty and spacious. And the house is so quiet. :/ No more houseguests until Ginny comes back in March.
Some people have already read multiple books this year. Me, I finally finished reading an anthology (My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories), which was fine, but largely served to remind me that short stories just aren't what I prefer to read. Usually if I pick up an anthology it's because an author I really like (and let's be realistic--95% of the time that means seanan_mcguire) has a story in it, and I read...that story. But for some reason I decided to buy this one, and further, the act of buying it despite the lack of a single story I was prioritizing meant I felt like I had to read the entire thing. So I did.
And again, it was fine overall, and some of the stories were really good. It was my first exposure to Rainbow Rowell (possibly a shame--I liked her story well enough, but it didn't really stand out for me), and had stories by a few authors whose work I generally like (Laini Taylor and Holly Black are the ones who come to mind), plus a couple more whose books are on my to-read list. But I could've held off for the library copy to come in (other than the "it's a Christmas anthology and I wouldn't have wanted to read it in March or whenever); I doubt I'll reread it. And I bought it in ebook, so that's that.
Mostly I'm just excited that I get to read a novel next. (I say, although I have four graphic novels out of the library and realistically will probably read through them next so they can go back.) Reading so many "best books of 2014" and "most anticipated books of 2015" lists have me all excited for quite a lot of novels, and I'm still actively working on getting my shiny new spreadsheet up to date (and since that means constantly adding new things to it, more than it means going through miscellaneous lists I have in various places), so it's very much on my mind.
Once I get through the current stack of novels out from the library, I think I'm going to make a real effort to not have any more holds come in for me for a while (a much more plausible notion now that the holds list is down to around 60 books!) and put a dent into the bookcase of purchased unread books. Yes.
Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/568805.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW: