Pushing Forward Back: June/July 2017

June was the month of 48 as I turned 48 on June 9. I celebrated with burgers, fries, and booze on the day of, with a drinkalong movie the next night (Hunt for The Wilderpeople) with a group of friends online, and then with three special blog posts throughout the rest of the month:

1. My 48 Favorite Books For The 48 Years Of My Life
2. My 48 Favorite Movies For The 48 Years Of My Life
3. My 48 Favorite Albums For The 48 Years Of My Life

As for the rest of the month, the breakdown is as follows:

• I read two books: Midnight Sun by Jo Nesbø  and Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane, with both being good, if not great. That brings me to 25 books read for the year, which puts me on target to read 50 for the year, which has been about my average for the last few years.
• Kim and I watched a few new shows, with the highlights being the first seasons of Santa Clarita Diet and GLOW, both on Netflix. The documentary on GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) also was very good. Mostly on my own, I watched a show from the Ukraine called The Sniffer, which while it sounds ridiculous, a detective who sniffs out clues, is actually surprisingly good and not without a sense of humor either.
• I listened to a lot of new music during the month of June as usual, with two albums especially catching my ear: the self-titled debut of Colter Wall, a Canadian country musician, and Dust by Laurel Halo, an American-born, Berlin-based musician. I haven’t listened to Halo’s album too much yet, but so far, what I have heard, I have loved.

The highlight of the month was meeting Richard Petty:

The lowlight of the month was the limited rerelease of a classic:

Thanks, Jenn, for letting me know of this, but unfortunately, it just gave me heartburn and wasn’t as tasty as I remembered.

Forward to July

This coming month starts off with a bang, with a four-day Fourth of July Weekend as the library is closed Tuesday and I took a vacation day Monday (Kim is off Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday as well). Starting tonight, every other day will involve grilling:

1. Tonight, with steak wrapped in bacon on our own grill from a box of Omaha Steaks we got from our landlord for finding a tenant in another one of his properties in our town.
2. Sunday, with burgers and chicken at my parent’s.
3. Tuesday, with burgers and hot dogs with our neighbors Mike and Kathy with members of their family and other neighbors.

On Saturday night, I plan on catching some, if not all, of the Coke Zero 400, the first part probably with Mike and the second part probably by myself as Mike goes to bed early and probably won’t make it until the end. Also later Saturday night, Kim and I will be joining our usual drinkalong gang for this week’s movie: Addams Family Values. On Monday night, after getting back from my parents, we are going to watch the 300th episode of NCIS on Netflix. We probably will celebrate with club sandwiches as Kim seems to remember that is what Gibbs orders when he goes to the diner.

Reading? Hmmm. Maybe Saturday during the day and Tuesday if I’m lucky. And no, I don’t know what I’ll be reading if I do. I’ll find something on Overdrive probably from the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Expected highlights from the rest of the month include having a new schedule at the library that gives me one less night to work, thanks to a new coworker, and a series of radio plays that my wife is in the last two weekends of the month. My sister mentioned that her husband’s vacation is in mid-July too so they might come over to visit with their two children, my nephew and niece.

How was your month of June? Favorite book read, movie/TV show/series watched, album listened to? What was the highlight for you? What are you looking forward to in July?