Pushing Forward Back: July/August 2017

June 2017 was the month of 48 as I turned 48 on June 9 and celebrated accordingly as I mentioned last month. This past month, July 2017, I celebrated the Fourth of July with family and neighbors and then neglected reading and this blog despite signing up for the 24in48 Readathon. I did have high hopes for the readathon, but they were dashed when my wife and I started watching an Icelandic series on Amazon:

As of this morning, as I’m drafting this, I have finished zero books for this month, but I am reading one: Dark Water, the sixth in the Makanna Investigation series, by Parker Bilal, the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub, a British-Sudanese author. I have read the other five and it is one of the few series that I actually purchase a copy of the ebook each time. This latest one, so far, is just as good as the others.

The obvious choice for album of the month should be Jay-Z’s 4:44, released early in the month, but it hasn’t caught my ears, at least not yet. Instead, two new electronic albums have been buzzing in my ears:

The highlight of the month was, as mentioned above:

Another highlight, a close second, was seeing my wife in a series of radio plays put on by a local theater troupe (sadly, not pictured).

Forward to August

This coming month starts off with a trip to the Corning Museum of Glass with my mother this Friday. Her birthday is Thursday. My father, sister, and her two children are joining us.

Reading-wise, I just hope to read something…anything. As has been my custom when I take out too many books from the library and don’t read any of them, I am returning all of them and starting fresh: choosing and reading one by one.

Expected highlights from the rest of the month include our library holding an open house Sunday, Aug. 13 for its centennial and my having only to work one Friday for August. I am taking a vacation day this Friday and then the next two Fridays I’m not working because I’m working those Saturdays. Our director doesn’t like me working for six days straight so she gives me a day off before I work Saturdays, which is OK with me, because for some odd reason (don’t know exactly why) I am not a fan of Fridays at our library.

Last but not least I’m looking forward to this, dropping on Netflix on August 18, one of the Fridays I’m off:

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