Pushing Forward Back June/July 2019

June flew right out of the gate, as predicted, and never let up until this weekend. The first week started with a bang: work on the first Saturday, my first physical therapy session for a bruised left knee on that first Monday.

The second weekend, my wife Kim and I got away as we went on a self-guided two-day wine tour of Seneca Lake in upstate New York, as planned, in celebration of my 50th birthday on Sunday. The second week, I also was approved for for an MRI that I got at the start of of the third week. The MRI was negative for a torn meniscus, but I have a frayed meniscus and bad osteoarthritis for which I already got a cortisone injection and might be getting a gel injection in a couple of weeks when I have a follow-up appointment.

The fourth weekend, on Saturday, I worked, but then on Sunday, I visited my mother and father, the latter of which I went with to a car and plane museum, also with my 12-year-old nephew.

This weekend, I plan on chilling both days, maybe going to a nearby town for the birthday breakfast on Saturday I had planned to start off the month with but then had to cancel because I was scheduled to work at the library. Update: I did go out for breakfast Saturday morning. I also forgot until I read my last Pushing Forward Back post (did I reference that yet? hmmm) that I also planned on starting Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, another of my all-time favorite collections of poetry. So I’ll still do that as I thought, and still think, it would be good to celebrate America with the Fourth of July coming up this week.

AND lest I forget, I promised a giveaway of books at the end of my birthday month. I am doing that today from midnight today, Sunday, June 30, 2019, to 11:59 a.m. tonight, Eastern Daylight Time. Go to this post to find out how to enter for the giveaway. I am posting it at the same time as this one.

As for what books I finished this month, I read Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport and Ratking by Michael Dibdin. Both were okay, with Ratking being the better of the two. On the TV/movie side of things, the best thing we watched all month was Springsteen on Broadway, available on Netflix. Music-wise, the best music I heard all month was Prince’s Originals, a mostly previously unreleased collection of songs he wrote for others.

If you’re skimming this, the short takeaway from June is this: My wife and I celebrated my 50th birthday with a wine trip and visiting with my mom and dad, my MRI turned out negative for a torn meniscus, and I read two books.

AND GIVEAWAY!

July begins sort of oddly as I work the first three days, have a day off (thank you to our Founding Fathers), then work Friday before having off again for the weekend. I thought about trying to take off Friday, but a coworker beat me to the punch and got that day off. However, I’m not sad as she does a lot and deserves the time off and I had a long weekend for my birthday in June.

The rest of the month work-wise settles into a routine of six days in a row, as I work the two middle Saturdays, the 13th and 20th. Lest you feel too badly for me, I don’t work eight hours any day, with some as little as 4 and 1/2 hours…

So in other words, I’ll have time to read as many books, watch as much TV and movies, and listen to as much music as I want.

Reading: In June, I planned on finishing the All Creatures Great and Small series by James Herriot, with The Lord God Made Them All and Every Living Thing. I also planned on reading All of Us: The Collected Poems by Raymond Carver, one of my all-time favorite collections of poetry. But as with a lot of things in June, those didn’t happen, so I’m putting on hold (figuratively, not literally) the Herriot series until later in the year and yet still plan on reading the Carver collection over this coming month. Other than that, the only thing on my radar is the second Aurelio Zen mystery by Michael Dibdin, Vendetta, since I enjoyed the first one.

Watching: In July, Kim and I only have one major thing we want to watch together: the third season of Stranger Things. Other than that, I am interested in seeing Spider-Man: Far From Home, The Lion King, and Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, although really with my working two Saturdays this month, I might only get to one of the trio in the theater. On the minor front, we’re looking forward to watching the second half of the sixth season of Drunk History.

Listening: Just doing a quick search online, I only found one album that I’m really looking forward to: EGOLI by Africa Express. The group is “a UK based non-profit organization which facilitates cross-cultural collaborations between musicians in African, Middle Eastern, and Western countries” and was started by Blur and Gorillaz lead singer Damon Albarn and journalist Ian Birrell. I loved their album, Terry Riley in C Mali, and am very much looking forward to this one:

If you’re skimming this, the short takeaway for July is I plan on reading poetry, watching Stranger Things, Season 3, with my wife, and listening to cool world music.

How was your month of June? Read any good books, seen any good movies and/or TV shows, listened to any good music? What was the highlight of your month? What are you most looking forward to in July? Share in the comments.

Pushing Forward Back May/June 2019

May overall went as planned. At the beginning of the month, I watched Avengers: Endgame (awesome send-off) and got a new lawnmower; mid-month, my wife and I watched the end of Game of Thrones (a not-so-awesome sendoff BUT, in my wife’s and my opinion, overall a satisfying conclusion even if extremely rushed to get there) and now here at the end of the month, I am in the midst of a long holiday weekend. Initially, it was going to be a three-day weekend, but now it’s a FOUR-day weekend so I’m not complaining, y’all.

I am drafting this on Friday night, probably will publish this Saturday morning, and then settle in for the four-day holiday weekend, mostly with reading. I am continuing to read, and obviously enjoy, the All Creatures Great and Small series by James Herriot. I finished All Things Wise and Wonderful, the third book in the U.S. version of the series, earlier in the month and now am starting The Lord God Made Them All.

In addition to my regular Sunday Salon posts here on the blog, my wife and I also talked TV in back-to-back What We’re Watching Wednesday posts, first, my picks for short season shows and then her picks for short season shows. We also shared our favorite Mother’s Day movies.

June, which includes my 50th birthday on June 9, starts right out of the gate, almost in a gallop toward my birthday. Bang! First day of the month, June 1, I work at the library. Bang! First day of the first week, June 3, I have my first physical therapy session for my bruised left knee (since the end of March) at 9 a.m. Bang! Second day of the first week, June 4, I have an afternoon appointment with an orthopedic specialist to make sure the bruise isn’t something worse. I have been doing exercises as prescribed by a physical therapist who gave me an initial assessment too. He and my nurse practitioner believe it is a minor sprain and strain.

I had planned to go out for breakfast on June 1 to kick-start my birthday month, but then I was asked to work. At least, it’s starting with books ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . It’s not all bad. Plus I have no doubt that I will be reading June 2, probably starting the final book in the Herriot series, Every Living Thing.

The highlight of the month comes the second weekend with Smokin’ Summer Kickoff on the Seneca Lake Wine Trail. The self-guided tour of 22 participating wineries includes a pairing of wine and food over three days, June 7 through June 9. We already have our tickets and will be visiting as many wineries as we can on Saturday and Sunday since I work Friday and we won’t be able to get up there until Saturday. I will share more of my plans for my birthday weekend at the start of that weekend.

The weekend after my birthday is Father’s Day, and I plan to get together with my father sometime over the weekend, even if it isn’t Sunday. I’m not sure yet if I might have to work yet on Sunday since our library added Sunday hours in April and there still (last I knew) a need for someone to work that Sunday. I’m also not sure what yet what we’ll do or if I’ll just go over to my parents’ house to visit with them both or if he and I will do something on our own or with my sister and her family too on Saturday.

In addition to planning on finishing the Herriot series, I will be having a book giveaway here on the blog. I plan on starting the giveaway on the day of my birthday and running until the end of the week? two weeks? month? I haven’t decided yet how long, or how exactly how I’ll do it, but I do have a pile of books ready to go. I also want to delve into All of Us: The Collected Poems by Raymond Carver, one of my all-time favorite collections of poetry, and on the last Sunday of the month, I plan on starting Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, another of my all-time favorite collections of poetry. I thought it would be good to celebrate America with the Fourth of July coming up that following week.

I’ll leave you with my favorite song of the month, from possibly my favorite album of the month:

How was your month of May? Read any good books, seen any good movies and/or TV shows, listened to any good music? What was the highlight of your month? What are you looking forward to in June? Share in the comments.

Pushing Forward Back April/May 2019

The books I read for April 2019, the special breakfasts I had, the “stuff” we got rid of during our town’s Spring Cleanup Week, the movie we watched (Bumblebee) that was a pleasant surprise in a franchise we despise.

April started out with car and doctors’ appointments back-to-back for both me and my wife and then her 49th birthday the first Saturday. We didn’t go to my usual breakfast place for brunch in a neighboring town, but went to a restaurant in our town, with my parents, sister, nephew, and niece surprising my wife there. The food was very good and the company too. Later in the day, we got together with neighbors to play 500 Rummy, with my wife appropriately winning in her first ever win with the neighbors, who are hardcore cardplayers.

Then the month went a little haywire for the next two weeks as I was, and still am, dealing with a badly bruised left knee. After some miscommunication (some admittedly caused by me) and bad customer service experiences at our local health center, I am getting the knee addressed. An X-ray was negative for broken bones, I was given a two week dose of prednisone, and this past week I had an initial assessment at physical therapy. Based on that evaluation, minor injury and probably not anything torn, I was given exercises to do at home and then check in with my primary in six weeks unless it gets worse before then.

The third weekend was a long weekend for me as I took Good Friday off, ostensibly to go to a Good Friday service, but in reality I didn’t. I stayed home and finished Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor, which I had been reading for Lent, and started All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot that I plan on finishing this weekend. Then last Saturday, my plan was to continue my impromptu Easter Triduum Readathon, but I didn’t read at all as the weather, which was supposed to be rainy all or most of the day, took a turn to being nice.

I literally got out of town, went to breakfast at my aforementioned usual breakfast place in a neighboring town, happened upon an Earth Day event in the town’s park, and then came home to put mulch on the side of a driveway we share with a neighbor, much of my energy thanks to the prednisone I was taking. Also thanks to the energy, I ended the month doing a little extra cleaning around the house, including organizing a book shelf.

Books I want to read or reread over the next few months.

May begins with our buying a new lawnmower and then my first mow of the season, which I usually dread, but might dread (and hate) less (slightly less) than normal now with the new mower. Winter is finally over and spring is here – at least in reality. In fake world, winter is still going until at least mid-May with the final season of Game of Thrones, which we are watching and enjoying so far.

Otherwise mid-May should be uneventful for us, leaving me time to adjusting new daily routines that I’ve been attempting to develop in light of my wife and I “giving up” Facebook in March. Since last fall when I started using a CPAP machine, my daily routines already have been changing. Thanks to actually getting rest, I usually now get up earlier than I did, meaning I have more time to do more things than I did before. Those things include reading and walking, especially as my knee improves.

May ends with a three-day holiday weekend, and even though I work on the Tuesday after it, the library where I work is closed that day for staff to work on a few projects we couldn’t otherwise. So basically it will be a four-day break from patrons, which although their presence obviously means job security, it is nice for an introvert like myself to be able to have a chance to breathe without all the extra people…

…bringing me back to my One Word for 2019:

How was your month of April? Read any good books, seen any good movies and/or TV shows, listened to any good music? What was the highlight of your month? What are you looking forward to in May? Share in the comments.

This post is part of The Sunday Salon, that was created in 2007 to spark conversations about books and book-ish things. It now can be found each weekend at the blog Readerbuzz, where you also can post a link to your blog.

Pushing Forward Back March/April 2019

March began with a decision the first weekend to read what I wanted and then continued with a decision the second weekend that what I wanted to read were my own books for a reading challenge. By the third weekend, I had One Foot in the Grave, but I was still reading, and by the fourth weekend, I had received bookmail from a fellow Sunday Saloner. I haven’t read that book yet, but I did read Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J. Sullivan and The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle, for the reading challenge.

March also began with simple plans for Lent, the first of which included a vacation day for Ash Wednesday that I took and that I am bookending with a vacation day on Good Friday in mid-April. Another plan was to read Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor, which I am reading during the Sundays of Lent.

Other things that happened during the month were:

My wife and I ditched Facebook (no link, no blog post…yet).
I changed my blog theme (visit my blog on a browser to see the new theme).
I started a new pay week tradition (every two weeks) of going to a restaurant in a nearby town for breakfast on Saturdays or Fridays, depending on when I work on a Saturday.
I attempted to start a new routine for mornings and evenings during the week to cut down on screentime and be able to read more on weeknights.
My wife and I hung a few framed photographs, prints, and local artwork on the walls in our living room.
My wife and I got tickets for a wine event on Seneca Lake, one of the Finger Lakes in New York, on the weekend of my birthday and booking a room at a bed and breakfast nearby for the Saturday night before my birthday.
My wife and I watched Can You Ever Forgive Me?, which we both thought was a little slow to start, but picked up, especially toward the end.

April begins with big changes, starting with an oil change (get it?) this Tuesday and new hours for the weekend at the library where I work. We are adding Sunday hours and modifying Saturday hours to match the Sunday hours. That all begins this coming weekend. Also on Saturday, my wife turns 49 (she gave me permission to tell…“I don’t care…own your age…I always hated that ‘tee-hee, I’m turning 29’…Don’t be a little bitch about getting older.”). We are going out for brunch (yes, that restaurant in the nearby town) and getting together with neighbors to play 500 Rummy.

On the reading front, I am giving up on the aforementioned reading challenge (when am I going to learn that I suck at reading challenges and readalongs and the such?) because I really do like reading not only what I want but also when I want. That said, I was glad to read the two books I did for the challenge: the first, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, because I did eventually want to read it, and the second, The Uninivited, because I wanted to read it especially since my friend John highly recommended it to me. It was good and I think if you liked the movie Rebecca or the book (which I haven’t read) that you’d like it. A movie also was made of it, that I need to find. I also want to thank Anne of the blog My Head is Full of Books for having the challenge and I wish her and the other participants the best of success on the challenge.

As for the rest of the month, I have two back-to-back (week) Fridays off in April, that includes the aforementioned Good Friday off, so I plan to put those two Fridays to good use:

The second Friday of the month, I will be putting out stuff for “cleanup week,” a bi-annual tradition in our town, spring and fall during which townsfolk put out stuff they don’t want or sell it in yard sales before it gets taken to the landfill. We are getting rid of a few chairs that we don’t use, including some kitchen table chairs that we plan to replace with a more comfortable chair in which I can sit when I read my Sunday Salon posts Sunday mornings.
The third Friday of the month, I plan on going to church in the afternoon for Good Friday services.

I am working two Saturdays this month, but because of the aforementioned change in schedule for Saturdays, they won’t be as long of days as they used to be, so I’ll have time to blog more…

…speaking of blogs, if you ever wondered how they get started, here you go:

How was your month of March? Read any good books, seen any good movies and/or TV shows, listened to any good music? What was the highlight of your month? What are you looking forward to in April? Share in the comments.