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.

Our Top 10 Favorite TV Shows/Movies of 2017

Yesterday, I gave you My Top 15 Albums of 2017; today, my wife Kim and I give you Our Top 10 Favorite TV Shows/Movies of 2017; and tomorrow, I give you My Top 5 Books Read in 2017.

I’ll start with four of my favorite TV shows and movies, then have Kim give you her four favorite TV shows, then end with one TV show and movie from both of us.

Mine

Narcos: Kim discovered this before me and kept telling me I needed to watch it. Finally, over the Thanksgiving weekend, I caved and I love it. I’ve already finished Season 1 and am set to begin Season 2.

Mindhunter: I knew from the trailer that I’d probably like this one, because I like Criminal Minds and I was right. What surprised me is that Kim actually liked it too.

Baby Driver: Yes, let’s get this out of the way now, Kevin Spacey is in this, but he’s not the reason to watch this one. The music is the main reason to watch this one; the action is another. Personally, from someone who has tinnitus, I also liked how it was included in the story of the main character.

Logan Lucky: Like Baby Driver, this is a heist movie too, but with director Steven Soderbergh more like his Ocean’s Eleven movies. It also was fun to see Daniel Craig and Adam Driver in the role of rednecks.

Hers

GLOW

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Dear White People: Watch this show. Have a discussion. Watch it again. Talk and listen. Mostly listen. Don’t let anyone who hasn’t seen it or whose back is up about it tell you what it’s about. Listen until you hear something you needed to understand. – Kim

Master of None: This show is like that delicious foreign film you want everyone to sit down and watch and you are frustrated because most of them won’t and they are missing out. It is beautiful. Aziz Ansari learned Italian for you. Watch his show. – Kim

Ours

Game of Thrones: I only read the first book in the series and made it through about a quarter of the second before giving up. I wasn’t that interested in the series, plus we don’t have HBO. However, when our library director started getting the series on DVD and a couple of coworkers started watching it and saying how good it was, we finally caved…and we fell hard. We binge-watched the first six seasons and then couldn’t wait for the seventh season to come out on DVD so we bought it on streaming.

The Big Sick:

What were your favorite TV shows/movies from this year? Share in the comments or with your own blog post, if you like.

#AMonthofFaves: Our Favorite Book to TV Adaptations

I’m joining hosts Girlxoxo, Traveling with T, and Estella’s Revenge for their 4th annual #AMonthofFaves blog event – “a fun way to recap the year that was” – during the month of December. Today’s topic is “Favorite Book to TV or Movie Adaptations” from this year.

My (and my wife’s) favorite, without any question was, and is:

I only read the first book in the series and made it through about a quarter of the second before giving up. I wasn’t that interested in the series, plus we don’t have HBO. However, when our library director started getting the series on DVD and a couple of coworkers started watching it and saying how good it was, we finally caved…and we fell hard. We binge-watched the first six seasons and then couldn’t wait for the seventh season to come out on DVD so we bought it on streaming.

Honorable Mention

I haven’t read the book by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker…yet, but I did buy an ebook copy that I hope to get to in the new year. My wife and I both enjoyed Season 1 of the Netflix Original series, and we look forward to seeing the second.

What were/are some of your favorite book to TV or movie adaptations from this year?

Pushing Forward Back: October/November 2017

In October, I dressed up for Halloween at the library where I work, we bought a new painting to go on an empty wall, we finished Game of Thrones, and I participated in Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon.

October was similar to September in that I had another three-day weekend and Kim and I were watching Game of Thrones. We decided we couldn’t wait until December for Season 7 to come out on DVD, so we bought it on streaming instead. Now we just have to wait until next year or the year after for the final season. The highlight on the reading front was definitely Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon on Saturday, Oct. 21. I read four and three quarters book in just over eight hours:

Wonderstruck: A Novel in Words and Pictures by Brian Selznick
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

And the one I was still reading at the end of the day was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I finally finished it earlier this week. Out of the five, my favorite was The Graveyard Book, which was a reread. I loved the writing in The Book Thief, but was less than enamored with the story itself. For me, it went on a bit too long.

Pushing Forward

Unlike the last couple of months where I had a long weekend toward the beginning of the months, this coming month I have a long weekend to end the month. I have off work from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving until that Sunday. As with other Thanksgivings, I plan on participating in Thankfully Reading Weekend. As with last month’s readathon, I have no ideas yet what I will be reading.

As for TV, I’m looking forward to this, on Netflix:

For me

And Kim and I both are looking forward to this, on Amazon Prime (we already watched the first one and loved it):

What were the highlights for you for October? What are you looking forward to in November?