Month in Review: April ’23

Welcome to the latest month in review post I’ve ever written! I’ve had too much to do! Happy Eastertide to those who celebrate, He is risen, He is risen indeed, alleluia.

Reading

Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn (4 stars) Kate Clayborn has become one of my go-to authors, and this novel about identity in a small town was another solid entry.

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas (4.5 stars) My friend Melanie, who introduced me to the ACOTAR series, recommended I read the Throne of Glass books next. However, I saw on #bookstagram that the Crescent City series is about to cross over with ACOTAR, so I decided to prioritize that one. This series is about Bryce, a half-human half-Fae woman who has traumatically lost her best friend, and Hunt, a rebel angel enslaved to the Archangel of Crescent City. As I saw someone say on Goodreads, skim over the info dump at the beginning and eventually it’ll all make sense. The last section has some fantastic twists and reveals. I think this would make a great Buffy-esque TV series.

Local by Jessica Machado (3.5 stars) A memoir about growing up in Hawaii.

Poster Girl by Veronica Roth (4 stars) In this dystopia, the youngest members of a fallen regime are imprisoned in a small neighborhood. Sonya, the only surviving member of her family, is given a chance at freedom if she can locate a missing girl. Overtones of The Giver and some aspects of the Uglies series.

Manacled by SenLinYu (3.5 stars) I haven’t read any Harry Potter fanfic in like a decade, but I happened upon a TikTok about this and was curious. Before I knew it, I had read the whole thing in less than 24 hours. It’s basically Handmaid’s Tale meets Harry Potter with a splash of ACOTAR, and it is DARK dark. Super bleak and many trigger warnings. Do I recommend it? I don’t know. But it was compelling.

Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships by Nedra Glover Tawwab (4.5 stars) Dr. Tawwab’s last book about boundaries was pretty good, but I kept thinking, how are you supposed to set these boundaries with your family? Enter this new release. I recommend it for most of us.

The Life Council: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs by Laura Tremaine (4 stars) Like many of Laura’s other followers, I worried that this book would make me feel bad/sad about the state of my friendships. But it was a fun read and got me thinking about where different friends fit in my life.

Listening

Lots of jams this month:

this new album is going to be FIRE!!

Great podcast episodes: Gee Thanks Just Bought It, Planner Influencing; Stuff You Should Know, Some Nutso Fan Theories; Pantsuit Politics, Nashville: Heartbreak, Exhaustion, and Responsibility; and all of Forever 35’s Product Recall episodes, but especially Love’s Baby Soft and Scrunchies.

Watching

I’ve mentioned before that I just don’t have time to watch things. Reading takes priority. In the evenings I go to sit with Taylor in the living room, because otherwise we would have no time together (during the week anyway). We watch sports or whatever he’s watching, and I do crosswords (which seems to be an important process for my brain). One night this month, when he was at his brother’s, I did squeeze in the first episode of The Power. It was good. Will I ever see the rest of it? Who knows. Other shows I would love to see: The Wheel of Time, Cheer season 2, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Yellowjackets, Tiny Beautiful Things, Bad Sisters, Daisy Jones and the Six, etc etc etc. Oh well.

Travel

C and I went to Alabama for my first niece’s 11th birthday. 11!!! She had a small party at an indoor pool, and then the littlest cousins played together adorably in the yard.

Around Town

Picture it: Memphis, Memphis (we don’t claim Tennessee), April 2023. First round of the playoffs, a season we look forward to as a city all year. Not thrilled to have drawn the Lakers, but at least it wasn’t the Warriors. Taylor and I got to attend Game 1 together. Grizzlies did not perform well. Game 1 was an L.

Game 2. Taylor went with his mom, and I stayed home with C and watched on TV. The Grizz were dominant in this game and won by 10. It was worth staying home to see this moment of joy on the faces of our beloved announcers, Pete and Brevin, when the first Whoop That Trick of the playoffs broke out.

Off went the Grizz to LA. Game 3 was so bad that I could hardly believe it was happening. Game 4 was closer, but still lost again. Back to Memphis where the Lakers expected to end the series. My dad watched C so I could attend Game 5. It was a DECISIVE win.

Back to LA again… and the Grizzlies lost the series in Game 6. We all expected to make a run this year, so it was a huge disappointment. The only positive is not having to stay up until midnight for any more West Coast games (when we make it multiple rounds, it gets exhausting). I will say that if Steven Adams had been healthy, I don’t think we would have lost. We needed Stevo!! Hopefully next year the stars will align better. I was fully behind the Kings once we were out, but sadly they’ve now lost too.

In non-Grizzlies news, my SIL took me to see Lizzo!! She was fantastic. What a queen. I felt like the atmosphere was a great warmup for Taylor Swift this weekend!! Lots of great outfits and positive vibes.

Also, someone finally bought my favorite downtown building, the Sterick Building. It’s been sitting abandoned for decades. So excited for the restoration!

At Home

We (mostly Taylor) are continuing to get the backyard into shape. We sort of let everything grow wild on this side of the yard, and this beautiful flowering shrub appeared! I guess in past years I thought it was a weed and cut it off.

Wearing

I spent hours in April shopping online for the perfect Taylor Swift Eras Tour outfit. I’m talking so many hours. I wanted to feel good about and in my clothes, and nothing I saw on TikTok felt right for me, a 43-year-old slightly overweight mom. I ordered items from Poshmark, then had to cancel and go in another direction when they didn’t ship. Thankfully, the bejeweled tank top I finally settled on arrived in time! For those of you going later, please enjoy this Amazon list I assembled of Eras Tour Outfits for Grownups.

Beauty

My love of Colourpop continues to grow. I just got their Blush Stix in 25/8, and of all the mascaras I’ve tried in the last year or so, I’ve been reaching for their Act Natural mascara the most. Also, a couple of skincare products I’m liking: Benefit the Porefessional Good Cleanup (via Ipsy) and Eczema Honey Multi-Peptide Eye Cream (my undereye eczema patches are on vacation!).

Wellness

The Back Diaries: In March I got a branch block in my lower back to treat my herniated disks. Right away, I felt lighter. I could fall asleep without discomfort. I didn’t have to take a bunch of Advil. I could get down on the floor to play with C and get up again without pain. It was a miracle! Unfortunately, it started to slowly wear off last week. I had my follow-up with my doctor, and we’re going to see if meds help before scheduling me for another injection.

I didn’t think there were any new types of tired for me to discover, but I’ve been intensely exhausted the last couple of weeks. Like brain fog, sleepwalk-y, “I take a nap right here” tired. It’s easing up, but even really unhealthy quantities of caffeine didn’t help.

Random Happiness

My middle-school BFF Amy comes to town about twice a year, and we always get together. We witnessed this beautiful double rainbow while we had dinner. It had been a while since I’d seen one!

I’d been thinking about getting some good stickers for my new car, and then Taylor encouraged me to do so. After much consideration, I got the two below. Unfortunately “you’re doing amazing” is already fading and running, so maybe it wasn’t made for the outdoors.

Little Boy Update

April brought a huge, long-awaited milestone: C started at a real preschool! A school with lesson plans and a playground and everything! We’d been on several waiting lists since I was pregnant. He’d been at a nearby daycare since he turned one, but time went by and he was still in the baby room instead of with kids his own age. Around the new year, I frustratedly sent out another batch of applications. Only a few months later, one of the schools called and had a spot for him! It is a WONDERFUL place and we’re so happy for him to go there. We now have real long-term stability for the first time since C was born.

Before he started at his new school, my parents watched C for two weeks. They all had a fantastic time. My mom took him to a new park every day! He’s still adjusting to going to school instead of with Sha Sha. My parents just travel too much for it to be a permanent thing, plus he needs to be around other kids.

C also attended his first Easter egg hunt at our church! At first he was confused, then tried to put the eggs back after putting them in his basket (because he loves to dump things out and then put them away), but he got the hang of it by the end.