I wanted to show off these awesome cards my mom made recently. She uses rubber stamps, colored pencils, and various card stock and tapes. #LitsyCrafters

My husband had several seizures yesterday (he had a first back in 2019) and is in the ICU last night and tonight to evaluate any further seizure activity.
I spooled these books up earlier this week for #RushathonChristmasBingo, but now I think I'm going to need something a lot lighter to read!

I don't always do crafts to share with #LitsyCrafters, but when I do I usually forget to post them 😆 I'm making a bunch of pumpkins for friend gift baskets this year. They still need sticks to be their stems, and maybe ribbons.

#RushathonChristmasBingo progress! I was already reading two of these books, so it only looks like I'm a speedy reader. I'm hoping to get at least one bingo 😉 since I don't necessarily plan my reading, though, it's probably going to end up being a random scattering of books across the whole card! #RushathonBingo

Toshimitsu continues to examine the verious LGBTQIA experiences of people around him, and whips up even more delicious sounding desserts. I might try to make a few of them. I love recipes in books, especially when they're worked into the main story so smoothly. Used this for food on the cover for #RushathonBingo #lgbtqia #Baking #Manga #RushathonChristmasBingo

As charming, subtly inclusive, and silly as ever. I was extremely delighted to see that I am no longer caught up on Dana's comic! #Unicorn #Comic

A teen plays a somewhat undefined role in the local Yakuza to get money to keep his sick-with-a-vague-alement brother alive while his friend (?) maybe has a crush on him in a world that is vaguely hinted to maybe not be our own. This felt underdeveloped. #manga

This first collection of Our Super Adventure doesn't shine as much as later work. Several of the jokes definitely made me chuckle, but not nearly as many landed as well as more recent comics. It was a lot of fun seeing all the ways that their style has evolved, though! #Comic #Humor

A villainous fox is stripped of his powers and commanded by Amatarasu to guide a young orphaned tanuki in helping gods and spirits. Very cute! I probably will leave the other volumes to the target age group, but I love the concept and this is a fun way to explore Japanese folklore and myrholpgy if you're not familiar with it. #Manga #Tanuki #Mythology

Rhea's project to understand gender on a deeper level and unexpected self-examination is a thoughtful, inclusive look at gender and gender experiences. I loved this insightful book. Rhea approaches the subject matter extremely well. This definitely got me thinking many times. It was interesting to read so many people's experiences paird with Rhea's own reflections. #LGBTQIA #Comic

Joining in one final book bingo this year thanks to @Andrew65 . I'm still finishing the June bonus prompts for #LGBTQ2023, but I figured I can do both 😉

An unexpected bitter-sweet moment in today's reading. Our senior pom Zoey used to sleep with her paws all bundled together like this too. We called it paw/bean boquet. It was very cute to see it in manga form. The fact that Zoey looked a lot like a papillon makes it match up even better. I didn't grab the best paw boquet photo here because her back paw was closer to her nose.

An angsty young lord crushing on his music-tutor-turned-servant navigates the challenges in his dad's expectations and his crush's life trajectory. I wasn't sure what direction this would take given the title and the story starting out in their childhood/teenhood, but it was fine and interesting. The art is lovely, and I enjoyed the story. #Manga #LGBTQIA

Fans of adventure guild manga or of know-it-all confident characters will probably enjoy this lost-in-another-world slice of life manga. I didn't feel like it was anything special, though, and probably won't continue. #Manga #SliceOfLife

Everything continues to slide from bad to worse in this issue. I look forward to the next! #Comics #Magic #LGBTQIA

I really wanted to like this. The art is beautiful, the concept is interesting, and the artist does really fun things with art in the margins. However, the sex scenes don‘t really fit well and are juvenile to the point of awkward and uncomfortable. They kind of felt like someone was so determined to have sex scenes that they blammed them in with a mallet. That‘s coming from someone who regularly reads yaoi and rather looks forward to spicy scenes.

A cute cafe romance love triangle story. I didn't find this particularly memorable, but it was enjoyable. The part with the phone call came out of nowhere to the point I thought it was a misunderstanding setting up a dramatic joke. #LGBTQIA #Manga #Cafe

Take Treasure Island and set it in china, make the main character a strong teen who just wants to be her own person already, and add a famous Chinese pirate and you have a fun read! I love classic retellings. I don't love historical fiction, but this one mostly kept my attention (I zoned out quite a few times and had to rewind, but that's more of a me problem than the book's). #Retelling #Pirates #TreasureIsland #LGBTQIA

A group of kids work under an older man to heal mythical creatures who seem like people but are just treated as animals, but someone's making the kids disappear. The art style is absolutely a treat to look at, but I was lukewarm on the story. The characters are underdeveloped, and their relationships are even less developed and the story tries so hard to make you care about those connections without putting in the building work. #Comics

Loving the detail that their blanket is probably a Tshirt quilt or something similar 😍 #Comic

I own a rediculous number of bookmarks, so naturally what do I do regularly? Fail to put one in the book I'm about to start and resort to literal trash to mark my spot. #Bookmark #BookishProblems

I love nerdy references I find in comics (especially when I know all of the referenced properties!). ♥️ #Comics #Nerdy

Just when I thought this book was winding down, bam! Some hard-hitters. #LGBTQIA #Comics

I kind of wish this was the cover of the book (or at least featured on the cover somewhere). #LGBTQIA #Comics

That's the general space I fit in! #LGBTQIA #Comics

Spotted this while doing some social media for the library and knew I needed to read it. It felt highly accessible for all audiences. I loved the layout, and the side quests giving shout-outs to even more women in gaming. This inclusive book is informative and does a great job looking at women who had many different impacts on gaming. I learned a lot and it really sparked my imagination. #Gaming #Feminist #Inclusive #VideoGames

A charming historic slice of live centering traditional Japanese arts and the struggles of civilian life during WWII. I anticipated this being a very sad story but was pleasantly surprised. The art is absolutely beautiful. #LGBTQIA #Manga #HistoricFiction

I don't think I've ever seen a more perfectly captured lovestruck look in a graphic novel 🥰 These ladies just stopped the interview and looked at each other so lovingly that I paused for a while just melting over the sweetness.

I spotted this in Hoopla and decided to give it a try, anticipating it being a bit terrible. It was a fine read, actually. It didn‘t really stand out, and there were several things that felt a little off, but overall I wouldn‘t not recommend this. I would probably continue on to the second volume when it comes out, if it crossed my path. #LGBTQIA #Vampires #Manga

A sweet developing romance between a star-loving nerd and his star struck classmate. I liked the character exploration and development, and of course enjoyed that they went to watch one of my favorite meteor showers! This also has one of the most tastefully done sex scenes I‘ve seen in a while. #LGBTQIA #Science #Stars #SchoolRomance

I really loved this epic fantasy packed full of earth-based powers, found family, inclusive character design, and tragedy. The 3-character style worked so well. This starts slow, as many epic fantasy do, and has such an interesting payoff as character stories come together. #LGBTQIA #Rocks #EpicFantasy

This was an absolute treat for me! A charming, inclusive fantasy with sci-fi elements, lots of start-of-career uncertainty, self-confidence issues, navigating new relationships, and cafe charm! I would have loved to see more of the aunt‘s baking, but otherwise I adored this. Every page was absolute eye candy and characters‘ emotional strife and growth was intense and rewarding. #Comics #Fantasy #Cozy #Cafe

It was a ton of fun having my first Dracula read spread out throughout the year with emails from Dracula Daily. It was a treat reading “in real time.” I struggle with reading classic books, so this also helped keep me focused and get through the story. I can see why this book was/is popular. Now it has super problematic sexism and ableism (see Renfield, excluding Mina from the action because she‘s a delicate female, and all of the talk about…⬇️

One of my longtime favorite authors, Lynn Flewelling, gave a book blurb on a new publication from one of my recent favorites, David Slayton 😍 I don‘t think I‘ve ever nerded out and fangirled as much as I am right now! Also loving the callback to “skullduggery”, which is emblazoned on one of her books in a callout from another author.

Went to a library communicators conference in Indianapolis this week. It was really a great learning experience! The evening between, I spent some time enjoying a book at the hotel bar. If you‘ve never read a book at a bar, you don‘t know what you‘re missing (unless you don‘t drink, in which case this would be a very skip-able experience!).

Not a pick for me, but it‘s not so-so. I‘ll admit that I just don‘t like dark gothic stories. If you do, maybe give this interesting spin on a vampire story a try. The book eaters and mind eaters concept kept me intrigued enough, and the out of order storytelling was interesting. Check content warnings before diving in. #LGBTQIA #Gothic #Vampires

When a classmate tells her families only have one dad, Riley frets all day about which of her dads she has to choose. A sweet but heartbreaking LGBTQIA+ families snapshot of a picture book. I love the illustrations. #LGBTQIA #PictureBook #Family

A super cute fantasy picture book with engaging page layouts and lots to discover. The story is fairly standard, but I think kids will remember the illustrations and comic-like layout. #PictureBook #Fantasy #Family

This book didn‘t hold my attention. I‘m not the target audience, but read middle grade & YA often. I just didn‘t get into the characters, who‘re surrounded by flat characters like the batty old woman or the sneering musical bad boy. I kept losing focus & realized at 51% that there was a sub plot about a band trying to purchase the inn from the batty old woman that I didn‘t even realize was happening, so I figured I should throw in the towel.

We said goodbye to this sweet, silly, rolley old boy Kovu recently. He's been in my husband‘s family since probably 2004ish. My husband (then in 7th grade) even helped him take his first breaths by rubbing him in a towel when he wasn‘t moving at birth. We absolutely love him and miss him, and are so glad we had such a long life with him (he was 19ish). With the loss of both of our senior poms this year, our house is a little less waggly.

A friendent this to me recently and I definitely loved it. Character growth through exploration and friendship, a compelling setting, social issues, and beautiful art make this an engaging read. #Comics

the colorful spine of this book caught my eye at the library and as soon as I realized it was a cozy mystery featuring a corgi set in Estes Park, CO, I knew I needed to give it a try. It was a pretty standard cozy! I didn't quite buy into the chemistry between our heroin and the officer. I was almost lost early on when the officer gave a "masculine gasp," but the book recovered enough for me to finish. #CozyMystery #Colorado #BookDogs

😏

If you're looking for a dark, witchy sci-fi fantasy centering a strong female protagonist, this might be a pick for you! I enjoyed it but I didn't love it. A few things didn't work for me, especially every characters' insistence that words without set meaning definitely have this one specific random interpretation that doesn't make a ton of sense. That part was just frustrating and was a major plot element. #LGBTQIA #Witchy

I‘d be more concerned about why you wrote “the” two extra times (on a typewriter) during your hesitation 😏

I‘m pretty sure I forgot to do #Roll100 in October, but here‘s my November rolls! I already read Untamed, so it‘s on to Legends and Lattes (which I started recently!) and Children of Blood and Bone! @PuddleJumper

I really enjoy this genre but something that frequently disappoints me is how often we get non consensual situations that then nobody‘s concerned about later. So naturally I‘m loving this blowup in my current read!

I‘ve had my eye on this one for a few years, and a friend recently lent it to me because she loves it. It was fun seeing the way that Nimoma‘s chaotic energy helped or overshot Blackhart‘s plans, as well as how Blackhart‘s supervillain status began and the ways he ran with it. It wasn‘t a wow-me book but it was such a fun read! #LGBTQIA #Fantasy #Shapeshifter #Comic

This is described as a memoir, so I had to manage my expectations while reading when it turned out to be a collection of essays instead. Glennon shares a lot of personal stories and encourages other people struggling or dealing with difficult situations to keep going. Her essays are thoughtful, reflective, and aware. I read this a few months ago, and am having trouble remembering more about my initial impressions. #LGBTQIA #Nonfiction

Not a pick for me because this action genre CIA-agent-protects-and-accidentally-falls-for-presidents didn‘t work for me, but not a so-so book. I thought the characters were interesting and their conflict was explored well. For action fans, I think the action scenes will definitely appeal but I kept finding everything a bit over the top (which this genre often is!). #LGBTQIA #Action