It's officially butternut squash soup season

Happy Sunday! This sounds like such a fun concept. I look forward to diving in. 🤓

Haven't cried over a book like this in a while

Can you guess who I chose to research for my children's illustrator biography assignment? 🤓

I gave myself one day to read this before it's due back at the library. ? I just spent 6 hours grading 8th grade writing, so I'm very excited to have some "me time" for the rest of the night.

Not even through with the prologue and I'm already emotional

I love that I *typically* read dark books, but this is my favorites shelf...

I scanned the book section at Goodwill twice before this one just popped out at me right on top of the shelf. I'm now completely sucked into reading it, and now I'm only looking up when the Huskers score (which is actually a lot tonight!)

I'm reading this one for school and the concept is so intriguing. Earth is dying and a group of people are sent to colonize a new planet. Only one remembers Earth and she is in charge of telling its stories.

Top row: books that I've had on hold FOREVER.
Bottom row: this week's assigned reading for my Materials for Youth class. 🤓

I did not think I'd love this book as much as I do. It's just perfect for day one of the first -ber month of the season. I'm ready for crunchy leaves, chunky sweaters, and pumpkin everything. 🍂

(📸: somanybooks blog)

You can tell what day I went back to the classroom. 😂

Picked this one up today! I'm laughing at the Abby Jimenez references since I literally just finished her book.

Abby Jimenez is just sooooo good every time

Pinch me! I swear I just graduated, and now I'm a 5th year teacher. Happy first day back for many of you Litsy teachers whether it's today, already happened, or coming up soon! 👩‍🏫📚🤍

Update: our power is back on! We were in the dark for 37 hours during which time our house reached 91 degrees on the top floor. I'm very grateful to not have to sleep in that again, because we were seriously considering going to a hotel.

Thank you to everyone who sent well wishes! I was kind of spying on the linemen as they worked, and it looked like they had to entirely rebuild a pole, right next to where the fire was. Very thankful for them!

Okay, so this is weird right? I decided to start up my booktok again with a slideshow of books that I read over summer. Two of my slides have blurred text: one where I say "enslaved people", and the other "Toni Morrison". The rest show up crystal clear. TikTok censorship is so racist, which like duh, but damn.

32 hours without power. I know they're working hard, but I'm starting to feel a little forgotten about. My neighbors across the street have power, but the block on my side of the street all do not. I've reported 3x via phone and online, and do not see our address on the outage map. Doing my best to not let the dogs overheat & crossing my fingers this passes before I have to go back to work tomorrow and leave them alone all day.

13+ hours without power. Reading by lantern light now.🕯 Crews from neighboring counties came to help out, but it looks like we're probably out of luck until tomorrow night at least.

We're going on 9 hours without power and it's starting to get hottt in the house. I took a walk down to the little free library on the corner and saw this. There's downed trees all over town. Thankfully we just had our scary tree out front taken out less than two weeks ago, because this was a "200 year storm" with very little warning. No damage to us, but our neighbors had a tree fire from some downed lines. It'll be a while before we have power.

I interrupt your book scrolling to show you this sunbathing ween. That is all, carry on. 🐶📚🤍

Oops, I was supposed to have an early night tonight because tomorrow because I go back to school tomorrow, but this book is toooo good. It was recommended by a good friend of mine who knows my taste in reading. I'm excited to figure out what the twist is. 🧐

Library haul! I borrowed All Boys & Rock, Paper, Scissors. The rest came from their book nook. 😍

It's a weirdly chilly day for August! I've got a fuzzy blanket, a hot cuppa, and a stack of books to rotate through this morning.

Last night, some friends and I went to see Rainbow Kitten Surprise. They were sooo good live, I'm still dancing just thinking about their set. 💃

Well, I can now say for myself that I do not think Fredia McFadden is worth the hype...

Another month where I primarily went for books that were emotional, reflective, and dark. 😂

July was likely my last good reading month for the year. I go back to school on Tuesday to set up, and I have kids in class next Wednesday. At that point, the brain goes into teacher mode and I just cannot find the time or energy for this much pleasure reading. I'll keep trying, though.

This one is starting off very strong!

Today's book haul from the library sale! I tried to set it all out so I could see everything at once, but it took up our entire dining table. 😅📚

Ahh, the controlled chaos of our living room on any given night.
📚📖🐶☕️

And of course, I perused the book nook and came away with a good haul from there as well. 🤓📚

Mid-week library trip! I don't remember who recommended the top one to me. I had to see what the Freida McFadden hype was about, and Orbital is the first book is Stephen Colbert's book club. I'm still so upset about his show being canceled.

Getting a bit of a late start to my reading morning. My husband and I slept in & took our time getting up. We finally decide to take the dogs out and within 2 minutes, a minivan come speeding up the side street near our house, flips, and plows into the old folks home across the street from us. We saw the whole thing & have been talking to officers & neighbors all morning. It's a very active street, thankfully nobody was hurt. Driver was drunk. 😳

This was definitely...strange. I wanted to like it more than I did. It got very tedious and unbelievable, and I found it hard to finish. That said, I was really interested in the idea of the drawings mixed into the storyline. The amount of charts and tables as the book went on got a bit annoying to deal with, though.

Today's library haul!

I picked up this book to get some new ideas for the upcoming school year. It has some good advice and tips that I plan to implement, but when I Googled the author to find his Pengiun blog, I found that he was fired from his district for old allegations of sexual misconduct. He started a class action suit against the district for firing teachers who were close to retirement to save on benefits, but that's kind of leaving me with a bad taste now. 😐

I picked up this book because I follow the author on TikTok for her cult education series, but I had no idea she'd survived years of abuse in Children of God under David Berg. This book gets into all the nitty gritty details, so all the trigger warnings if you choose to pick it up.

She's on TikTok as knitting.cult.lady if anyone is interested in that!

I got two more bookshelves set up and thought it would be enough to hold all of my books that have been on the floor or double-stacked...nope. The rest of the living room is a hot mess. Low key, I think I started hoarding books even more since the current regime took over because part of me is scared of them becoming unavailable. So, no regrets, I love my collection, I just need even more shelves now...

Sent husband to store for bread with dinner, he comes back with maple donuts too. Not mad about it. 🤤

Since moving to Nebraska, I've heard a lot about Willa Cather. It's taken me this long to pick up a book of hers and I'm pleasantly surprised by how well-written and enjoyable it was to read.

Also, I finished building my wall of book cases in the dining room! Ignore the unfinished wall. We STILL haven't decided on a paint color for the room and I know the consequence is having to move all these shelves again. 😐

Here are the books that I bought from the book nook! 📚🤍

Today's library haul! I guess I'm in the mood for short stories and empathetic AI bots. 😂

I'm looking forward to this one. In June, Lucas and I found ourselves in Salem, MA and he asked if I wanted to check out a psychic on some random street corner that we walked past. I told him there was no way because I'd put too much stock into whatever they told me, good or bad. I'd 100% become Frances from this book who is told she'll be murdered then spends the next 60 years taking notes on anyone she meets just in case they kill her. 😅😂

This is such a gorgeous book. I melted a little when Rin said they crafted a harp from the space between seven stars and wove the strings from their lights for Esther. Like WHAT?! 🫠

This was a beautifully illustrated memoir that dives into the reality of living in a world that was created without you in mind. A world that doesn't care to understand or accommodate your pain in a way that makes any sense at all. The wonderful feeling when you're surrounded by people who help lift the burden and discover life's small joys with you.

Today has been a so good. I saw my friend at her farmer's market stand and got some lovely produce. My district's surplus building just happened to have the exact classroom furniture I wanted. The parking meter outside the library had an hour left when I pulled up. The 2nd & 3rd Murderbot books were ready for me even though I checked this morning and had a week left on the hold. The crazy part is, I almost didn't want to leave the house today. ☀️

I love a good, world-view-expanding book of essays, and this is one that I can't believe I haven't picked up yet. Every time I finish an essay, I go listen to the album or artist he wrote about.

This is such a surprisingly sweet story told by Murderbot, a Security Unit who hacked his own system so he could no longer be a killer. He just wants to be left alone to watch his soap operas until shit hits the fan on a distant, unmapped planet. How far will he go to protect his humans and not repeat past mistakes all while maintaining his cover?

I'm already eagerly waiting the next books from the library! 🤓

This week's library haul! Starting with All Systems Red 🤖