Joined a Book Club!

I have recently joined a book club.  And I do mean recently!  Though I joined the online group (to find out what to read) at the end of last year, yesterday was the first meeting that I could attend. 

We meet monthly, reading 2 books each month, and meet in the local pub to discuss and chat.  This is right up my alley!  December's books (which I will get around to reviewing eventually) were The Christmas Bookshop and Falling, both of which were a really good read in their respective genres.

This month we are going to read Pride and Prejudice (which I have already read and probably won't reread, tbh), and The Cat Who Saved Books.  I like that I am reading books that I probably would not have picked up and chosen to read, and also that I have some accountability (as well as some adult time in the pub!).  It's wet and windy here, so I'm driving there, but in the summer, I look forward to walking and enjoying a beer or two whilst talking about books.

This is also the perfect time for me to remind you that I'm on Goodreads and StoryGraph as Musings of a Middle-aged Mum, in case you wanted to follow me there too.

Conjure The Storm Boxset by Rachel Redding

Conjure the Storm is one of the boxsets I bought to read whilst my eldest was in hospital for her heart surgery.

The blurb says:

Witches? Magic? 

Secret organizations that have existed for hundreds of years? 

It's all just fairy tales, right?

Or is it?

In this captivating Urban Fantasy serial, we're swept into the world of Catrin Geddings. Catrin is just an ordinary girl. An ordinary girl whose thoughts can sometimes stop the rain or move the clouds. Nothing extravagant, just something she does. Or so she thinks.

Until a strange man shows up in a coffee shop. A stranger that belongs to a secret organization she's never heard of, that's out to see her dead. 

Catrin's mother, a respected Druid, finally reveals the source of Catrin's powers to her. And where she must go to hone those powers to protect herself and everyone she holds dear.

Can a simple girl from the border of Wales and England become strong enough to go against a powerful secret organization?

Will Catrin be able to consciously control powers she's been using without even thinking? Or will she and her family become the next victims of the evil Vanators.

Be swept away into this fascinating world where myth and reality mingle into fantasy. Or is it?

Catrin is a Welsh young adult who discovers that there is a secret organisation or Vanators after her due to her abilities.  Whilst she is aware of witchcraft, her mother is a druid after all, up until now, it is not something she has been interested in.  Catrin, however, gets thrown in the deepend and moves, with her best friend Roxy, to live with relatives in America who hope to teach her how to control her abilities and protect herself, with the ultimate aim of ending the feud with the Vanators.

This book is aimed at YA audience, and I think they'd find it more amazing than I did.  That's not to say I didn't like it, on the contrary I liked the storyline, which was predictable in an easy-to-read way, and at the end of each 'book' within the boxset, I wanted to continue to find out what happened next.

What I disliked about it, and these are probably just petty things, so feel free to ignore:
- that is was separate books - this is totally unnecessary, imo, and had I just the first book, I probably wouldn't have bought the rest of the series, which would have been a shame since I did enjoy the story.
- the (im)maturity of the writing.  I've tried (admittedly very briefly) to find information about the author, but couldn't find anything.  If this were a first novel set, then I will take back this criticism, because I certainly couldn't do better! I, however, would have prefered the writing to be a bit richer and a bit deeper.  It all seemed superficial, but again, that could be because it's targetted to the YA audience.
- I am also under the impression that she is American, because some of her "English" things are off.  For example, not many people in the UK go to university in their home town and live at home; nor am I aware of any universties that hold their graduation ceremony on the football (soccer) field - English weather just isn't predictable enough for that! 

Overall, I am glad I read the book.  Whilst it being over 600 pages long (for the boxset of 5 books) it is very quick and easy to read, only taking me 3 days to get through it.  The ending gives space for further books in the series (I haven't looked to see if they are already available) if you wanted more.

Playing Dirty by Andrew R Williams

 Playing Dirty is part of a series of books, but I read it as a standalone.

The blurb says:

"Honey Pursamon has a brief - and the file of names is huge!

Set the honey trap! Lure the opposition into bed, get lurid photos and destroy them, one by one!

The Slash and Byrne Progressive Party want to take over the House of Commons, starting with a sleazy sex scandal code-named Operation Trouser Snake. Slash & Byrne also organise a gas attack on Parliament. Who will survive?

Using Ambronootrop to make their members more intelligent and to move along the evolution of the human race, S&B will stoop to new depths."

I actually really enjoyed it. It's very gripping, and very easy to read. Initially I found it a little tricky to keep all the characters straight in my head, but that sorted itself out swiftly enough. I liked all the intricacy and duplicity in the plot. 

Given the prologue, I would have liked Angela to get some kind of revenge/see the downfall of S&B party, but I'm guessing that will be in later books. I didn't feel lost because I hadn't read Superior.  However, I would recommend reading Jim's Revenge and then Superior before reading this one, as the context helps.

Overall, my only disappointment is that the rest of the series hasn't been written yet, and I want to know what happens next!

My Books of 2022

 Happy New Year!

And thank you for letting me have the last year off blogging.  I'll update you all with everything eventually, but for now lets concentrate on the most important things: Books!

I actually read 52 books (1 isn't currently on goodreads), though there were two books that I confess that I didn't finish.  I decided that life it soo short to persevere with books that are either too slow or too boring, when there is so much more out there that I want to read!

I should also say, that though I am going to separate out all the books that I have read this year below, the links won't work until I have written up the reviews.  And I know that some of you are still waiting for the reviews of the books that I read in 2021.  Hopefully, now that I have a bit more time (she says, on the first bank holiday of the year), I'll get around to catching up and filling those in too.

You will notice that some of these books are from my recent A-Z Challenge but that I haven't finished this list.  That's because, when my daughter was going in for her heart surgery, I made sure to download a load of free boxsets.  As they are currently on my kindle, these are what I have been going through more recently.  And I have recently joined my local book club, so I'll be reading two 'random' books each month too.  The first meeting I'm attending is tomorrow, so wish me luck!

So here is the list of books that I read in 2022, though I may have the order slightly wrong in some places. 
For those who prefer visuals, there is a picture below.

Fiction:

• Exodus by Andreas Christensen
• Aurora by Andreas Christensen
• Genesis by Andreas Christensen
• When the Smoke Clears by Lynette Eason
• When a Heart Stops by Lynette Eason
• When a Secret Kills by Lynette Eason
• American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
• The Monarch of the Glen by Neil Gaiman
• Black Dog by Neil Gaiman
• The Last Safe Place by Ninie Hammon
• The Crown of Thorns by Ian C P Irvine
• Hidden byt Megg Jensen
• The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
• A Single Step by Georgia Rose
• Reckoning by Megg Jensen
• Hunted by Megg Jensen
• Before The Dawn by Georgia Rose
• The Wedding Pact Boxset by Denise Grover Swank
• Wicked Words by M J Scott
• Patterns in the Dark by Lindsay Buroker
• Pale-Eyed Mage by Jennifer Ealey
• Torn by O M Faure
• Untied by O M Faure
• Chosen by O M Faure
• Thicker than Water by Georgia Rose
• Soul Blade by Lindsay Buroker
• Dragon Blood 1-3 Boxsetby Lindsay Buroker
• Shattered Past by Lindsay Buroker
• Oaths by Lindsay Buroker
• Raptor by Lindsay Buroker
• The Fowl Proposal by Lindsay Buroker
• Heritage of Power Boxset by Lindsay Buroker
• Playing Dirty by Andrew R Williams
• The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan
• Falling by T J Newman
• Jim's Revenge by Andrew R Williams
• Superior by Andrew R Williams
• Andalusia by David Harvey
• The Dark Insite by Solomon Carter
• The Singapore Grip by J G Ferrell

Non-Fiction:

• English Legal System by Emily Finch and Stefan Fafinski
• Legal Profession - Is it for you? by V Charles Ward
• Watching Neighbours Twice a Day by Josh Widdicombe
• Helping your Child with a Physical Health Condition
• Older and Wider by Jenny Eclair
• Parsnips: Buttered by Joe Lycett
• Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Christian Inspirational:

• The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian D McLaren
• Jesus Feminist by Sarah Bessey
• The Message: New Testament by Eugene H Peterson

Weightloss Update

Or more truthfully, that should be a weight gain update.

I wasn't losing weight despite seeing my Personal Trainer twice a week, and then December hit.  That means watching every Christmas film on Netflix, and then attempting (and failing) to watch every Christmas film on My5.  In fact, I typed "christmas" into the My5 search, and was going through all the Christmas films in alphabetical order.  As they show a film every afternoon, the list was updating every day, and I purposely did not go back to watch the films that had been added after I passed that letter.  Even still, I only managed to get to the end of the letter C.  (There are sooooo many films that are called either "A Christmas in... " or "Christmas in... "!)  Added to that was possibly excessive mince pie consumption (can you blame me?! Mmmmmm.... Mince pies.....) my weight increased to the highest weight I've been ever.  Surprisingly, though, I did not gain much from Christmas and New Year's themselves, and I started January at a whopping 104.7kg.  Any my progress photos, which I won't scare you with, actually look worse than when I started with my PT back in April. Yikes. 

I did already have a plan for the new year to meal prep.  My husband and I had become aware that we had regressed into buying takeaways when we cba to cook or worse, we wanted to cook but had time constraints or we hadn't defrosted anything in time.  I already owned one meal prep book, but it didn't really teach how to do it, beyond being a recipe book, so I asked for a book for Christmas: Low Calorie Meal Prep Cookbook.

I started following the weekly meal guides - the first week was breakfast only, the second week was breakfasts and lunch, the third week (this week) is breakfast, lunch and dinner, and weeks 4, 5 and 6 all have breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack planned.  I have had to purchase some more containers for storage, and my fridges are now full at the start of each week.

The foods in the book are actually really tasty.  I have learned that supermarket fruit and veg don't actually last a week when prepped, which is a shame as it means I need to do a mid-week prep for the fresh food.  And it takes aaaaages on a Sunday afternoon, but as my PT pointed out to me, that I would be spending at least that much time during the week making breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.

Some examples of the meals I've been eating include Veggie Quiche Bento Boxes, Tuna and Hummus Wrap, Tropical Smoothie, and Chicken and White Bean Chilli.  Though my 3 favourite meals, so far, have been swiftly demolished before I've had a chance to take a photograph: Southwestern Black-bean Quesadilla, Chicken and Gnocchi Soup and Honey-Sriracha Chicken with Noodles. Yum.

I've also started using My Fitness Pal again, to record my calorie intake, and I've signed up to a 4-week bootcamp in February. Incredibly, I am seeing weightloss already!  I am weighing myself on a Monday morning (so I will restart the weekly updates) and over the first 2 weeks of eating these meals, I have lost 3 kilograms!  My PT said to challenge myself and aim for getting below 100kg by the end of January - and I thought that was a bit optimistic, tbh.  But, I seem to be on track at the moment! As expected, I lost more weight the first week, than in the second, and we have to wait until next Monday to see what this third week has done for me.  I have started drinking tea again (vanilla flavour rooibos - delicious) with a couple of drops of stevia, to satisfy my sweet tooth, and I've been having one of those 10calorie jellies as a dessert after dinner.  I haven't been depriving myself, and have actually had a takeaway every week in January, I've just tried to be sensible about it - eg choosing tandoori chicken with vegetable side dishes, rather than my usual tikka massala, pilau rice and peshwari naan.  And I've managed to have the odd glass of alcohol (red wine, or even a baileys) if it fits within my calorie allowance.  (My calorie allowance is currently 1500kcals in MFP because I have set it up to aim to lose 0.5kg/week.)

So, that's where we are. I was 101.7kg on Monday, and I hope I will continue to lose weight, get fitter and get healthier.

My books of 2021

 

Last year, I set myself the target of reading 50 books, which I hit.  I think I've actually read a couple more than 52, as I still (sorry!) have some reviews to write up, and I don't always add them to Goodreads if I haven't done the review.  If you are a Goodreads user, feel free to click this link to follow me there too.

This next year, I've set myself the even more modest target of 24 books in a year.  This is because I barely wait whilst the girls are dancing anymore, so I have less time to read actually structured into my week.  I also (before last week) hadn't read anything since about October.  I had less free time, and in December you have to watch as many made-for-TV crappy Christmas movies as you can.  It's the law.

Here's a pictorial summary of all the reading I did last year, and I'll give a link to each review below.

Fiction

• The Dark Side of the Sun by Terry Pratchett
  
• Red White and Blues by Rysa Walker
  
• Ember by Jessica Sorensen
  
• Forgotten by Don and Stephanie Prichard
  
• Genesis Code by Eliza Green
  
• Happiness is a Smoking Gun by Alaine Allister
  
• I Spy, I Saw Her Die by Ian C. P. Irvine
  
• Juliette and the Monday ManDates by Becky Doughty
  
• Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
  
• Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson
  
• The Legacy of the Key by S L Morgan
  
• Mouse Tails by Sonny Collins
  
• Nocturne by Kat Ross (The Fourth Talisman Series)
  
• Out of a Dream by Rosemary Hines
  
• Pancakes and Corpses by Agatha Frost
  
• Quantum by Patricia Cornwell
• Rift by Andreas Christensen
  
• Season of Hope by Dayo Benson
  
• Taste by Mary E Twomey
  
• Ugly Girl by Mary E Twomey
  
• The Vine Witch by Luanne G Smith
  
• The Wave at Hanging Rock by Gregg Dunnett
  
• Yesterday by Amanda Tru
  
• Meadowlark by Melanie Abrams
• Brainrush by Richard Bard

Non-Fiction

• Trim Healthy Mama Plan by Barrett and Allison
  
• I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna
  
• The Diet Trap Solution by Beck & Beck
  
• The Obesity Code by Jason Fung
  

Christian Inspirational

• Women Rising by Meghan Tschanz
  
• Finding Intimacy With Jesus Made Simple by Matthew Robert Payne
  

I'm Back!

Hello my lovelies, how are you all?  

Ok, if you follow my facebook page I said my first post this year would be about books, but I've decided to give a brief overview about everything instead. And if you don't follow my facebook page, why on earth not?? Tut, tut, tut. 😜 Here's the link again, so you have no excuse: https://www.facebook.com/MusingsMiddleagedMum

So, I purposely had a break for Christmas, and it was needed.  I've come back this year feeling refreshed and ready to go.  Last week, however, I went to get ready for my first tutorial and my my computer had died.

Not only did the Automatic Repair not work, it wouldn't move off this screen.  I cancelled my tutorials and left it to my techy husband (they do have their uses, lol).  He used some techy magic to recover most of my files, but he couldn't get windows to work.  We wiped everything, started again, and windows still wouldn't work.  He even installed Linux, and even that operating system wouldn't work.  The hard disk was dead as dead can be.

After having to handwrite a comparison spreadsheet (I'm not joking, I am that geeky, and it took two A4 pages), I decided upon and bought a new laptop. Yey!  There are a couple of snags* with it, that I'm sure will be able to be sorted quickly, but overall I'm really pleased with it.
* There is automatically a background noise remover thingy on the microphone, which would be great, except now it stops my headset working with zoom when tutoring.  The only way to bypass is to not use my headset, so all my tutees are rewarded with sounds of my dogs barking in the background.  Should be a simple fix; husband will look at it later.

* Everything on my laptop is automatically saving to One Drive.  I use One Drive for music and photos, but all my large tutoring or Ed Free documents, I do not need nor want saving all the time.  It means I'm getting lots of notifications saying One Drive is full, and adverts where I can buy infinite (nearly) space for only £££ each month.  Again, a simple fix, but I'm ignoring it for now.

What's new with me? Well, yesterday was 20 years since I asked my (now) husband to go out with me.  Very forward of me, but he was/is shyer than me, if you can believe such a thing. Actually, if you know me now, you probably can believe it, but 20 years ago I was a mouse in comparison.  I thought he fancied me, and asked a couple of my friends a few months earlier, and they said that I was just imagining it, and he was just a good friend.  Anyway, in the January, we went back to uni and there was a party a friend of a friend was throwing and we tagged along.  We got drunk enough for me to ask him if he fancied me and for him to say yes - and then I ignored it and continued with the party!  It wasn't until I couldn't sleep that night, because everything was rolling around my head, that I went up to his room and asked him to go out with me, and then went back downstairs to go to sleep. I then didn't see him for 24hrs, because I was at a football match, and wasn't sure if he would remember or if he thought it was a mistake or what.  Ancient history it is, as we're now married, 17 years this coming August, with 2 kids, 2 dogs, and still happy.

I have started reading again - hurray! I don't think I had read anything seriously since about October.  I tend not to read much in December, because it's tacky Christmas movie season, but I had missed reading.  I don't have as much time to read as previously, only an hour on a Saturday of dedicated reading time (except when/if I read a good book, and it takes over my life for a few days), but I'm glad to have started reading regularly again.

And I've started calorie counting.  After hitting my heaviest weight ever after Christmas, I am properly tracking my food in MFP and have been meal prepping. I'm only on week 2, so it's not an established habit yet, but I have lost weight already, which keeps me motivated.

I'm going to my first naturist/clothing optional event for what seems like forever tonight.  Covid, of course, has stopped everything, but theatres are starting to reopen, so my husband and I are going to a clothing optional showing tonight, so that will be fun.

What's not new with me? Still tutoring maths.  Still involved in the home ed world.  Still have my personal trainer twice a week. Still going to church. Still ferrying the girls to dance every night of the week. Still me.

And that's about it!  I hope you all had a good Christmas and New years.  I did.  And that you are well xx