1. I currently have about 4 loads of laundry waiting to be done, and 2 loads waiting to be folded and put away.
2. I have a HUGE to-do list of things I'd like to get done in the next week. It includes cleaning carpets (thanks to my mother-in-law, this is almost done yay!), going through my closet, cleaning out some other things, windows, etc.
3. Although we are unpacked from our trip, there's still random bits and bobs that I need to deal with and/or find a home for.
4. Work is INSANE right now and I am still playing catch up from when we were on vacation. As we speak, my laptop is downstairs (waiting to be turned on so I can work a little over the long weekend)
5. Our Regional Convention is June 8th, and I would like to get some new clothes. Not sure if that's going to happen.
6. The painters have been here all weekend to paint my mother-in-law's apartment. So we've been doing a lot of moving.
7. I need to do an addition update, but there's not much to update because I haven't been taking pictures.
8. My cat, Macy, has been hobbling around for a couple years. Meaning...she just walks kind of slow and her back is hunched. She's aging. Anyways, Friday when I got home from work she was REALLY limping on her back leg. So I watched her all night, babied her, held her, tried to figure out what was wrong, Googled, the whole 9 yards, and about an hour later she was magically fine. How do I know she was fine? When we opened the door to take the dogs out, she RAN through the sunroom to join us. :/ While she still hobbles as usual, the limp is gone. The big faker.
9. I just finished studying for meeting (tonight) and it took me an entire hour to prepare for the Sophia video about boldness. Thankfully there were prepared questions...that helped. But still....you would think after being in the French for 5.5 years that it wouldn't take me so long still to study. But it does.
10. I have about 1,001 things to do, but because I am overwhelmed (see above)....I do books. I look at books. I buy books. I arrange books. I READ books.
So.....it's kind of a problem. I mean....I think this is a record for me.
I bought 21 books in May.
They were all used. But...still. TWENTY-ONE.
The majority of them came from the bookshop downtown. The USED bookshop attached to the main library.
And most of them are ARCs. What is an ARC? Advanced Reader Copy. Publishers will send out ARC copies to bookshops, book reviewers, book bloggers, booktubers, and libraries. They typically send them out 3 months or so before the publish date. They want the book reviewers, bookshops, libraries, etc. to read them and review them and order a bunch of copies to stock the day the book hits the shelves.
And when these bookshops and reviewers and bloggers and booktubers are DONE reading their copy....they donate it to the library. And then the library adds it to their bookshop.
And people like me come in and get EXTREMELY excited about the prospect of reading a book that HAS NOT BEEN PUBLISHED YET and buy all the books. Well, not all of them, but close. And people that don't understand how exciting it is to get your hands on a book that hasn't been published yet....well, this post is not for you.
There's just something about it that's SO FUN.
So, behold. My book haul for May:
Now...not all of these are ARCs. But some of them are. ARCs are ALWAYS paperback, and they are usually marked as ARCs, with the publish date on them:
These books were released this month:
These beauties will be released in June:
And these in August:
I'm currently reading the one above, If You Leave Me and it's SO GOOD.
Now I'm about to share something that I observed at the bookshop that will horrify my sister (I'm sorry in advance). Because the ARC table was REALLY full the last time I was there (and just FYI....anytime I'm there I take a picture of the table and send it to my sister so she can make her selections), I overheard the manager say to the volunteer "the ARC table is getting pretty full, so let's go ahead and keep shelving them when that happens." That means that the ARCs are possibly being mixed with the regular books!! This is AWFUL!!!! So, the majority of the books I grabbed above were mixed in with the older books. :( Which means that I had to look at ALL THE BOOKS. Which normally is fine, but sometimes I'm on a time crunch. Oh well.
And...is it just me, or are book covers getting prettier and prettier each year?
I mean...look at these:
They're just so pretty!
So I have a bazillion things to do, but my happy place is the bookshop, or sitting in my library staring at my books. And reading them too, of course.
I would like to say that my June haul will be smaller, but MY SISTER IS COMING!! Which means we will be going to the bookshop multiple times. So....no promises. :)
