Sunday Salon for 26 November 2023
Happy Sunday! Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at ReaderBuzz. Check out her post and the links to see what other bloggers have been up to in the last week.
How’s the weather?
Cool but sunny — which was perfect for the West County Community Action Network’s annual back-to-back Black Lives Matter vigils. We did one on Black Friday in front of the longest strip mall in America and then our usual Saturday vigil the following day.
What are you reading?
I’m 61% of the way through A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan. I’m learning a lot about Indiana at the time that my grandparents became adults in the 1920s — when the Ku Klux Klan had a political and social hold on the state.
I’m 50% of the way through Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier — such an engaging story about Mary Anning, the real-life fossil collector in Lyme Regis during the first half of the 1800s.
I made a schedule last week and that has really motivated progress for me. I’m aiming for a chapter a day in the first book which I’m reading in print but also listening to the audiobook while I walk. Remarkable Creatures is an e-book — I plan to read 10% a day.
What are you watching?
We have way too many streaming services right now — a natural consequence of purchasing our first streaming device a few months ago. I took full advantage of Peacock this week.
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was a tradition of my childhood, but I haven’t been able to watch for several years. This year, I watched it live from start to finish. So much fun. My favorite discovery was & Juliet — a musical that re-imagines Juliet’s fate at the end of the Shakespeare play. What if she lived?
Then, I realized that Peacock gives me access to the Hallmark Channel. I can finally see what all the fuss is about around Hallmark holiday movies! So far, I’ve watched two and liked one. We’ll see if that ratio improves through the season.
What are you writing?
For Black Friday, I reviewed a book that I think will make a delightful gift for the British mystery lover in your life: Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Maureen Johnson.
I made a more detailed plot outline for Act One of my novel. I think that I’m going to switch gears, now, and take some time to work on developing my characters.
How are you this fine Sunday?