Weekly Update 42

Off the blog

Well, the countdown has started for inducing baby – that is, it’s scheduled for the 5th of December. Yes. That’s next Wednesday. And I’m freaking out. I’m excited too, of course, but having a date makes it all seem so imminent. I have been doing my shopping for the baby, double-checking of the bags I’ve packed for the hospital, and doing some finishing touches on the nursery. We have a post-birth sleeping plan (I’ll sleep from 6pm till 12am, and Aaron will sleep from 12am till 6am). Of course, we can cat-nap while the baby is sleeping, but we’re switching off baby-feeding-duty. I’m thinking of setting up an air mattress in the nursery for the first little bit so that we can keep the baby monitor out of the room with the person on sleeping shift.

I’ll also be in a program specifically designed for post-partum mothers who have bipolar disorder for a month after the birth, so reading time might be dramatically reduced. Luckily, my mother-in-law will be around to take care of the step-kids while I’m in the program.

I just realized TODAY that I had to shop for Christmas as well as for the baby! So I just did all my online shopping in one go. Most of the presents are books, of course, but there are a few non-readers that I bought presents for, too.

I made a ticker for my weight loss post-partum, too. My plan is to lose one pound a week, which will put me at 140lbs somewhere in the summer of 2020. lol. I’ll be keeping track of calories consumed starting the 10th, and start training for a walking marathon that will take place in September. My original plan was a Tough Mudder, but I realized that was just silly. Then I planned for a century bike ride but realized that it would be hard to train for that with a baby in tow. So walking marathon it is. I can walk with a baby in tow, surely? I’ll keep you updated on how my weight loss and training is going!

Reading this week

Still Serial Reading Gulliver’s Travels for my Educated Mind Project. American Overdose is an ARC that I am a few days behind on finishing (I’ll be more than a few days by the time I finish, but oh well). The Mark of the Raven is an ARC released on December 5 (yeah, I’ll be behind on that one, too). I’ll be listening to The Soul of an Octopus in general, but during my labor I decided to listen to Sense and Sensibility, since I can listen to that with great distraction and still understand what’s going on – I’m very familiar with the story. The induction will probably last several hours (inductions generally do), so maybe I’ll even get close to finishing it!

Completed in the past two weeks

Finally finished Washington Black for my Litsy Markup Postal Book Club. Just in time to mail it out! Burning Magic was a cute little kid’s book that I decided to jump into because I was having readers’ slump. And The Witch of Willow Hall was an ARC provided by NetGalley and Graden House Books (Release date Oct 2). Review coming soon!

Acquired

This will probably be the last of my ill-advised over-requesting of ARCs. I think. NetGalley provided The Mark of the Raven (Bethany House), Roam (Central Avenue Publishing), and The Sisterhood (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers). The Lathe of Heaven and The One and Only Ivan were on sale at Audible. Dopestick and Educated were purchased with kindle credits that were about to expire.