ha! and yet another go…

Maybe a global pandemic and social isolating will be the impetus I need to do this blogging thing on a regular basis. Honestly, it’s unlikely. The social isolating thing for me personally is not a lot different than how I live my life anyway. It is in no way an exaggeration to say that I do not leave our property for two or three weeks at a time on a regular basis. However, having the five us home together all the time is far from the norm. I am not, btw, in any way trying to make light of the situation in the world, in my country, or in my state which is right now the very hardest hit. It is so vast and heartbreaking that it is hard to wrap one’s mind around, and definitely hard to put all the feelings into words. I may try to do just that in a future post(s), but I don’t have that kind of mental energy right now.

No, instead this is about the plans I’ve made for myself for the month of April. Mostly in the reading realm and in the stitching realm. Stitching is pretty straightforward. I’m largely going to ignore the challenges in the stitching groups, and just try to finish as many of my WIPs as I possibly can. Reason being that I have ridiculous plans for Maynia starts…or as I’m calling it #mayniaandbeyond. I’ll talk about that ridiculousness later when I work out specific details more. Anyway, if I could knock out a dozen finishes this month, I would be ecstatic. But it will likely be more like eight or ten, and I can live with that.

As for reading, I’ve decided to unofficially participate in the OWLs Magical Readathon. I did this in 2018, the year Book Roast (on YouTube) introduced it, and I had a lot of fun. Skipped it last year. But it seemed like such a “comfort” thing to do, so I decided to play along again. Should anyone read this and want more info, here’s the announcement post for this year.

Because I’m only participating unofficially, I’m being very chill about it all. I half-assedly decided that Healer might be the career I’d pursue, so I may try to focus on the classes for that path first. (The requirements include: Herbology, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Potions, Transfigurations, plus three additional classes of one’s own choosing.) But I did choose a book for every prompt. As much as I’d love to say that I’ll finish them all, my reading has suffered over the last several weeks with my inability to concentrate, so that is unlikely.

Here are the classes with their prompts, and with my likely reads:

• Ancient Runes: Read a book with a heart on the cover or in the title. The only book I found on a quick perusal of my shelves that fit the prompt was Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill. Since this book has been on my shelves for what I’m guessing is more than a decade, it seemed silly to look further.
• Arithmancy: Read a book that is outside you favorite genre. I’m not sure I even know what my favorite genre is… But I do know it’s not memoir so I’m going with Nylon Road by Parsua Bashi, another book that has sat on my shelves unread for far too long. (Btw, I do not dislike memoirs, but as a genre they wouldn’t make my top ten list.)
• Astronomy: Read the majority of this book while it’s dark outside. I’ll be reading The Michigan Murders by Edward Keyes. I chose this because I have it as an ebook, and I tend to read on my tablet in bed so I don’t have to get up to turn off a light when I’m done reading.
• Care of Magical Creatures: Read a book that features an animal with a beak on its cover. I’ve chosen Squid Empire by Danna Staaf.
• Charms: Read a book with a white cover. I’ll be reading Fledgling by Octavia Butler. This is a book that I’ve wanted to read for so long, yet keep putting off because I don’t want to run out of books by her. Yeah, I’m that stupid.
• Defense Against the Dark Arts: Read a book set at sea or on the coast. This was a tough one, but I finally ended up choosing Civilization and the Limpet by Martin Wells.
• Divination: Assign numbers to your TBR pile and use a random number generator to choose your read. I chose the five books I was most in the mood to read right now (An Untamed State by Roxane Gay, The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West, Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland, Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian, and Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi), and the random number picker chose Children of Virtue and Vengeance.
• Herbology: Read a book that starts with the letter M. I’ll be reading A Mercy by Toni Morrison, yet another book that has languished unread for far too long.
• History of Magic: Read a book featuring witches/wizards. Been a long time since I’ve spent time in Discworld, so I decided to go with The Wee Free Men by Sir Terry Pratchett.
• Muggle Studies: Read a book from the perspective of a contemporary muggle. I’m going to read Behind You by Jacqueline Woodson, the sequel to If You Come Softly which was a wonderful book.
• Potions: Read a book under 150 pages. Going with yet another far too long unread one here–Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo.
• Transfiguration: Read a book that includes shape-shifting. Definitely excited to finally be reading The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Unrelated to the OWLs, I’ll continue reading The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. It’s an excellent book, but a slow read for me. And hopefully I’ll get to another few essays in The Anatomy of Silence edited by Cyra Perry Dougherty.

And as for other April plans, I sure as hell hope this is the month that I finally get my craft area back into shape…I getting there, a few more days ought to do it.

Whether or not I accomplish any of my goals for April, what I wish for most from this month is that the world begins to see some light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. I’m not counting on this, but I am hoping…