In My Life
Trees of Reverie Read-a-thon
June was such a slow reading month for me, I couldn’t help but look for ways to increase my July reading. I figured the Trees of Reverie read-a-thon was the perfect solution. While I’m not going to finish reading all six books I planned for my read-a-thon TBR pile, I did make great progress compared to June. I also ended up counting A Mad, Wicked Folly by Sharon Biggs Waller to my favourites this year. I adored this book so so much, I couldn’t stop hugging it when I finished it.
Baking
I’ve missed baking tremendously over the past year that whenever I have a free day, I definitely seize it to bake. Initially I meant to read today, so that I could hit my read-a-thon goal but I decided food trumped books because I read pretty much every day. When I do get to bake? Maybe once every other week. With that, I tried baking meringue lime pie for the first time and also made bread rolls.
The meringue didn’t turn into pretty peaks because I used my hand mixer instead of hand mixer to beat the egg whites, so they didn’t turn out stiff enough to make them look more decorative. In any case, I can work on the aesthetics after I master the recipe. For now I just hope they taste good. I’ll find out tomorrow. Haha.
Book Haul
A whole bunch of books arrived this week, including my pre-orders of Paperweight by Meg Haston and Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine. Yes, these books were released over a week ago but by now I’m kinda used to receiving pre-ordered books way after their publication dates. If I want to read a book as soon as it’s released, I have to head to my local bookstore.
The other books I added to my collection this week are:
- The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
- Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
- Exile by Kevin Emerson
- Vitro by Jessica Khoury
- Blackwatch by Jenna Burtenshaw
- The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
- Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater
- Uprooted by Naomi Novik
On the Blog
Blog Posts
This week I pondered upon why anyone would chase numeric reading goals when the ideal of quality over quantity has become so embedded in our daily lives. With my reading stats up to date, I also recapped June. On the Mise-en-scène front, I shared photos themed after Comfort and In My Bag.
Book Reviews
Photography is one of my many passions, so I picked up A Beautiful Mess Photo Idea Book by Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman a few weeks ago. If you’re already well-versed in photography, I don’t think you’d learn much from it but the colourful photos and snippets of ideas on how to DIY backdrops can serve as inspiration, especially if you need a creative pick-me-up.
Around the Blogosphere
- Cait @ Paper Fury wonders if your TBR pile can ever be too big. I definitely think so. That’s the reason why I decided so turn more to my own bookshelf this year instead of borrowing so many books from the library. I already own a lot of books I’ve been wanting to read for the longest time, so why do I keep looking for books I’m slightly less excited about? I’d rather read the books I’m most excited about and I already own a lot of them.
- Tonyalee @ Lilybloombooks takes on the legality of blogger giveaways. Turns out that by definition, a lot of giveaways technically are lotteries and not only that, they are illegal lotteries. There are ways to ensure that giveaways are conducted legally, so that’s definitely something everyone who’s hosting as well as entering should look into.
- Crini @ All About Books expanded her spreadsheet tutorials with conditional formatting.
Omg, every time I come onto your blog I just fall in love with your photography skills. JUST SAYIN’. *ahem* But ahhh! INK AND BONE. I’m so seriously considering buying it right now. Like it’s seriously popping in and out of my online basket, grrrr… I just can’t make up my mind BUT IT LOOKS SO DARN DELICIOUS. I really need to finish the Chaos Walking trilogy too, but gah, like you, I’m trying to avoid the library and read my OWN books for once. XD I don’t have a million unread books, But I do have some and I kind of want to point to my bookshelf and go “I HAVE READ ALL OF THESE HUZZAH”. (Thanks for linking to my post, btw. XD)
I love baking, although I hate making bread and pie, lol. Those bread rolls look delicious. I love fresh bread. I tried making lemon meringue pie once and it was a total disaster. The dough, the filling and the meringue failed. I think it’s a hard recipe and your looks great! Hmm I really could go for some pie right now.
Ink and Bone sounds really good, I hope I can pick up my copy soon!
When I aren’t reading I usually bake or cook. I picked up colouring this week and hope to do more of that.