Sunday Post with Berls | February 19th 2023

Month February 19th 2023

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kim @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.

News at Home

January went by so slow, right? And now February is just FLYING by! I wish there were some balance. Let’s see this week…

Well work was a lot. I was struggling with a task that I had due by Wednesday noon and I finally figured it out late Tuesday and put the finishing touches on Wednesday morning. And I think I mentioned last week that the engineer one level up from me was being transferred to another team? Well that went into effect Wednesday and so I’m taking on higher level tasks. I’m very nervous about it and trying to just not psych myself out. So far, I’m making decent progress.

Dante had a pretty good week. We hit the park a few times, always talking a little walk with him riding his tricycle. We have one of those ones that has a handle behind it for us to push and steer him, but I’d been noticing him pushing himself along a bit more lately. And then on Friday he took off on the tricycle, pushing himself independently. He almost went straight off the path, so we now need to work on steering LOL! But it was really exciting.

We had an incident with his therapy that was a bit scary for me – nothing bad happened, but it could have. He has a semi-new therapist on MWF afternoons. And on Thursdays and Fridays he goes straight from ABA to Speech. It’s in the same building so they bring him upstairs for his speech session, as she has another kid right before Dante. Well the new therapist on Friday brought Dante in and left him in the waiting room! The speech therapist was with her other kid in a room with closed door and she heard the door chime once and, since she was aware of the time (3 minutes before his session at 3), she figured it was them arriving with Dante. Then as she was wrapping up with the other kid she heard the door chime again and saw that it had just turned 3. She thought it was weird, so she peeked her head out – also thinking that she would just let the therapist know she would be right out – and Dante was sitting there in the chair all by himself! When she told me, I stayed calm talking to her but knew it was something I had to address, of course. I figured I would email when I got home. But as I was walking with Dante down the hall towards the stairs I starting really freaking out. So many things could have happened! First of all, Dante could have easily walked himself out of the office, taken the stairs (hopefully without injury) and tried to leave the building. Thankfully there is a security guard on the first floor by the doors who (1) wouldn’t let any 3 year old wander out, but (2) Dante is very friendly with so it would be easy for him to grab Dante. But honestly, that feels like best-case-scenario! What if there had been a miscommunication/emergency and Alyssa (his speech therapist) wasn’t even there? I wouldn’t be arriving to pick Dante up for 30 more minutes!! I don’t even want to think of all the things that could have happened.

Needless to say, I didn’t send an email. I went with Dante straight to  the office to talk to his BCBA – the RBT that dropped him off’s boss. I told her that Alyssa suspects Clarissa (the RBT) said something and Alyssa, who is pretty loud was talking to the child she was working with and thought Alyssa was telling her she was good to go. I think that’s probably not far off the mark, because really, who would leave a 3 year old unattended? And my interactions with Clarissa don’t really match with her doing something so irresponsible. BUT I wanted to be clear that handing Dante off meant making sure Alyssa had his hand in hers before anyone left the office. I could tell the BCBA was as shocked as I was – her face kinda drained as I was explaining – and before I was home she had emailed me to confirm that (1) Clarissa had been spoken with and (2) she would personally be overseeing Dante’s hand off for the foreseeable future. So I’m as at ease as I possibly can be under the circumstances. He’s been there for 8 months and this is the first time anything remotely worrisome has happened, and I do trust the BCBA to handle things. So I’m going to cautiously continue… but I also think I will show up at 3 Thursdays and Fridays for a little while to make sure I’m comfortable with the handoff too.

Anyway that was the week. Saturday was pretty cold for outside play, so we met up with a friend at a local family friendly mall to do some miniature golf – Dante was not a fan LOL – and hit some of the in-mall play areas. Then Dante get very Hangry out of the blue and the place we planned to eat had a 30 minute wait so we went to McDonald’s instead. It was hilarious to watch Dante transform from an angry fussy child to the happy laughing child I know with every bite. He played in the play area for a long while and had a great time.

Blog News

Nothing much to report, except I am still not doing great at the visiting. I just don’t know how to do all the things! Hoping to get around to posts today.

Last week on Because Reading

• [14 Feb] Tell Me Something Tuesday: Cover Love!
• [16 Feb] Marking Time by April White ★★★½
• [17 Feb] The Innocent by David Baldacci ★★★★½
• [17 Feb] The Hit by David Baldacci ★★★★★
• [17 Feb] Bullseye by David Baldacci ★★★½
• [17 Feb] The Target by David Baldacci ★★★★★
• [17 Feb] The Guilty by David Baldacci, Orlagh Cassidy ★★★★
• [17 Feb] End Game by David Baldacci ★★★½
• [19 Feb] Sunday Post with Berls | February 19th 2023

Challenge update

This week I finished:

I’m participating in 8 Challenges, plus my goal of 150 books (1 book behind, but currently reading like 8 books, so I’m not worried), this year. Here’s how I’m doing.

1. COYER Upside Down Chapter 1 – 20 books
2. Finishing the Series – my goal is 5-8 series.
   • Series In Progress
     1. Well Met – I read book 2 & 3 so far this year. I need to read book 4
     2. Sean King and Michelle Maxwell – I read book 4 this year, still need to read 5 & 6
     3. Ice Planet Barbarians – I read book 6 this year, still need to read 7 – 22 (may not finish this year….)
     4. Iron Druid Chronicles – reading for the readalong so I know I will finish! So far re-read book 1, plus 3 shorts
   • Completed Series:
     1. Transplanted Tales – I read book 4 this year, which is all that is published so far (but I do think more are coming, so this is probably going to end up back in progress)
     2. Spoiler Alert – book 3 was the only book I hadn’t read, so that series now caught up!
3. Library Love – 11/60 books
4. Thrifty Thursday – my goal is 1 book each month:
   1. January – Just Folking Around by Penny Reid
   2. February – Marking Time by April White
5. 2023 Audiobook Challenge – 14/100 books
6. Backlist Reader Challenge – 12/50 books
7. Bookish Resolutions  – here are my goals:
   1. Review all books on goodreads within 1 week of reading them. With 21 books on my write-review shelf, I’m a little behind here…
   2. Keep up with My TBR List each month! The book for this month got returned before I was done reading! It was good enough that I bought it though… but I loved the cover so I bought it in print. It should arrive today so I should finish in time still!
   3. Complete all my COYER tasks on time. Yes! This I am keeping up with thanks to our Trello board!
   4. Sunday Post at least once each month. 3rd for February
   5. Set aside minimum 1 hour each week for blogging.  yeah, I feel like I’m still getting in an hour, but I need more time to really make a dent.
8. 12 books from 12 friends – I shared the graphic in my first Sunday Post of the year but here are the books my friends have picked for me: (I haven’t read any yet)
   1. Filthy Rich Vampire by Geneva Lee Albin ✔ Read in January
   2. The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
   3. Morning Star by Pierce Brown
   4. Slay by Brittney Morris
   5. Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne
   6. Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby
   7. A Psalm for the WIld-Built by Becky Chambers
   8. Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control by Ryan Holiday Up Next (for February)
   9. The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky
   10. What Angels Fear by CS Harris
   11. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
   12. The Darkening by Sunya Mara

#FitReaders2023

Felicia the Geeky Blogger and Jen @ That’s What I’m Talking About co-host this fitness-oriented group and I’m glad to be part of it for another year.

Goals for 2023:

This year I’m just focusing on habits that make me feel good and may/may not lead to weight loss. And rather than over-arching year long goals, I’ll be updating my goals on a week-by-week basis.

This week: I decided I needed more help to really get back on track, so I signed up for a program with my nutritionist that is very hands on. We will meet weekly, but I have a daily tracker (customized to my goals and very simple) to complete and she texts me daily. And it’s paying off. I had my first appointment Wednesday and have only had 1 soda since, better water consumption, better exercise, and less fast food. Hoping to keep up the momentum.

Next week: I want to keep going with my 1 soda a week goal. And the goal of drinking at least 64 oz of water each day. I’ve also been focusing on breakfast, and that really does help set the tone for the day. And then finally, trying to get in some movement in the evenings after Dante goes to bed most days of the week.

How was your week? What are you Reading?

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