Sunday Post with Berls | January 15th 2023

January 15th 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

Anyone else feel like this year has already been pretty long? Just me? Ok.

This week was full of ups and downs, but was mostly good. Last week they decided that we are going to start rotating the duty of Scrum Master/Champion since our Scrum Master is likely going to be reassigned at the end of the month. Apparently our team has matured and doesn’t “need” one. Short for: we think we can get away with not paying someone and making you all do his job on top of yours. In reality it’s not THAT much but guess who got the lucky first week? Yep, me. On the plus, when I was asked to go first, I told my manager that they only problem is that the first meeting of the day (every day scrum meeting which I would need to host now) I always take from my phone as I’m leaving Dante’s therapy. Not the ideal situation for hosting – can’t screen share, what if I’m running late, etc? He knew this but didn’t realize how tight it was for me. So he said we needed to re-evaluate the meeting time. And viola! They moved the meeting to 9:45 – giving me a full 45 minutes from the time I drop Dante off to be home and settled in for the meeting. It lessened my morning stress considerably, except for the part where I had to lead all our meetings this week. On Friday though, one of the guys (my team is all guys, except me) paid me a compliment that I had done a great job and set the bar high for the rest of them. So yay! And I’m off Monday – double yay!

Dante had a decent week. I’ve decided that the weather changing really messes with him though — I’m starting to see a pattern that when the weather changes (huge temperature drop, rainy day, etc) the night prior is a ROUGH night. Well Wednesday the temps were like 70s-80s and Thursday they dropped to the 30s and Dante had a bad night (meaning mommy had a bad night). I got 4 hours of sleep and barely made it out of the house with him on time. He didn’t eat breakfast (was too tired I think) but otherwise they told me he had a great day. He seemed fine when I picked him up from speech at 3:30. He always seems to do fine without sleep – it’s me that suffers. Honestly, I had an okay day though too. And I cut out of work at 1 to meet up with Brandee (of Unconventional Bookworms) for lunch. Her MIL lives about 10 minutes from me and they visit frequently to look after her and we try to get together when they’re in town. We grabbed lunch and talked until it was time to get Dante, and then after picking him up we went to a park for a bit before I dropped her back at her MIL’s. It’s always so nice to see her!

The other big news this week is that RX Bars has discontinued Dante’s protein bars — RXBars Kids. I had a subscribe and save for them on Amazon – I got 2 boxes every 2 weeks because they are the ONLY protein bar (without crap ingredients at least) that Dante has consistently eaten. Some days it’s the only healthy fat and protein he eats. And all of a sudden Amazon can’t fulfill the order. So I start looking around locally and everyone says they’ve seen them at Tom Thumb, Kroger, Sprouts, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, etc. I called a few stores and they said they had them but they also sounded like they were just talking about RX bars and didn’t understand that I very specifically need the KIDS bars — different texture and smaller. So Saturday Dante and I went to 6 stores looking for them and NOTHING. I bought him some Lara Bars that look to be similar and I also bought him the adult version of his favorite RX flavors – just a couple of each. I’m praying he will eat one or a few of the options I bought. Oh and when I got home from driving around for like 2 or 3 hours I had a message from RX following up on my inquiry confirming that yes, they are discontinued. I’m trying not to be stressed about it but keeping Dante fed and healthy is not easy. Just reinforcing that I need to get him setup for an eval with a feeding therapist that his BCBA referred. I’m just trying to go through the insurance process.

Oh and that reminds me. The other FANTASTIC (not!) news this week was that my ER visit in December (I didn’t really talk about it but I’m ok) is going to cost me over $5k. I had applied for “charity” as they call it and was denied. Of course. I have an appointment for a consult for health billing advocates on Monday and if that doesn’t look promising I’m just screwed. Very defeating as I JUST finally got to a financial place where I’m not in any debt, for it to start again.

Blog News

I feel like this was a decent blogging week. I was able to do some blog visiting most evenings and today (Saturday), I took care of writing my blog posts for the upcoming week. Not AMAZING but better than last month lol.

Last week on Because Reading

• [9 Jan] Out with the Old, In with the New ~ 2022 Recap
• [10 Jan] Tell Me Something Tuesday: Classics
• [11 Jan] Waiting on Wednesday ~ It’s a Circus and you enter in a Goblin. #wow #booklovers
• [12 Jan] Shades of Wicked by Jeaniene Frost ★★★★★
• [14 Jan] #MyTBRList Results and Linky: January 2023
• [15 Jan] Sunday Post with Berls | January 15th 2023
• [15 Jan] The Sunday Post ~ New Year and Cheer Comp Season has started ~ Week in READview! 2023

Challenge update

This week I finished:

I’m participating in 8 Challenges, plus the Goodreads Challenge, this year. Here’s how I’m doing.

1. COYER Upside Down Chapter 1 – 3 books
2. Finishing the Series – my goal is 5-8 series.
3. Library Love – 2/60 books
4. Thrifty Thursday – my goal is 1 book each month:
   1. January –
5. 2023 Audiobook Challenge – 2/100 books
6. Backlist Reader Challenge – 2/50 books
7. Bookish Resolutions  – here are my goals:
   1. Review all books on goodreads within 1 week of reading them. So far, I’m good (though I still have a considerable backlog to work through)
   2. Keep up with My TBR List each month! Almost done with our TBR read for review end of this month.
   3. Complete all my COYER tasks on time. So far, I’m keeping up.
   4. Sunday Post at least once each month. Today makes 3!
   5. Set aside minimum 1 hour each week for blogging. I definitely spent an hour blogging this week.
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 – I plan to read this one this month
   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
   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. My word of the year is Patience and I’m hoping to do much better being patient with myself!

This week: I had hoped to get in meal planning and meditation but I didn’t. I did, however, continue doing well with my water intake.

Next week: I’m going to continue focusing on my water intake this week and just try to start to settle into this new routine I’m working on. Small steps.

How was your week? What are you Reading?

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