Honestly, I’m not sure there is an opening survey anymore. The website doesn’t get updated, I don’t use their Dischord server, and I barely follow FB. I do still faithfully do Readathon and probably always will. So this night before Readathon starts, I’m pre-writing the opening survey and scheduling it to go up in the morning. Maybe I’ll be the only one? Maybe others are writing theirs on FB or GR or Discord or who the hell knows where. I’m old. I still love my blog, though I really should just shut it down and stop shelling out money for it since the only damn thing I do is Readathon opening/closing surveys haha. Sob. OK That’s my goal for 2025 – let this thing go… sniff.
1) What part of the world are you reading from today?
Same as always, right here in PURPLE FLORIDA! #HarrisWalz, y’all. #HarrisWalz!
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
None of them, which is why I’m reading them? I’ve got 1/2 dozen books that I started at different points over the last two years and haven’t finished. My goal (again) is to FINISH them. It’s not that any of them are bad, they aren’t – they’re all good. I just can’t focus on them long enough to finish them. So let’s see which ones I can finally put to rest:
The Lace Maker’s Secret
The Spectacular
Mad Honey (on audio so I probably won’t make much headway on this one)
Circus of Wonders
3) Which snacks are you most looking forward to?
Either the Figs in a Blanket or the Hello Fresh goat cheese tarts. Both. Let’s say both!
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
A liberal in a red county who would like my Floridian neighbors to vote Harris Walz, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Yes on 3, Yes on 4, NO on the other amendments, and VOTE ALL JUDGES OUT.
5) What are your goals for this readathon?
To finish at least two of those books and to have a positive text banking session on Saturday afternoon, full of happy voting people.
I can’t believe I’m doing the opening survey 4 hours late. That’s a first for me. It’s also a good example of where I am in my life right now…
1) What part of the world are you reading from today? Still reading from home, in Keystone Heights, FL. I feel like next April we should do readathon from some other location, just for fun. hah.
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? I have no darn idea what is in my stacks – either print or digital. Maybe the Joan Baez drawings? Or all of the campfire cookbooks? Or the cocktail books? (the Cocktails for Book Lovers was excellent. I’d buy it.)
3) Which snacks are you most looking forward to? Another question I don’t know the answer to. I have a lot of snacks. The salted caramel danish from TJ’s was a disappointment this morning. I’m hoping the popcorn and the sea salt butterscotch caramels are better.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself! I have new patio furniture that I bought for super-cheap on a whim, in February… and I’m really enjoying sitting outside in the mornings and evenings and enjoying the lake and the nature and my books and my cocktails. I’m not enjoying the pollen, though.
5) What are your goals for this readathon? My only goal is to enjoy my books and my drinks and my food and my dogs and my chicken and my partner. #LongLive
New questions again! What is happening?! Hah. And, I’m late with this (story of my life right now) and didn’t even bother with the mid-event survey (I bet there were new questions, weren’t there?!!)
1. How many books did you read during this readathon? Did you have any favorites?
I read three… not sure I can call any of them my favorites. I enjoyed them all. (50 pages of The Lace Maker’s Secret, 50 pages of The Art Thief, 260 pages of Bad Summer People.)
2. How many books did you finish?
I only finished Bad Summer People.
3. Did you accomplish your goals for this readathon?
Hahaha, nope. I knew I wouldn’t. I just don’t read print books very often.
4. How did your snacks and meals work out? Are there things you would change about the food and beverages side of your readathon for next time?
The food was fine. Hopefully we’ll be better prepared for the next one rather than waiting til the last minute.
5. Did you enjoy this readathon? What was the most successful part of your readathon? What would you change for next time?
I always enjoy readathon. I was glad to finish Bad Summer People since I was just reading it to knock out one of the Amazon Kindle fall challenge bookmarks. Next time I’m hoping to not have a broken ankle. hah.
6. Will you be continuing your readathon reading past the end of our official readathon?
Nope. I’ll read of course but I have other things I want to do today.
Well … this is the latest I’ve ever done the opening survey. Also, it’s changed this time around and that feels weird. Not bad weird, just weird.
1) What part of the world are you reading from today?
The “guest bedroom” in my house. This is a first for us. We’ve never done a readathon in this room before. It’s kinda weird.
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
I have no idea since I don’t know what the heck I’m reading except for the two I’ve already started.
3) Which snacks are you most looking forward to?
Another frustration… I thought #readathon was next weekend, which is ridiculous but true, so we are stuck with whatever snack foods Kroger decided to deliver this morning. I feel like I’m really just looking forward to pimento cheese + naan. I should really keep the snacking on the light side anyway, since I’m getting very little exercise due to the broken ankle.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I have a damn broken ankle… well wait, is it officially still broken if it’s been screwed/plated together? I guess probably since I have to grow some new bone there anyway. I’m only PWB (partial weight bearing) and using a knee scooter or a rolling walker + air boot to get around. Mostly I lay in bed with my foot up. Fun stuff.
5) What are your goals for this readathon?
NEW question! Hmmm goals? I’ve never really made goals for readathon before. I don’t have a page goal or a total books read goal or an hours read goal. OK Here’s a goal. I need to finish ONE print book within the next 24 hours. (I’m totally going to fail hahaha.)
I don’t blog much but today, it seems appropriate.
We lost Heather B. Armstrong (Dooce). And while I have a thousand thoughts in my head after typing that sentence, they’re confusing, disjointed, and complex. I guess that makes sense – Heather could be all of those things at any given moment. She was also a huge part of my blog life, though she certainly didn’t know it.
I knew her. She knew me. We’ve talked at BlogHer. We’ve talked on Twitter and blog post comments. We didn’t have much in common beyond blogging, kids, and the tendency to tell people things they don’t like to hear. With the thousands of blogs I read every day for YEARS, you might not think hers was one of the first I’d read in the morning – but it was. I have so many reasons to thank her – some silly, some not silly at all. Here are some of those…
Heather introduced me to the amazing Flor carpet tiles – and then I won 30 tiles. I had no idea my young dog (Skeeter) would decide they were dog toys and chew the shit out of them. I put them away and brought them out again after we moved to Florida – surely my dogs, (five years older) would not chew them since by then they didn’t really chew shit they shouldn’t (except for people food and sticks and chickens.) Alas, someone (BUSTER YOU ASSHAT) decided that peeing on them was exactly what he needed to do. Often. And while they are washable, they aren’t that MFing washable. I still have them and hope someday I can enjoy them. Without chewing or peeing.
In like 2009ish, TW was doing an Influencer thing with Home Goods and they gave her a gift card to go shopping. When we talked about what we’d like to buy… we both thought about those quirky dog statues you used to be able to “buy” on Wheel of Fortune back when you shopped with your winnings (why did they stop doing that? That was the best part of the show. Get rid of Pat, and bring back the damn shopping). Unfortunately, Home Goods did not have any of those types of dogs but they DID have this one. His name is Chuck (IYKYK). He’s been through a lot over the last 15 years but he’s still (mostly) standing. I talk to him often and ALWAYS think of his namesake and of Heather.
At some point after Johnny Mac Pippin was born, Heather blogged about having an oil painting done by Paul Ferney as part of a Commission Project he was starting. You could send him a photo and he’d paint it in oil and frame it for you. It was a wee bit expensive but not out of my price range. I thought it would be a fabulous Christmas gift for my mom – so I sent Pippin’s photo and ordered it. And then I ordered another the next year with the idea that I’d send a new one to my mom every Christmas and she’d send me the one she’d had all year. When she sent me the next one, I’d give the one I’d had all year to Jenn. Rinse and repeat and ultimately, Jenn would have them all.
Paul stopped doing the commission project paintings but by then, it was tradition so I found another painter and the series goes on with paintings of Squishy Doodle and Baby Evergreen now. Every damn Christmas my mother threatens to keep the one she’s had all year and every year I think I’m going to have to drive up there and retrieve my damn painting. It’s a great tradition – I highly recommend it. Thanks to Heather for getting us started. I never would have thought of doing this on my own.
Now onto the big stuff. The thing I’m most thankful to Heather for.
Because I read, and commented on, and promoted blogs all day long, every day, for many many years – I clung to the blogs that ALWAYS left me feeling something.
Whether it was a gorgeous photo, a birthday letter to her children, a ridiculous post about The Former Congressman, Chuck (whose death I admit to crying over for a very, very long time), growing up in the Mormon church, or her honest and raw posts about post-partum depression – I often didn’t agree with Heather or understand where she was coming from, but I always left her blog feeling something. Not all bloggers can do that – not even the very good bloggers or the very successful bloggers. Heather had that gift, (or curse?)
I cannot imagine how difficult it was to be Heather B. Armstrong. How difficult it was to try to live her life, raise her children, do her job, manage her depression, and deal with the horrifying hatred coming from people who participated in sites that I won’t name. She was so strong, even when she broke. I admired that strength. I admired her ability to keep telling her story. I admired her ability to keep going.
And here’s where I struggle – I don’t want to end this without mentioning how difficult it was to read Dooce, particularly in recent years. Heather made mistakes. She hurt people. She was not a perfect person. I don’t want to talk about Heather or look back on her legacy – yes, legacy – with rose-colored glasses, but I also am not interested in re-hashing … anything that’s happened before. I told her what I thought, while she was still here. That’s enough.
We’ve lost someone who changed more lives than she knew, read this insightful piece for more about that.
As expected, I didn’t make it til even midnight. 10:30 and I was DONE. It was still a great readathon and I’m looking forward to another one in April.
How would you assess your reading overall?
Not bad, considering I was so tired.
Did you have a strategy, and if so, did you stick to it?
My strategy was to try to read when I could, sleep when I needed to, and do very little that wasn’t reading and sleeping. I managed all of that!
What was your favorite snack?
The snacks weren’t great but they were all fine. I was shockingly impressed with the Buc-ee’s dark chocolate-covered espresso beans. Very flavorfull. I will by those again. The Asheville popcorn was good but not as good as Chicago mix.
Page 86 gift from Circus of Wonders (Once Upon a Book Club Box)
I feel like it’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these but since I just finished a book, a snack, and a drink – it seems like a good time to check in.
What are you reading right now?
Circus of Wonders and Florida
How many books have you read so far?
Two! Upcycle It! Crafts for Kids and A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting
What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the readathon?
Circus of Wonders
Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?
I had a 90-minute nap – so darn tired! I might now manage to make it even til midnight, I’m so tired. I’m also very pleased at having read two whole books, even if I’ve done a whole lot of sleeping
I knew I should have done this last night, haha. I slept til 8:47 and it took almost an hour to get through my morning routine AND make some quick blueberry muffins for breakfast. I’m not really complaining about over-sleeping though. I sleep so poorly that all sleep is good sleep. Onward to the survey and then the books!
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
Same as always – my home in Keystone Heights, FL. Another nice day so I expect to do some outdoor reading throughout the day. (This question always makes me think we should do an Airbnb for #Readathon someday lol.
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
I don’t even know what’s in my stack… I’ve been just looking at my Kindle stack, downloading random things to my library, and then reading whatever feels right. So, who knows! I am going to read this Once Upon a Book Club book from last year, Circus of Wonders. I keep forgetting about it!
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
We’re low on snacks this year – trying to out the stockpile. We do have a cheeseboard that was part of TW’s year of Cheese Xmas gift, so that will be fun. I’ve also been saving some Asheville Popcorn that we brought back from my birthday trip a couple of weeks ago.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I’m a Swiftie and my Midnights vinyl is out for delivery! It’s going to be tough to not listen to it today and just stick with books, hah.
The Reverse Readathon is officially over… we’re still reading, though. (Which is why I kind of like reverse readathon more than regular readathon. I can squeeze a few more hours in a lot easier than I can on a normal readathon schedule.) I was too tired to think about the mid-event survey so let’s just jump right into the closing survey.
1)How would you assess your reading overall?
Well… considering I had to deal with a sick dog for quite a long time last night which caused me to need a very long nap around mid-day … not too bad. It turned out to be a bit of an LGBTQ sort of readathon. I read the last 100 pages of “The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes”, the entire book “Count Your Lucky Stars”, and I’m almost 100 pages into “If You Could Be Mine”. On the non-LGBTQ front (though really, it wouldn’t be shocking if at least one of these characters was a lesbian… spinsters and all that…) I’ve read another 125 pages of “The Siren of Sussex”.
2)Did you have a strategy, and if so, did you stick to it?
I had no strategy, as indicated by the fact that I totally forgot I had planned to read a Once Upon a Book Club book. Oh well… maybe I’ll read that when we go to the beach at the end of August. That might be fun?
3)What was your favorite snack?
Oddly, my favorite snack turned out to be some pretzel bites dipped in mustard, pimento cheese, and Penzey’s chip dip. Best spur of-the-moment $1 I’ve spent in a long while. I hope Kroger continues to carry this brand…. whatever brand it was, lol.
Pretzel bites with pimento cheese, chip dip, and mustard.
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
I’m reading from my bedroom at the moment and that’s probably where I’ll do the bulk of my reading. Unless it gets too hot tomorrow and then I’ll move downstairs and read in any room that has air blowing on me. Gosh it’s hot in Florida. I shouldn’t complain because it hasn’t been THAT bad (yet) this summer.
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
That would require me to have a stack ready to go and I don’t. Not really. I have two print books that I got from the library last weekend so I’m probably most looking forward to those because I read everything on my iPad now. So rare to hold a real book in my hand! I also have about 20 books ready to go in my Kindle app.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
Hah. We were not well prepared for this readathon. I thought it was next week until my mother texted to ask if we were doing readathon, I told her we were and then went over to Goodreads to see what was being talked about for this year’s reverse readathon and realized I had the dates wrong. Hahaha. So, no time to go into town and pick out our snacks like usual. Instead, I ordered random, not-very-special stuff for my Kroger delivery today. Not much there to get excited about but we won’t starve and we’ll enjoy what we have. Oh… I’ll have a brownie for tonight’s snack. That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I used to read around 250 books a year but have been lucky to hit 50 for the last few years. I’m having a very good year this year and have already hit 29 books! Yay, me! Oy.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do differently today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
I’ve done dozens of readathons and they’re all just a little different, even when they’re sort of the same. I suppose having 2 print books and a bunch of print cookbooks from the library is different from any of the readathons we’ve done for the last 2+ years. If only I’d thought to grab some middle grade fiction (again, I thought I had more time! lol), I love having middle grade fiction to fall back on when I’m tired during a readathon.
Happy reverse readathon to all.
View of my bedroom while I’m sitting in my recliner. Just 2 dogs because it’s storming and the 3rd is in his crate listening to relaxing music.
