November 2017 Update

Another month closer to the end of the year. 2017 really flew by, didn't it? I'm happy to see we're ending Hurricane season - it was a vicious one and I'm not in the mood for any more storms.

We're also already coming to an end for the Fall season. Overall it's been a good Fall in Florida for a change - instead of being in the 90's daily, we've had some spurts of cooler weather and it's evened out around the 70's, which is perfect.

I've read little this month in comparison to other months, but did hit that yearly Goodreads goal. December is a busy behind-the-scenes time blog and reading wise. I have to tally up the year totals, see in dismay how poorly I did on New Year's challenges, complete the End of the Year survey, try to catch up on stray reviews I procrastinated on (behind almost 50, yes really...), create a new plan for the new year and post it at the respective Goodreads and Library thing groups, create a new Challenge page for Paperbackstash while filling in and completing previous challenges here for 2017. And naturally real life stuff too!

On a negative note, FEMA basically sucks in my opinion. No help from them whatsoever even though I meet every qualification and applied for assistance the first week of the hurricane when I could find a place with working power. Took two months for an inspector to come out, then they denied me saying damage wasn't caused by storm (which makes no sense, they have no proof of this). I kept the evidence of the storm damage and my house is still in disarray, so it's bogus. Three weeks later no response to an appeal either. Why are they so strangely random on who they will help?

General Stuff

Of course there was Thanksgiving this month, something my mother and I usually enjoy doing together. This year she had to work since she's returned to management, so it was just me who did the dinner spread. So that she would be able to join in, we bumped up Thanksgiving dinner time to 6:30, which worked just as well for me since it's dinner time anyway. As always it was a fun time to spend with family and get to indulge in cooking, which I rarely do anymore. We skimped on desserts big time due to time constraints this year, but there's already enough calories on this table already right?.

Of course I also had to spend up to 3 days carefully examining
every possible case option. This one is now on its way.

I'm not a big Black Friday kind of gal but I couldn't resist two things that popped up - Amazon's excellent Kindle Paperwhite discount of thirty bucks and Steam's addicting sales. I have been eyeing the Paperwhite for awhile to be an accompaniment to my much loved older generation Fire tablet. Having a discounted price, a free gift card from work, and payment option was too much for me to pass up. It's on the way. :)

I ended up getting most of my wishlist emptied on Steam (yes, a new hobby for me), especially salivating at the 75% to 90% discounts. That comes in handy especially when a much wanted game is $40 and too steep for me during holiday season (Hello Alien: Isolation and Witcher 3...) Friday the 13th was a grab since I'm such a retro horror flick fan and Jason is the slasher man, but sadly so far the game has not loaded for me. It may end up being a refund after all, despite getting it at half off. My son does have it on X-box but that's sort of his man-zone and I'm not able to touch the thing. I did grab Dead by Daylight last month and it's also fun and in a similar vein, but I haven't been able to play it much.

Fun but computer glitchy

Mystery games are addicting, so I grabbed the one and only lonely Agatha Christie game they had ABC Murders) and solved it already - thankfully no spoilers abounded since I read this book this year as a matter of coincidence. I'm in a short line or others moaning their woes that older Agatha Christie classic games, especially from Big Fish, are no longer available on Steam. Big mention to the old but excellent And Then there were None.
(

Have to toss out the kudos for the fun and strangely addicting games I recently discovered, Stardew Valley and Cook, Serve and Delicious.

Can you tell already most of November was spent at home for me when compared to September and October?

What I Read This Month

If not up already, reviews will be up soon. I'm slow.

New Bookish Buys

What I'm Watching

My son has me binge-watching seasons of Blue Bloods, which is another cop show he's addicted to. It's grown on me. I've also discovered - late to the game but better late than never - how funny Last Man Standing was.

What I'm Listening To

Celtic and Instrumental Christmas from JCFantasy23 on 8tracks Radio.

I have a few up that are Christmas related. Here's the newest I've made for Celtic Christmas with instrumental. I'm planning to overdose on Christmas music the next week or so.

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