This Spring-like week | Weekly Snapshot

Published : 2021 || Format : print || Location : Colombia ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ What was it about the country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring alone there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.. Thoughts : Infinite Country follows two characters - young Talia, who at the beginning of this book, escapes a girl’s reform school in North Colombia so that she can make her previously booked flight to the US. Before she can do that, she needs to travel many miles to reach her father and get her ticket to the rest of her family. As we follow Talia’s treacherous journey south, we learn about how she ended up in the reform school in the first place and why half her family resides in the US. Infinite Country tells the story of her family through the other protagonist, El

This Spring-like week | Weekly Snapshot

After weeks of near-zero (Fahrenheit) temperatures and so much snow (more than we have ever received in years), we are now in the 50s and it's looking that way for all of next week, woo hoo!

Life

We seem to have settled into a routine around here. Work has calmed down a bit as well, so you'd think that all this means I should be reading more or dabble in things that sound fun. Sadly no. While I still much relish being able to work from home and having kids safe in school, it would be nice to be able to socialize more with no worry of the virus. Yesterday, we all went for a long walk out in the beautiful weather. On our way, we passed by the park we spent so much time in last year but didn't venture inside because there were so many people in there. I look forward to the day we don't need to do that.

Spring break is coming soon and we are seriously considering safe vacation options. We don't have any grand ideas at the moment but we'll be thinking about it more.

It's the husband's birthday on Monday. No special plans - maybe some cake and more family time.

Reading

The week before last, I was reading up a storm. I was expecting to hit a wall at some point and that wall came last week. I couldn't get into any new book and have been struggling through my current read for the past two weeks. I'm not ready to give up yet but some slow reading is in order.

Before the rut hit though, I did read a few graphic novels and memoirs. Pashmina was just meh, and Class Act was as good as the prequel. But the big winners were Almost American Girl and Good Talk - both were very good #ownvoices accounts of how race and immigration shaped the authors' experiences and how it is forever an identity they carry everywhere, sometimes even rudely reminded about it where it shouldn't have mattered.

Right now, I am reading It's Not All Downhill From Here by Terry McMillan, which is so far a very good book. However, it is going very slow. Couple of times I considered putting it down and picking up something else, but that didn't work so this may just take a while.

Watching

We've been watching the Hotel Transylvania movies with the kids. While the third movie was just okay, the first two were a lot of fun.

I may have also binged on Netflix's mini-series, Behind Her Eyes. I was intrigued after reading a recent article by the author of the book on which this series is based. I missed out on all the hype when the book came out - that was during my three-year hiatus, but I doubt I would have read it even if I had caught on to the hype. At the time, I was so done with all those twisty and double-twisty thrillers (Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, etc). But that article intrigued me. Now that I'm done with the show - brr, those twists at the end! And also, ugh didn't like some of the things that were core to the story and I know I would have hated to read all that stuff in a book. But most of all, the show was creeeeeepy, and if that's your thing, you may love this show! I, on the other hand, sorely need to lose myself in some happy stuff now.