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
Happy Halloween! I hope the day is as spooky as you like it to be.
It's the year-end, almost.
Halloween to me, is the beginning of the end of the year. It's when I acknowledge that I can start thinking about and planning for November and December, and maybe even talk like the holidays are here. I still have two weeks worth of days to take off from work or I lose them all, so I have some fun weeks off work coming up that I'm looking forward to. This time around, I'm considering forgoing the whole yearly planning thing I try to do. I've never succeeded with yearly plans, I prefer doing them quarterly. So we'll see what the next two months look like.
Renovation updates
And we finally hit not one, but two renovation/schedule hiccups. While installing the cabinets for the kitchen, we discovered that the cabinet company delivered the island cabinets in the wrong color. We had ordered blue, they came in white. On top of that, the granite company is running extremely behind on orders that we may not get the granites slabs on time. Needless to say, we are extremely frustrated now. I get it, delays are probably more common than not during renovations. That said, without going into a lot, there was a lot of avoidable human error involved in this planning. (I am a project manager by profession, so this annoys me even more because I can see where things could have been done differently. I know, I know...)
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| Shortly after cabinets were installed two weeks ago (sorry for the washed out look) |
Anyways, at this point, they have started work on the master bathroom. No delays are expected here because everything has already been ripped out (and there are no surprises), plus everything except the vanity and some readily available custom shelving have been delivered/picked up. I don't want to jinx this schedule but we may be able to start using the master suite two weekends from now. We don't know much yet about the kitchen schedule at this point, but hoping to hear more this week.
On the plus side, we finished setting up our office room. This took a while because apart from the deep cleaning that needed to be done, I also had to set up the bookshelves. This time around, I decided to go with The Home Edit's Rainbow color scheme, so that took days to do but was well worth the time! I will probably never find the book I am looking for but this setup gives me so much peace to look at.
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| Apparently, most of the books I own have either white or black covers. |
Family visits
One great news is that with the travel bans to US finally lifting, my parents and brother will be able to be here in early December. They were initially supposed to come over during Summer of 2020, but then Covid happened. Then they were supposed to come during Summer of this year, when the disastrous 2nd wave swept through India. So this is the third try now. I'm so looking forward to seeing them after so long. The idea was that our renovation would be complete by then, but that may not happen, so we'll have to start thinking about Plan B.
Reading
Not a whole lot yet. I'm just trying to read something every day, even if it takes me days to get through the book. I did finish The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, which I loved and recommend heartily. At the same time I was reading it, our contractor would also share stories from his childhood, growing up black in New York and hoping to get to 35 years of age, the few times he was stopped by police while driving, and the countless injustices he has seen in his life. And all this while I watch in dismay the arguments of some of candidates running for local council and school board elections. Whenever I hear someone say racism isn't a thing, it gets my blood boiling.
Last night, I started reading Passing by Nella Larsen. It's been on my list for a while and when Netflix came up with its own book club, I figured I should bump it up my list. I am also very curious about the ending that many seem to talk about.
Watching
We started watching Star Trek: Prodigy. The first episode was fun even if oriented towards kids. Looking forward to seeing how this will shape out.
On the Blog
Nonfiction November is starting tomorrow! It's an event I look forward to every year but I think I'm going to sit this one out. I don't think it's in my schedule this time. But I'll vicariously celebrate through you all if you are participating. Have fun! I'm sad to miss this year.
Have you been 2022-planning already?
Linking with The Sunday Salon at Readerbuzz and The Sunday Post at Caffeinated Reviewer.
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