It’s Monday again. Already. Apparently. It’s a work day for me, but that’s changing – at least temporarily…. more on that later. I’m linking up with Sheila from Book Journey to share all of the exciting happenings in my little world.

What I read

I’m not sure exactly what I did last week, but it wasn’t a lot of reading and writing!

I read Rob Tom Smith’s The Farm  and I’ll be posting that review shortly as it’s been sitting in draft form for about five days! Apathy schmapathy.

A new book arrived compliments of Hachette Australia — due for publication this month — and overtook others to be next on my agenda. To say The Chimes  by Anna Smaill is a challenging read is an understatement. However I’d noted others commenting on its slow start but recommending hanging in there and I’m glad I heeded their advice.

I’ve started, but haven’t quite finished What You Can When You Can,  which I mentioned in last week’s post. It’s not due for publication until April and I have an advance copy (with a few bits yet to be completed) so I’ll be reviewing it in coming weeks.

What I wrote

Not much.

I mentioned last week that I’d spent some time pondering some decisions I needed to make and wrote about my concern of being too emotionally dependent on others (well, my mother in the absence of a partner) for support and comfort.

I posted my review of The Rosie Effect  in Goodreads; and blogged about Jonathan Kellerman’s latest Alex Delaware novel, Motive.

Other stuff

We actually had an earthquake last night. A rarity in Australia and even more so in my neck of the woods. It only measured 5.2 or so and was a couple of hundred kilometres from where I live, but I was woken by my shaking building.

Naturally (a few hours later), the memes have started and it reminds me of what I love most about Australia and Australians… that we’re excellent at taking the p!ss out of ourselves. I mean we’re not completely insensitive, so I think everyone waited until we knew there were no injuries or significant damage. But then… there’s no stopping us!

I had a few days away over the weekend – heading south to the Sunshine Coast for my aunt’s 60th birthday celebration. We dined at a local gourmet pizza bar and I had a spectacular gluten-free baked chicken pizza, which (in addition to chicken #obvs) comprised bacon, spring onion, pine nuts and thyme. Oh. My. God!

Valentine’s Day evening was therefore spent with my mother at Peregian Beach stuffed with pizza and watching the 1970 movie Love Story —  in the absence of better TV viewing fodder. As an aside, I was shocked at how much of the movie I’d ‘misremembered’. I mean, I recalled the general gist, but got other bits completely wr-wr-wrong!

Although the weather was fabulous we didn’t actually head onto the beach, although I set a rare foot on the sand to capture the obligatory share-on-social media photograph.

And finally… I’ve resigned from my part-time work / contract thingy. I’m glad I’ve made the decision but it’s really scary as it means I’ll have no income (and nothing to fall back on). I’m staying one more week while the boss is o/s and then I’ll need to either find a non-existent job or try to find some paid writing and blogging work.

Reading this week

I’ve got five books sitting on my NetGalley shelf awaiting my attention. None are due for publication until April, so I’ve got a lot of flexibility this coming week when it comes to reading fodder. I desperately need to do some ‘income-generating’ thinking so perhaps it’ll be a light reading week for me as I spend my nights pondering my life and future rather than escaping into someone else’s.

So that’s my life and reading update. What’s on your agenda this week?