Sunday Salon: March 31, 2019

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz is taking over The Sunday Salon and she has decided to make it a blog again rather than only a Facebook group. Yay! I am not doing FB these days so I love that I get to participate again.

My life in books over the past two weeks: 

• Immoral Code by Lillian Clark
• Watch Us Rise by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan
• Nothing is Forgotten by Peter Golden

• The Rent Collector by Camron Wright
• Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Challenges progress:

• A to Z Reading--I have read books with titles for 18 letters so far: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, Q, T, U, V, and W.
• Diversity Reading Challenge--I have read 20 books.
• Literary Escapes--I have read books set in 19 states so far, adding Georgia, Oregon South Carolina in the past two weeks. I have read in 30 countries so far, adding Japan, Morocco, Poland and Cambodia in the past two weeks.
• Motif Reading Challenge--The March motif is "Royalty, Kingdoms, Empires, Governments" (characters who are involved in government), and I am counting Nothing is Forgotten by Peter Golden as the characters are spies working for the US and Soviets in the 1960s.
• Non-fiction--I have read 10 books so far.
• YA Award Winners--I have read 6 of the winners
• My Own Books--This challenge runs from March 15 to May 15, 2019 and I will try to read 10 books off my TBR shelves. So far I have read 5 of them.

My life outside books:

Work:

I have been on spring break this past week so, even though I've been working, I haven't been at work. It has felt very relaxing.

Personal:

My doggie has seemed quite ill this week. He isn't eating normally and seems to have no energy, not even wanting to go for most of his walks. He is 14, but this seems quite sudden. Poor Charlie. We took him to the vet and, of course, he was totally fine there, eating and playing. Now that he's home he seems a little better. But just a little. It's like having a baby again where you worry constantly about what they are eating and how much they pee and poop. And he can't say how he's feeling.

The good news is spring has arrived and it's beautiful! The first iris is out, the rock rose nad clivia have burst forth, the red bud is in full bloom, and the California poppies are vibrant (that photo is from our visit to the Botanic gardens yesterday, but the rest are from our garden).