Kareila's Journal

On the one hand, my free trial of Kindle Unlimited ended and I should read the books I downloaded from that so that I can stop paying for it. Mostly LitRPG-type stuff.

On the other hand, I've actually been making some progress on the TBR pile? And I decided to restart Spider Robinson's Callahan series, which I never got around to finishing.

On the third hand, I have my usual pile of library books - ten checked out right now, and another half dozen or so scheduled for holds at the end of the month.

I swear I used to have other hobbies.

Previously: 2023, 2024

Here are the albums I have acquired within the past 12 months, with "new" used to describe "released within the past 2 years" (includes 2024 as well as 2025).

For extra funsies, here's the stats on where these came from:

Purchased from Bandcamp: 12 (24%)
Acquired from local libraries: 25 (50%)
Purchased from Amazon: 8 (16%)
Purchased from eBay: 1 (2%)
Received as a gift: 1 (2%)
Acquired directly from artist: 3 (6%)

( Read more... )

Despite not having much scheduled this week, it was still pretty busy. Robby & I got our second shingles shots, and Will got new glasses, and Connor registered for his spring classes, etc etc.

He's signed up for Calculus II, Computer Science II, Advanced English Composition, Introduction to Creative Writing, and a one-hour-per-week freshman class called "Research for All" that sounds relevant to his interests. More to the point from my perspective, he will have 8AM classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays (this term nothing was earlier than 9AM), but three days out of five he will be done with his classes by noon. So I can continue to take him to campus a couple of times a week without having to find a place to camp out for the entire day.

Will still isn't ready to go back. Lately he's been helping out by unpacking boxes of childhood stuff and making decisions about what to keep and what to toss. We still need to get him another set of bookshelves for his room. Maybe we'll find the time while Connor's out of school for Thanksgiving break, or after he's done with his finals in mid-December.

The Banana Ball league scheduled a game for Rickwood next year, and I'm really hoping to be able to get tickets. They're bringing two new teams, and one of them is going to have Red Sox legend Jackie Bradley Jr. on their roster. I'm so excited for him!

I'm starting to get interested in the NFL again now that the Patriots have gotten their act together, and Bo Nix is having another good year with Denver. And I'll be able to start watching college basketball now that ESPN and Youtube TV have finally settled their differences after a two-week-long blackout.

Tomorrow night, Connor and I are going to see the high school's fall play, which is a production of Harvey. Then next week is going to be busy again. I get to take my car to the dealership for maintenance, and that's almost always an ordeal.

What a game. What a series. WOW.

September is almost over and I don't know that I have all that much to show for it, although I have stayed busy.

Progress on the old house continues, but not as quickly as one would hope. We had to switch from homeowners' insurance to renters' insurance since the building is unoccupied, and the property tax exemption is about to expire. But the trim replacement on all of the first floor windows that we decided was necessary (and long overdue) is just about done, and I finally finished removing all the trimmed branches from the back yard. (That was rate-limited to the two trash bags per week that would fit in with the rest of our garbage, because the city discontinued their yard waste pickup service.)

Symphony chorus rehearsals started back up a couple of weeks ago. I did get permission from the chorus manager to sing with the altos for the Beethoven Ninth, which I requested for two reasons: one, to save my voice from all the high A's, and two, to give me something to LEARN in a season that consists mostly of the Ninth, the Messiah, and Carmina Burana, all of which I have sung multiple times - as a soprano.

But actually, we do also get to perform a new thing, or so I found out this week. It's called "A Time for Jubilee" and the composer is Nkeiru Okoye, a black woman only a few years older than I am. That's scheduled for the end of February.

Connor is still feeling positive about school. He had his first CS exam on Tuesday and his first big English assignment was due today. The only class he doesn't seem to be thrilled with is his "introduction to student life" seminar, which is understandable. So far I haven't had to sit around campus waiting on him for more than a couple of hours at a time.

I have one more book to go before I'm caught up on the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. I've also finally started the Earthsea books, and I'm rereading the sixth Old Man's War book to refresh my memory before getting the newest one, which I'm hoping will arrive at the library next week.

The baseball season ends on Sunday and the Red Sox still haven't locked up a wild card spot for the playoffs. It's going to be a chaotic weekend in the American League for every contender except Seattle. As for the Dodgers, they clinched the NL West today and their pitching rotation is finally in good shape, although their bullpen is still looking shaky. But I'd love to see them manage to pull off the World Series repeat, if only to give people one less reason to talk about the Yankees.

A good friend of mine (who reads as much as I do, if not more) recently sent me his current top 5 list and when I tried to reciprocate, I had such a hard time narrowing my list down that this is what I came up with, in roughly reverse chronological order.

• The Murderbot Diaries series (7 books to date) by Martha Wells (2017-2025)


• The Ambit's Run series (2 books to date) by L.M. Sagas (2024)


• The Scholomance trilogy by Naomi Novik (2020-2022)


• The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood (2020)


• Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone (2019)


• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow (2019)


• The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club trilogy by Theodora Goss (2017-2019)


• A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine (2019)


• The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (2019)


• All The Birds In The Sky by Charlie Jane Anders (2016)


• The Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie (2013-2015)


• The Old Man's War series (6 books to date) by John Scalzi (2005-2015)


• Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (2012)


• The Martian by Andy Weir (2011)


• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (2011)

Honorable mention: Seanan McGuire, T. Kingfisher, Becky Chambers, Jim Butcher, Katherine Addison

And yes, I know that there's a new Old Man's War book coming out later this month, but I have plenty of other books to read in the meantime!

It looks like the section of computer science that Connor was signed up for got cancelled? And he didn't get reassigned or notified?

I caught it just now. His advisor had caught it a few days ago and sent an email that Connor didn't see until he searched his mailbox just now.

Classes start Wednesday.

Even though the new bookshelves are upstairs and I spend most of my time downstairs, it does make me happy to have all of my books out of boxes again. It might even be a good thing that I'm not among them constantly, so that they don't become ignored in the background of daily life, but give me a fresh thrill of pleasure every time I see them.

As long as I can remember, I've loved to read and re-read, and collected as many books and magazines as I could. (Music too, but listening to music is a less tangible experience.) I spent a lot of my twenties and thirties trying to recall and track down books that I loved as a kid, but never owned. I still enjoy reading books that are intended for young people.

When I started college 32 years ago, the internet began to take up most of that book-shaped space in my free time, and although I never stopped buying books, I gradually stopped reading them as often. I started up again once my kids were born, but I've never caught up. Now I can only hope that I live long enough to read at least most of the ones I own, but new books come out every week that distract me from my backlog.

Thirty years is a long time, and I know there are some books that I own that I probably wouldn't enjoy reading now, or would have to read in the context of when they were written. But it's hard to know which ones will disappoint me just from glancing at the covers. I want to give them all a chance!

Then there's the family to consider. A lot of the books that I own and haven't read are ones that Robby has, like the Wheel of Time series. The kids have their own separate collections. I don't know if they'll ever be that interested in reading most of my books, although they have enjoyed some of my favorites, like Hitchhiker's Guide, Wrinkle in Time, and Watership Down. Will's favorite book of all time is the Westing Game, and Connor adores Howl's Moving Castle. But they also have a ton of Wimpy Kid, Minecraft, et al that were marketed to them as they were growing up, and I doubt whether they'll want to hang onto those indefinitely.

My mom has a huge book collection as well (this is one way you can tell we are related) but unlike me, she has already read almost every book she owns. She keeps bringing me new ones and then I feel bad for not getting around to reading them.

I don't know if I have a point to make here, I think I'm just trying to talk myself into being okay with having so many books. I hope that I will be able to read most of them eventually.

One day last May, apropos of nothing in particular, our DM happened to mention to me in chat that at some point he had prepared a one-shot storyline based on the movie Hackers. My response to that was: "Ok well now I know what I want for my birthday."

So today it came to pass that our intrepid group of adventurers teamed up with a band of rogues who bore more than a passing resemblance to the heroes of that movie, and mayhem ensued. It was great!

On top of that, the baker in our party made a birthday cake that looked like the head of Wally the Red Sox mascot. She's fantastically talented and I was blown away. Unbeknownst to me, Robby had bought a small pack of those plastic ball caps that they use for ice cream in order to use one as a cake topper, but they also happened to be the perfect size to fit on the head of my crocheted steel defender, so now he has yet another hat (I also have made him at various points over the past year-plus a sun hat, a pirate hat and a Santa hat).

It's all very silly and I can't stop smiling.

I tripped and fell into another library book sale and now my TBR list is up to almost 800. I took all of their Steven Brust and half of their Heinlein at 50 cents each.

Connor picked out a book by Haruki Murakami although he's still working his way through his last book sale purchase, One Hundred Years of Solitude, as well as an online copy of Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. I'm still bemused by his taste in reading material.