July Digest

How has your July been? I haven’t even noticed how it started, and barely realised that it ended. It always happens to me when things get weird at work. Nevertheless, I did get up to a few things, and wanted to share them with you. Do you like these types of personal/ lifestyle-y posts? Tell me your thoughts in the comments!

Done

The reason I don’t like summer is I don’t usually get much done, unless said something involves sitting in a cooling body of water or consuming ice-cream by the pint. I want to remedy this rather boring July by throwing in some sort of a fun adventure in August. We’ll see what I come up with.

A post shared by Alexandra (@alexandrabrovco) on Jul 16, 2017 at 5:26am PDT

Book Club

As mentioned previously, my friend and I organised a book club at our work place. Our current read is Tom Sawyer, and our second meeting is some time this month.

I’ve never run a book club before – never even been in one before – so it’s an interesting experience. Herding readers is a bit like herding cats, especially since all of us have such broad understanding of what makes a great book. Some of us have read a tonne, and others are just starting, so deciding on a book list, finding questions for discussion, and even finding a meeting time and place that would work for all members proves to be rather challenging. Fun, though.

A post shared by Alexandra (@alexandrabrovco) on Jul 30, 2017 at 11:22am PDT

Makeup Challenge

I am on a (seemingly eternal) makeup buying ban (barring the “necessities”, such as mascara, foundation, and whatever else I run out of), and in order to make it fun for myself, I decided to take on a Finish 5 By Fall panning project. I’m panning a powder, two lip products, a foundation, and an eyeliner. As a bonus I threw in a perfume. The bottle is huge and almost full. If I get through about half of it, I will consider it a success.

Read

I am sad to report that July has been quite a productive month for me, reading-wise. Sad, because – yeah, three books is ‘productive’ for me these days. Pitiful, quite pitiful. I’ve also fallen into some kind of a reading groove that I don’t want to break – I read every day, in small increments, gradually working through my current reads. I like it, it’s become a nice part of my routine.

American Gods

So many folks praise the television series, but seriously? No. Skip the show, read the book. The show is slow and has no idea what it’s doing. The book is precise and is delivered in Gaiman’s soft fairy-tale-like style, blow by blow by blow.

Find it on Amazon. The Kindle edition is currently $2.62.

A post shared by Alex (@readanythingonce) on Jul 22, 2017 at 4:34am PDT

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

My wish to catch up on some ‘self-help’ classics will drive me to drink. This is my new self-help book conspiracy theory. Drive people to despair with the subject in question; sell more subject in question to people. Did you know I plan on tackling The Secret next? Now you do.

Regardless of all of my whining about The Monk across all the social media as I kept reading it – I didn’t hate the book. It just annoyed the living daylights out of me, sort of like an intelligent but senseless acquaintance would. The message is fine – improve yourself, better yourself, be kind to others, enjoy the present moment and the little things in life, and don’t forget about people that are close to you. But does it have to be all rose-covered huts, yogis, ancient wisdom, sob stories, and graceful peace in softly wrinkled eyes or whatever? I don’t regret a lot in life, but I do regret spending around 267 lei on this book back in the day – especially seeing as this amount money is larger than my current weekly grocery and fun budgets. Combined. What was I thinking?!

Shoo, shoo.

Should you wish to read it, you can get it on Amazon. The e-book edition is currently discounted to $2.99.

A post shared by Alex (@readanythingonce) on Jul 21, 2017 at 4:49pm PDT

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

This was such a fun read, and I regret getting distracted and never finishing it as a kid. I am going to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn some time later – I like to take breaks between works of one author. Anyway, if you haven’t yet read this American YA classic, then I urge you to give it a go. It has a slow start, but then picks up the pace and drags you in. Amazon (free on Kindle!)/ Gutenberg.

Watched

I’ve had a weird relationship with on-screen entertainment lately. I can’t watch any film in one go – unless I’m in a theatre, and I haven’t been to the cinema in ages. None of the series, old or new, seem to interest me that much. Ever since I’ve watched the last episode of Elementary, I’ve been in some sort of a TV limbo.

Zootopia

A kind film that pushes you to look at things from a different angle and eschew stereotypes. I might watch this again when I need a pick-me-up. (Amazon.)

American Gods

American Gods the TV show is a fine visual that, even at the end of season 1, has little idea where it’s going. I’m not sure I will be following season 2, but should I do so, it would be for Anansi, Mad Sweeney, Mr Jacquel and Mr Ibis. (Amazon.)

Scrubs

My friend persuaded me to watch this. I like it, but don’t find myself binging on it. I’m currently at the start of S1, and the thing I find most interesting is that I can’t quite find a character that I would fully dislike. Even the antagonising Kelso. I don’t root for him or anything, but I don’t find myself hating him. (Amazon.)

Ate

Aren’t green soups notoriously hard to take a good picture of? They all end up looking, shall we say, … sickly. Definitely not appetising. But this was good. I’m going to post a recipe + variation some time this month.