Ending my Autumn 2021 To-Do List

I would have posted this over the weekend, after Thanksgiving wrapped up, if I hadn't been so busy realizing that the cold we'd been battling for a week... was actually Covid.  

So, that's been an experience.  My kids are all over it, aside from an occasional cough or sniffle, and the same goes for my husband.  I'm definitely on the upswing too, just a few days behind them.  None of us were ever particularly sick; it's just been like a cold, except that it lingers on and on.  Like, my fever came back every evening for five straight days.  So far, I'm the only one to lose smell and taste, and that hasn't actually gone completely (yet), it's just gotten very faint for me.  We were definitely blessed with non-serious cases, like so many.

Anyway, I've got a few minutes to spare this evening, so I'm going to report in on how my to-do list went this fall :-)  Here we go!

~ Finish the major revisions of my Beauty and the Beast retelling Fail.  Complete the first round of revisions?  Yes.  Complete the major ones?  Nope.

~ Find that book a title! Fail.  Still no title.  Sigh.  This is a stubborn, stubborn title!

~ Publish a new short story in my Once Upon a Western collection Check! It's called "Who Lived in a Shoe," and my newsletter subscribers got to read it last month.  I'll be working on formatting it for Nook and Kindle this weekend, and I'll post here when it's available.

~ Read The Once and Future King by T. H. White Fail.  I got a few chapters in and just wasn't in the right mood for it, so I'll try it again another time.

~ Read 2 other books for my latest Classics Club list Check!  I read three:

• Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J. R. R. Tolkien
• Hamlet retold by Alexandre Dumas

(All book photos are mine from my Instagram)

~ Read 11 books off my TBR shelves Check! I read exactly 11:

• Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
• Hamlet retold by Alexandre Dumas
• Bat Masterson: The Man and the Legend by Robert K. DeArment
• Sugar Birds by Cheryl Grey Bostram
• The Goblin and the Dancer by Allison Tebo
• The Tall Stranger by Louis L'Amour
• The Beautiful Ones by Emily Hayse
• The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern
• The Hobbit graphic novel adapted by Charles Dixon, illustrated by David Wenzel
• Señor Saint by Leslie Charteris

~ Read 3 diverse books Check!  I read:

• Hamlet retold by Alexandre Dumas
• Trouble is What I Do by Walter Mosley
• Señor Saint by Leslie Charteris

~ Watch 6 movies off my TBW shelves Check!  I watched:

• Double Wedding (1937)
• Murder, My Sweet (1944)
• Nicholas Nickleby (2002)
• Mr. Soft Touch (1949)
• The Saint in London (1939)
• The Saint's Double Trouble (1940)

~ Try some new bread recipes Check!  I tried two new recipes, one for bread and one for rolls.

~ Have friends over for an Oktoberfest celebration Check!  We had a fun time sharing German food and imported beer with a few friends (well, I'm not a beer fan, but other people enjoyed that).

~ Go camping somewhere new Check!  We tried out a campground near our house that does group campsites because we'd like to go camping there with my brother's family sometime.

~ Host my ninth annual Tolkien Blog Party on my book blog Check!  I can't believe I've hosted it for nine straight years.  I'm going to have to figure out something really spectacular to do for the tenth year.

~ Co-host the Glenn Ford Blogathon here on this blog Check!  It was lots of fun :-)

~ Make apple-cinnamon pancakes Check!  They were just from a mix, but still tasty.

~ Make pumpkin muffins Check!  We made a couple different kinds this fall.

And that pretty well wraps up my autumn!  I have launched myself headfirst into the Christmas season, so I'll leave you with this absolutely fantastic video that Cowboy found me the other day.  It mashes up one of my favorite Christmas carols with the Mandalorian theme, so you know I love it :-D