Sweeping Away My Autumn To-Do List 2022

Today is the end of November, and tomorrow will officially feel like winter in my mind, even if it won't be very wintery outside where we live for another 6 to 8 weeks.  That means I'm ready to see how I did with the items on my Autumn To-Do List for the year.  Here we go!

(All photos are my own, mostly from my Instagram account)

~ Publish My Rock and My Refuge -- Check!  My retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" is out in the world, and you can buy it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million, Book Depository... or directly from me!

~ Finish my third Classics Club List -- Check!  You can see it right here.  I read fifty classic books for it in just over two years :-o

~ Start a new Classics Club List and read 2 books for it -- Check! My new list is right here, and I've read six books for it already!  They were:

• The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
• Prince of Thieves by Alexandre Dumas
• Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Among the Shadows by L. M. Montgomery
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
• The Christmas Hirelings by M. E. Braddon (review to come)

~ Read 12 books off my TBR shelves -- Check!  I read thirteen:

• Flight by Jan Burke
• The Convivial Homeschool by Mystie Winckler
• Crown and Cinder by Kendra E. Ardnek
• Song of the Valley by Britt Howard
• Prince of Thieves by Alexandre Dumas
• Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Among the Shadows by L. M. Montgomery
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
• The Vanderbeekers Make a Wish by Karina Yan Glaser
• Kidnapped by Jan Burke
• Gilead by Marilynn Robinson
• All is Calm; All is Bright by Colleen Coble (review to come)
• The Christmas Hirelings by M. E. Braddon (review to come)

~ Watch 3 movies off my TBW shelves -- Check!  I watched six:

• Marlowe (1969)
• Nightmare Alley (1947)
• Gold of the Seven Saints (1961)
• Kidnapped (1971)
• Dead Man's Folly (1986)
• The Mirror Crack'd (1980)

~ See Marlowe in the theater -- Fail, but only because its release has been pushed away to February.  Not my fault at all.  I WILL see it, if it's playing anywhere within an hour's drive.

~ See See How They Run in the theater -- Fail.  I blame publishing a book for eating up all my free time for most of this autumn.  I hope to get it from the library.

~ Watch Andor on Disney+ -- Semi-fail.  We only have 4 episodes left to watch, and I'm hoping to burn through them with Cowboy over the next couple weekends.  I am really, really digging the show, but he's kind of meh about it, so that's part of why we haven't finished it yet.

~ Host an Oktoberfest gathering -- Check!  We had some lovely friends over to enjoy good German food and lots of conversation and fun.

~ Go to Colonial Williamsburg for the brick firing -- Check!  We rented a beautiful 1700s house with my brother's family and stayed there with them and my mom for four nights, visiting Colonial Williamsburg and the Yorktown Battlefield, riding the ferry across the James River over and over, and generally having a jolly, yet restful time.

~ Make pumpkin cream cheese muffins -- Check!  I made them twice, in fact.

~ Host my TENTH annual Tolkien Blog Party! -- Check!  We had a wonderful time celebrating J. R. R. Tolkien and his wonderful writing.  Can't wait to do it again next year!

Onward and upward! Wintertime, here I come :-)

Autumn 2022 To-Do List

I've got a really busy autumn ahead of me, so let's do this!  Here are a whole lot of things I want to accomplish, goals I want to reach, and fun stuff I want to try between now and the end of November.

~ Publish My Rock and My Refuge -- I am planning on a November release, I just don't have a date picked out quite yet.  I'm starting to gather up stuff for a book launch goody package, though, which will include the above bookmark...

~ Finish my third Classics Club List

~ Start a new Classics Club List and read 2 books for it

~ Read 12 books off my TBR shelves

~ Watch 3 movies off my TBW shelves

~ See Marlowe in the theater

~ See See How They Run in the theater

~ Watch Andor on Disney+

~ Host an Oktoberfest gathering

~ Go to Colonial Williamsburg for the brick firing

~ Make pumpkin cream cheese muffins

~ Host my TENTH annual Tolkien Blog Party!  

I definitely have a busy autumn ahead!  How about you?  Any reading or watching or creating plans for the next few months?

Farewell to my Summer 2022 To-Do List

Labor Day has come and gone.  While summer weather tends to linger through September here, leaves are starting to turn different colors and pumpkin spice everything is filling the stores, so... time to see what I checked off of my Summer To-Do List and start gearing up for an autumnal one.

(Any idea why I snapped this picture at the Zane Grey museum?)

~ Keep pushing My Rock and My Refuge closer to publication Check!  I expect to have a release date set by the end of this month -- probably in November, but before Thanksgiving.

~ Start reposting my old Femnista articles here Check!  I've posted a couple already, and will continue to do so.  It's fun getting to discuss them in the comments here.

~ Read 3 books from my current Classics Club List Check!  I read five, which means that now, I only need to read ONE more book and I'll have finished my third batch of fifty books!  Anyway, the five I read this summer were:

• Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter
• What Katy Did at School by Susan Coolidge
• The Black Swan by Rafael Sabatini
• What Katy Did Next by Susan Coolidge
• These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder (review to come)

(Couldn't swim for six weeks because I broke my arm while rollerskating,
so I read by the pool while my kids swam.)

~ Read 12 books off my TBR shelves  Check!  I read nineteen :-o  Quite a few of those were from being laid up with my broken arm, and going on a couple of short road trips helped a lot too.

• Jane Eyre (Manga Classics) by Charlotte Bronte, Crystal S. Chan, and SunNeko Lee
• Liar by Jan Burke
• The Vanderbeekers Lost and Found by Karina Yan Glaser
• Emma (Manga Classics) by Jane Austen, Crystal S. Chan, and Po Tse
• What Katy Did at School by Susan Coolidge
• The Count of Monte Cristo (Manga Classics) by Alexandre Dumas, Crystal S. Chan, and Nokman Poon
• Seventh City by Emily Hayse
• Pride and Prejudice (Manga Classics) by Jane Austen, Crystal S. Chan, and Po Tse
• Murder by the Book by Rex Stout
• Sense and Sensibility (Manga Classics) by Jane Austen, Stacy King, and Po Tse
• Bones by Jan Burke
• The Black Swan by Rafael Sabatini
• Hamlet (Manga Classics) by William Shakespeare, Crystal S. Chan, and Julien Choy
• What Katy Did Next by Susan Coolidge
• Rose Petals and Snowflakes by Kendra E. Ardnek
• From These Dark Depths by Vanessa Rasanen
• Great Expectations (Manga Classics) by Charles Dickens, Crystal S. Chan, and Nokman Poon (review to come)
• The Cherokee Trail by Louis L'Amour (review to come)
• Bowdrie by Louis L'Amour

(from my Instagram account)

~ Watch 6 movies off my TBW shelves Check!  I watched ten, again partly because I was laid up with a broken arm and couldn't do much but sit in the recliner and read or watch movies for ten days.  The DVDs I got off my TBW shelves were:

Blood Alley (1955)

Vengeance Valley (1951)

Paris When it Sizzles (1964)

Moonfleet (1955)

The Saint Takes Over (1940)

Death on the Nile (1978)

Redhead from Wyoming (1953)

Leverage season 5 (2007-08)

The Saint in Palm Springs (1941)

Wild Harvest (1947)

(my downfall)

~ Go see Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris in the theater  Fail.  It was only here a couple weeks, and I was either gone or busy the whole time.  Booo :-(

~ Go see Vengeance in the theater  Fail.  Just never got there.

~ Co-host Legends of Western Cinema Week once again Check!  Visit this post for a complete roster of links to all the contributed posts.

~ Go to Tweetsie Railroad with my whole family Check!  We had a wonderful day there :-)

~ Go to Colonial Williamsburg Fail.  Never got around to it.  Partly because of the broken arm, and partly because of going other places and having lots of busy stuff going on.

(never had a cast, just surgery to put in a plate, and then an arm brace)

~ Find a good copycat recipe for Dole Whip Check!  DKoren shared one that we all liked so much, we made it multiple times.

~ Make red, white, and blue popsicles for our Independence Day party Check!  They turned out really cute, though we ended up not eating them at the party.  But we shared them with friends a different time instead.

That's a wrap on the summer of 2022 for me!

Summer 2022 To-Do List

Well, this has changed a bit from what I was expecting, since I broke my arm.  For much of this summer, I simply can't do stuff like go swimming or have squirt gun fights with my kids.  But I still have a lot of goals and projects to work on anyway.  Here are things I want to accomplish by the end of August.

~ Keep pushing My Rock and My Refuge closer to publication

I'm not holding myself to my original goal of an August release because... a broken right arm makes typing and using a mouse hard, since I am right handed!  I'm pretty speedy at typing with only my left, but the next round of revising will most likely be about finding errors and removing extraneous stuff, and that's more mouse-work.  And, I am really slow using a mouse with my left hand.  I make it work, obviously, but it is gonna be the end of July before my right arm can be truly back in use, so... we are looking at a fall release, now.

~ Start reposting my old Femnista articles here

Femnista's website will get shut down at the end of July, but the editor, Charity Bishop, has given us all permission to repost our old articles on our own sites and blogs, so I will be doing that.

(All photos are mine from my Instagram account.)

~ Read 3 books from my current Classics Club List

~ Read 12 books off my TBR shelves

~ Watch 6 movies off my TBW shelves

~ Go see Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris in the theater.  I like the 1992 version already, and even read the book years ago.  Such a sweet, uplifting story.

~ Go see Vengeance in the theater.  Maybe.  I think I want to see it, anyway.

~ Co-host Legends of Western Cinema Week once again.  Details are here!

~ Go to Tweetsie Railroad with my whole family

~ Go to Colonial Williamsburg

~ Find a good copycat recipe for Dole Whip

~ Make red, white, and blue popsicles for our Independence Day party.  Maybe something like this?

Okay, it's taken me several days to write this post because of my broken arm, blah blah blah, so I am going to say this is enough to do this summer and go ahead and post this :-D  Here's to all the fun times ahead!

Polishing off my Spring To-Do List

Memorial Day has come and gone, and my kids have finished off their school year, so I'm declaring springtime over and summertime upon us.  I maaaaaay have delayed writing this post for a couple of days just so I could finish checking off one item from my spring to-do list, but since the technical first day of summer is weeks away yet, I don't feel even a smidgen of guilt over that.

All book and movie titles are linked to my reviews if I have reviewed those already :-)

Here we go!

(All photos are mine, many from my Instagram.)

~ Finish the major revisions of My Rock and My Refuge CHECK!!!!!!!!!  I have sent it back to my editor, plus I also sent it to my cover artist.  I am so, so happy to have these revisions done!  A rather large chunk had to get completely rewritten, and lots of other things changed here and there because of that, but I rather think it's turned out quite lovely.  Right now, I am hoping for an August or September release, but that does depend on whether the editor thinks it needs more overhauling, or just fine-tuning.  We shall see!

~ Start a street team for my Once Upon a Western series Check!  We call ourselves the Outlaws, and we have been having a rollicking good time getting to know each other.  I haven't had much for them to do yet, but that will change sooooooon :-D

~ Read 3 books for my latest Classics Club list Check!  I read eight:

• Bed-Knob and Broomstick by Mary Norton
• The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
• Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Vera by Elizabeth von Arnim
• Rupert of Hentzau by Anthony Hope
• In the Heat of the Night by John Dudley Ball
• What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge
• Swallowdale by Arthur Ransome (review to come)

~ Read 10 books off my TBR shelves Check!  I had a great spring for reading and read twenty books off my TBR shelves :-o  They were:

• Unbetrothed
• The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
• Bridge to Trouble by Elisabeth Grace Foley
• Twice Freed by Patricia St. John
• In the Glorious Fields by Emily Hayse
• Remember Me, Irene by Jan Burke
• The Vanderbeekers to the Rescue by Karina Yan Glaser
• Fluff with a Side of Treason, Vol. 1 by Jenni Sauer
• The Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett
• Vera by Elizabeth von Arnim
• The Silent Gondoliers by William Goldman
• Hocus by Jan Burke
• The London House by Katherine Reay
• Rupert of Hentzau by Anthony Hope
• In the Heat of the Night by John Dudley Ball
• What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge
• Anne of Green Gables Manga Classics edition
• Isabella's Daughter by Charity Bishop
• Vengeance Valley by Luke Short (review to come)
• Swallowdale by Arthur Ransome (review to come)

~ Watch 4 movies off my TBW shelves Check!  I watched six:

• Without a Clue (1988)
• The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)
• Calamity Jane (1953)
• Henry V (1944)
• The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)
• The Prisoner of Zenda (1952)
  
  

~ Go see Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore Check!  It was okay, but I have no desire to see it again.  Parts of it really bugged me, parts offended me, and parts of it just fell flat.  But I did enjoy hanging out with the core characters from the first movie again, so there's that.

~ Go see The Quiet Man on the big screen thanks to TCM and Fathom Events Check!  I took my ten-year-old along, and she very much enjoyed it.  I have now seen a John Wayne movie on the big screen -- AT LAST!!!  It was absolutely marvelous.

~ Make a hobbit-themed wreath Check!  I think it turned out really cute:

~ Make a fairy garden outside Check!  Well, we're in the process, as you can see.  we haven't got anything flowering yet, and we haven't had time to make cute little twig furnishings for the park in the center, but we're getting there.

My three kids and I each have a little ceramic fairy house that we bought, and succulents around the houses to look like trees.  We have little flat black pebbles making paths between the houses to lead to a little park in the center where we planted some tiny plants.  We also scattered seeds in the open areas, some of which came up.  

This is a close-up of my fairy house, which I love.  The garden is definitely still a work in progress, though!

~ Visit Disney World and Legoland for the first time! Check!  We had a very jolly time :-D  Here's a picture of me in my favorite spot in the Magic Kingdom:

Will you look at that?  I checked EVERYTHING off!  Oh my goodness.  No wonder I'm a bit tired -- it's been a busy spring, hasn't it?

Look for my summer to-do list soon!

To-Do List for Spring of 2022

Here are the things I would like to accomplish this spring.  So, by the end of May, basically.  I've got some pretty busy weeks coming up, so this might be a little shorter than my usual lists, but these are what I think I can realistically do, anyway.

~ Finish the major revisions of My Rock and My Refuge

~ Start a street team for my Once Upon a Western series 

(All photos are mine from visiting Colonial Williamsburg last spring.)

~ Read 3 books for my latest Classics Club list

~ Read 10 books off my TBR shelves 

~ Watch 4 movies off my TBW shelves 

~ Go see Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore

~ Go see The Quiet Man on the big screen thanks to TCM and Fathom Events

~ Make a hobbit-themed wreath

~ Make a fairy garden outside

~ Visit Disney World and Legoland for the first time!

That ought to keep me busy, don't you think?

The End of My Winter 2021/22 To-Do List

It was sunny and 56° here today.  While it's always possible we could get another snowstorm or two before the end of March, winter is clearly on the wane.  So, I am ending my Winter 2021/22 To-Do List!  Let's see how I did...

(Book and movie titles linked to my reviews when applicable.)

~ Finish the major revisions of my Beauty and the Beast retelling Fail.  I am probably about half done?  Definitely making forward progress!

~ Find that book a title Check!  It's officially named My Rock and My Refuge, and I love it.

~ Start a "street team" for my book series Fail.  But I am getting close to making this a reality!  Just taking me longer than I expected to get all my ducks in a row before I can announce it.

~ Read 3 Christmas books Check! In fact, I read... eight!

• Christmas at Thompson Hall by Anthony Trollope
• A Very Bookish Christmas by Jones, Holman, Pennington, and Willis
• The Abbott's Ghost by Louisa May Alcott
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser
• Once Upon a Christmas by Lauraine Snelling and Lenora Worth
• The Christmas Pig by J. K. Rowling
• A Christmas Party by Georgette Heyer

(All photos are mine from my Instagram acount.)

~ Read 3 books for my latest Classics Club list Check! I read four:

• The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
• Christmas at Thompson Hall by Anthony Trollope
• The Abbott's Ghost by Louisa May Alcott
• The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss (review to come)
  
  

~ Read 12 books off my TBR shelves Check!  I read fifteen:

• The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
• Christmas at Thompson Hall by Anthony Trollope
• A Very Bookish Christmas by Jones, Holman, Pennington, and Willis
• The Abbott's Ghost by Louisa May Alcott
• The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser
• The Christmas Pig by J. K. Rowling
• Once Upon a Christmas by Lauraine Snelling and Lenora Worth
• A Christmas Party by Georgette Heyer
• A Little Beside You by Jenni Sauer
• The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden by Karina Yan Glaser
• The Depths We'll Go To ed. by Alex Silvius
• Yearning to Breathe Free by Andrew Billingsley
• Stoneheart Hunt by Abby D. Jones with Martin Brodde
• Son of a Wanted Man by Louis L'Amour (review to come)
• Borden Chantry by Louis L'Amour

~ Watch 6 movies off my TBW shelves Fail.  I only watched three from those stacks:

• Footsteps in the Dark (1941)
• Since You Went Away (1944)
• Pale Rider (1985)

~ Watch 3 Christmas movies Check!  I watched six!

• Mr. Soft Touch (1949)
• A Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
• Holiday Affair (1949)
• The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
• The Santa Clause (1994)
• It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

~ Go see Death on the Nile Check!  Here's what I thought of it.

~ Have friends over for a Ukrainian Christmas celebration Check!  It was delightful.  We're praying hard for Ukraine right now, and supporting Ukrainians however we can.  Because my husband's family lived in Ukraine for many years, we have a lot of love for the Ukrainian people, and it is so heartbreaking to see them attacked this way.

~ Host a mystery-themed blog party in February Check!  It was lots of fun :-)

And, there you have it!  Some fails, many checks.  Onward and upward!  Farther up and farther in!

Winter 2021/22 To-Do List

I'm not feeling very ambitious right now, probably because I'm still catching up on things like decorating for Christmas and wrapping Christmas presents, thanks to the low energy I had for a week with Covid.  So it's a shorter list this time, but that's okay.  Still plenty here to keep me busy!

(All book photos mine from my Instagram)

~ Finish the major revisions of my Beauty and the Beast retelling

~ Find that book a title!

~ Start a "street team" for my book series

~ Read 3 Christmas books

~ Read 3 books for my latest Classics Club list

~ Read 12 books off my TBR shelves 

~ Watch 6 movies off my TBW shelves 

~ Watch 3 Christmas movies

~ Go see Death on the Nile

(Me in Colonial Williamsburg)

~ Have friends over for a Ukrainian Christmas celebration

~ Host a mystery-themed blog party in February -- more info about that in a few weeks 

How about you?  Anything planned, large or small, for this winter?

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

My To-Do List for Autumn, 2021

Just a few things I'd like to do between now and Thanksgiving:

~ Finish the major revisions of my Beauty and the Beast retelling

~ Find that book a title!

~ Publish a new short story in my Once Upon a Western collection

(All photos mine from my Instagram)

~ Read The Once and Future King by T. H. White 

~ Read 2 other books for my latest Classics Club list

~ Read 11 other books off my TBR shelves 

~ Read 3 diverse books

~ Watch 6 movies off my TBW shelves 

~ Try some new bread recipes

~ Have friends over for an Oktoberfest celebration

~ Go camping somewhere new

~ Host my ninth annual Tolkien Blog Party on my book blog -- it kicked off today!

~ Co-host the Glenn Ford Blogathon here on this blog

~ Make apple-cinnamon pancakes

~ Make pumpkin muffins

Sound like fun?  Anything on there that you're hoping or planning to do this fall too?

Closing Out My Summer 2021 To-Do List

Labor Day has come and gone, so, although where I live, summer weather lingers through September, I think it's time to look back on my summer to-do list and see what all I checked off.  (Spoiler alert: almost everything!!!)

I've decided to leave little star-ratings after the books and movies in case that's helpful to anyone, especially since I didn't manage to review any of the movies listed here.  Yet!  The book ratings should all match my Goodreads reviews of them.

(All photos are mine from my Instagram)

~ Finish the first draft of my Beauty and the Beast retelling CHECK!  You can read my celebratory post here.  I'm now working on the second draft.

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

• Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) (★★★)
• Captain Blood (1935) (★★★★)
• Chicago Deadline (1949) (★★★★)
• The Sea Hawk (1940) (★★★★★)
• The Killers (1946) (★★★★★)
• Jamaica Inn (1939) (★★★)
• The Saint Strikes Back (1939) (★★★)
• season 4 of Leverage (2011-12) (★★★★★)

~ Reread The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas Check!  I loved it all over again, and you can read my review here.

~ Read 2 other books about/by someone who is not white Check!  I also read: 

• Pride by Ibi Zoboi (★★★★)
• Black Frontiers by Lillian Schlissel (★★★★★)

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

• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (★★)
• Christy by Catherine Marshall (★★★★★)
• Summer by Edith Wharton (★)
• The Alpine Path by L. M. Montgomery (★★★★)

~ Read 9 books off my TBR shelves Check!  I read a whopping SIXTEEN!  They were:

• Three at Wolfe's Door by Rex Stout (★★★★)
• Pride by Ibi Zoboi (★★★★)
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (★★)
• Wait Until Tomorrow by Jenni Sauer (★★★★)
• The Storm in the Barn by Matt Phelan (★★★★)
• Black Frontiers by Lillian Schlissell (★★★★★)
• A Very Bookish 4th of July by Kelsey Bryant, Abigayle Claire, Sarah Holman, and Rebekah A. Morris (★★★★)
• A Royal Masquerade by Allison Tebo (★★★★)
• I'm Your Huckleberry by Val Kilmer (★★★★)
• Plain Jayne by Hillary Manton Lodge (★★★★)
• The Westerns: Creating the Myth for Film and TV by Charlie LeSueur (★)
• These War-Torn Hands by Emily Hayse (★★★★)
• Summer by Edith Wharton (★)
• The Alpine Path by L. M. Montgomery (★★★★)
• On These Black Sands by Vanessa Rasanen (★★★★★)
• Where There's a Will by Rex Stout (★★★★)

~ Make the rainbow popsicles my kids found a recipe for Check!  They were cute and tasty.

~ Have friends over for the 4th of July Check!  We had family members over that we haven't seen for a while, and we shot off a bunch of little fireworks and enjoyed watching larger ones in the distance.  

~ Co-host Legends of Western Cinema Week Check!  It was great fun, as always -- my wrap-up post is here.

~ Drive up into the Shenandoah Valley and breathe the free air Check!  I'm hoping we get up there again this fall, too.

(Taken in Wyoming, not the Shenandoah Valley.)

~ Go camping somewhere new Fail.  But we're hoping/planning to do this next week!

~ Meet my friend Vanessa for the first time in real life Check!  And I met my friend Charity for the first time IRL, too!

All in all, I had a fantastic summer.  We went on adventures, we had adventures at home, I read a lot, I shared many movies with my family, and I finished the first draft of my new book!!!  Huzzah!