Sunday Post 60

Hello, friends! Happy Hanukkah to all who observe!

Through Monday I am linking with the following: 

Reading Reality, who hosts Stacking the Shelves

Readerbuzz, who hosts Sunday Salon

Caffeinated Reviewer, who hosts Sunday Post

The Book Date, who hosts It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

On these blogs you will be able to see links to the posts from others who are participating in these blog hops, and if you're a blogger, you can join too. 

So, I still haven't received the case for my Kindle Paperwhite. I ordered it on November 27th (Cyber Monday) and it was expected to arrive last Saturday, December 2nd. According to the tracking information, it was in Maryland (the state in which I live) as of Friday, December 1st. Maryland isn't exactly a gigantic state, so I believe I should have received it by now. The delivery date kept getting changed with the notice saying something like, "Your delivery is late, but it's on the way!" 

So I called Amazon on Saturday (I Googled the number, as I couldn't find it on their website) and they 1) apologized for the inconvenience, 2) confirmed that I was right - it indeed hasn't arrived (wasn't that why I was calling?) and 3) offered a replacement order at no charge (I would have laughed if they expected me to pay again). They asked me if I still wanted everything I had ordered. Yes, I do in, fact want what I ordered. I had ordered a few other items that were supposed to come in that same package. So some of it is now supposedly coming on Sunday, but the case for the Paperwhite is coming on Monday. I'm guessing the original package was either lost, stolen, or damaged. Hopefully I receive the replacements on time.

In the meantime, my Kindle is all set up. I have my Kindle library organized into collections. I downloaded all of the December potential reads onto the device. There's no way I'll be able to read all of them this month, but they are there if I do choose to read them. I also cleaned up everything, in that I deleted a bunch of books I had sent to my phone. I'm not going to use my phone to read books anymore, so there's no need to keep them on there. 

I was hoping I could download books to the Kindle device without WiFi. I thought I could do it by just connecting the device to my desktop computer, but it wasn't happening. I made several attempts to do that on Friday night and it just didn't work. So, on Saturday, I connected to WiFi and everything downloaded. Some books were downloaded multiple times (all those attempts from Friday night...). So I had to delete a lot of the duplicates. I'm good to go now.

IN THE BOOKS

To see how I'm doing with my 2023 bookish challenges, click on 2023 Bookish Challenges on the right sidebar. 

RECENTLY FINISHED

🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄
I listened to 'Twas the Knife Before Christmas (Christmas Tree Farm Mystery 2), written by Jacqueline Frost and narrated by Allyson Ryan, and I loved it! You can find out why in my full five-star review here.

IN PROGRESS

I started reading The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, by Marie Benedict. It is about the mysterious real-life, 11-day disappearance of Agatha Christie. Each chapter alternates between two time periods - one time period begins when Agatha first meets her husband-to-be and the second time period begins years later on the first day of her disappearance. I don't know if I'll finish it before the book club meets on Wednesday, but I'll still join them. We know how it ends anyway and I want to hear what others say have to say about it.

I started listening to The Matzah Ball, by Jean Meltzer. It's a contemporary romance. I hadn't planned on starting another audiobook last week, but when I found out about this book, I decided to start listening to it so that it coincides with Hanukkah. There are many layers to this book and also various forms of diversity, one of the most prominent ones being disability representation. I'll have some thoughts to share on this when I'm done listening to it. In the meantime, you can read some excerpts here.

UP NEXT

My next audiobook listen will be Slashing Through the Snow (Christmas Tree Farm Mystery 3), by Jacqueline Frost. This one is also narrated by Allyson Ryan. I'm really looking forward to spending more time in Mistletoe! Don't you just love the covers in this series? I think this one is my favorite so far.

I received an e-arc of Dearly Deleted (Book Blogger Mystery 2), by Sarah E. Burr. This will be the first book I read on my Kindle. Release day is Tuesday, December 19th, so I'm planning to post my review around that date. I loved the first one in this series, Over My Dead Blog, and I'm really looking forward to reading the second one. This is another cover that I love.

ON TELEVISON

• Christmas movies
• The Santa Summit - I don't think I enjoyed this movie quite as much as many others did. It was unique and fun, but overall it was a little too "busy" for me. The summit looked like a lot of fun, but I think it would have been too overwhelming for me to attend myself. I prefer a quieter pace in life and in movies. I also had some issues with the way it ended. In some ways I loved the end, but in other ways I didn't love it. I can't say anything else without giving away spoilers. I'm glad I watched it once, but that was enough. This aired on Hallmark.
• Mystery on Mistletoe Lane - I was so looking forward to this Hallmark movie, with it being somewhat of a mystery. However, I thought it was just okay. I had a difficult time gaining interest in the story.
• Christmastime is Here - This movie premiered two years ago on GAC Family, but I only found out about it recently. The two leads are Rukiya Bernard and Dewshane Williams. I first saw them in a trilogy of movies on Hallmark as secondary characters. I loved them so much in those movies that I had hoped they would be leads in their own movie. GAC Family delivered on this one. I enjoyed this movie very much. I really hope to see them as leads in more movies.
• Letters to Santa - This Hallmark movie was pretty good. It was cute and had some laugh-out-loud moments. I watched it on National Letter Writing Day.
• Christmas in Connecticut (1945) - I had never seen this classic until last week. I loved it so much I watched it twice! You must suspend belief when you watch it. None of these events are likely to happen in real life. But the movie is so funny! I had planned on borrowing it from the library, but I found it streaming for free on Freebie TV. I imagine this is what a Hallmark romcom would have been like in 1945, but it's funnier than most Hallmark movies I've seen.

• Friends - I finished season 5 and I started watching season 6. Did you know that when Courtney Cox got married around this time, they honored her on the first episode of season 6 by adding "Arquette" to the all the cast members' names in the beginning credits? I recently read about this and I noticed it for the first time last week. I also recently read that in the Vegas episodes, the writers wanted Chandler to cheat on Monica. However, Matthew Perry spoke up against this, saying he didn't want his character to cheat. So they didn't go in that direction. I'm glad they listened to him.

WEEKLY BLOG RECAP 

• Sunday Post 12/3 - Weekly Recap
• Top Ten (and More) Tuesday 12/5 - November Caboodle of Movies and Books
• Book Review - 12/6 - 'Twas the Knife Before Christmas, by Jacqueline Frost
• Five for Friday 12/8 - A Cushy Chair, A Matzah Ball, and A Mug of Popcorn
• Puzzle 12/7 - Hanukkah Cookies

That's all for now! Have a great week!