RWLB

One of my favorite podcasts does a monthly episode where the host and one of her friends discuss what they're reading, watching, listening to, and buying (RWLB). I love these episodes and thought it would be fun to do a blog-post version. 

This will be a recurring series of posts, so look for it around the 25th of each month. 

Reading

I had to start with this category of course! 

Right now, I'm almost done with the book The House of the Spirits. I am a Patreon supporter of the Novel Pairings podcast and they read this book with their Classics Club. I'm always a little behind but reading a book that's being discussed on a podcast makes the entire experience so much more enjoyable. 

That being said...this is a hard book. It's dense. The chapters are long, the pages are full, and Allende's story-telling style, while completely stunning, can also be a bit much. I've been meaning to read something by Allende since my high school Spanish teacher waxed poetic about the Chilean author's sometimes overlooked contribution to the literary canon. I will be glad to have read it and I'm super impressed with Allende, but it was more intense than I was bargaining for during the busiest part of summer. 

To balance The House of the Spirits, I picked up 11/22/63. My book club assigns extra credit books to each member (there are only three of us), and this was my extra credit book. I'm loving it. The book is long, but the story moves quickly.

Watching

My husband and I just finished watching The Bureau, a French TV series about the French version of the CIA, the DGSE. We watched it on SundanceNow. The show has subtitles which is not my favorite, but I fell in love with the characters. Even though this was definitely a spy show, there were plenty of emotional arcs and lots of character development. The last two seasons seemed a little rushed, but overall, we loved watching this. And I like to imagine that my ability to understand and speak French improved (it didn't). 

bonjour, oui, l' arret, donc...I'm practically fluent

Listening to

Peloton did a series of classes set to Spice Girls music and now I'm reliving my youth. In high school I loved, loved, loved the Spice Girls and I'm finding out they still bring me so much joy. Their music makes me want to dance and energizes me. I'm even thinking of rewatching their movie (which I had memorized back in the day), Spice World. My kids will make fun of me until the end of time, but I do not care!

spice up your life!

Buying

We are getting ready for vacation next week (yay!!!), so it feels like I've been buying a ton of stuff. The kids and I went to Target and loaded up on travel size everything. But the thing I'm most excited about is this new beach bag I ordered. I've used Scout bags before and loved them. I got an even bigger one than I had before because a family of 6 means a lot of towels, sunscreen, and books are required for a day at the beach. I love how lightweight and durable this bag is.

For some reason, this year I can't stop buying tank tops. They seem to be everywhere and I keep throwing them in my cart. I bought two at Old Navy and the other day at Target I grabbed another one! I don't know if it's just me or the stores are really pushing tanks this year, but I can't get enough. 

That was a really fun post to write! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Let me know in the comments what you're RWLB.