Hello everyone! Today, I wanted to share what I’ve been up to this month!
It’s been a really cool and fun month! I’ll go ahead and get right into it for you!
Life
Camp Cuddles Summer 2021 Ends
Yes, Camp Cuddles did come to an end. I went to drop off my puppy niece back with my sister earlier this month. I miss her so much! Arya is always such a cuddly sweetheart and I adore watching her.
I adopted a dog!
This month I welcomed a little dog into my life! I adopted Fox, a four year old Chihuahua from a Chicago shelter. He came with the name Fox and the nickname Foxy. I have to admit, I didn’t love the idea of calling a boy dog Foxy but now it’s stuck! Fox is such a good name for him so I ended up keeping it! I did add to his name so his formal name is Foxtrot but called Fox or Foxy. He is also called Chente by my dad. Long story on that one but basically a past Mexican president was named Vicente Fox and a common nickname for Vicente is Chente. So now he is also Chente!
I learned a bit more about his past. Originally he was brought to Chicago by the shelter from Alabama about 3 years ago when he was adopted by a family. The family had a mom, dad, and three kids. Recently, a family member had a major, life-changing accident which left them without enough time for Fox, so they did bring him back to the shelter. That’s when I adopted him! He’s a pretty good boy, and I love him so much. I know I’ll be talking about Foxy so much in the upcoming posts so I won’t go too much more into him just now!
Library’s Arts Lectures
The library has started hosting art lectures! One of the librarians has decided she wanted to do a series on local artists and so I’m trying to make it to all of them. The cool thing is that all of them are recorded so if I do end up missing one someday then that’s something that I’ll be able to watch later but being there in person is really cool too.
The first artist lecture was with a self-published author. Zee Lacson (Insta handle @ZeeLacson) wrote Reverie and the sequel, Revenant. I’ve read Reverie already and it will be reviewed in my next “mini book reviews” post! (Part 15 if you’re wondering.) It was really cool to hear her story. She first had a dream which inspired a short story, which gradually grew to be a full YA novel. Lacson shared quite a bit on self-publishing as it was clear that a lot of the audience was interested in that and her editor was there as well, so he shared quite a bit on how to find and work with an editor. I really appreciated her lecture. Afterwards I was talking with another attendee, who said she’s a children’s book author herself, and Lacson approached us to chat with us and thank us for coming. I did tell her that I was in the middle of reading Reverie, which she seemed to appreciate since it wasn’t really needed to listen to her lecture. I told her that i was enjoying it and that I loved how real London seemed to be. I am planning to read the sequel, which I already checked out from the library, but haven’t gotten to it yet! Oh, almost forgot, this one was a hybrid program for both in-person and online folks. I went in-person so masks were required the entire time but it was cool that both were an option.
The next lecture was with a photographer and write, Jordan Esparza (his handle on Insta is @heavybutlite), who spoke about the role of art and artists in activism. This one was super cool. I thought the artist was a little awkward at the start during his presentation but he quickly grew more comfortable and relaxed as the Q&A started. The room was packed for this lecture, and it seemed like a lot of people came from Chicago, where Esparza does a lot of work. That was super cool because our suburb is about an hour and a half from downtown Chicago so it can be quite a journey, especially for a week night. The audience had a ton of really great questions and Esparza gave really thoughtful answers to each and every one.
The last lecture for the month was for a local musician who is also a librarian at the library! I went to a few of his guitar classes (okay, like two) before the pandemic shut us down. The lecture was really cool. The librarian, Romario Avila, spoke about his upcoming album, experiences working in several musical groups, his education and career thus far in music, and about the guitar classes he taught. I loved it! It was super insightful and I really appreciated the care and thought that went into his lecture. He also played a little bit of jazz improv at the end, which was fantastic! It seriously felt like something that would be the music to a Pixar short or something. It was great!
Fun with Finance!
After many months of “thinking” about it, I finally opened a high yield savings account! I really wanted to find a place to do a HYSA and start a Roth IRA at the same place, but it ended up not happening and I decided to just go ahead with the HYSA first. I’m so pleased I finally did it! I started mine with Marcus by Goldman Sacs. My next step is to start a Roth IRA. It’s silly to not have one already considering I’m already 30 but better late than never does apply here, albeit less effectively.
Book Club – August and September
So last month I left off the book club in August as I think it was the day before the post went up. I decided that I would just go ahead to post and add it to September. Except this month the same thing is happening where the last post of the month is the day after the book club. I didn’t feel like putting off the book club recap again so I’m just adding it before posting. Both of the two books were reviewed in my Ten Mini Book Reviews Pt. 14 post.
Anyway, for August the book of the month was My Life in France by Julia Child. It was pretty cool! I didn’t know anything about Julia Child except that she was a chef and specialized in French food. I had assumed that she was French but she wasn’t so that was cool! Everyone else at the book club had already known who Julia Child was and watched her show, or at least seen reruns or snippets. And a few had tried a (simple) recipe or two of Child’s! Now, I am a thirty year old lady who does not cook (I can make noodles, scrambled eggs, and that’s about it) so I didn’t know anything about what Child was talking about but I found her life to be fascinating. Book club was particularly fun as someone brought her dog, Neville, named after the Harry Potter character. We had a great time talking about the book overall and picked the next month’s book pretty easily.
The September book was The Library Book by Susan Orlean. We figured it was the perfect pick as we had librarians available to give us some more cool insight to it! I think someone said they had read the book a few years ago when it was really popular but they were fine with rereading it or at least skimming it to refresh their memory for the rest of us who were interested in it.
Most of us really loved the book, especially the writing and thoughtfulness of the author. The only problem anyone really had with the book was that they felt the burning of the library wasn’t fully explored but the book was about so much more than the burning. The rest of us loved how dedicated the author was to the topic and really enjoyed it.
Work Life
I thought I’d add in a bit about my work life here too. Work is going pretty well! I don’t have a ton of work to do so about half of my week is me struggling to stay busy. Luckily, people have been throwing little projects my way so I can help out. My new team is quiet and reserved, but very kind so it’s a huge change from my previous jobs where everyone was more rambunctious. I do like them quite a bit, and love my new boss, but I do wish they were a tad more lively. It’s just a super serious workplace and I find that to be a bit disconnected from the chaotic and fun way I view event planning to be. But hey, everyone is different and that’s okay! I do think that a lot of my perspective comes from the way that many millennials view our workplaces, as places where you can make work friends and have fun. I’m not saying either one is better or worse than the other. Just that they’re different and I’m getting used to a new work environment.
So that is what I’ve been up to this month! It’s been a pretty fun and cool month for me. Although I say that and I laugh because pre-pandemic me would have thought that this was a quiet month as there was no travel or day long outings involved. I guess that just goes to show that it’s all about perspective!
Thanks for reading!
Pamela
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