What Has BookGirlR Been Up To?

 Hello!

  It's been awhile.  I hope you are all well.  If you follow me on Facebook, and you really should if you want the most updates, you know that my pc stopped working this summer.  I finally have my new one and after a little break I'm ready to start reviewing again.  My reading goal for every year is usually 104 books, which is 2 books per week.  But I always meet it easily, so I decided to up it this year to 156, which is 3 books per week. 

So what's been happening?  2020 was a really rough year for me.  My emotional support cat Tempest passed away on my husband's 50th birthday, July 1st.  This was at the same time that my sister almost died, and was in the hospital and had to have emergency surgery.  SuperSteve and I made the 70 mile drive to her house several times in the span of a week to help with the kids and her household.  Then a week later our remaining cat Spooky started acting very strange and had a urinary blockage.  The vet said he was grieving the loss of Tempest, just like we were, and the stress of that was responsible for the urinary blockage.  So we adopted a kitten.  River Moon Fireball MeowMeow-Fischer joined our family on 7/14/2020 and she is the best thing to happen to me in 2020.  For my nerds, she is named River after River Tam from Firefly AND River Song from Dr Who because she is beautiful, crazy, and wicked smart.  She wasn't the kitten we originally applied to adopt, but she is from the same litter, and she was obviously meant to be mine.  Even as a kitten she stepped right into the roll of emotional support cat.  When I feel panicky she is right there, usually insisting I sit down and lean back so she can lay on my chest.  With her purring aggressively on my chest it's really hard to be panicky.  We share a love that is very obviously mutual and after a very short 7 months I can no longer imagine my life without her.  Spooky also loves her.  Where Tempest merely tolerated his presence, River adores him.  They play, snuggle and have joint grooming sessions that I find absolutely adorable.  A month after all of this we had another family emergency that was sort of ongoing over the Fall as well.  

I guess we can't talk about the last 7 months without mentioning the pandemic.  At first I thought quarantine was going to be a breeze for me.  I'm an introvert, who is borderline a hermit, and I was already working from home every other week.  Last March work called and said we were all working from home indefinitely.  Stay home!  For the first couple of months I was fine.  But then it started to get to me.  I'm fine working from home, but I want to go out with my friends.  I want to eat out in a restaurant, read in a coffee shop, and do my annual wine tour around the finger lakes.  I want to meet in person with my book club and DnD group. I want to hug my Mom and SuperSteve's Mom, and all of my nieces and nephews. Like many other people I have been struggling to concentrate on anything at all really, even reading.  My anxiety has been much worse than usual.  But I have River, and I have SuperSteve.  My book club has been meeting online on our regular monthly basis and we've recently started a DnD campaign that meets every other(ish) Saturday evening.  We will be ok.  

How have you been surviving the pandemic and quarantine.  Let me know in the comments!

Here are some pictures of River and Spooky:

One week after we brought her home.  Spooky was already in love with her.  Look how teeny she was!

River Moon knows she is beautiful.

Dinnertime shenanigans.  Looks how teeny she was!

They both must be touching me as often as possible.

I love to see them snuggle.

Post panic attack.  River says no panic, only purrs.

Spooky and his murder claws.

She loves to be with me (on me) all the time, even when it's not particularly helpful.