You know I’m in a total state of disbelief that it is now the month of August up in here. I am 99% sure that is not actually possible because there is no way we made it almost all the way through summer already. I refuse to believe it! But the calendar tells me it’s now time to recap July, whether I’m ready to accept the passage of time or not. So here we go!
Reading: I only read fifteen books in July, which is a light month for me, especially since we were on vacation for a few days. But I read a ton of good stuff! Some of my faves were Too Good to Be Real by Melonie Johnson, Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous by Suzanne Park, Satisfaction Guaranteed by Karelia Stetz-Waters, Today Tonight and Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon, One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston, and The Layover by Lacie Waldon. I also reread People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry because I was in a funk and it’s a comfort read.
Writing: I can’t believe I’m typing this, but LEASE ON LOVE is officially done! I turned in my pass pages last week and it will soon be off to the printer to become a real live book. It still feels surreal. I also made a lot of progress on book two during the month of July, in fact I raced through my word count much faster than I expected, which is nice because it leaves me with a couple of weeks to make some revisions before I have to send it in to my editor (and it needs some tweaks!). I basically love it one minute it and think it’s trash the next so we’ll see what happens when I turn it in! In the meantime, make sure you add LEASE ON LOVE on Goodreads and preorder pretty please!
Movies and TV: I finally joined the rest of the world and watched Ted Lasso, thanks to a free one year subscription to AppleTV (which I now can’t get rid of, which is their whole goal). It’s as amazing as everyone says it is. I am also now obsessed with Schmigadoon (also on AppleTV) as it is filling the huge musical shaped void in my life right now. I did take a trip to the theater to go see Black Widow, which I really enjoyed, though I am now too freaked out to go back to the theater again until cases in our area are not absolutely terrifying.
Hi, Schmigadoon is delightful, please watch it. If you’ve been missing musical theater, this is the show for you! (Also, @AaronTveit is in it so what more do you need?) @AppleTV #Schmigadoon pic.twitter.com/hlaXo6nIku — Falon PREORDER LEASE ON LOVE! (@FalonBallard) July 18, 2021
Life Stuff: We went on an amazing staycation for our anniversary/birthdays and honestly, it was one of the best mini vacays I’ve ever had. We stayed at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which was stunning, and we basically didn’t leave the pool and the whole thing was perfection and I want to go back immediately. I’m glad we got a few days of vacation because now we’re staring down back to school and there are zero good options. Either the kid is going back to school in person full time and I will have massive anxiety about him getting COVID, or he doesn’t go back to in person school and I watch my sanity slow drain away. Either way, the next couple of months are going to be real rough.
Sorry to end on a downer note, in reality, the month of July was pretty awesome. Fingers crossed the rest of 2021 doesn’t turn into a massive dumpster fire!