Time // 8:51 a.m.
Place // At my desk in my office — I need to get out more.
Eating // Chobani Greek yogurt, peach flavored
Drinking // Bigelow Lemon Lift tea
Reading // The only book I finished this week was The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan, despite feeling like I was reading a lot. I think I got into a mode where I wanted to read All The Things and ended up reading nothing. But, I’m hoping for some reading time today to finish a couple of April releases: David Sedaris’ Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls and Mitchell Zuckoff’s Frozen in Time.
Watching // I finished watching The West Wing last Sunday night (sigh, so good), and so have felt adrift in my television watching this week. I think need something funny, short, and with only a few seasons as a contrast. So instead of television, Nate and I have been watching a bunch of movies — Skyfall, Wreck-It Ralph and Water for Elephants (well, that last one was just me). I don’t watch a lot of movies, so this is a little out of character.
Listening // For whatever reason, I haven’t been in the mood to listen to anything (audio books or music) this week. I’ve spent most of my time listening to the sounds of silence and it’s been wonderful.
Making // I didn’t craft anything this week, but did want to share a photo of the scarf I finished last week. I used an Instagram filter to try and make the colors look a little more realistic, which mostly worked. I just wish it was warm enough that I didn’t have to wear it.
Promoting // I really loved this post by Kevin Smokler over at Book Riot — “What Re-Reading 50 Books in a Hurry Taught Me About Reading Slowly” — especially this paragraph:
At war with sinking in and deeply enjoying reading is not the number of books out there but our pathological delusion that we will someday “finish” them all. We will not, and we know this. But our entire system of culture consumption is set out around queues–lists of books, movies, songs, and news articles we’d like to remember and “get to.” It’s a great service to have these reminders for what we want to read, listen to, and see. But their very nature creates a completely false urgency that every time we finish something there’s a long line of other somethings waiting, tapping their feet impatiently and saying “get on with it.”
Hating // March. It has been an awful month of rain, snow, and cold temperatures. I just want spring to come.
Exploring // With the distressing announcement that Google is shutting down Google Reader on July 1 (rage!!), I’ve been playing around with new RSS reader services this week, but haven’t been happy with any of them. I need a service that works equally well online and with an Android app that doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles. Feedly is almost what I want, but the interface is too fancy and it annoys me. When I finally find something, I’ll let you know.
Anticipating // A trip to the gym this afternoon to finished Week 3 of Couch to 5K. I think I will be more excited about diving into this program more whole-heartedly once it warms up and I can run outside… I’ve never been a consistent runner (or someone who runs outside), but that is all I have wanted to do lately.
Planning // My goal is to make today a full day of reading and writing. I discovered last week that if I don’t get at least a start on the posts I’m planning for the week, I won’t have the motivation to write them later (hence, no post last Friday). But I’ve got a couple of reviews to catch up on, an update for our #readbyatt readalong, and a post for Book Riot to keep me occupied today.
Happy Sunday! What are you reading today?
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The scarf looks awesome! Great work and thanks for sharing! I am not happy with any ereader services either but I heard Digg is building a new one and trying to make it cater to the Google Reader crowd so I hope that’s the one we will like.
I saw that news from Digg too. I am going to be paying attention to that. I think they’ve got a huge audience if they can mimic the simplicity of GR, which none of the other readers I’ve looked at really do.
Well done on couch to 5k! I tried the program once but quit in week 5 or 6′ I just couldn’t get out to run 3 times a week. Now I run sporadically, once a week maybe and I’m relaxed about any progress. It’s working much better for me.
I feel the same way about Feedly. I’ve been playing with Netvibes and like it better, you can choose if you want a magazine style layout or a simple reader one. So far, I like it.
I tried last year, but got derailed right about week five or six after I hurt my foot. I got better shoes this time, so I’m hoping once it gets warm I will get better about it.
I’m working with Feedly right now, and I know exactly what you mean about it being too fancy. I feel like I’m missing posts or something because of all the pretty pictures. And how does it decide who gets featured anyway?
Yeah… it’s weird. I haven’t figured out how to make it do what I want (which is just display post in a simple way!). I quit GR cold turkey though, so I’m hoping constant immersion will teach me to like it 🙂
Feedly’s almost what I want. I’ve set it up so that the “latest” page, rather than “today,” is what shows when I log in, and it’s close to being as plain as I want.
I’m also enjoying Bloglovin, which is a little like that “next blog” feature Google Reader has–You go from blog to blog instead of reading in a reader, and that’s wonderful when I have time to read and comment. But there’s no way to read full posts in the reader itself, which is my preference when I’m in a time crunch.
I’m also playing around with Bloglines/Netvibes and The Old Reader. I really need to settle on one because having multiple ones is a little weird. Maybe I should take a week for each and only use that one.
I’ve been half trying a few too… it’s not working well because I think I need to immerse for awhile to get the hang of it. I think I will stick with Feedly until I get into The Old Reader, then try that for awhile. If Digg does come up with a reader, I want to look at that too.
I feel the same way about freely. Still trying to figure it out, but I’m really struggling with it. And apparently I don’t follow enough blogs to generate a home page. Or, so it tells me.
That is weird! I wonder how many blogs you have to follow for it to work? Frustrating.
Love the scarf, so colourful and it looks really warm. The only “good” thing about GR is the time given to find an alternative.
Yeah, that was good of them. I’d be even more mad if it just shut down unexpectedly. It’s mostly just annoying now.
Please do let me know if you find something better than Feedly. The interface is way WAY too fancy for me too. I liked the simplicity of Google Reader! It wasn’t maybe the bug-free-est of the Google products but it was so useful. :/
Yeah. Feedly is beautiful, but I don’t really need a reader to be beautiful. I just need it to organize things so I can read them. Sigh.
So a couple of things in response to this post:
I have been away for a while and I love this Currently feature. It is a great way of checking in and discussing what’s going on with you (on multiple topics)! Your blog is becoming incredibly and awesomely dynamic. I love it.
Second, upon my return, I saw the news about Google Reader too! As someone who frequently cuts in and out of blogging because of the fact that it can be time consuming and I am not one with a ton of time on my hands (who is?!), this is distressing to me too. I love that whenever I do return to blogging, I have tools to keep me focused and organized. Google Reader is part of what helped me get into blogging in the first place. It gave me a home to find and organize all the blogs that I have come to know and love so well. This definitely has me frantically looking for a replacement. I’ll be eagerly awaiting news from you about what you find as a possible replacement.
Happy Sunday!
I think Gr is great for that in-and-out-ness of blogging. Once you have favorites, you can come back to them. And if a blogger takes a break, it’s easier to find your audience when you do come back. Frustrating.
Aw, man, you’re killing me on the West Wing marathon. I’m STILL stuck in Season 3. Argh!
And now you’re done!?! *sigh* 😉
Well, I basically marathoned season seven. I don’t think I wanted anything else for a couple of weeks. The boyfriend was getting annoyed 🙂
Thanks for the heads-up on those two April releases! You put so much info into this one post, I won’t try to respond to everything, but I love Chobani yogurt, especially the raspberry flavor, and that IS a beautiful scarf!
Yes, raspberry Chobani is wonderful!