The Bookmark Newsletter

Hello my friends, I hope it’s okay I call you friends. When I sit down to write these weekly musings, I usually have a topic in mind. But today, I feel as if there have been one too many Saturdays where we’ve gotten through another emotional, terrifying week. I wrote a bit about this in the Weekly Wrap Up, linked below, where I also left resources to donate to for common sense gun reform. Everytown For Gun Safety is where I’ve been donating.

This week, I had a great reading week. I read five books, which after my dismal reading month for February, thrilled me. But it also got me thinking about why I feel so passionately about reading what excites me. This week, I read a highly anticipated release (Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez) and the book that media and reviewers alike are lauding to be the “Book of the Year” (Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano). One of these books is a Romance and the other falls under the Literary Fiction umbrella.

I’m going to keep today’s newsletter short and sweet because I am TIRED. Day Light Savings absolutely wrecked me this year and I feel like it’s just gotten harder as the week progressed. I did wake up feeling inspired this week to finally get my morning routine in check, but by 3pm every day I was dragging. DRAGGING. I fell asleep with my book on my chest which I’m quite certain I haven’t done since I was a child.

This week was equally great and a little challenging. When I was getting ready for my show one afternoon, I looked in the mirror and grew so frustrated: I didn’t like what I was seeing at all. Now, as someone who has to be “seen” as part of her living, these days can be really stressful. I had to leave the house, I had to feel in a good enough to put my costume on and be around people, I had to stand onstage in front of strangers and get through the show.

Happy March! I missed writing to you last week. February was the month of the slump. I struggled to get into a good reading routine and it left me feeling unlike myself in so many ways. My sleep schedule was off, my mornings felt incomplete, my free time was spent scrolling way too much… It didn’t feel good. I’m often asked about reading slumps and if I ever take reading breaks. I am human, so of course I take breaks.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have been a dreamer. I was someone who saw the possibilities of life and knew that I wanted to challenge myself and do “big” things. When the pandemic happened and we had to leave New York City, it felt like my entire world came crashing down. How was I supposed to make all those big dreams come true outside of the greatest city in the world? But then the pandemic continued. Life stayed close to home. And I got comfortable.

I mentioned this a lot on stories and on the blog this week, but I am really trying to focus on my routines this week. January was the trial run of the year and February started off with a busy bang. I’ve always had a fraught relationship with food, but throughout the pandemic, I’ve really fallen in love with cooking. However, when I’m overwhelmed, it’s the last thing I want to do.

Hi friends. My husband and I have been together for twelve years. We were friends before we took things to the next step, one of those annoying couples that insisted we could *never* date because we meant too much to one another. That didn’t last long and we’ve been together ever since. My friend part of our relationship is that every now and then, we stay up all night talking. It’s never planned and we’re always exhausted the next day, but once we get going, we could talk forever.

We’ve entered the period of Winter were we don’t see the sun very often and it snows daily. After the Christmas blizzard, I’m not looking for any big snowstorms for the rest of Winter but a couple inches is nice and calming. There’s something about the way the snow rests of the bare tree branches that makes it seem like everything is covered in silver frosting. Plus, Beasley loves it and you can’t help but smile when you see your puppy bounding through the snow drifts.

I did something exciting this week but it’s taken up most of my free time that I usually devote to reading. Normally, I’d be pretty hard on myself for that and force myself to find more time to fit it in. But truthfully, this *exciting thing* has my attention and I don’t feel guilty about that one bit. When I do Q&A’s, I inevitably get questions around the lines of “do you ever take reading breaks?” or “how do you read so much?” And the answer is simple: I read when I want to.