Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly topic hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week she provides a topic, and you are free to use that topic and/or variations of that topic to make your top ten list. A full list of the weekly themes can be found here.
Work: This one is probably obvious, but while I do spend all my time around books, I unfortunately, am not reading them. Even though I work in a library, I don’t get to read the books I’m around. Sad, I know! However, I do have a really great boss (and boss’s boss) who don’t mind if I listen to anything while I’m working (as long as I get my tasks done, of course), so I’m trying to get into audiobooks. I don’t mind them, but my mind tends to wander and then I missed the last few pages of what’s been read. Side note: If anyone has audiobook recommendations, I’d gladly take them.
TV Shows and Movies: Last fall I moved in with my grandma, which has been really great to have this time with her, especially since her husband died in Nov. 2021. Anyways, my entire life my grandparents (mostly my grandpa) really looked down on television and watching movies at home. It’s fine if it’s not your cup of tea, but you’re not superior to anyone else. But since I’ve been living there and have all my streaming hooked up to her TV, she’s started watching things and asked to start shows from the beginning. She’s also wanted to see shows and movies that she would’ve missed when she was working and traveling (after retirement). I really love this time I get to have with her sharing stories.
House chores: The general stuff you have to do to keep a home in order and it not be considered a hazard. Boring, but it’s got to get done at some point.
ADHD: Not formally diagnosed but I’m 90% sure I have it. There’s just sometimes where my mind is too wired or I go down a rabbit hole of research and I’ve lost hours.
Arts & Crafts: I do have a book journal that I use for tracking my reading. I’m also getting into bookbinding (rebinding my own books), which has been so much fun and interesting. Anything to keep my hands distracted because I’m positive who ever said “idle hands are the devil’s playthings” was talking about me.
Job Searches/Applications: While I love what I do and my coworkers, I am looking for another place to work. Two reasons for this: one, the job I’m in is a staff job not a librarian position, and I do want more responsibility; two, I work in a conservative place and would like to leave and work where I can be myself and use my appropriate pronouns and not my dead name.
Mental Health: I mean see above. I’ve been really discouraged lately with the lack of movement on my job searches and frustrated with how far I get in the process and then am not offered the job. I know something will come along (I’m trying not to catastrophise but it’s really difficult), but I’m truly losing positivity.
People never believe me when I tell them I don’t actually have time (or permission!) to read at the library. Of course, I can get away with blogs….they don’t require as much concentration and aren’t quite as obvious as a Kindle screen.
House chores are the thing I hate taking me away from reading the most. Mostly because I hate doing them. haha
Yeah, ADHD can complicate things for sure.
Here is our Top Ten Tuesday.
Good luck with your job search. I hope you find a wonderful position that is accepting of your pronouns and identity soon.
My post: https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-things-getting-in-the-way-of-reading/
Yes, good luck with your job search. I hope it goes well.
If you do manage to get into audiobooks, that’ll up your reading game for sure. It took me a while, but now it’s easily 60%, if not more, of my reading. I listen while I drive, do chores, work, etc. I do occasionally have to pause or relisten to sections if I get distracted, but I get through a book about every 2 days, more than with physical books (depending on the physical books). I love Julia Whelan as a narrator, she did Emily Henry’s books and her own. Mostly, I look for books I’m interested in. Rarely has a narrator been so bad I just had to stop. And I usually listen to it sped up a little so it’s more conversational.
Audiobooks aren’t for everyone, but I really enjoy them, especially for mindless tasks like chores or crafts that are rote, like my cross stitch. Good luck with everything!
How wonderful that you get to spend so much time with your grandmother and that she’s caught on to doing what you enjoy doing. That’s awesome! I’m a genealogist and I really recommend recording her stories in some way (just click “record” on your phone and ask her questions )so they live on after she dies.
Happy TTT!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
Oh, that’s such a great idea!! Thank you for the suggestion!
Oh I so feel you on the job search, searching for a new job is practically a full time job in itself and when I was looking (which was pretty much non-stop from the beginning of 2020 to when I got a new job in November of last year, I did have a job for a year in between but it was always going to be a temporary one and so my job search didn’t stop) it took up practically all of my time.
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2023/05/17/top-ten-tuesday-420/
Yes, it really is!! Ugh, so annoying!
Good luck with it, I hope you find somewhere that fits you a little better than your current place!
Wishing you lots of luck with your job searching! It’s always been a time suck for me so I hope things go very smoothly. I have the same issues with audiobooks, I can only really do them when I’m focused on something that keeps my hands busy without needing to use my brain too much, like data entry or cleaning the bathroom.