February has been A Lot with a busy month at work complete with curveballs and deadline drama, concern for loved ones, a game of cat and mouse with a migraine (with me as the mouse), and to cap it all off I came home one evening to find water leaking from the lights. Here’s hoping March is gentler all round.

2023 is set for mixed reviews as exciting news (my beloved and I have a new personal project) mingled with worry over the health of friends and family, and work loomed menacingly. I am taking it one day at a time, and playing Stardew Valley. Damn I love that game when things are A Bit Much.

I’ll look back at 2022 in a couple days; for now, let’s wrap up December. The end of the year inevitably involved a lot of travel, a round of is-it-a-very-bad-cold-or-is-it-COVID (I didn’t have any LFTs on hand), and thankfully relatively little other seasonal drama. A quiet Christmas with family somehow resulted in very little reading, but as they wisely gifted me books I am all set for the new year.

November was intended to be full throttle blogging for our tenth celebration of SciFiMonth. Instead, it involved moving to the opposite end of the country while it was full steam ahead at work, which left me a frazzled bundle too exhausted to write most of the blog posts I had planned. Sorry, crew.

October has been hard work as I struggled to shake my lingering cough and have wrestled with ongoing ambiguity and workload challenges at work. By mid-October, there was at least the promise that things will improve eventually – and then it was time for some Spooktastic Reads, which always puts a smile on my face (although I’ve taken a back seat this year to stay focused on meatspace).

I took July off to catch my breath before starting a new job (eee I’m starting a new job tomorrow) and buried my nose in books until soaring temperatures and the most delightful doggy houseguest distracted me for a few days. I had to change up my plans due to a short bout of illness, which – oh noes! – gave me more reading time, so frankly? The best July.

June disappeared like morning mist as I made an unplanned trip up to the Highlands for a couple of weeks (working weeks, so not as much exploring as I’d like, but I got to work with beautiful views). The tail end of the month has been nose to the grindstone finishing off contracts, and dreaming I was back up north…

May saw me travel halfway around the world to see family for the first time in 3 years. Stir in Wyrd & Wonder, the worst jetlag of my life and ongoing family health worries and it was a good month, but a lot. It also meant I was less present for Wyrd & Wonder than I would have liked, so don’t be surprised if you get very delayed comments from me as I still mean to blog hop!

April flew past in a blur of obligation and dismay, as I interviewed for a new job and continued to worry about a very sick family member whilst rather busy at work. The combination put a dent in my reading and blogging, so I end the month in a bit of a tizz over Wyrd and Wonder prep. May will certainly be an adventure… just perhaps not the one I had in mind!

March was difficult with a capital D, thanks to a combination of family drama (a close relative nearly died, but is thankfully on the mend), brain weasels and illness. On the plus side, my scrambled brain didn’t stop me reading for once, so I put my head down and made progress on my Subjective Chaos reading list – and even my backlog – resulting in 3 of my favourite reads of 2022 so far.

February is my birthday month, so I levelled up as a human being by learning how to throw pots on a wheel and trying out yoga (both of which went pretty well and I’d like to do more of). Unfortunately the month has ended in global and family drama, so I am mostly offline at present and may continue to be an intermittent visitor over the next week or two.