Day #255: I Really Like My Book Group OR A Very Social Zoom Day

 I found my book group early in the pandemic...it was before the library reopened so I think it may have been late May or early June. I have been spending a lot of time on #bookstagram during the pandemic, #bookstagram being the bookish side of Instagram. I'd been active on #bookstagram for awhile but during this time where facebook became seriously intolerable, #bookstagram has been a very nice walled garden for me, social media wise. It's not exempt from the conversations of this world, after all reading is a political act, but to frame 2020 in books has been really nice for my general frame of mind. Anyway, one of the people I started interacting with on #bookstagram was Ramona. She was reading a book called Felon: poems, which I had heard of and sounded awesome and I saw her mention that she was reading it for her book group. I said, well, I FOR SURE want to be part of a book group that is reading this book, and I even got the ebook copy from the library, that's how much I wanted to read it. I mean, there is no shame in the game, I think people should read in whatever format works best for them but I do not do ebooks. 

It turns out Ramona's book group is a lovely group of people out of the Bozeman, Montana area and I NEVER would have found them if they hadn't been meeting virtually, but because they are meeting virtually during this time I've been able to join in and I think today was the 5th meeting I joined them for, man does time fly.

It's hard, this time, but one of the nice things about is the world has been getting a lot bigger because you really can interact with people all across the world. 

I know I've been complaining about this book,, and I really did hate it, but that isn't even what matters. It is so nice to get together with people who want to talk about books like this. There are a lot of book groups in the world but I am very picky and glad I found this one...they challenge me to read all kinds of things and it's not always the same stuff you'd expect plus it's a high level of conversation.

So that's how my day started and then I got to do a bunch of baking for girls' day, which was fun. I made Pakistani sweets that didn't turn out AT ALL, Earl Gray ice cream they were supposed to go in (this was a fusion recipe out of that A Place at the Table book I read in October,) Anzac biscuits which made me nostalgic for my time in New Zealand, that recipe came out of a book called A World of Cookies for Santa which I really like, and peanut butter blossoms or as I think of them brown eyed Susans because I had a craving for them and Josh went and got the Hershey's kisses for them and they were dark chocolate, which was awesome and worked really well. It was kinda fun to be in my own kitchen jamming on my own baking but to have people on video to talk to during that process. I enjoyed it. Baking and cooking really do help me when things get dark and sad and things are for sure dark and sad right now. But Anzac biscuits definitely help me think of better times. And we still have more baking to do because chocolate chip cookies are Josh's favorite and we haven't gotten to those yet.

Media consumption: not a lot today because I was really busy and also I need to keep getting words in...my goal today is 2000 and until I started writing this I had a grand total of zero words. I have gone back to that Show Me a Sign book but it's slow going even though it's a pretty easy read. I'm also still working through Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm, which I'm almost halfway through and want to finish in November.

Today I'm grateful for baking, my friends, my kids, ice cream, chocolate, books, bookish friends, weekends, family, health, and good food. 

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