As I mentioned in the 2023 Alaska cruise summary, I’ve been doing a lot of reading recently. I’ve done a lot of reading this year, but this is especially true of the month of August.
And so we come to Bravelands. I’d had Broken Pride sitting unread on my shelf for about two years. This was partly fueled by a concern that I would hate it. A lion character called “Fearless Gallantpride” was just a bit too corny, even for me. Still, after enjoying Bamboo Kingdom and while waiting for its next installment, I figured it was time to pick up Bravelands. The main series, set in the African savannah and told from three different animals’ points of view, is comprised of the following six books:
The characters of Bravelands are Fearless Gallantpride (a lion cub), Thorn (a baboon, and my favorite character from the very first book until the end) and Sky Strider, a young elephant. Many other compelling characters comprise the rich cast, including my favorite villian in any Erin Hunter book I’ve read to date.
📚 My book posts aren’t reviews as much as they are a gathering of my thoughts and feelings on the experience of having read them. Therefore, there will be spoilers under the cut. 👇
If you intend to read Bravelands (and I highly recommend that you do), I recommend that you skip the rest of this post and come back to it after you’ve enjoyed books 1 through 6 of this wonderful series. More than other Erin Hunter series, Bravelands has some pretty great twists that would be ruined by spoilers.
Good evening, friendly folk! Yesterday and today I visited with mom. Very pleasant as usual –we checked out apartment listings, played Generala, and had a few meals together. I also started reading Bamboo Kingdom:
We watched RRR, a really cool (if somewhat problematic) Tollywood movie, and had chicken milanesas with mashed potatoes for dinner.
Art-wise, today was really productive, enough that I’ll talk about it in separate posts.
When I got home, my copy of Guts by Raina Telgemeier was there. I can’t wait to read it! With that said, I got cranky rather quickly. Doing chores and going up and down the stairs with the downstairs AC broken isn’t the greatest… but I got everything done, and played some WoW before bed.
Hope everyone had a nice hump day! 🐪 🌈 And that this heat wave is over soon… 🥵
Happy Sunday, everyone! More and more, you can feel spring in the air. Of course, with it also approaches hurricane season, and since it’s Florida, unbearable heat. Still, I try to find enjoyment in the changes.
This was a very busy week. Less art got done, but it was productive in other ways. I felt pretty unwell and cranky on the weekend due to my period and the hecticness that surrounded it, but I’m trying to do my best.
🌈 Monday 🌈
Monday I worked on art, on chores, played a little more of my Code: Realize fandisc, and I went out for a long walk. The weather was lovely, I felt pretty happy.
I had a pretty colorful outfit on this day, which included one of the designs I created myself for ODU:
During my walk, a tree I often come across was in full bloom, the floor completely covered in its flowers. It was a pretty sight.
At the store I got a new drying mat since our current one doesn’t really match the kitchen:
And, as it often happens when the spring items come out, I got my hands on two snail items! A decorative towel…
…and my favorite, a little welcome stone! I placed it next to all the other snail things:
I walked for like three hours, and came home starving. So I had a snack of crackers with pate and cheese, strawberries, and a little wine:
I also acquired these hilarious little alien things to have fun with later during the week:
Here’s a little random something from last week which I forgot to share. Diesel arrived! The box he came in is really, really nice:
The face design is wonderful, it’s very encouraging to see how much they’ve listened to customer feedback on the new line.
Next week the others should be arriving, I’m very excited about that.
🌈 Tuesday 🌈
On Tuesday I placed an order for some items I want to bring during the (sometimes quite long) car rides that happen every weekend. My husband and our partner always sit in the front, so I’m a bit bored in the back seat. I do love the seating arrangement, as it makes me feel very small and happy. It definitely appeals to my inner child. But I want to make it more fun and cozy to be there, and to that end, I ordered these things:
I also got a pink trash container (not pictured). The other things, as you can see, are a seatbelt cover (because it really digs into my shoulder sometimes) a lap desk for my iPad/coloring books/sketchbooks, etc, and an organizer with a little tray. You’ll see a bit further down how I used it.
On this day the little aliens or “soots” as Christopher calls them began popping up all over the house:
They are still being discovered 😁
Also, two games arrived. The one I am most excited about is the collector’s edition of Rune Factory 5! And the other one is Grow: Song Of The Evertree.
🌈 Wednesday 🌈
I can tell in retrospective that Wednesday is the day I started to get REALLY cranky from PMS. I think we were all cranky this week, and I feel that it is my own crankiness kinda being passed around like a cold, so I feel responsible. 😞 But good things happened anyway.
First, I have a very cute photo of Kotoko being harassed:
We went to a very flat and blah park on this day. It did have an interesting rock formation, so at least I took a photo of that:
The park was otherwise boring and not one I want to return to. But this was the first time our partner made an attempt at running since hurting his ankle so badly, and the fact that he could do it without issues was a major highlight of the day as it had been a lingering worry all this time.
In the evening, I felt too crappy to make dinner, so I whined my way into having another Happy Meal while the Mario Kart toys are still available, and this was provided, in spite of me being such a pain in the ass this week. It cheered me up a lot.
For the toy, I got Peach!
🌈 Thursday 🌈
Thursday I went on my longest walk of the week. I walked for about three and a half hours. Here’s a squirrel I saw on the way to Walmart:
On the way back, it had started to sprinkle. These crows were eager to drink the drops, and stood with their beaks open and heads upturned:
I got a few things at Walmart. A black dress, a Yu Yu Hakusho shirt for me and a Cowboy Bebop one for Christopher (Walmart is getting to be really good for anime shirts) some bows, a new blanket and a Turning Red blind box:
I was hoping to get Mei’s panda form but I got this… oh well lol.
After I got home we went out to dinner and then to a huge liquor store to get wine for tomorrow.
🌈 Friday 🌈
Friday evening was really nice! It was the long awaited Kirby release day. As soon as Christopher got home, I had a spread of snacks and wine and his coffee all set up.
It was just him and our partner playing co-opt while I watched and drank my entire bottle of wine, but that suited me fine!
Rosie joined us:
The game was my mom’s birthday present for Christopher. He really liked it.
Once they were done playing and my bottle of wine was totally polished off, I went to drunkenly make dinner. I made way too much and destroyed the kitchen in the process, but it was pretty good:
🌈 Saturday 🌈
Saturday was our weekly adventure day, and a LOT of fun! I got to use my new little setup for the first time. Now I can play my Switch without getting car sick:
You can’t see it here, but my little pink trash can hangs from the other seat. I also have a colorful pillow and my blanket in the back seat, and a coloring book in the pocket of the passenger seat. It feels very cozy.
The first stop was lunch. I had a hot dog. Christopher even went to the car to get Mignon for me so I could take this picture. When he does little things like that for me it makes me so happy.
Next stop was a record store, where Christopher bought me this World Of Warcraft soundtrack CD and Free To Be You And Me vinyl record:
We walked around a sorta ritzy but pretty dead mall. It made for some nice liminal pictures:
After that we went to Barnes & Noble. It was a particularly nice B&N, with TONS of toys. I bought this book while we were there:
As a lover of their Seekers bear series, I was very excited to find another Erin Hunter series about bears. But when I began to flip through it, after purchase, I noticed a vibe that was much more Warriors than Seekers. I guess we will see.
When he and my husband came back to find me, our partner had a little flower for me. I later gave the flower to Mignon. Unfortunately for my bunny, the flower had multiple ant residents, which then became residents of Mignon.
After the bookstore we went to a wonderful vintage toy store. I was too tired by this point to get pics, though.
At home I had an early dinner with Mignon and played a bit more of the Code Realize fandisc.
Mignon got into the cookies…
Overall a pleasant and happy Saturday. Today ended up being super stressful though, since our entire house is being repainted. The painters are coming tomorrow, so today was dedicated to moving anything that can be in their way. I also spent hours working on my bookkeeping, for taxes, had cramps all day, and this week I have an appointment with the social security office and I have to pack to visit my mom for her birthday.
It was a cranky and tiring day for the three of us and I guess this coming week may be a bit stressful still. So art may be slower and I may be quieter overall. Please bear with me.
I’ll see you next week with another weekly summary post, or maybe sooner if I can manage to sneak a post in!
Weeeell! Let’s follow that up with something less dramatic and petty, yeh? Forgive me, I do have to let the petty out once in a while. All better now!
Here’s today’s mail. First, a new book, and a new phone case! The phone case is from AliExpress. I’m so glad to finally have a snail case!
There’s one more book I am waiting for: The Alchemist’s Cat by Robin Jarvis, Book 1 of The Deptford Histories. I’m looking forward to returning to that world.
Next, the Warcraft stuff I mentioned before! Ok so the pillow is like… WAY bigger than I thought which is just amazing, because it’ll be a perfect iPad support pillow that will allow me to keep my back more straight:
And here is the mat. Oh, it is glorious.
It smells like a new car. A smell I’m not normally crazy about but I like it for some reason in this particular case.
Anyway. Pillow fluffy. Mat pretty. Sale was a good sale. Glad I held out and didn’t buy before, and now I can’t get poked by stray nails on my desk.
