Hi dear friends,
Time for our weekly wrap up and chit chat. As usual I am linking this post with The Sunday Post meme created by Kimberly @caffeinatedreviewer
Let’s get into private life first …
First let me tell you that being a commuter and working on holiday week is bliss! Yes bliss. Because you have maybe a tenth of the crowd on the train and:
-you don’t have to fight to find a seat *instead of standing up for 75 minutes*;
-you don’t have to plug your earbuds to avoid the loud conversation of fellow commuters when you are just trying to read;
-the guys working for the security are much more relaxed and cheerful;
-your train doesn’t have delay due to people making some fuss or too heavy traffic.
At work it’s a smaller crowd so much better to work in these open space offices! Less noise and easier to focus. The bosses were all on holiday *except me* so it was relaxed without unnecessary drama or requests to jump to within 5 seconds. Bliss I tell you!
Now it’s my turn to enjoy two weeks of holiday where I plan to sleep, read, write all the reviews that I have to write, finally blog hop and make my wallet bleed for my son who outgrew his suit becoming beefier with all the sport he is doing.
Roll call here to the moms and men who have sons or hubs or …with a narrow waist but muscled thighs: how do you find the pefect suit? Not too loose at the waist yet not too clingy on the legs?
Then as I said in my title: my hubs made a clone of my site. Local clone with Flywheel, the Duplicator plugin and some other tools. Why? Because I was afraid to upgrade to WP 5 and have my site go down, even if I added the Classic Editor Plugin. And because my theme was not updated to WP5 I was and still am thinking of changing theme.
Now that all that is done I tested WP5 and the Classic Editor Plugin and took the jump on my real site as no disaster happened on the clone.
I will have days to try new themes on the clone now and decide if I will change my theme or not.
Christmas was weird. You know my dad passed away three weeks ago and celebrating so soon felt off. I had worked the whole day, was awakened by the very loud snores of my hubs at 4:30 AM and it was no surprise when I fell asleep on my mom’s couch, in front of the blazing fire, all hot and comfy at … 11:30 PM! Yup. I did not even wait for midnight. I was just that exhausted!
Last thing I’d like to say in this “personal” part of today’s post: I am grateful for your support with all the comments and your patience. I know I have begun to catch up with commenting back but I still have some way to go.
Once again thank you and congrats to all the bloggers and “followers” on Twitter who played with me this month in the daily posting of “BestBooksof2018”. If you want to know who they are just look back to my post about “memorable scene” 😉
On the blog (click on the graphic to read the post)
I have only published one review this week but what a book! I was lucky to get the ARC of Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen McManus and I really really loved it!
I have read three other books and the reviews will be published next week: The Wish Collector by Mia Sheridan (4 stars and not as good as I hoped); The Storm Crow by Kalyn Josephson (ARC as the book will be published in July 2019) who will be a bestseller I can feel it and Luna and the Lie by Mariana Zapata (3,5 stars ….only!).
The #BestBooksof2018 is nearing to an end and you can find all the posts here below.
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I have been tagged by Alexandra to write about books and genre out of my comfort zone.
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I also wrote a post about the Top 20 audiobooks read in 2018 thanks to my friend Pam as she gave me her list among the 400 books she has read this year!
Another great thing this week: CC Hunter answered all my questions once again! She really is one of the bests. And I learned that we share similar tastes in books 😀
No meme this week but I hope to get back to them next week.
And no links to the blogosphere today as I did not much blog hopping BUT you will have my “best bloggers” in a few minutes/hours.
Now do tell me how was your week?
Thanks for reading!
Sophie
Yes I like the lighter traffic here. It’s nice to get things accomplished when there is less hectic times. And now you have the time off! Enjoy your reading and blogging and picking new themes. Happy New Year! Anne – Books of My Heart
I love it when holidays make the commute easier. The school holidays make my work drive blissful!
I was a bit underwhelmed by Luna and the Lie too. I usually LOVE Zapata’s books. ☹️
Sorry to hear about your dad.
Oh I’ve just seen From Lukov on your top ten so yes I get that you love Mariana’s books too 😉
I hope your theme change goes well! Excited to see the result 🙂
One of my email plugins claims it’s broken after the update, but still works fine. So I am confused xD
I got the same email for the “mobile version” Evelina! Yet it seems to work just fine too ….
I feel for you and your difficult holiday Sophie. I SO enjoy our bookish interactions and have enjoyed getting to know you better! Happy New Year – cheers to a great 2019! xoxo
It looks like you had a great reading year and read some great books. I was nervous about WP5, and even though I DONT like the block system, I love that there is a classic editor plugin because why mess with a good thing? Happy New Year….and hope its a fun reading year!!!
Thank you so much! Happy New year too <3
It was fun to take part in your Blogmas! Sorry I changed so many of your categories though! *hangs head* Happy New Year!
Hahaha don’t worry I love when people tweak themes or meme or …
Hope the new year is a better one for you! Family loss right before Christmas is rough. (First hand experience I’m afraid)
Ugh, I was so irritated when WP changed to Gutenberg. It was so frustrating. I got the classic editor plugin. Thankfully, I didn’t need to change theme.
Oh Julianna I am sad to know that you experience a similar loss also close to Christmas 🙁
I’m sure this was a different Christmas for you, Sophie. I wish you the best for the new year! It’s been fun reading your Best Ofs posts this month and I’ve found some new authors and books:)
I am happy if you found new authors Laura!
As much as I enjoyed the week off, there’s something to be said for working the week of Christmas. Lighter load at the office, less interruptions so you get more done, and little to no traffic! 🙂 And now color me jealous of your two weeks off! I’ll think of you as I’m heading back to the office tomorrow. Heehee. Christmas was different for us this year and I know it had to be even more so for you. At least that particular “first” is over. I surely loved taking part in your Best of prompts as I could. You had some great themes and I had fun with them. Happy new year, my friend! May it be good to us both.
Yes Tanya mys 2019 be sweeter on both of us!
That’s the truth about the holiday commute. It was me and one other person on the westbound train platform on Friday, but we were swamped at work (year end rush) and two people were scheduled out and three more called out. At least we were busy, right?
Ha! I see you are also seeing the glass half full rather than half empty Sam 😉
75 minute commute?? OMG… :/ Sounds pretty tiring.
Sorry, can’t help with the pants thing… i can barely find ones that fit me, so i can understand the struggle.
Well yes it is a long commute! And I have the same problem with pants too 😉
I am too afraid to change to WP5…my previous experience with WP changes has not been fun. I hope it works for you, though.
Happy New Year, and thanks for visiting my blog.
Thank you Laurel! Happy New Year to you too!
Have an awesome break! I can’t wait for the new McManus book.
Thank you Greg!
Wow you really are an optimist, you even found a silver lining to commuting and working on a holiday week, haha. Sorry your Xmas was weird, I can imagine it would be tough :-/ They just don’t make pants/shorts for people with small waist and big thighs. I had that problem myself for much of my life because I did gymnastics lol. Happy New Year!
Damn Kristen! I am losing all hope for the pants! Or maybe some with stretch???? Happy New Year to you too!
I have had no issues at all with WP5. Oh wait, I had to uninstall one plugin but that was one I wasn’t using anyway. Hope everything goes alright!
You definitely feel that we are still in the holiday season. The streets are empty!
I hope you have a great NYE!
And you used the Gutenberg or installed the Classic Editor plugin Astrid?
I’ve installed the Classic Editor, not a fan of Gutenberg but WP5 definitely works for me.
Awesome! Before I became a stay at home mom, I worked in offices, banks you name it. Holidays were awesome..except at the bank. People would ruin their accounts and yell at us? Such is life. Now I’m home being yelled at by a Teenager. Oh well.
Anyway, good luck with WP5 and suit buying,
Well Jennifer that’s sad! Being yelled at by your teenager I mean. But as Mary said to me “one day they’ll have kids and it will be payback” LOL
Hugs to you and the family. I love the summer and holidays for commuting – low levels of traffic. I hope you enjoy your time off and the New Year. I am so sorry about your dad. Thank you for doing Blogmas – I truly loved it and will play again next year! =)
Mary
Hahaha OK Mary I will organize something similar next year ;-))))
Love the guy skateboarding on the train 🙂
Our week was quiet. With the daughter and grandson across the country, Christmas fell flat this year.
I’m grateful for Facetime so we could still see them and for the blessings in my life, but wouldn’t be opposed to a mellower 2019.
Happy New Year, Sophie <3
Oh that’s too bad that your daughter could not spend Christmas with you Jacquie! Happy New Year too 😉
Oh, you are clever, I never thought about doing a clone blog to test out my theme with the latest WP5. I have yet to upgrade as, like you, I am terrified my theme won’t work, even with the Classic Plugin. I’ve read so many horror stories from people who upgraded and then … well, everything going wrong. Which begs the question WHY was there such a need to have WP5 be so different as to cause so many problems?
Anyway, working over the holidays was something I always like to do, as you say, it’s soooo quiet and you can work done without interruptions. And two weeks afterwards? Definitely a better idea.
Big hugs for the New Year!
In the meanwhile I’ve seen your rant about WP5 Alexandra LOL
I honestly sleep on the couch every night because my husband snores so loud and on the weekends we switch. I used to have no problem but recently or at least the last 5 years I haven’t been able to sleep with him especially since he started going to bed earlier than me.
Between the Holiday Traffic is great. I have to go to work tomorrow and I have a feeling it’s going to be very light.
I hope you have an amazing week, Sophie! Happy New Year! xx
Hahaha Michelle yes I’ve seen it mentioned in your Sunday post LOL It seems that we are in the same predicament 😉