Books: I finished The Resurrection of Johnny Cash. I really enjoyed the end of it more than the first half or so. The book advertises itself about being about Johnny from the 90s to the end of his life but it takes until about mid-book to get to that part of his life. Once I finished that I started Hope’s Boy by Andrew Bridge. I found it in a goodwill bin a while back. It’s about a boy who grew up primarily in an institution for foster kids but eventually got into a regular foster home though it was awful. Despite his rough childhood he was able to become a successful adult. I love biographies and memoirs and the foster care system in general as well as kids who “make it out” interest me so the book grabbed my attention for several reasons. I’m only a few chapters in so far but it’s interesting.

Shows: I finally convinced Ryan to try watching The Walking Dead with me again. We both felt like there was a really rough spot around season 3 I think it is – around the time Hershel is killed the dialog is just really “on the nose”. We had both watched on a regular basis up til then, but Ryan was turned off enough by it that he stopped watching. I continued on without him until they got to Alexandria and at that point I tried convincing Ryan that it had gotten better and he should start watching again. He said he would but he never actually did so I stopped watching as well just so we could start watching again. This week we finally did it and we got through the first season of fear the walking dead, and are now on the most recent season of the walking dead as well. I was right, Ryan agreed it got better around Alexandria. We have a few episodes left and I can’t wait to watch them.

Clothes & accessories: I got a shirt from an amazon review that is a really simple v-neck shirt that has sleeves that go down to just above the elbow. It is a bit clingy in the belly area so I never would have wore it in the past but now that I have lost weight I feel comfortable wearing it which is fun and exciting.

Dog products: We got a SurpriseMyPet box that had two toys in it that the dogs liked. It was cool because it’s rare for subscription box toys to please my dogs seems how they only like soft plush toys. While they like and will play with the new toys I wouldn’t say they are favorites. They still prefer baby salsa and the lamb chops toy they have.

Food/recipe: I tried making southwestern chicken salad this month. It was okay – very edible but I don’t think I will make it again. I also tried cauliflower bread sticks. It was a TON of work because I don’t have a food processor so I had to cut the califlower into teeny tiny pieces manually and then it turned out gross. I tried it because everyone says you can’t taste the cauliflower but I certainly could. I tried out tribe zest & garlic hummus this month and I LOVE it with wheat thins. It’ll definitely be an on-going snack for me. I read that using celery with hummus is a great way to snack for low calories so I tried it but the celery flavor is too strong for hummus in my opinion.

Video games: I started playing Stardew valley. It’s okay so far. Not particularly thrilling but I don’t feel like I’m learning as I go and feel pretty new to it still so it might be more interesting when I get going more.

Weight: Our bathroom scale broke mid-month and we just replaced it. I was worried that I would have gained weight because we slacked food wise for about a week surrounding Ryan’s birthday but I was only up 1.5 pounds from before the scale broke so I thought that was pretty good. I had been estimating calories instead of strictly tracking but I started using myfitnesspal again this morning.

Life updates: I have yet to get caught up enough with Emily Reviews to spend more time on this blog. I do feel like i’m close, though. I’ve done a better job of keeping the reviews I accept to a minimum. I like having these monthly update posts to keep me obligated to at least one post a month even though this one is late.

I joined snapchat and have been playing with that in hopes of being able to utilize it for the blog and reaching readers on a more personal level. I have a hard time deciding what to photograph or video though. The platform is so simple that it can be frustrating but I’m figuring it out as I go.