 Welcome to the sunset! This is Friday night. I'm starting a reading vlog for the weekend now. I wanted to start sooner but it has been a crazy busy day. Hence the sunset, which I was like I need to film the beginning before I lose the light and I honestly this might be worse. So let me go ahead and close the window before I blind myself and turn on some artificial lights. So BRB. How about let's um, let's sit the other way so you can see the Christmas tree. How about that? Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Be nice! Hello and welcome to the actual start of this vlog. It's so much better, right? Why don't I, okay, let's just forget what just happened. Forget the beginning. Thought messed with that one. Yeah, so reading vlog today. Excellent, great. We're on it. Kaz! Kaz! Right, so today was crazy crazy busy and the weekend will also be crazy crazy busy. But I'm vlogging anyway. This morning I filmed a bunch of videos because I hadn't filmed anything in way too long. I'm currently waiting for one of those videos. Oh it's finished uploading. I need to quickly finish up loading this. No Kaz! Just letting you get my patrons early access. Like, you know, five hours of early access. But technically still early access so they can watch it like right this second or with everybody else tomorrow. Kaz, stop it. For real, starting now is the vlog. But anyway, filmed my videos today. I still had work to do today. So I did my work as well. And then squeezed in editing a video so I could upload from my patrons. So that's barely just been accomplished. Squeezed in a little bit of listening to one of the books that I have on deck for this weekend. I have not eaten anything except some chips all day. I'm not even hungry. Wow! Kaz is being a delight. She's been sleeping all day so of course she's awake now. Okay so this weekend I have to pack package a bunch of gifts that are for people that don't live near me. So I have to send them out in time for Christmas. So I have to like package them up and like write Christmas cards to like put in there and get them all ready to go so that Monday I can go to post office. Kaz, don't eat that! Stop it! Use all my attention, don't you, huh? Gotta keep an eye on Kaz who likes to climb the Christmas tree regularly. So that's been wonderful. And yeah so tomorrow is my dad's choir's Christmas concert so I'm going to bat. So that's that's it. I mean today's been crazy busy and then gotta go to the concert tomorrow and gotta find time to raffle those gifts. But otherwise I have time to read and vlog and cook and do things like that. So let's quickly go over the books that I aim to be reading. Some part of Kaz. This weekend. You good to go? What are you plotting? Follow me on Instagram you would have seen that she found the bag of powdered sugar that my brother and I used to make a bunch of Christmas cookies which you will also see me eating probably because it's a convenient snack. No no no I don't think so. She found the bag of powdered sugar, chewed it open and then ran around my apartment with it open leaving a trail of powdered sugar. Kaz stop it. So love that for me. Anyway Kaz can you like go back to sleep please? This weekend Mara and I are starting The Mad Ship. The Mad Ship which is the second book in the live ship trailer series by Robin Hobb. Super stoned for this. Been looking forward to it ever since we finished Ship of Magic in summer. Yes my darling. So this will not be finished this weekend but I'm for sure starting it. Then the second of the blades and bodyshopers book club books. I read the first one already, Witchmark. You'll just have to tune in to see what I thought when we have a live show about the museum. But we were doing a double feature so the second book is a marvelous light which is Loki my fault. My idea at the very least because it was quite similar or reminded me. Witchmark reminded me of this and I had my eye on this so a marvelous light. Then I started reading A Storm of Swords hoping to get it finished by the end of the month because like I barely finished Clash of Kings before the live show. I was finishing a little bit of the day of the live show last month so I'm trying to start earlier so I'm not in that situation again. So again I don't aim to finish this this weekend but like I have my check marks. I've gotten through one check mark. Ideally I get through at least one or two more. Just plug along so that in a nice leaderly pace so I'm not like cramming it in the day of the life. And then my current audiobook is The Burning God by RF Kwan. Which again if you follow me on Instagram I was bitching about the narrator's intonation when reading a particular sentence which irritates me a lot. Kat! So that is what I aim to be reading tonight. Uh-uh. This bullshit. I actually need to eat some food so I'll eat something. Keep it on this one. And tonight... Hey! Uh-uh! Armed and dangerous. Um so yeah. Tonight I'm feeling quite pooped from all of the things that I got done today. So I'm trying to decide what would be chill to read tonight. Probably listen to some more of The Burning God while I'm cooking. And then read a bit of Marvelous Light. It seems light. Or maybe Storm of Swords because I've read it before. So like not that it's like a comfort read but like it's kind of a comfort read because like I'm... it's familiar territory to a very realistic degree even though it's been a while. I don't know we'll figure it out and you'll find out with me. I also just started watching Dexter. I've never seen Dexter before. I finished binge watching last time I vlogged. I was binging Lucifer and I finished that. And uh then in between I started and finished the entirety of you the show. I loved it. And now I'm watching Dexter which I've never seen before. And there's like seven seasons of Dexter. So I'm on episode three. I might just binge some Dexter tonight because I am so bean. Because you know, binging Dexter gives me the liberty to keep it. Hey! She's bad all the time. She's extra bad right now. I don't know what the deal is. So all of that to say that's the situation. Hey! Uh-uh. Let's let's let's make some food. Let's do that. Great. Okay let's do it. Good morning. I slept very late today because I was up very late watching Dexter which is what I ended up doing instead of reading. Very very ill-advised but here we are. Pretty much every vlog I guess. I'm just confessing to you that I binge watched TV instead of reading. Great but uh yeah so I finally got my cup of coffee. It is very late in the day already. It's okay. I did. I woke up at like a little after nine. It is now 10. I had to like wash dishes, feed cats, chat with people on my phone for way too long. And this morning I thought I dreamed it that I heard someone dumping packages outside my door at like 7 a.m. and I was like because like cats ran for the door immediately. And I was like no. Probably my neighbor just like doing something. But no when I checked my phone this morning a bunch of packages said they were delivered and I was like for real? I barely ordered this and it's here like at the crack of dawn. Anyway so a couple things I ordered and then a Christmas present from Maura. So I'll start with that because it's on top. She sent me a cat sweater because we are both confirmed cat ladies so excited to wear this. And not just that she also sent me some Robin Hob pins. I don't know where they're from. There's no like label or shop name attached to it but they're very beautiful. I love that. I love how they're made of wood. I think I might take the the pokey thing off the back and replace it with a magnet because I think these would be really cool magnets. That's a crafty project and I'm not a crafty person. And then I ordered I thrifted some Christmas sweaters. They're not Christmas sweaters but you know some wintry sweaters. I ordered three. Two of them arrived. Number one and number two. And then you know number three will arrive shortly I hope. I think they were all scheduled to arrive like middle of this coming week so I was like dang I won't have them in time to wear vlogs and videos and then here we are. So as soon as I finish my coffee or before I finish my coffee I'll change into one or all of them. Well the rest of this while I do have my dad's concert tonight. So of these sweaters feel free to disagree but I feel like this one is the one that's like the fanciest or like you know looks a little more dressy. Like I will still wear this around the house and probably to bed but it looks a little fancier than this one I think. So I'll wear this one tonight when I go. So today while I pups around and ideally read during reading clock I'll wear this one. They're all a wool blend so and if you have questions about that because I am vegan I don't buy anything made of wool that's new but if it's recycled or thrifted then I'll buy it because it's already been made and it is more um sustainable to buy used or reused items than new ones in the first place even if we're not talking about wool or animal byproducts but this already exists I'm not supporting an industry that does this anyway so that's my philosophy on that. In case you were wondering um on that note I have mentioned before that I'm starting my vegan food channel uh in 2022 and since I do most of my like food type stuff in vlogs I feel like this is a good place to mention if there's any food that I that you've seen me make or that you have questions about um that you would like videos on on that other channel I mean I have ideas for what videos I want to make but if there's something in particular that you're like you like show this in a vlog and I really want like to see you do a recipe video for it or something like that um let me know and I'll prioritize making videos about those things so yeah just let me know throwing that out there in case there's I'll take requests is what I'm saying I'm hoping to have my first uh vegan recipe or vegan food related video up in the first week of January hoping we'll see I have plans for what to film but you know it's a matter of actually doing it I just got some new camera mounts um stands whatever um that are for like overhead you know looking looking down the way that I'm making so I was trying to figure out how to use it last night I was like I nope I have to read the directions I don't know this is supposed to work so we'll figure that out but today today today what's left up today um I think wow Mara just sent me these might be a sign that I should dive into the mad shit that actually sounds pretty good my audiobook hole hasn't come into the library but that's fine I love reading how I sell I do audio just because it's efficient in the month because I can listen to it while I wash dishes or while I'm doing laundry or while I'm feeding cats but since I'm going to be sitting down to read anyway may as well be that and my current audiobook is the burning god anyway so I'd have to put aside the burning god I wasn't listening to the burning god this morning don't have much of a reading update for you on that other than that it is happening and I'm about 20 percent away of the way through so yeah I need oh I need to make breakfast okay so I'm gonna change into my cozy sweater make breakfast and then settle down to read where's the book you won't know what I'm talking about let's show you the book the mad shit actually what I'm wearing right now low key matches my mug and the book maybe I shouldn't change well hello long time no chat the sun is beautifully setting right now lovely it also means I have barely any to use for this so let's do a quick chat before I have to head out because uh I'm having dinner okay quick okay many updates cool cool cool okay so I'm heading out early the concert is at 7 30 but I'm heading out now ish because I'm having dinner with my brother first we're gonna have tie and then we're going to the concert and then I'll probably head back to my parents house after because Billy Island is hosting SNL so I'm probably gonna watch that with them the mad ship haven't made a ton of progress because I started late and have been distracted but I am almost 70 pages into it so not super far I already want Kyle to choke on a dick and die and I suspect that because he is so deliciously insufferable that he is in it for the long haul and we will be dealing with him until the very end which is just bad news but it's excellently well written I'm already sucked into it it's been a minute since I read live ship uh or the ship of magic so uh some of it like I didn't immediately remember and then I was like oh yeah oh that's the oh yeah and this person and they were yet and then this yep yep yep yep so it's all like flooding back to me um so I'm hoping because no more reading will get done today because dinner concert SNL but I'll probably listen to the burning god in the car and um tomorrow wake up late again because I'll be up really late tonight but uh wrap gifts tomorrow worshiping and uh do some more reading of maybe storm of swords in marvelous light since today was only this and not even much of this so reading of all the vlog is a failure uh anyway um I must dash I might film some clips of dinner in the concert or not I don't know I'll bring the camera with just in case no promises see you later Kaz can you tell me why the tree looks like this huh why what is this all the branches are down what is this how many times would you climb the tree and why is this like this huh can you put it back can you put it back like you found it yeah do you do even worst quite late again because I went to bed even later the concert was really nice and then we went hey stop it excuse me while I deal with my demon child um anyway where was I the concert was very nice um and then after uh we went back to my parents house my brother and I watched the newest episode of Wheel of Time except this time my parents watched it too they hadn't seen any of it and uh they're like you like it we're like no we don't like it we just like roasting it together and so my mom was like you guys are going to watch all of this and we were like I don't know maybe uh she was like uh and then my dad was like well at least I had fun roasting it um and she was like really and he was like you don't understand because you haven't read the books but if you had read the books you would know how ridiculous this is my brother and I were just like we done told you so then we watched Brooklyn 99 and then we watched Billie Eilish on SNL which where I don't I think it's like they delay it they don't actually air it live here so they did it would be quite early but they they tape it and then we get it later so it starts at 11 30 here I don't know what time it actually starts in New York uh I don't eat the tree won't be like that so it ends at 1 a.m so then I had to drive back here and uh then I made some late-night macaroni because I was hungry and watched Dexter I went to bed at like 2 a.m so it is now 10 actually it is later I got up at 10 and now I like fixed the tree and made coffee so I'm not wearing a watch I don't have my phone I think it's probably like 10 between 10 30 so oh it's still hot oh actually just the mug is hot okay that's fine it's not fine you don't want the mug to be hotter than your coffee but so isn't this the dumbest the cutest mug I just couldn't resist it when I saw it I was like that is so excessive um so I had to have it and here we are I refuse to drink anything but gingerbread flavored coffee out of it because it looks like a gingerbread house I think that's reasonable any of these yeah so today oh yeah I'm also wearing Christmas jammies um this is my first time wearing them this year cats why are you worse oh come here come here come here hmm do you just want some lovin you just want some breakies I fed her when I came home too so she had late-night snacks too also I've been playing a new treats game with her that uh she's been I think loving okay you take your avocado toast um so the first couple times I took her around and slowly put the treats in different places and like helped her see where they are she'd be eating the first one I'd be putting the second one down like see here's the next one and uh did that a few times so she kind of know where I put treats and now I've just been putting them in all those places and not slowly and she's just like runs around rechecking all the places and being like did I miss it did I lose it where is it so like I help her out sometimes like I think it's right here and she just makes the cute little chirping sounds just always like so I guess maybe she's not having fun maybe she's a traumatized by the treats game but I think it's cute so we'll play the treats game later okay I don't know eating my pajamas see you can be cute and sweet can't you be cute and sweet ah that's very rude baby don't don't stand on the books okay so today um I might read a bit more of mad ship but I'm leaning because I am quite tired I do need to get another chunk of storm of sorts don't know if I'm gonna do that today but I would like to start a marvelous light that seems like a cozy easy thing to read that like realistically I might be able to read the whole thing today if I do not much of anything else but I have to do much of anything else because I have to wrap all over the presents and write all the cards so that's an after breakfast problem I say problem I like doing it it'll be nice but I'm too tired right now anyway so yeah I should probably make breakfast for myself and for Kaz and um yeah that's where we're at happy sunday it is time for tea and I've been saving this for this vlog um so bird and blend the tea company which I'm a big fan of they contacted me a while ago and we're like a thanks for sharing that you like bird and blend a bunch of people bought tea because you shared so we want to say thank you and I was like oh my god I didn't know a bunch of people would buy tea um so like yeah there's a you know a flavor you want to try let us know or you know we'll just surprise you and um then like I was like I'm eating awesome free tea and then nothing came and I was like well that's okay like this is a freebie whatever and then they contacted me and we're like hey so we got it back in the mail like did we have your address wrong or whatever I was like that's my address uh so they sent it again except now I now have two packages from bird and blend so yeah um I don't know if they just sent me a second one of the same um or or what um but we'll find out so the flavor that I asked for when they asked me if I wanted to pick one um was their cherry bakewaltart flavor which sounds really good so at least at least one of these is that and if it's both of them or that then I really hope it's good um yeah so I think this is the first pouch they sent me that got sent back to them um so this is the cherry bakewaltart let's give that a sniff I'm gonna I just boiled some water so we'll try it oh it looks pretty because it has cherries hmm oh it smells amazing and look how pretty it is look how pretty that tea is um yeah so what's in it is it's Chinese white tea almond cranberries hibiscus rosehip apple currants black currant red and blue corn flowers and flavor it smells amazing I'm excited and then yeah I'll like let's find out if I have just extra of this you know that has like their logo coming back oh wow they sent me a bunch of stuff okay so it's more of the cherry bakewell so I hope that's good they also sent me other stuff okay so cherry bakewell yum guys this is not for you please do not be chewing my tea bags and then some like individual sachets this is dozy girl which is sleepy time blend of chamomile lavender and rose that sounds nice then spiced pumpkin pie it's autumn spiced pumpkin chai with black tea spices cinnamon cloves and ginger carrots vanilla pieces and natural flavoring so that's that one and oh I almost asked for this I couldn't do they're like you know which one do you want and I was like I'm gonna go with cherry bakewell but the one that I almost picked was banana bread chai and um they sent me a sachet of it so I'm so stoked to try this it's roibis spices cinnamon ginger and cardamom freeze dried banana vanilla pieces and natural flavoring so yay and uh a little a tea club I guess sticker and some tips about brewing tea and I guess a card brew crew thanks for helping to spread the tea love it means the world to us have a terrific day oh my gosh this is so nice I wow when I just like shared on my Instagram though this is some yummy tea so let's try it okay tea has been brewed it looks very red and also I realized um after I turned the camera off that there's actually no cherries in it even though it's cherry bakewell part cherry bakewell tart flavor it's cranberries um so anyway if you were allergic to cherries and wanted this tea you could have it you can really smell the almond and I love almond like almond extract marzipan I used to look bear claws back when I could eat them you can taste it tastes like it tastes like cherry and almond even though there's no cherries in it I guess cranberries are pretty good for cherry that's really good you know what would go really well with it since it has almond some of the Christmas sugar cookies that me and my brother made last weekend for the last weekend yeah we made gingerbread and sugar cookies so I think that is the plan well good evening good evening good evening uh it's coming up to time to wrap up this vlog and I realized that I haven't actually given any reading updates like I mean I gave a little bit of one for mad ship last night but anyway let's talk about the books um so I got to page uh around a page 100 in marvellous light and then stopped so that I could get to about page 100 in mad ship and then with all the listening I've been doing on enough I'm about halfway through the burning cod and tonight after I wrap up I'm gonna try I'm not gonna be able to read my next like checkpoint shunk in a storm of swords but I want to read some of this because it's stressing me out how much I have left uh but yeah let's talk about the books so marvellous light is if I don't know I mean I talked about it in in my tbr video but um so basically this was pitched well hello baby you want to tell the good people would you be reading and causing chaos ow what are you doing child yeah so yeah marvellous light was pitched um as dawn's range of mr and oral meets red white and royal blue and I love dawn's range of mr and oral I've never read red white and royal blue nor do I really feel any great inclination to because contemporary romance is something that I rarely if ever feel called to pick up so basically it is an alternate version of historical england in which there is magic and it's a male male romance hence the those comparisons and um so far I don't feel any kind of way about it I feel I mean I feel such an intense amount of nothing that I guess I feel like it's not good like I don't feel actively angry towards it like I'm not sitting there fuming about it I'm not sitting there going this sucks but I'm just sitting there going like I care a negative amount about this it is doing a few things that are like actively annoy me but not often um one of my biggest pet peeves with like this sort of like fluffier historical fiction is how often the authors will make their dialogue or even the narrative like narration and prose just in general will try to like make it sound old-timey by just putting extra words and often using them incorrectly and it's not like egregious like it's not sometimes it's egregious but it's just like not quite how you're supposed to use that word or not quite how you're supposed to use that expression and not quite how historical how people in historical times would have expressed themselves it's like it's just a bit off and it feels very try hard it feels like oh if I just put extra words in that makes it old-timey and I'm like no no it doesn't so it's doing a little bit of that i've seen far worse I mean I ranted at length about um the vanished bride I think it was called it was like a Brontae sisters detective mystery like that was one of the worst examples of that and last year I read dangerous liaison dangerous liaisons is that a movie and I think you have is that what's the name of the movie what is it called well anyway there is dangerous alliance dangerously uses the movie dangerous alliance was the book I read and that did that also egregiously um and others have as well those just come to mind so this isn't that bad but it's doing a bit of that where I'm just kind of like and then the story itself I just don't think it's very interesting I'm like the characters are very interesting like there's just like stuff happening and there's like a magical thing it's like you're learning about like magic stuff and these two characters are obviously falling for each other and I just I don't feel any chemistry I don't think they individually are very interesting as people if we like forget about the romance or like are they interesting characters they are not the magic doesn't seem all that interesting to me it all just seems like from the old-timey speech to the magic to the romance to the settings all of it feels very try hard um but I'm only about a hundred pages in so it could change unlikely but it could change um so we'll see I guess you'll find out in the live show on matthony's channel for blades of monsters versus mad ship which like I read a bit of yesterday and I mean I was already loving it but now having this direct contrast like whenever I'm reading a bad book or a book that I don't think is good or even if I don't think it's bad that I just like I don't think it's great I often find myself thinking like do I like books do I like reading what is it is it me that's like like why am I not interested in this why am I so bored by this why am I still like meh about this sitting me do I like do I just not connect words on paper anymore um and then immediately I pick up bad shit but within a page my like heart is thumping and I'm like oh my god I'm having like a visceral reaction to what's going on in this fictional book and like I I managed to leave off right before like literally right before they are about to do something um is it too much for me to tell you I don't think so because I won't name names um they're I mean these are all you know books that take place largely like on the water in ships so there's somebody who needs to have a limb amputated and so then we had the scene or their limb was amputated and it's from the perspective of the person doing the amputating and like I've read about amputations before I read a lot of fantasy and a lot of grim dark fantasy and I like war and all that so like it's it's not my first rodeo in terms of reading about an amputation but it was described so wow I was I was like oh my god I literally like had my hand to my mouth and I was just like oh my god so anyway and then like moving on from amputation to like just like character situations and character drama and once again like there was like as they were talking I was like oh yeah that happened oh yeah that's who you are it's like it's coming back to me um and it's just oh it's so good it's so good I mean I kind of want to keep reading this but I have storm of sorts to read so um that's what I'm gonna read tonight after I'm done talking to y'all and lastly the burning god I feel about this so far pretty much exactly the way that I felt about the dragon republic nothing about it is it's bad I just I don't feel very connected to it because it's just the characters as I said in my wrap up I'm talking about the dragon republic the characters are all kind of a little bit one note they aren't that complex or interesting or deep as characters like they're not bad they're not caricatures again it's not bad it's just not that good in terms of the characterization so and and it's all just it's kind of very bleak and so in the same way that the characters are pretty one note the story is pretty one note so it's not like I mean I'm a big fan of Shakespeare and I'm a big fan of Jo-Abra Cromby and I'm a big fan of people who blend tones and who take you through the highest highs and the lowest lows and the juxtaposition of those things usually makes them even it heightens the experience of each so like having some comedy in the middle of your drama is that much funnier and having some drama in the middle of your comedy is that much darker and unexpected I think hobb is a great job blending some levity with darkness darkness with levity again Jo-Abra Cromby Shakespeare that's what I like and these books it's just it's all just kind of bleak there isn't like there is I mean and just life isn't that way you know what I mean like even even in the worst of times like like in an abrogami book like people as human beings seek out opportunities to escape whatever darkness is facing them either through humor with each other or distraction so usually like books will also reflect that even in the darkest of times like they're gonna like in Shakespeare there are moments of levity even in the most tragic tragedies because that's just how life is it's never that one note so that's I think why I just don't feel that much about this like I do think like from a world-building perspective and from how she's you know taking inspiration from history in order to write the series and the kind of concepts being explored um I think it's good but I think it's it's missing those that added flavors that could really make it a masterpiece if that makes sense so yeah which is disappointing because I would love to love this and it's just if it's missing that that jenise qua for me to totally love it I'm just I'm going through it and being like this is good it's good I just I don't I don't feel anything about it for that reason or at least I think it's for that reason so anyway I will obviously continue and finish this trilogy which I was on one of my goals for 2021 so yeah uh that'll about do it I think so let me know in the comments down below your thoughts and feelings about whatever I've shown you were talked about in this vlog let me know again if there are foods that you want me to prioritize making videos about on my other channel um and yeah let me know whatever you want let me know I post videos on Saturdays other random times as well but definitely Saturdays so like and subscribe join my patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you