Happy Sunday! Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at ReaderBuzz. Check out her post and the links to see what other bloggers have been up to in the last week.
How's the weather?
We (and places west of us) got enough rain on Friday that the Weather Service issued flood warnings for the Meramec River, one of our local tributaries to the Mississippi.
We expect a few warmer drier days, now, but it will get cool and rainy again later in the week.
What are you reading?
I mentioned Lipstick Brigade: The Untold True Story of Washington's World War II Government Girls by Cindy Gueli last week. It's helping me understand what daily life was like for my characters. Retail stores in Washington D.C. started staying open late on Thursday nights during the war to offer working women a time to shop during non-office hours.
The March selection of the Community for Understanding Hope Book Group is Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom by Derecka Purnell. It's my turn to facilitate, so I hoped to finish this early, but I'm way behind the first schedule that I designed. Time to come up with a new plan.
What are you watching?
I enjoyed three movies in the last week.
If you liked All the King's Men or Spotlight, films about journalists breaking big stories, then I recommend She Said. She Said has the added delight of getting to watch strong, amazing women do wonderful work.
Thanks to Deb at ReaderBuzz for recommending the rom-com Your Place Or Mine. Like Deb, I enjoyed watching characters who loved books.
I hadn't intended to watch Glass Onion, because we only watched about 15 minutes of Knives Out. But Rick wanted to try it, since we'd both heard good things about it. It turned out to be great fun. Now, I'm wondering if we should have held out longer for Knives Out. It may just have been that we were in the wrong moment for a dysfunctional family grouping, then, but in the right moment for a dysfunctional friend grouping, now.
What are you writing?
I reviewed the Netflix series Lockwood & Co for British Isles Friday. Thanks to Erin at Cracker Crumb Life for recommending it in her Sunday Salon post a few weeks ago.
I continued to play with villains last week. I worked with two books: 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt and The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing by Evan Marshall.
This article was helpful: 8 Villain Archetypes: How to Write Different Types of Villains - 2023 - MasterClass
I also worked through these YouTube videos:
What are you doing?
Getting stronger. I just completed this five-week strength-training program on YouTube: One month to a STRONGER you | Strength Training Program for Seniors & Beginners | Day 1.
I love how strong that I feel, now, while walking up steps and while squatting to pick up something heavy on the bottom shelf of the grocery store.
I also was pleased to discover that my experience of sun salutations in yoga improved. I feel strong going from plank to chatarunga to up-dog and it's pleasurable in a way that it wasn't before. Now, I get why people like sun salutations.
If you're a beginner or if, like me, you've failed at strength-training numerous times for numerous reasons, I recommend this gentle program for easing into it. The program is 5-days a week, with weekends off. I did it with two pairs of dumbbells - 5 pounds and 10 pounds. You can use smaller ones, if you've never done anything like this before, or just do fewer reps with the big ones until the muscles develop more to handle them.
How was your week?
About Joy Weese Moll
a librarian writing about books
