This month so far, I am batting 250 on books, and my one hit was only a single. I read Lisa Jewell's Watching You and it was just okay. I don't know if that is my mindset or if the book is not that good, so take my review with a grain of salt. I then DNFed Everywhere an Oink Oink (annoying Hollywood producer) and I Didn't Know I Needed This (annoying Twitter influencer) and started Murder in The Family twice and just could not get into it, so I realized that it's not you, it's me, and decided to just give it a rest. I think I may be ready to give it a shot again, but I need something light and funny and fun. Does anyone have a suggestion of a quick and easy read? No Emily Henry please.
Speaking of music, I found an old SanDisk music player among my things and it still works! It cost maybe $15 and it holds about 3G of music, and it was about half full. It was so fun to turn it on and see what I was listening to when I last used it, which was probably at least ten years ago! I also added more songs on it so I will have something that doesn't drain my phone battery that I can listen to when I am on the road. The playlist includes a variety of songs like Shaggy's It Wasn't Me, So What by Pink, Jesus Walks by Kanye, Believe Me Natalie by the Killers and Sex Is On Fire by Kings of Leon. I also have a playlist on my phone as a backup that I have dubbed Pick Me Up, and will be used when I am feeling discouraged or tired and need to be pumped up.
Testing out the SanDisk
It still works!
Speaking of that, if you are interested, I would love to get one song recommendation to add to the pick me up playlist from each of you. FYI, I listen to all genres, and would be just as happy with Pantera or Snoop Dogg as I would with Taylor Swift or James Taylor. So lay it on me folks! If you are one of my shy lurkers (you know who you are Berreaux!) you can text me or email me your suggestion.
As I said, I have also been listening to more podcasts. If you love hearing a short story made long, I have one about this too. I used to use Stitcher as my podcast player. It was great, I had all of the settings down and everything was copesetic. Maybe six or ten months ago, they closed up shop and told everyone to migrate their playlists, and suggested Google Podcasts. I am an Android user and a fan of the Google suite, so I did what they said and have been very happy with the transition so far. However, about a month ago, Google Podcasts announced that they would no longer be around and that we would need to migrate our playlist again. Sigh. I don't mind learning new things but that is kind of annoying. So I moved everything to YouTube Music, which is where I listen to and get my music from. However, I don't love this platform for various reasons. So I am going to try out Podcast Guru, unless one of you has a suggestion for a great podcast app? Like I said, I am an Android user and I don't want to pay for the app. Any suggestions? And if so, why do you like the one you are using?
Speaking of podcasts, one of my go tos lately has been All the Hacks and I just listened to a great one about FOMO and FOBO. I had never heard of FOBO but it is the Fear of Better Options, meaning that you do not make a decision right away because you think something better may come along after you do. It really hit home with me, as I don't really have too much FOMO, but I definitely have a case of FOBO from time to time. It is not unusual for me to turn on Netflix and spend half an hour trying to decide what to watch before finally giving up and turning the TV off. It is not unusual for me to put an alert on a flight price rather than buying one right away, in the hopes that the price will go down later or that the flight will be at a better time. I try not to be, but often am guilty of analysis paralysis.
In the podcast, they talk about being an optimizer or a maximizer, both who want to get the best that they can out of the choices they make and it is fascinating to see how much I can relate to much of this. The opposite is a satisficer, who will pick something that is "good enough" just to satisfy. Supposedly, maximizers will take longer to make the decision, but it will often be a better decision due to the research put in, versus satisficers, who will choose quickly, but be happier in the long run. I take a long time to make decisions and often have to ask many questions to be sure I know exactly what I am getting myself into before I make the plunge. I know this is annoying to many of my satisficer friends, but to loop this back to work for the grand finale, has served me well in my industry over the last ten years!
What fun book should I be reading now? What is your one pick me up song? What podcast app would you suggest I use? Are you a maximizer or a satisficer?
