I've had a baby. Plus the book with my miscarriage essay is coming out on December 1st. But this isn't about those things. Not yet. Today, I'm writing because today is Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon, and as there aren't any minimum requirements for participation, I've decided to do it.
I'm not having someone watch my kids, and I'm not going to stay up crazy late reading, nothing like that. But I've been doing a lot of chilling and relaxing as I'm still not quite three weeks postpartum, I get tired easily, and resting continues to be a good thing for healing; so I'm just going to shift other free time activities over to reading. Reading while nursing, on its own, should net me a good chunk of time. Of course there will be interruptions, so I'm using Toggl to track my time, rather than attempting to read for whole hour increments and tracking those.
Yay reading! My book list:
The last bit of Simply Tuesday: Small-Moment Living in a Fast-Moving World
by Emily P. Freeman. I've really been enjoying it, I love her work. Chose for this reading challenge, for a book by a favorite author. Normally I would choose the next novel in a series, but this time it's this. 
A Time to Dance
by Padma Venkatraman. I chose it for the above challenge as well, for the category of a book picked based on its cover; and the only thing I know about it, aside from its cover, is that it's YA. We'll see if I can manage to read one whole YA novel in a day; or rather, if I can manage to read this particular YA novel on this day.If I can, I think I want to start on my friend's book, A Circle of Salt
by E. J. Weaver. It sounds really excellent, and I'm excited to finally read it. Only reason I haven't already is that other things fit more neatly into the reading challenges I've been doing lately (see above), and I've been reading for a certain book club that involves quite a lot of reading. 
I plan to update this post intermittently throughout the day today, instead of doing tiny posts about time spent and number of pages read. So. See you around!
First update, 12:59 p.m.:
The readathon began at 5:00 a.m. in my time zone, but I didn't start then, though I was awake, because I was just getting a baby to sleep finally, after she'd been awake off and on since around 3:30. (Still WAAAY better than Cholestasis of Pregnancy, woo.)
So I started a little before 7:30, when she woke up to eat again. And then we went back to sleep. Rinse, repeat.
So here we are, I type this, a minute before Hour 9, and my stats are:
Time spent: Roughly 1h5m.
Kindle pages read in Simply Tuesday: 27.
Yes, I'm reading slowly. Highlighting, savoring; sometimes reviewing previous sections, their headings and their highlights.
Even now, there are interruptions between typing and posting, and it's much easier to read while burping a baby than to edit and finish a blog post, so my stats are no longer up-to-date. That's okay. I'll wait until I finish the book or have another hour under my belt to update again, I think.
Second update, 3:46 p.m.:
Since the last update:
Time spent reading: Roughly 32m.
Kindle pages read in Simply Tuesday: 13.
Running total:
Time spent reading: Roughly 1h37m.
Pages read: 40.
Since the last update:
Time spent reading: Roughly 1h3m.
Pages read: 82.
Running total:
Time spent reading: Roughly 2h40m.
Pages read: 122.
Books finished: One.
I didn't know... well, practically anything about A Time to Dance. See above. One of the things I didn't know is that it's a novel in verse. That might have put me off a bit, so I'm glad I didn't know it. Took me a moment to get used to, but it's beautiful, simply beautiful. And moving.
And a quicker read. :-P
Though it's super late and not an open mini-challenge anymore, going to do the Intro Survey real quick.
1) Reading near Portland, Oregon.
2) This is really hard to say. I enjoyed Simply Tuesday because I was already reading it and knew how lovely it is. Really looking forward to finally reading A Circle of Salt, too, but not sure I'll actually get to it before 5:00 tomorrow morning. And I was looking forward to A Time to Dance for the mystery of a book I know so little about, and also just to be reading a novel again. Fiction, and easier than War and Peace, that sounds good!
3) Snickerdoodles. Except I was already eating them, so not exactly "looking forward" to, per se. Still, mmm, snickerdoodles. Made them yesterday, my first cooking of any degree of difficulty since the baby came.
4) Um... I love books? I guess that's probably obvious. Um, plus there's this whole big blog if you want to know anything about me... <.< Um. Well. I'm a stay-at-home mom, I have an almost-three-week-old and an almost-three-year-old, and I love languages, linguistics, writing. Nice to meet you!
5) This is my first read-a-thon. Oh, and for the above? It bothers me that sometimes we use hyphens for the "readathon" and sometimes we don't. I want to be consistent in my own usage, but then the question asked with hyphens. Aaaah. :-P Um. What was I looking forward to? Mostly lots of reading. \o/
Final update:
Since the last update:
Time spent reading: Roughly 54m.
Pages read: 58, 121 if you count the 63 pages of Dr. Seuss's ABC
read to my daughter. I did count the eight minutes doing that in my time.
read to my daughter. I did count the eight minutes doing that in my time.
Running total:
Time spent reading: Roughly 3h34m.
Pages read: 180, 243 with Dr. Seuss's ABC.
Books finished: One, or two with Dr. Seuss's ABC.
Some health stuff ended up distracting me Saturday night, so I didn't read as much as I otherwise would have. That and I forgot that it's easier to read on my Kindle during night nursing sessions than it is to read a library book in the dark. Oh well, I had fun!
Oh, and though I didn't do any of the mini-challenges when they were open, there was one question I saw on the mid-event survey I want to answer because it made me laugh: "4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?" HAHAHAHAHA, *snort* haaaaaa, heeheehee, *snort*. Okay, I'm done. *snort*
Um. I have a three-week-old and an almost-three-year-old. I did not get a babysitter for the day. Yes, I've had many interruptions. I deal with them by... well, fully expecting them. I just stop my reading timer on Toggl, feed the kid, change the diaper, etc. Start reading again when I can.
Have I had many interruptions. *snort*
I was a little surprised by my own urge to "achieve" something and read fast for the sake of numbers and getting through books. I had to remind myself to breathe and calm down and enjoy it. Still, it was fun.
Some health stuff ended up distracting me Saturday night, so I didn't read as much as I otherwise would have. That and I forgot that it's easier to read on my Kindle during night nursing sessions than it is to read a library book in the dark. Oh well, I had fun!
Oh, and though I didn't do any of the mini-challenges when they were open, there was one question I saw on the mid-event survey I want to answer because it made me laugh: "4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?" HAHAHAHAHA, *snort* haaaaaa, heeheehee, *snort*. Okay, I'm done. *snort*
Um. I have a three-week-old and an almost-three-year-old. I did not get a babysitter for the day. Yes, I've had many interruptions. I deal with them by... well, fully expecting them. I just stop my reading timer on Toggl, feed the kid, change the diaper, etc. Start reading again when I can.
Have I had many interruptions. *snort*
I was a little surprised by my own urge to "achieve" something and read fast for the sake of numbers and getting through books. I had to remind myself to breathe and calm down and enjoy it. Still, it was fun.
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