February in Retrospect

It’s over! Honestly, I don’t think I can properly express just how much this past month sucked. The hectic schedule of moving, plus me making 2 separate trips back to Saint John to finish things up at the old apartment and bring back the little things that we didn’t have time to pack on such short notice last time. I spent about half the month away from the new home I’m supposed to be settling into, and away from all my beloved pets. It was lonely.

Then factor in the fact that we got more snow this past month than we had during the entire rest of the winter. Snowbanks are still as high as my head in places. Some of those storms delayed travel to or from here, for either me or my roommate during the attempt to, oh, write important licensing exams. The Confederation Bridge, the only road into and out of this island, was closed to all traffic 3 times this month, which is more than a 50% increase in such closures since the bridge opened almost 20 years ago!

(I swear there’s a deck under all that snow…)

Yeah. February definitely sucked. But now it’s over, and March can be a proper new beginning.

Reviews

The Fire Sermon, by Francesca Haig
The Janus Affair, by Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris
Deadeye, by William C Dietz
Gemsigns, by Stephanie Saulter
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison

5 books reviewed (which matched my goal) and 8 read (which surpassed my goal by 1). Not too bad for a month in which I felt rushed off my feet with a zillion and one things to do!

Excerpts

Evensong, by John Love (chapters 1-2)
King of the Cracksmen, by Dennis O’Flaherty (chapter 1)

Other Stuff

I wrote a personal post about some of the reasons I was excited to be moving, in part to get away from some of the memories and baggage I’d accumulated over the years.

I shed the spotlight on a new anthology from Angelic Knight Press, Grimm Mistresses.

Upcoming

Now that I’m not going to be spending so much time traveling and dealing with shoving things into numerous boxes, I’m going to be able to get happily back into more reading and blogging. So I’m going to aim for the usual 8 books read and 8 reviewed. I’m hoping to arrange a couple of guest posts this coming month, too, and I know I’m going to be over on SF Signal a time or two again, so keep an eye out for me there too. Now that I’ll have more time again, too, I’m going to get back into more creative and artistic endeavours, so stay tuned for another bookmark giveaway!

In other words, March is going to have plenty of fun, even if it kills me to see it done!

So how was your February? Did you get buried in as much snow as I did? Or are you one of those lucky people who can’t currently build a small community of igloos in their back yard at the moment?