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Just taking a little blog break, but I’ll be back
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Category: 2025 Blog Posts
Rosepoint Reviews – April Recap – May Day? Already?
You’ve all heard it…”the best laid plans”…blah, blah, blah
Sorta of what happened with my April which blew by me with our new, not necessarily improved, weekly schedule. Perhaps I can lay it at the feet of the “Y” schedule we’ve adopted. I mentioned last month joining the recreational facility and discovering all kinds of exercise (and social) opportunities, many for us seniors.
Suffice to say, we’ve settled into a “senior (exercise) circuit” (Tuesday), machine circuit and indoor cycling (for me), rowing (for the CE) on Wednesday, and Tai Chi on Thursday. (There are also yoga classes, but in studying the benefits of both, decided that the former was the better choice for our age and goals (balance, whole body). With traveling there and back and incurring ravenous appetites, the remaining available time on those days is limited.
Needless to say, no spring cleaning started, no veggie or flower starts.
Okay, new spring plans: I’ve decided to take a blogging sabbatical. I’ve talked about decreasing the number of posts, either it hasn’t happened or didn’t make a significant difference to my schedule. Blogging does appear to be a full-time job—and I’ve retired twice already. So…
Beginning May 11, I’ll be concentrating on home projects, including said spring cleaning and gardens until May 22. May 14 will mark my first attendance to the “Y” Book Club. National Rescue Dog Day occurs on May 20th and I hope to acknowledge Punkin that day. May 8th marks nineteen months with us.
Guess I pretty much stuck to status quo as we read and reviewed twelve books in April.
Of the twelve, six were audiobooks. I got into gothic horror and magical paranormal in April, sampled new authors (to me) as well as favorites and discovered two new K-9 series, both of which I enjoyed, one I’ll continue.
I source many titles through my library, a few in NetGalley, as well as author and publisher requests. As always, the links on titles are to our reviews that include purchase information.
Open Season by Jonathan Kellerman (audiobook)
Murder in Galway by Carlene O’Connor (CE review-#begorrathon25)
Watchers by Dean Koontz (5*)
The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke (audiobook)
The Cartagena Cartel by T C Roberts (CE review)
A Lesson in Dying by Ann Cleeves
Accidental Magic by Iris Beaglehole (audiobook)
The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths (audiobook)
Chasing Justice by Kathleen Donnelly
The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue (audiobook)
Breaking Creed by Alex Kava (audiobook)
Hunting the Truth by Kathleen Donnelly
One five-star review for April? Hard to believe, especially since the CE read and reviewed two. Still, even with just a few little credibility problems, I have to name Watchers as my favorite for the month. Hey, it’s a story about a dog. Not just any dog. This is a special—very, very special, lab dog. Could mean Labrador, but in this case (remember who is the author), the dog named Einstein is a laboratory dog. Okay, I’m easily entertained, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Great characters, both human and canine. Fast-paced, hard to put down. It’s an old one but a good one.
Favorite for April – Watchers by Dean Koontz
My Reading Challenges page…Okay, don’t faint. I’ve caught up the Reading Challenges page. Dang, I’m proud of myself! And I really hope you’ll check it out if for no other reason than to note my latest counts.
But here’s a conundrum: My Goodreads landing page shows the 2025 Reading Challenge at 63 books completed of the goal of 150 (changed up from 125). But when I go to copy the latest widget HTML to update my blog, it notes a count of 53. Ten difference? How did that happen?
Welcome to my new subscribers! I hope you found a book or two that appealed to you and I always appreciate suggestions! Have a beautiful May!
©2025 V Williams
Rosepoint Reviews – March Recap – Spring Cleaning and Getting Fit
March is usually a good month for me, a birthday month and fewer frozen temps. By now in California, I’d have veggie and flower starts getting ready for transplant. I’ve learned the hard way, however, that in upper Midwest, you’d better wait for Mother’s Day (May). So, April, rather than sequestering with a good book, hot chocolate, and favorite chair is time for Spring Cleaning. Garage to deck, the whole place needs a thorough clearing, cleaning, and paint touch ups. Reading time may suffer a bit, but I’ll certainly make use of audiobooks!
Just in case Spring Cleaning isn’t enough, the CE and I decided it was time to get back into shape and rejoined our old fitness center. Still not satisfied with that one, however, I decided to look into “the Y” again and discovered my handy dandy insurance would cover the fees. Joy!
Good grief, we were overwhelmed with the mammoth size of the facility, much less all the new machines, technology, classes, social opportunities (we signed up for a “Senior Soiree” 20s dinner dance next week), indoor and outdoor pools, spa, outside courts, as well as many other scheduled outdoor activities. Usually content with walking and riding my bike in the summer, I discovered muscles I’d forgotten about. (They didn’t forget me.) The sophisticated machines also reported on my height, weight, and “BioAge” the latter being happy news. I even looked at swimsuits!
So, yes, I anticipate using audiobooks more in April and probably May as well while I begin to plant both veggie and flower beds for the summer. Usually relying on Libby to find the audiobooks I was interested in and couldn’t find, decided to revert back to my old account in Hoopla and, wah la! There were several I’d failed to find in Libby, both Hoopla and Libby available at my local library. Love that library!
Of course I still find ARCs in NetGalley, as well as receive author and publisher requests. March, of course, is #ReadingIrelandMonth25, the #Begorrathon25, hosted by Cathy at 746 Books, and I participated in that again, managing five books, one movie, and one article–an old St Patrick’s Day story. We read and reviewed ten books between us in March that included six audiobooks. As always, the links on titles are to our reviews that include purchase or source information.
The Builders by Maeve BInchy (#begorrathon25)
The Greatest Band That Never Was by Jeff Meshel (CE for Netgalley)
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (audiobook)
First Pub on the Right by Irish Anderson (#begorrathon25)
Milkman by Anna Burns (audiobook – #begorrathon25)
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin (audiobook)
Cher by Cher (audiobook)
Into the Storm by Rachel Grant
Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney (audiobook)
Long Island by Colm Toibin (#begorrathon25 – audiobook)
While I greatly enjoyed Cher’s memoir, I was a little disappointed she did not wholly narrate and that it was Part I. Gotta wait for Part II? But, no, Water for Elephants had me glued to the pages—well, earbuds. I stopped a couple times to research certain points of the novel, from Circus practices to elephants. Who couldn’t love Rosie? Then I went looking for the movie and was disappointed it wasn’t streaming on anything I could watch.
Favorite for March – Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
My Reading Challenges page…
My Goodreads Challenge is currently at 44 of a 2025 goal of 125. As always, my Challenge page suffers from neglect. Surely there’ll be a quiet time when I can catch up.
Just a small rant before I close: I’ve used Yahoo for my email since I started using a computer. The changes recently ravaged by whoever decided it was time to destroy it has got me thinking of fleeing. The problem being, I’m not a whole lot happier with any of the others. Yahoo has managed to combine both my blog account and my personal account, making for a nightmare of duplications and deletions. When I decided to just delete everything in the personal account, it also deleted all emails from my blog account. (Sorry if you didn’t hear from me.) Are you struggling with the new Yahoo as well or should I put it down to my age (again)?
Welcome to my new subscribers! So glad you joined this group and I hope you found a book or two that appealed to you here. I always appreciate your comments! Have an invigorating April!
©2025 V Williams
Netflix Movie Riverdance – #AnimatedAdventure – #IrishFolkMusic – #readingirelandmonth25
Introduction
Perfect for the St Patrick’s Day holiday, I found this little 2021 ditty, Riverdance: The Animated Adventure on Netflix and of course, I had to view it for one of my contributions to the annual #begorrathon and #ReadingIrelandMonth hosted yearly by Cathy at 746 Books.
Blurb
“After a heartfelt loss, Irish-born Keegan and his Spanish-born friend Moya learn to dance through danger and despair with a magical herd of spirit deer,” the mystical world of the Megaloceros Giganteus. Fancy footwork meets furry fun in this uplifting tale with new songs from Grammy-winning “Riverdance” composer Bill Whelan.
My Thoughts
There have been a number of fantasy or animated adventure releases with some amazing cinematography—many aimed at adults as well as children.
Sorry, this might not be. Perhaps it’s the spirit deer that, for me, reduces the feature more for children, but there were a number of scenes that were amazing.
I loved the dance scenes! So therein lies the difference between the CE and myself who felt that it definitely scored a high level multi-generational scope of entertainment. That might be the best part of the musical fantasy—a movie you can safely view with younger children without an involuntary crossing of your eyes or the need of earplugs.
Keegan loses his beloved Grandpa (Pierce Brosnan—gotta be one of my favorite Irish actors) early in the show. This poor kid has known loss before and is being raised by his grandparents who clearly love and adore him. Grandpa runs a lighthouse and is teaching Keegan all about it.
Keegan is being played by Sam Hardy (though the photo of Sam Hardy on Google’s website shows a picture of actor Sam Hardy born in 1883. Nope.) It’s difficult to find the Sam Hardy whose voice this is; Riverdance being his most recent credit of four in IMDB. Cute kid.
Keegan finds the devastating loss intolerable. It’s Moya who cajoles him into following him into the fanciful magic land of the spirit deer. And it’s Moya whose delicate and perfectly choreographed steps and dances leads him outside of his grief where he begins to push through the pain and find a positive celebration in life.
The animation ran from rather basic to amazing, depending on the scene. The water looked real half the time, the animated dancing remarkable. The storyline is really just a vehicle for the music and dancing. Sorry, but I didn’t understand where the Spanish girl came from and the deer kinda cooled my jets.
Riverdance, a theatrical show originally created as an interval act for a contest in 1994 in Dublin was written and composed by Bill Whelan and featured the incomparable Michael Flatley. The film was made by Cinesite for River Productions and Aniventure. The director was Dave Rosenbaum. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 67%.
There are a number of timely messages within the fairy tale musical. It’s sweet with traditions and friendship and deals with grief and community. Presented as a soft and natural, kind way of handling the subject, there is occasional comic relief, giving a respite to both children and adults alike. It’s thought provoking.
But Beauty and the Beast it’s not. Sick of that other one you’ve seen with your kid eighteen times? Check this one out. If not the frogs or stags, you might enjoy those dance scenes. And, can someone tell me if this kid is Irish?
It’s out now and streaming on Netflix.
©2025 V Williams
Happy St Patrick’s Day! – Celebrate with Traditional Irish Soda Bread or Corned Beef and Cabbage
A little story to add to the Reading Ireland Month celebration and all things Irish, the #Begorrathon, an annual event hosted by Cathy at 746 Books.
I usually reprise my little Beans, Beans story for St Patrick’s Day, but if you’ve been following me awhile, you’ve seen it. So this year, I thought I’d bring back another old St Patrick’s Day story originally posted back in March, 2017.
Well, what in the world were we thinking? Driving an old Class A RV to the coast where I’d signed up for a craft booth to sell my grandfather’s books on Rockaway Beach, Oregon for a Pirate Festival. (Rockaway Beach is part of the Tillamook Coast, of course, Tillamook–famous for fabulous cheeses.)
One of the booth sales ladies in the Yuma Winter Craft Shows told me about the pirate festival in Oregon when I rented spaces during the winter in Arizona to sell my grandfather’s books. Several of his books talked about pirates, so I thought it sounded like a lot of fun and a great venue for his books and promptly put in my reservation for the following June. The dates coincided with our son’s birthday, born on the CE’s birthday. (Sadly, it appears the Festival has run into insurance problems and has had to cancel the last couple of years.)
But, hey, it’s the Oregon coast. Can you say R A I N? (and cold and wind)
Arriving in a downpour Friday evening, I was a little dismayed about the thought of trying to set up our display in the wind and rain on Saturday. I was prepared with boxes of my grandfather’s books, a treasure chest with trinkets, and pirate scarves. And, yeah, the RV was leaking.
Our costumed daughter got right into the whole scene and made braided hair strings (she even decorated Jack Sparrow’s look-alike with one), and we had other pirate-related gedunks.
It was a blustery day, the sun ducking in and out of clouds, but we were able to install our little booth. People were dressed in costumes, there was music and blunderbusses, but not a lot of sales.
To celebrate the birthdays, we found a special traditional Irish café and ordered a big pot of corned beef and cabbage. The lady there—SOOO gracious and generous—threw in soda bread for us all. (We bought a birthday cake and candles separately.)
So it is that I remember with fondness the soda bread, though I’ve not done so grand a job as the lady in Rockaway Beach. Just in case, however, that you also have a fondness for traditional Irish Soda Bread, I’ve attached a page containing a special family recipe from one of my favorite Irish authors, Jean Grainger, who just released Yesterday’s Paper, from the Knocknashee series. She posted this soda bread recipe several years ago in response to requests. Do yourself a favor and check out her book.
Have a safe and happy March 17!
©2025 V Williams
It’s Not Just An Anniversary @Canva – Another Invitation to Upgrade with AI?
A pleasant little surprise in my emails this morning, the notification that this would be my eighth anniversary with Canva along with a video of the year’s stats. Gees, how time flies! Between my free account and senior level tech expertise, I’ve struggled with even the basics, looking for how to videos. Still, a learning curve but fun.
Prior to discovering Canva, I used my old Photoshop program for some designs and sought out appropriate pictures, cartoons, or graphics on the internet, carefully citing attribution where appropriate. Many times, I’d get a basic pic and finish it in PS. Good old Photoshop 7. (Yeah, old.)
But, as you know, Shutterstock, Getty Images, Flicker.com, Pixabay, and Google Images all have limitations as I wrote about in my July 2016 post. I just couldn’t find a go-to site that I could use quickly, easily, and on a regular basis—again—for free (yeah, we’re on Social Security). I don’t remember how I discovered Canva.com.
Oops! Perhaps the stats are skewed though. I can’t imagine I was in the top 25% of social media designers. (Nice thought though.) And they obviously didn’t count the number of designs I reused, again and again (but saving with a new title or colors), updating with new book covers and verbiage as I’m quite sure I designed more than 37. “Most used color”—green(what??)—and 42 different fonts? Are they still talking about my account?
Canva is now playing with AI graphics, offering a limited number of freebies in their Dream Lab (I’m about to run out of “credits”) or Magic Media.
Have you tried these?
Now where is my happy anniversary from WordPress? I’ve never heard a peep from them and passed my ten year mark several years ago.
©2025 V Williams
Rosepoint Reviews – January Recap – Catch the winter reading bug, not the flu
January is a catch-up month around here, packing holiday decorations away, doing some cleaning, updating blog folders (and Challenge page) to 2025, and doing some general website housekeeping. I took a hard look at my challenges and signed up for the same few, but reduced goals this year. Just too much always going on to keep up and I’d dearly love to do some AI graphics.
After looking at WP templates and formats, it would appear I am pretty well stuck with the same one as I still don’t want to try the block editor again and so many of the templates only work with the block editor. As is, I’m finding problems with my widgets, the blocks interfering with spacing and I’m blocked from linking both Twitter feed and Instagram. Still, I want to update the look somewhat with whatever additional resources I have.
Decided I would continue to try for posts on Tuesday and Thursday—Sunday if the CE has a review available. Felt like our stats were dropping and I went in to get an average number of reviews per month, but last January 2024 (not counting bookish posts), we posted ten reviews. So then looking at all months and tallying the average, discovered that between the two of us, we are generally running about 11.33/books/mo. Maybe not fewer then, just a shift in where we are getting the books and an increase in audiobooks equal to the decrease in digitals.
I mentioned AI graphics before and looking at different apps and free downloads, found more than I thought available. I played around with the free version of Freepik, but the free version is very limited and doesn’t make sense to pay for the little I’d use. Between the two, the AI graphics on Canva (again my free version) offers greater diversity and is more user friendly. Still, one can always resort to Google Gemini 2.0 which creates limited graphics as well as text.
I’m using Goodreads to mine the opportunity for good audiobooks, as well as your suggestions, and books sourced at NetGalley, author and publisher requests, and my well-stocked library.
We managed thirteen reviews between us in January that included seven audiobooks. These links on titles are to our reviews that include purchase or source information.
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (audiobook)
Downstate: A Novella by Jeffery Deaver (CE review)
History’s Pages: The Knocknashee Story by Jean Grainger (5 stars)
The Burning and The Lost Coast by Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman (audiobooks)
To Catch a Thief by David Dodge (CE review)
All We Thought We Knew by Michelle Shocklee
Half Moon Bay by Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman (audiobook)
A Measure of Darkness by Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman (audiobook)
The Crossing Places: The First Ruth Galloway Mystery by Elly Griffiths
A Dead Draw by Robert Dugoni (CE review)
The Investigator by John Sandford (audiobook)
No question this month, All We Thought We Knew by Michelle Shocklee left me breathless and satisfied. I recommended it to the CE and he burned through it in a couple days. No doubt this would make a super selection for any book club.
Favorite for January – All We Thought We Knew
My Reading Challenges page…My Goodreads Challenge is currently at 18 of a 2025 goal of 125. No, keeping up with my Challenge page wasn’t a New Year’s resolution. I’ll get to it…
by and by.
Welcome to my new subscribers! So glad you joined our group. I hope all my readers are finding some amazing books to spend some quality hot chocolate, fireplace time with!
©2025 V Williams
Wrapping Up 2024 – #Favoritebook #Challenges #Goodreads #eBooks #audiobooks
Once again I tried to streamline the process of picking out a favorite book from the previous year, by posting my monthly favorites.
More selective with Indie authors, we read and listened to more library books in 2024 than previous years and the books again include a wide range of genres from #cozyanimalmysteries to #historicalfiction. The big surprise when all tallied it out was that I failed both my #historicalfiction challenge as well as the #audiobook challenge which I had been confident in winning.
Links on titles are to my review which will include source and purchase information…
Jan –The Frozen River
Feb – The Wager
Mar –The Wrong Side of Goodbye
Apr –The Debt Collector
May – Your Forgotten Sons
Jun –Prevailing Wind
Jul – 12 Coffins and Lilac Ink (a tie-both 5 stars)
Aug –The Broken Truth
Sept – Darling Girls
Oct – The Johnstown Flood
Nov – Summit’s Edge
Dec – The Phoenix Crown
Not all these monthly favorites garnered five-star reviews from us. There is a good mix of genres among which are non-fiction, family drama, historical fiction, literary fiction, and and even a YA! Once again, it would appear that historical fiction is a strong favorite, so surely I’ve miscounted the category in the Challenges.
Of my favorites in 2024, I loved both Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth and The Wager by David Grann, both in audiobook format. Did you listen to either? The latter is breathtaking in description, brilliantly tension-building, emotional, and filled with the astonishing story of the shipwreck and survivors. So…
Favorite novel of 2024 – The Wager by David Grann, narrated by himself and Dion Graham
Let’s Start Over!
January finds me wrestling with the conversion of 2024 to 2025, new categories and an updated Challenge page. Out of the four main challenges I do every year, only two goals were successfully met. When I got everything caught up, disappointed to discover I was one short of meeting the Netgalley Challenge and experienced an epic fail with the Historical Fiction Challenge. I’ve signed up for those challenges again, posted the new logos with their links, and reset my challenges for 2025. Check out my Challenges page!
My (Goodreads) Year in Books
At about the same time, the release of all those great Goodreads stats is impossible to miss when they insist on sending them to you. I hope you got yours. I took note of the info; it was most interesting. Yes, there was a problem or two with the shortest book, as they show Battle Annie at 34 pages, also noted for the fewest shelved. Nope. (The most shelved was All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, also on my favorites list and winner of the Pulitzer as well as a four-part mini-series on Netflix.) My longest, a David Baldacci book, The 6:20 Man at 593 pages. Our average book length was approximately 334 pages with an average rating of 4.1 stars.
The first of the year is always rather daunting for me, a struggle, especially wresting with the classic editor in WP that is still trying to force the block editor on me.
Have you looked over your Goodreads stats, set your new challenges? Ran a critical eye over what went wrong or right?
Do any of the above grab your interest? Read it already? How’s your #TBR?
Disagree with our reviews? I’d love to know and always welcome your comments!
©2025 V Williams
Graphic courtesy Freepik.com
Rosepoint Publishing 