This is super cute! Most of the mailboxes around here are buried in concrete pillars, so it was fun finding this one.
photo: bookish mailbox
Category: travel
lfl visit log (3)
I’m luckily in a neighborhood where I can make a big circuit and visit 4-5 Little Free Libraries in about an hour’s walk. I’ve done two of those loops so far, and have gotten quite a few books! Some I’m planning on reading myself, and some I got just so move into other LFL later.
It’s a great area to walk around and explore, honestly. Even if I don’t find a book to take, it’s fun seeing the old buildings and the trees nearly bare of their leaves.
These are my logs for my 2 weeks so far in Denver!
New LFL visited
- LFL #12071 – Denver, CO
- LFL #12326 – Denver, CO
- LFL #26248 “Leftin’s Little Free Library” – Denver, CO
- LFL #49608 – Denver, CO
- LFL #119643 “Nancy’s Book Nook” – Denver, CO
Also found a few unofficial/un-chartered LFL book swap spots: an interesting dollhouse style (shown below), a bookshelf found in front of a house, and a community book exchange in the laundry room at my sit.
Dropped off: A Trip of One’s Own (picked up in [redacted location] LFL in September), Taking a Stand (picked up at UBS in Ann Arbor).
Added to my stash: An Urchin in the Storm; The Tomb of Zeus; American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI; Walking My Dog Jane: From Valdez to Prudhoe Bay Along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline; Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America’s Edge; Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup; Pioneer Days in the Catskill High Peaks: Tannersville and the Region Around; The Quokka Question.
Photos under the cut!
Continue reading “lfl visit log (3)”weeknotes (nov. 9-15, 2025)
Life Updates
Kind of a bleh week for blogging but enjoyable for living– relaxing and non-stressful, which is all that I want.
One thing of note: I realized I booked my flight from here to my next sit for the wrong day, but luckily I was able to cancel it and use the money towards a ticket for the correct day. I DID end up paying double what I originally did, which sucks, but at least I’ll get there on the right date now.
And it worked out okay anyway, money-wise, because the owner invited me to stay the night before she leaves, so I’ll save $100-something on a hotel! It all balances out in the end, really.
🐈 Curious orange kitty (codename Mr. B-Denver) has figured out how to open cabinets and got into the ones right above the fridge, which was hilarious! Luckily nothing important is up there. Overweight Siamese kitty (codename Ms. S-Denver) meanwhile has warmed up to me a lot and is now regularly sleeping next to me while I work on the computer. They not lap cats, which is kind of a bummer, but they do like to be in the same room as much as possible.
Continue reading “weeknotes (nov. 9-15, 2025)”weeknotes (nov. 2-8 2025)
Life Updates
Since my last Weeknotes update, I’ve left [redacted location] and arrived at my new catsit. I’m in Denver for the rest of the month! The cats here are adorable (as always) and the apartment I’m staying in is really nice; the owners are kind and let me come early and stay a few extra days, which was great for me because I saved a bit on accommodation money.
I’ve now been here with the cats alone for a week and I’m really enjoying the whole experience. I’m in a residential area and it’s super fun to walk around looking at all the interesting houses and the trees slowly dying for the winter. I’ve been going out nearly every day just wandering around (in a borrowed fleece jacket because it’s been fairly cold (for me)) with a few occasional forays into the rest of town.
I’m a little annoyed that most (all??) of the museums here have a fairly high entrance fee ($10+ minimum). Of course yesterday was free museum day and I totally forgot…
Continue reading “weeknotes (nov. 2-8 2025)”reading log: my love affair with england by susan allen toth
Book Info
My Love Affair with England: A Traveler’s Memoir by Susan Allen Toth (1992)
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir, Travel
LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/work/56906/
Acquired from: Capitol Hill Books, Denver, Colorado, USA ($7.50) [see also: Indie Bookstore Visit Log]
Started reading: October 31, 2025
Finished reading: November 4, 2025
Review
I picked this up because I nearly bought it from a UBS in Milwaukee a few months ago. It caught my eye again, mostly because I’m planning to go to England for a few months next year AND I adore pre-internet travel memoirs, so I decided to get it!
It’s a very charming book which focuses mostly on the bits of England that the author enjoyed, mixed in with some memoir-type stuff about her personal life and how it intersected with her visits to England and how that affected her time there. I enjoyed reading about the specific things she likes, as you can tell she REALLY likes them– but not to the point where it sounds like ass-kissing.
I also liked that she said specifically she only likes visiting and doesn’t want to move there; often I find that actually living somewhere is way different than being a visitor, often to the location’s detriment because now you have to deal with things like sorting trash and paying electricity bills, when really what you want to do is wander around looking at old buildings and eating bacon sandwiches.
Having been to England myself several times I recognized a lot of the stuff she was talking about, and that was fun, too. Overall I really enjoyed this book!
Reading Notes
Page 9:
I do not blame the English. If they keep to themselves, I also keep to myself. At home in America, I guard my privacy, cherishing the easy and congenial company of my husband or quiet time alone. When I am in England, I need even more meditative space. Since I travel quite intensely, looking and listening and walking hard, at night I am ready to stop. I have to absorb what I experience and gather my energies for the next day. I want to sink into bed with a book, not traipse down to the pub to talk about politics or football. So I do not usually make social overtures.
Same!!
Continue reading “reading log: my love affair with england by susan allen toth”📝 weeknotes (sept. 14-20, 2025)
Life Updates
Well, that was a longer gap than I meant to do! From my last update to now:
- have left my Ann Arbor catsit
- flown to California to visit parents and sat in a SoCal heatwave for a week
- bought new suitcase, repacked items, swapped out clothes, etc.
- flew to new catsit in undisclosed location (in the Western part of the US, anyway)
- settled into new catsit for about a week, then
- became vaguely ill for a week and
- only now picked up laptop and felt energetic using it
I’ll do a more precise (friends-only) catsit update to introduce y’all to the new kitties, but overall I’m really enjoying this new location– though I miss the garden from Ann Arbor! I do have a balcony with a view of the river with an enormous amount of ducks here, though.
Continue reading “📝 weeknotes (sept. 14-20, 2025)”🧳 to do before tomorrow’s travel day
- Vacuum everywhere
- Clean kitchen, bathroom
- Swap out the kitty litter
- Take out garbage (including huge bag of kitty poo ugh)
- Make airport snacks (hardboiled eggs, cheese, olives)
- Pet the cats a lot!!!
- Pack my stuff and hopefully fit everything into my suitcase
- Add more ebooks to Kindle and music to iPod for airplane entertainment
- Drop off books to Little Free Library
- Book transit to airport (dunno if I wanna spring for a Lyft or do the cheaper shuttle…Lyft would be much easier as I can leave a bit later and it’s direct from here to the airport, but the price difference is like $35-45.
I want to get everything done today so tomorrow morning I only have to clean the coffee maker/coffee cup, pet the cats and then leave. Despite traveling full time for so long, I still hate travel days! Especially ones that involve the airport. There’s so much to think about that it stresses me out— lists help, though.
📝 weeknotes (aug 17-23, 2025)
Life Updates
Overall I feel really good! There’s the creeping sense of dread re: finances which pops up every month or so, but otherwise I’m excited for the next few months of travel/catsitting.
I think it’s helped that I’ve been regularly going outside and walking for ~45 minutes every day. I’m really bad about doing that normally, but this neighborhood is good for walking and has enough interesting things to look at that I don’t feel bored. My Health app even says my step count is about double what it was last month!
I’ve also been venturing into some of Ann Arbor’s nature preserves, which are much hillier than I expected. Very beautiful trees, though! And usually not too crowded, so it’s peaceful.
Continue reading “📝 weeknotes (aug 17-23, 2025)”📖 reading log: bootstrapper by mardi jo link
Book Info
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir
LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/work/13493339/t/Bootstrapper-From-Broke-to-Badass-on-a-Northern-Michigan-Farm
Acquired from: Digger’s, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Discarded: In Unnumbered LFL, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Started reading: August 18, 2025
Finished reading: August 21, 2025
Review (written Aug 21)
I think it’s easy to judge someone when they seem to be making multiple bad decisions in a row so I don’t want to get into all the things I think she did wrong (most of which stemmed from her inability to ask for help) and how she never changed through the course of the memoir. (I’m not sure if she was trying to point out how stupid she was being or if she was trying to brag about making it without help; either way I’m judging her. Silently. Mostly silently.) (Edit: if you want more specifics about the things I’m judging her for, this review from Ella_Jill on LibraryThing pretty much covers it.)
The tone did kind of change though– the early chapters had a more witty biting humor to them and the last chapters were much more melancholy. Which makes sense, because of course she’d be sad about losing all the things she lost. But I don’t know that I’d say those last chapters “matched” with the first few chapters, as such. I think perhaps the biting humor ones were sold individually as stories to magazines and the melancholy ones came after, so that’s the disconnect.
I’m not sure I’d recommend this for people interested in farming/homesteading OR Michigan-based memoirs, but perhaps if you’re interested instead in post-divorce life then this would be a good book for you.
Reading Updates (Aug 17-21)
Page 0: The Forest Unseen is too brainy to read straight thru, so I’m alternating it with this memoir which is about a newly divorced single mom on a farm in Northern Michigan.
Can’t find a bookmark so I’m using a Goodwill receipt from Chicago.
Continue reading “📖 reading log: bootstrapper by mardi jo link”📝 weeknotes (august 10-16, 2025)
Life Updates
I’ve been so enjoying my time in Ann Arbor– or at least in this part of A2 in particular.
Every morning I wake up around 6, make a cup of coffee and go out to sit in the garden for an hour or two. Then, after feeding the cats, I go walk around the neighborhood for as long as I want, usually 40 minutes, come back and shower and then get to work! I sit at a high desk and watch the garden out the window, and I see all sorts of animals: groundhogs, rabbits, squirrels (three kinds), chipmunks, stray cats, and once even a deer!
The week has fairly raced by! I did make it into town once this week, to check out the farmer’s market and a few shops. I stopped at a used bookstore called Digger’s, where you literally dig around for media (books, DVDs, games, CDs), and managed to find four books for $0.75/each. Now I’m REALLY in trouble, between those and the ones I got from the Little Free Libraries earlier– and did I mention I found an UNLICENSED LFL on a walk the other day? Of course I got a book from there, so now I’m up to (I think) 10 books still waiting to be read.
Continue reading “📝 weeknotes (august 10-16, 2025)”