This week I had to take some time off, but I was still reading.
For fun, I create a theme every December and I place crochet items I made around that theme in my neighborhood for people to find. It’s a little odd, but it makes me happy.
This year, I decided our neighborhood was TREE-mendous fun, so I started crocheting little Christmas trees. But as I crocheted, the idea of creating one big Christmas tree kept calling to me. So I did it. Out of 130 granny squares. It was insane, but the work made me happy. So I prioritized it a bit and since a good deal of my workload lately has been writing, it worked out that I needed a lot of thinking time. Crochet is great for thinking. My hands are busy while my brain is free to wander.
It’s now up in our local branch of our library, and I’m super proud of it. But I have a lot of granny squares left over so my brain is tinkering and wanting to take it down one day so I can make it even bigger. Because of course it is.
But for now, let’s get on with what I am reading this week.
Reading Social Media News
Right now, Trust Insights has been doing the 12 Days of AI Use Cases, and I’m choosing to direct you to the one on professional development. I highly recommend flipping through the others though. Christopher Penn is a complete genius, and no one knows how to use AI better. How lucky are we that he’s freely sharing some of his smarts?
Unsurprisingly, Meta is experimenting with hiding like counts. This poses problems when choosing what influencers to work with. But like I’ve always said, you really have to look at the quality, not the quantity here. Anyone can game the system to get more likes and comments (I’m looking at you, you weird influencer pods). But only a few people can really create great content. Look for those who create that great content, and the numbers will come.
Reading Books, Books and More Books
Past
Well, when I started Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger, I was super happy to be reading a lighter book that I could just be with. But then it got annoying. The dialogue never felt like real people talking to each other. There was always just something robotic about it. I didn’t really feel connected to any of the characters, who all should have been absolutely fascinating. They just weren’t real to me in any way. Even the locations didn’t feel real. You know it’s really bad when you get to the mystery being solved and you just feel meh about the whole thing. I wasn’t mad about this book. I was disappointed. It could have been much better. Score: C
Present
Next up on my list is Bear by Julia Phillips. My expectations are low since this came from one of those best of the year lists. That means it actually deserves to be there or there was some kind of brilliant PR person who got it there. And there’s no way of knowing without going through it. I’ll keep hoping it’s the former, but not be surprised when it’s the latter.
What are you reading? What books are you looking forward to?