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If We Were Having Coffee – Spring 2022 Update

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If We Were Coffee 2022

If We Were Having Coffee – Spring 2022 Update

I first saw Jamie at Perpetual Page Turner do an If We Were Having Coffee post in 2019, which is an idea she got from a life coach. Since then, I’ve been doing them periodically. Lately, it looks like I’m settling into a spring/fall routine. So, here’s my If We Were Having Coffee Spring 2022 update!

If we were having coffee…

I would tell you that I just finished reading THIS REBEL HEART by Katherine Locke. It’s fantastic and also kind of brutal– not the story itself. It’s not particularly violent or anything. Maybe emotionally raw is a better descriptor? Either way, I loved it, but I read it kind of slowly, which is unusual for me. It felt like the right pace for me to read it, though. I posed my review yesterday, so it’s up if you want to find out more.

I’m also currently listening to NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION by Marshall B. Rosenberg, which was recommended to me by more than one friend. Right now, I’m only about 25% of the way through the book, and I feel like it’s one I’ll need to listen to more than once to really absorb the whole message. I’m really intrigued so far, and I want to give myself a trial period and see how practicing nonviolent communication effects relationships for me. I’m not sure that it’s something I’ll adopt as an overall communication strategy, but we’ll see after I’ve read the whole of the book.

If we were having coffee…

I’d want to talk about hard things. I was reading a thread on Twitter in which tons of women shared their experiences with miscarriages, and many commented on how we don’t talk about this experience enough. And that’s so true.

When I’ve talked about my own miscarriages, it seems like often people don’t know what to say, and I want to respect that, but it can be really painful because it feels like this unspoken cue to stop talking about it. It feels like they’re uncomfortable and I can fix that by stopping talking.

We’ve all been in conversations that have a weight to them that we don’t understand, where we feel like we need to say something but have zero idea what the right thing might be. I hate those, too. It can feel like waking up in a minefield and having no idea how to get to safe space again.

If we were having coffee…

If we talked about miscarriages, I’d want to tell you what it was like for me.

I was talking about my miscarriage experiences to a friend last week and this was the explanation that clicked with him. I told him it’s like being betrayed by your body in a deeply painful way. Pregnancy is this process your body is supposed to be able to do all on its own. It’s supposed to protect, nurture, and care for the budding person inside you the way you will care for and protect the baby once they’re born. And instead, it kills your baby. Without your permission or consent. You can literally do nothing to stop this thing from happening. And it’s happening inside your body, so there’s no place to retreat from it.

Also, our healthcare system? Really freaking terrible at handling miscarriages. I couldn’t get one of the medications my doctor wanted to prescribe me. Another wasn’t covered by my insurance at all. At one point I was in the ER, and let me simply say that is NOT a place anyone should experience a miscarriage. Someone in the thread I was reading used the term “undignified,” and yeah. I can honestly say that I’ve NEVER felt more like an object in a petri dish and less like a human being in my life than I did that night.

Everyone’s experience is different. I really, really wanted a baby. So, for me, the grief was very focused on the loss of that person who I was already imagining to be a part of my life and the failure of my body to protect that person.

If we were having coffee…

I’d want to tell you I’m grateful that you’re listening. Grateful that you’re here. The last few years have been really isolating for a lot of us. I’m proud of the ways we’ve found to stay connected. For me, some of this has been through online contact. I have a friend who lives far away, but checks in with me every day or so on my phone to talk about family stuff and bookish or writing stuff. She’s amazing. I’d be lost without her.

Some of it has been outdoor get-togethers, and some indoor get-togethers. I have a friend who meets me for coffee outside (and now sometimes inside!) almost every week since the early COVID days. She’s also a mom, so we talk a lot about the challenges of raising kids. We compare notes on the sometimes impossibility of remembering who you are outside of being that caretaker/chief cook/cruise director. I’d be lost without her, too. She’s awesome.

There are new friends, too. New jokes. New experiences. Lots to look forward to. I’m grateful for all those relationships and moments, too, in life and on here!

If we were having coffee, what would you want to tell me?

What’s on your mind today that you want to share with me? Have you recently read anything you love? Have you had experiences with grief that you wish other people better understood?

Thanks for catching up with me. I appreciate you. <3

If We Were Having Coffee – Fall 2021 Update

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If We Were Having Coffee – Fall 2021

I’ve been thinking about doing another of these check-in posts for a while, but it’s been difficult to find the time to put one together. It seems like most of my blog time lately has really just been maintenance, which makes me feel super guilty. Ugh. I want to do more, but it’s hard to fit everything in right now. At any rate, it’s been a while, so let’s catch up a bit, shall we?

If we were having coffee…

I might actually be drinking herbal tea. Historically I haven’t been a huge tea drinker– maybe a cup now and then in the winter or when I’m feeling ill. Lately, though, drinking herbal tea has been part of a calming ritual for me. I am hooked on Teavana’s Mandarin Mimosa or Peach Tranquility. I’m drinking Mandarin Mimosa right now.

When I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed or I just need a few minutes to organize my thoughts, I make a cup of tea. Something about that simple act feels a bit like hitting a pause button. I get to do something for me, which every mom knows can be a challenge! So that’s been a huge help in terms of just creating some space in my head or in my day. Sometimes I’ll bring the tea in the car with me and drink it while I sit in the parking lot waiting for a curbside order.

If we were having coffee…

I’d ask you what you’ve been reading lately. For me, I feel like middle grade books have been saving my life. There’s something particularly poignant about books like GLITTER GETS EVERYWHERE and SIX FEET BELOW ZERO for me lately that feels like healing as I’m reading them. Books about wrestling with grief or about finding the humor in terrible situations. Those are really hitting hard for me right now, in a good way.

I’ve also been reading some hard books. I recently started reading THE MARROW THIEVES, which has been on my reading list awhile. I don’t know what I expected it to be about– I think I had mixed it up with another book maybe?? I was NOT prepared when I started reading it. The writing is amazing. I love the characters and the found family aspect. It’s just also really dark… like reminds me of THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy… that kind of dark– desperate and post-apocalyptic.

I’ve also been reading a couple of faith books. One is kind of a memoir (??) of sorts about a non-profit ministry that helps gang members in Los Angeles called TATTOOS ON THE HEART. It’s so, so good. I think I’ve spent a lot of time over the last several years seeing people who identify with my faith behaving in ways that are so the opposite of what I believe that I’ve felt really lost as a Christian. Reading about someone who is living faith in a way that makes me feel like YES, this is what I believe. Yes, this is a person from whom I feel like I can learn. That’s been incredibly healing for me. The author has two other books that are quickly leaping to the top of my reading list.

If we were having coffee…

We’d probably talk about health and family. The people you know who’ve been sick or have recovered. The ones who haven’t. We’ve lost neighbors. We’ve lost family. By now I feel like most families have been touched by Covid. We’re doing the best we can to find the balance between social distancing and still maintaining the relationships that are important. We’ve got family who respect, understand, and support us, and family who don’t.

My oldest decided to homeschool this year. My youngest will be at home, too. I keep hearing other parents talking about making those choices for their families and saying versions of “there are no good choices this year. We’re only able to make the best of the bad ones.” And I wholeheartedly agree.

I keep wondering if every year will be like this. No one can say. No one knows. I know I need to make decisions for THIS year, decisions that I can sleep with at night. But knowing what the next few years would look like seems like it would at least help a bit. At least we’d know if there’s a break in the clouds coming soon. For now, I have lots of questions, an not nearly enough answers.

I know that I’m exhausted, and I bet you are, too. No matter what you believe about Covid, the vaccine, masks, whatever, our lives have been altered, and it hasn’t been easy. And there’s no promise that it will suddenly become easy.

If we were having coffee…

I’d ask you if you think Covid will start to emerge in fiction. Like, I’m seeing it a little bit already– I have a couple books on my reading list that reference it in the backstory of the book. But like, will we start seeing more books where Covid is just a part of life? Are authors all holding their breaths, hoping that Covid is temporary, or clinging to writing present-day stories that don’t include Covid because then books still remain a safe escape from real life?

Will it be like cell phones, where eventually all contemporary stories include them? Where there’s like, a line in the fictional sand: stories set before 2020 have no Covid. Stories set after that include it and show social distancing and reflect what’s happening.

It’s weird, right? Even typing all that out, I feel like these are weird questions. Thinking about my own writing, I’m not even sure. How would Covid impact the story ideas I have? Right now I can’t imagine telling those stories in a Covid world.

If we were having coffee…

I’d want to end on a positive note. I’d want to talk about things I’m looking forward to. Okay, so this first one is kind of a cheat… but the final book in one of my FAVORITE series comes out in the US in October. The series is called The Storm Keeper’s Island (that link is to my review of the first book in the series) and the final book is called THE STORM KEEPER’S BATTLE. I have been looking forward to this book since I read the last page of the second book in the series, THE LOST TIDE WARRIORS.

Earlier this year I noticed THE STORM KEEPER’S BATTLE had already come out in the UK. Y’all, I don’t do a ton of preorders, and I had never ordered a UK release before at all. But. I absolutely ordered this one, and so I’ve technically already read it. I haven’t posted my review, and I will probably reread the book before I do. That’s how much I love the series. So. Yeah. I’m looking forward to seeing other bloggers talking about it, and maybe hopefully my bookish friends will read it and want to talk about it, too.

So that’s my update.

Thanks for sticking around or stopping by. Sorry I haven’t been as present lately with lists and recommendations and responding to comments the way that I want to. My littlest will start doing some preschool time with my mom a couple mornings per week soon, so I’m hoping that opens up a little more time for me to post and share and write more.

If we were having coffee, what would you want to tell me?

Leave me a comment with something you’d tell me if we were having coffee today. It can be related to the topics I’ve mentioned or something totally different.

If We Were Having Coffee: Fall 2020 Catch-Up

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If We Were Having Coffee: Things I’d Tell You

It’s hard to believe that the last (also first) time I did a post like this was the end of April. It’s been more than SIX MONTHS, y’all! They went by in a blink.

Since it’s been a bit, let’s do another check-in. Grab yourself a hot (or cold!) drink and let’s do a bit of catching up, friends.

If we were having coffee I’d tell you that we just recently started school. My oldest is doing e-learning through her high school, and so far it’s been a mixed blessing. It’s not like homeschool– her teachers are doing live classes. She thrives on individual attention and a relationship with her teachers, though, and that’s not easy to establish online (not to mention that her teachers are all juggling the extra work of in-person and online students).

She’s a really motivated student, and right now that’s sometimes translating into an intense perfectionism that makes for really long homework sessions. She’s also lonely (understandable) which means that I spend a lot of my evenings with her, just being present and available while she works on homework. I love having that one-on-one time with her which we often don’t get during the day with the littlest awake, but it makes for really long days, so by the end of the week, I’m exhausted.

My littlest will be doing some “enrichment” activities at home that we’re calling school time. She’s two, so it’s really just more for structure and fun since we aren’t doing a lot of outings right now. My mom is taking this on and it’s honestly so amazing. She’s super creative and patient, so I think (hope) this is giving her a meaningful way to engage in all of that plus teach the littlest lots of new things. I would seriously be losing my mind right now without my mom.

If we were having coffee, I would say that since my last update, my family has made hundreds more masks. Right now, we’re making them to give to my daughter’s school and other community members.

Honestly, it’s been incredible to have something we can physically do that feels useful. We can help people, even if it’s in a small way. A book reviewer I follow on Twitter recently shared that she’s a preschool teacher with few PPE supplies and worried about her safety at school. To be able to put a package together for her and send it off felt so good.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you I’m still having trouble sleeping. Between the pandemic, hurricane season, the election, and all the extra hoops to jump through for safety, sometimes I just can’t get my brain to shut off. I hate it. Not only does it mean I’m losing sleep, but then I’m snappy and irritable with my family. And then I have guilt for all the snappiness and irritability and inability to just shut off my brain and sleep.

Audiobooks seem to help. Listening to a story focuses me long enough to let my brain rest and helps me fall asleep.

Meditation also helps. I recently read a couple books about it, one that I reviewed, and another that I haven’t reviewed yet on Christian meditation. It has helped SO much to have a physical practice that calms and centers me. So that’s been good.

If we were having coffee, we’d have to talk books. I recently read WHERE DREAMS DESCEND by Janella Angeles and I’m still completely in love with it. It’s got so much to love– an incredible story world, unforgettable characters, and totally swoon-worthy romance. I also thought that FOREVERLAND by Nicole Kear was super cute. It’s about a girl who runs away because her family is splitting up, and she decides to live in the theme park where her family once took a fun family trip. I’d want to know what you’ve been reading and what’s on your list that you can’t wait to read.

If we were having coffee, you might want to know how some of the things I was planning to do in my last coffee post are going. I mentioned wanting to start up my Bookstagram account again, which I have done. I’m a bit hit-and-miss with posting still because life has been very chaotic. But I feel like it energizes me about books and my blog and reading, so I’m really excited to keep doing it.

I also mentioned wanting to do more list posts on my blog. I’ve done a few (I’ll list them at the end of the post in case you want to check them out), and have a few more in the works. I’m really excited about my debut novel lists. The MG Debut list is up, but I’m still wrestling with the YA list. I think I need to break it into two lists, and I just haven’t figured out how I want to do that. By what I’ve read vs plan to read? By genre, like Contemporary vs Fantasy? I’m not sure yet, but there are WAY TOO MANY for just one list.

I also posted a huge list of #ownvoices Asian-Inspired Fantasy, which was super fun to put together. I’ve read lots of the titles on the list, but found so many more to add to my reading list.

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If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that some of the books I’ve read this year have really challenged me. I read one that cast a bit of shade at adult reviewers, and I’m kind of embarrassed at how much it undermined my confidence.

I had a whole blogger identity crisis where I was like omg, am I a complete weirdo and need to just stop doing this and start one of those lifestyle blogs where I review books sometimes but also post about, like the kids, and do product reviews, and I don’t even know, fashion or something? Honestly, I love those blogs and follow some really incredible ones, but that is so not me. I don’t think I’m at all interesting enough to be the subject of an entire blog. Ha. But seriously, no.

For now, I’m still here doing my thing. I’m trying to be more sensitive to the others in the YA community, and to step outside my shell a bit more and post some personal stuff, which is super hard for me.

So that’s pretty much my life over coffee.

If we were having coffee, what would you say?

Tell me about you. What’s been happening that you’d want to share with me over a cup of coffee? It can be bookish or personal or just totally random. Leave me a comment and let me know how you are.

The List Posts

Best Middle Grade Books from Spring 2020

26 Asian-Inspired Fantasy Books to Read While You Wait for Disney’s Mulan

20 Amazing YA Books Out Winter/Spring 2020

8 Most-Anticipated YA Books Coming August 2020

12 YA Books I Can’t Wait to Read Coming September 2020

14 Middle Grade Debut Books You Need to Read This Year

If We Were Having Coffee Update

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I’ve been meaning to post a blog update and also really wanting to do an “If We Were Having Coffee” style post, so today is the day I’m doing it! If you’re unfamiliar with the prompt, it’s basically me talking to you as if we were across the table from each other having coffee– something I know I miss right now with social distancing and such. So. Here we go.

If we were having coffee I would tell you that my mom’s in the hospital. No, it’s not Covid19, thankfully. But it’s still the hospital, still scary, and still not at all what we planned for right now. She’ll be okay. I’m thankful for that. But even though I believe she’ll be fine, the fact that she’s in the hospital still throws my world off-kilter. My family and my parents all share a big house and property together. We love it, and this is part of the reason why we’ve opted for a sort of communal-style life– so we can be there for each other when life throws us unexpected circumstances. But it also means we have the front row seats to those circumstances, and that can be a big deal.

If we were having coffee I would tell you that I’m proud of my daughter. Her whole world got turned upside down with closures and online school at a time of life when friends and social connections are so important. She’s soldiered on, continued to make education a priority, and I’m so proud to be her mom. So much of that momentum comes from her, not me. And It’s really inspiring to watch her. I would tell you that I’m worried about her, too. I see her struggling, and sometimes I feel so powerless to help. It can be really heartbreaking to watch someone you love battling things bigger than they are.

If we were having coffee I would tell you that my family has made more than 300 cotton masks. We’ve given them out to friends, family, and community members. If you know my mom, you probably think it was her idea, because she’s the kind of person who helps the people around her and makes them feel seen and loved. The project was actually my husband’s idea, and he has done the bulk of the sewing as well as creating prototypes and heading up a team of volunteers who’ve helped supply us with materials and prep them. It’s been a pretty incredible thing to be part of, especially when you consider that most of us work at least 30 hrs a week!

If we were having coffee I’d tell you that I want to start doing book photos on Instagram again. I’ve been dabbling and taking some pictures that I’m really proud of here and there, but I’m not totally sure I’ve figured out how I want my account to feel and look, so I’m kind of dragging my feet. Plus most of what’s on the account I have is random photos of stuff, so I don’t know if I should remove those? Post them on another account? Start over? So I’m trying to figure that out.

If we were having coffee I would tell you that I’ve bought way too many books lately. Honestly. I ordered new releases from local independent bookstores. I ordered some backlist titles that I’ve been meaning to add to my library. I got books for my girls. And most recently I ordered books by authors on a much-discussed YALL STAY HOME virtual book con panel. I wasn’t a viewer on the panel, but it sounded like some bad things happened. Rather than offering an unsolicited opinion to the conversation, I opted to support the panel authors by buying their latest books.

If we were having coffee I’d tell you I want to do more book list posts. I often start lists and then leave them languishing in some half-finished state. I want to do more of them and more faithfully. I feel like they’re probably just as helpful if not more helpful than a review, depending on what you’re looking for. I know I enjoy reading them.

What would you tell me over a cup of coffee or tea?

Leave a comment on something I mentioned or tell me something you’ve been thinking about lately. I look forward to hearing from you!