Author Archives: Amanda

About Amanda

Agender empty-nester filling my time with cats, books, fitness, and photography. She/they.

Sunday Coffee: Tiktok, Meta, & Social Media

I have never liked Facebook. In the early days of social media, I was a MySpace person. I wasn’t looking for a way to connect with old friends that I hadn’t spoken with in years. I was looking for a … Continue reading

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Nettle & Bone, by T. Kingfisher (audio)

As the youngest daughter to the royal family of a small kingdom, Marra is tucked safely away in a monastery, to be kept in reserve in case she might one day need to be married off for political alliance. Both … Continue reading

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March Self Portrait: Woodland Fairy

I’ve made a goal in 2023 to do a self-portrait each month to experiment with styles and settings, in addition to learning more about being on the flip side of the camera. For this month, I’d had an idea rattling … Continue reading

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Sunday Coffee – StoryGraph

For the last few years, I’ve been trying to get away from Amazon purchases whenever I can. But I also realize there are other places where Amazon has a big grip on the commercial market, namely in Audible and GoodReads. … Continue reading

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Fosters: Expect the Unexpected

On Tuesday, we said goodbye to Huey, Dewey, and Louie. They’d been with us for exactly four weeks, since Valentine’s Day. In that time, they went from uncoordinated wrestlers with triangle tails to big “fierce” playful boys who loved to … Continue reading

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WW – Bastrop Birthday Bash

This past Saturday, a group of friends and I drove up to Bastrop for a belated birthday trip. I’d never been to Bastrop State Park before, and I’d learned that there was an indie bookstore in Bastrop as well, so … Continue reading

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American Predator, by Maureen Callahan (audio)

Subtitle: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century Israel Keyes was a serial killer active all across the US during the 2000s, before he was caught in early 2012. He was meticulous and calculating, and … Continue reading

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Sunday Coffee – A Dangerous Place

When my family moved to Boston in 2014, we had no idea that it would only stick for a year and we’d be back in San Antonio the next summer. At the time, I removed myself from all of my … Continue reading

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The Spite House, by Johnny Compton

Eric and his two daughters are on the run. From what? We don’t know. All we know is that they need safety and off-the-books money, and they think they’ve found that by applying to become caretakers of a supposedly-haunted house … Continue reading

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A Bloggers’ Night Out

It’s been almost six years since I last got to meet up with a blogger friend. I mean, to be fair, I’ve hardly traveled at all since that meetup in autumn 2018. There was a trip to Wisconsin in the … Continue reading

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