Category: JLAS Update Post

#TheSundayPost | XXV | About Jorie’s Mum and sorting out which stories to read

Posted Saturday, 23 August, 2025 by jorielov Jorie Loves A Story, Jorie Story, Stories of Jorie 1 Comment

[Official Blurb] The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog. This is your news post, so personalize it! Include as much as you want or as little. Be creative, it can be a vlog or just a showcase of your goodies. Link up once a week or once a month, you decide. Book haul can include library books, yard sale finds, arcs and bought books.. share them!

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Sundays beginning at 12:01 am (CST) (link will be open all week)

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Jorie’s life behind the blog:

It has been three weeks now since I shared the news of my father’s passing. The wall of fatigue that has been hitting me in waves whilst I work has been quite intense, but I don’t have the ability to take any more time off from working. I told my night boss I’d be returning to full hours on the 1st of September as well – not because I’m suddenly ready to return to full-time hours but because it’s going to be a necessity. I’ve been trying to moonlight a bit to off-set the lost hours from the night job but it is either wicked good or a lower than hopeful income gap solution. Thereby, I sorted out I need to finish out August on reduced hours but return in September to being double-stacked five days a week.

I’ve also reconsidered getting promoted at my day job – part of my hesitation were the expectations of the new job title and position; as it moves me into management. However, I’ve been running shifts by myself as a lead three times now in the last few weeks and I must confess, I’m enjoying the new challenge of it. Plus, I’m getting good at reading my co-workers – sorting out how to play to their strengths, put them on the right tasks and jobs and manage our time wisely. We’re getting things done on time or early and that makes me happy. I am also feeling more comfortable in this new position I’ll be rising into as previously I wasn’t sure I was ready to tackle it. I know a lot of my reasons for fobbing it off was due to my Dad’s situation.

Even before his health started to decline this year, I felt that I couldn’t take-on more stress and responsibilities than I was already doing on the job. I’ve been doing manager work without the promotion for awhile and I respect that they trust me in that role but to shift into that role officially took me a lot longer to realise I can do it. Now that Dad’s passed on, my upper managers took stock and notice that I really do need to move up and take-on the role I hesitated to accept. I spoke with them about my concerns, and they reassured me that I can play to my strengths and only tackle what I can personally handle whilst delegating other things to my co-workers and co-managers. That felt like a weight lifted. I’m not sure how long it will take to transition into that new role and pay scale but if it happens before the end of the year, I’d feel blessed.

Posted Saturday, 23 August, 2025 by jorielov in Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blogosphere Events & Happenings, Bookish Memes, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story, Stories of Jorie, The Sunday Post

#TheSundayPost | XXIV | About Jorie’s sudden absence online,…. and the sabbatical she’s on from blogging.

Posted Sunday, 10 August, 2025 by jorielov Jorie Loves A Story, Jorie Story, Stories of Jorie 3 Comments

[Official Blurb] The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog. This is your news post, so personalize it! Include as much as you want or as little. Be creative, it can be a vlog or just a showcase of your goodies. Link up once a week or once a month, you decide. Book haul can include library books, yard sale finds, arcs and bought books.. share them!

Enter your link on the post-

Sundays beginning at 12:01 am (CST) (link will be open all week)

Link back to this post or this blog

Visit others who have linked up

Read this week’s #TheSundayPost!

Jorie’s life behind the blog:

Despite everything going on this Spring, I was still hopeful I could keep reading and keep blogging – as reading has always been able to renew my spirits. Especially if life feels like it is derailing a bit or getting overly stressful. Stories bring me a lot of joy to dissolve inside and find a respite from the afflictions of life. Spring felt different this year all the way round. From the quirky weather to the intensive pollen in the air outside. Not to mention the fact, Mum was boomeranging in and out of the ER like it was suddenly in fashion to know the ER staff by name. Allergy season took on new meaning when you have to defend how you’ve had asthma the whole of your life when your doctor thinks that it’s a new affliction and not an old one that has resurrected itself back into your life. I remember how fun that was for Mum to have to keep going to the ER in order for her primary doctor to acknowledge she was asthmatic. Oy.

By May, I felt we had turnt a corner, despite the fact Spring was also the season we thought we might be losing our time with Dad. He wasn’t doing too well and as the weeks passed, we were preparing ourselves for our final goodbyes as it felt like he might not survive the season. He rallied a bit and came through it despite the fact we still had our concerns about the rest of the year. May was also the month Mum had to have emergency surgery, and it took the rest of the month for her to recover from it. I was trying to focus on Wyrd And Wonder as a wicked good distraction as for a bit there it was a bit touch and go as they felt it would be routine surgery but when it took longer than expected we were all worried. Nurses, surgeon and daughter alike. The month slipped through my fingers and most of the posts I had drafted are still unpublished. I found a lot of wicked good authors who befit the Nautical Fantasy prompts we developed as a team behind Wyrd And Wonder, too. It was one of those enjoyable pursuits of hidden niches of Fantasy that I loved to undertake – despite the fact I didn’t get to properly finish the journey in May.

By June, Mum and I were settling into a regular routine of visiting with Dad whilst I was balancing a full work schedule until I realised I couldn’t continue working full-time at night during the Summer. The weather (ie. the intense heat and humidity) was affecting me something fierce this year and as I noticed my health and wellness declining, I decided to reduce my hours which my boss understood, and we left it open when I’d return to a full schedule as Summer can be a long-standing season here. It was a nice pattern of normalcy after a very difficult Spring.

All along, I was still reading – still working on reviews and attempting to post what I had been working on for Wyrd And Wonder. I was so positive about my progress into certain stories – most of them I received for review – that I felt I could definitely finish them by early June. The best part about life though is we can’t see too far into the future. We might feel blindsided by the way things happen in life, but it is better to greet life as it arrives than to have forewarning about certain things ahead of their occurrence. So, for me, when I was updating about my reading progress on certain stories, I truly was making progress and was hopeful to be able to share my thoughts about them even if a bit after the ending hours of May.

Until my father was hospitalised rather suddenly in the early days of June. It was just ahead of my birthday and I was already stressed at work as we were regularly short-staffed and/or having our shifts changed. I was going with it and pitch hitting as best I could but when Dad was rushed to the ER out of the clear blue, it threw us for a loop. I still remember the night we received the call – we weren’t in towne but we came back immediately and arrived shortly after Dad. It was one of those long nights in the ER and then finally upstairs in the ICU. I was calling out at work for the next day long before we spoke to his doctors as I knew I wasn’t leaving the hospital anytime soon that night. Read More

Posted Sunday, 10 August, 2025 by jorielov in Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blogosphere Events & Happenings, Bookish Memes, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story, Stories of Jorie, The Sunday Post

Chart Your Course | A Wyrd And Wonder #bookstack as #JorieReads her Year 8 selections!

Posted Wednesday, 7 May, 2025 by jorielov #WyrdAndWonder 3 Comments

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!!

You might have wondered where Jorie has been this first week of Wyrd And Wonder! I must admit, the first week of May did not quite play out the way I had thought it would – as I was gathering books from my local library which parlay into our lovely theme this year of #NauticalFantasy whilst I was happily diving inside the #bookstack I selected to read this May. Those stories are not quite within the theme, but one series is adjacent to the theme which was a happy surprise!

On the 2nd of May, late at night that Friday, my Mum went to the hospital – she had intense back and stomach pains and was truly uncomfortable. I was beside myself as I didn’t know how to help or what to do other than to drive her to the ER as I knew the answer had to be at the hospital. This is on the foot heels of her addressing her asthma which resumed after a long absence in her life. We have been sorting out with her doctors and insurance how to get inhalers and a nebulizer which seems to take longer than necessary to resolve but we were making progress. Then, that Friday, after I was home from my second job I knew something was wrong. We were in the ER from 10p to 130a and when they released her as she still had those same pains, but they were a bit reduced from when we arrived – I did question if they should run more tests and see what was causing the issues. They were convinced it was something more minor and would resolve on its own as her heart and lungs were cleared by the tests they had already run.

I was too exhausted to contemplate it further at that point and we went home. By 1045a Saturday morning we were back in the ER and why it took them *six!* hours to sort out it was her gallbladder causing all the pain and discomfort I am unsure. However, she was admitted to the hospital and surgery was scheduled for Sunday. Except that on Sunday, the 4th her levels were too elevated for surgery, and they had to push the surgery forward to Monday. I took off work on Saturday but went in on Monday as the timing of the surgery was originally scheduled for when I would be at work and afterwards, I could see her in her room as she recovered. Ironically, that didn’t quite go to plan!

Blessedly my boss let me go early as he knew I was growing worried about not knowing what was going on with Mum. The text alerts from the hospital never worked for me and so, I was in the dark. I arrived shortly before 2p and was stunned to find she wasn’t in her room. Apparently, her surgery time had shifted, and I was to hurry to the basement to see her before she went into the OR. On arrival in the family waiting room, I was informed I couldn’t see her as I missed my time window. I was about to leave and go home to return a bit later as I needed to check on my cats and change clothes, etc as I had come straight from work. I also needed to let my night boss know I couldn’t come in as I was going to be at the hospital waiting to speak with the surgeon post-op and to see Mum after she returned to her room. Thankfully that elevator is truly slow moving – as another nurse popped her head out of another door and said, “Come with me”. Somehow, I was able to see Mum after all right before she went into the OR and it was a blessing for both of us!

One interesting bit to note is that when it was time to ride the elevator it wasn’t arriving at all. There was someone from the hospital waiting with me and he said, “Where are you going?” I said first floor and he said, “Come with me” – we went through the secured door and through another one and I found myself in a steep staircase and then, promptly after two flights told “Here you go!” I was so dearly winded as that was more exercise than I usually get during a week – I said, “Thank you.” I had to get directions as I was on the ‘staff’ side of floor one and in a winding route, I made my way back to the front entrance. When I turned to thank him for his kindness again, he had already disappeared.

I returned about an hour later and spoke to one of the surgical nurses who went to find the nurse who had taken me back to see Mum. She let me know everything had gone well even though the surgery took a bit longer than expected (nearly two hours!) and that the surgeon would be out to see me as soon as he could. It would take another hour for me to see Mum as she was still in recovery. I might not have had alerts from the hospital, but I felt buffered by the kindness of nurses and staff who were looking out for me and Mum.

The surgeon was wicked kind and explained everything to me – he was thankful he had taken the case as it was an interesting one from the fact her gallbladder was so dearly inflamed. It was a living testament of prayer and divine interventions – I felt watched over from the moment we entered the hospital to the moment Mum was discharged. Everything just fit into place – she had wonderful and attentive nurses and most of them had wicked humour which helped loads! Including her doctor in the ER who not only helped her with this issue but with her asthma in the weeks prior to her surgery. We were truly blessed and to have her home now recovering is the best bit of all.

Thereby, my Wyrd And Wonder started off with a medical emergency and a rotation of visits to the local hospital – whilst I dreamt of fantastical worlds and characters I couldn’t wait to meet. I did play loads of hours of Puzzles and Spells (ie. the Harry Potter mobile game) — so I was still keeping a toe step into Fantasy, you could say! Laughs. I also put more books on hold at my library. Overall, it was a very intense week, and I am thankful calmer waters are arriving now. I hope if anyone has to go through something similar, they feel as supported as I did by the nurses as they truly are the unsung heroes of hospitals. They not only help patients, but they are the supportive shoulder for families, too, and it was especially kind how they helped me as I was navigating this alone. It was another new experience as I am used to having someone with me – they will have my gratitude forever.

Journey with me into #WyrdAndWonder:

Posted Wednesday, 7 May, 2025 by jorielov in #25PagePreview, #WyrdAndWonder, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blogosphere Events & Happenings, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story, Stories of Jorie, Twitterland & Twitterverse Event

#WyrdAndWonder Year 8 | Come sail with us as we celebrate NAUTICAL FANTASY!

Posted Wednesday, 30 April, 2025 by jorielov #WyrdAndWonder 0 Comments

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!!

You would expect me to know this particular niche of Fantasy a bit more than I do. I l have held a long affinity of wonder and joy for the oceans and oceanic life. Yet, when it boils down to reading stories set at sea or tucked into stories about creatures of the sea – I’m a bit limited in my wanderings. Ideally, I had hoped to gather a heap of lovelies from my local library during the chase-up weeks into the event this May. Less ideal of course was waiting to the very last golden hour to find everything. Of course, you know which route I took – the latter one of course!

As I revealled during #TheSundayPost – I needed something to distract me from falling ill and losing a week of work from both my jobs! The only hidden blessing was having some sick days to offset the absences a bit but it wasn’t completely covering all the lost hours. Except, my initial searches at my local library via their card catalogue proved futile. As I found a few titles – by few, less than five? And, I couldn’t sort out why that could be – as in past years during Wyrd And Wonder I have had such a bevy of enlightening choices to choose amongst that I nearly run out of hours to endeavour to chase into each and every story I’ve discovered! I decided this year might be different for me and that was just going to have to be okay!

Each May feels like a holiday for me (ie. a vacation) as I get to settle into adventuring into fantastical worlds and explore who lives there. It is such an uplift for me each May – even, if the last few years have been lean on books read vs books sampled, I have been having a heap of fun along the way towards finding #newtomeauthors and future beloved reads. One of the key reasons I love co-hosting Wyrd And Wonder is a continued celebration of a genre which bewitches me and a community of readers and the socially bookish who all mutually share a love for the same genre and kinds of stories I enjoy seeking out myself. It is one *big!* happy party every May – especially if you visit our blogs and find our posts – from discussions to lists to reviews to a bit of everything and anything you can think of which allows the blogger to discuss Fantasy.

Be on the lookout on my #bookstagram feeds via @joriestory3 where I will be posting more content (especially the bookish variety!) throughout the month! I will also be sharing content and images for our main @WyrdAndWonder Insta feeds, too. I have found my rhythm on #bookstagram at long last and am enjoying my journey on the social platform. I might not be able to post as regularly as some, but I take it at my own pace and post as it suits me to post inasmuch as finding ways to share my bookish and readerly life which compliment my blog.

→ After having a bit of a panic attack over nearly losing my blog on Tuesday due to a technical error on my part and not realising I made it – wells, let’s just say, that took HOURS to reset my heart – as I hadn’t even known my blog was down let alone in jeopardy of existing! I needed a way to avert my emotions and distract my mind – which is why I embarked on a second trip through my library’s card catalogue and found some rather extraordinary stories – ALL of which befit our theme this year and I was so shocked as I had looked previously and only found a handful?

Now, I can participate in a few more prompts from our challenge than I thought I could whilst happily having more fun with the original ones I elected to host on our main #WyrdAndWonder feeds via #bookstagram! I couldn’t believe my good fortune – especially as nearly all the lovelies I found are wickedly diverse reads and happily encompass Nautical Fantasy from a heap of lovely new angles of insight and entrance!

For those who might be eager to know which topics I’m focusing on ahead of time, they are as follows:

Chart Your Course: ALL hosts are participating as it is our kick-off celebration & TBR
<Wyrd And Wonder’s Chart Your Course><Jorie’s Chart Your Course>
Under the Radar (Periscope up, underrated books the party should be looking for): 3 May
Fantastic Voyages: (non-maritime journeys): 9 May
Bite-Sized Islands (celebrating short form fiction or novels of shorter length): 10 May
Watery Women (Mermaids, Selkies & Sirens): 14 May
Current Read: 15 May
Pirates: 28 May
Deep Dive (set underwater, a story that pulls you in): 29 May
deep dive also refer to a Non-Nautical Fantasy novel that truly mesmorises you within the world-building and the story like a deep dive into the author’s vision in other words?
Safe Harbour: 31 May (favourite stories read this May)

Which of these prompts inspires you as well as reader!? Do you have any books or authors you’d like to recommend to me? I have been enjoying the discovery process as much as I’ve been enjoying re-finding the stories which befit the prompts, too.

And, here are the prompts I am going to see if I can work on outside of the official ones:

#MapMonday: 5 May
Sea Serpents: 7 May
Foreign Climes: 22 May
Standalone Isle: 23 May

I’m not sure if I can join these on the original days their scheduled but I’m going to give it a bit of a go and see how I can sneak in a few more of the prompts! I might have others I can participate with as well – I will have to see how May trudges along as I’m reading and what I’m finding in the stories! I have a full set of stories I picked to read this month alongside exploring our theme of choice, too.

May has always held a special joy for me as a book blogger and social reader. I am wicked thankful that our community of Wyrd And Wonder continues to grow and encompass so many different routes of exploring the genre of Fantasy and celebrating what gives us such a fantastical presence in our lives. From books to films to games to music and everything else in-between.

Are you ready to start the fantastical celebration?

What do you want to do this Wyrd And Wonder? And, will you join us?!

Fantasy truly is much more than a genre – it is an exploration of hidden worlds & themes which are universally appealling to a wide audience – crossing through all boundaries and uniting everyone together who finds a niche of Fantasy their jam. This is why we wanted to create a happy space to celebrate this wicked wonderful section of Speculative Fiction – to find the joy in what others are finding for themselves & uniting together to highlight every which way to Sunday Fantasy gives us a burst of #randomJOY and lifts our souls!

Posted Wednesday, 30 April, 2025 by jorielov in #WyrdAndWonder, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blogosphere Events & Happenings, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story, Twitterland & Twitterverse Event

#TheSundayPost | XXIII | Some books, a bout of illness and Wyrd And Wonder is around the corner!

Posted Sunday, 27 April, 2025 by jorielov Abigail and Alexa Save the Wedding, DL Orton, Hive, Lian Dolan, Madders of Time series, Marc Peter Keane, Proxima's Gift, Shari Leid, Table for 51, The Half-Life Empire, The Marriage Sabbatical 1 Comment

[Official Blurb] The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog. This is your news post, so personalize it! Include as much as you want or as little. Be creative, it can be a vlog or just a showcase of your goodies. Link up once a week or once a month, you decide. Book haul can include library books, yard sale finds, arcs and bought books.. share them!

Enter your link on the post-

Sundays beginning at 12:01 am (CST) (link will be open all week)

Link back to this post or this blog

Visit others who have linked up

Read this week’s #TheSundayPost!

I truly wish I could say I *like!* Spring,

but each year, I find reasons why I’d rather skip it!

Jorie’s life behind the blog:

No, one truly wants to *lose!* a week from work – and I definitely hate being sick overall because it takes so long to feel well again! *le sigh* Mum was starting to have issues with her asthma and felt she should go see her doctor about it. Except apparently as there wasn’t a record of it happening (although this is a lifelong condition – even if it goes dormant for years, it is still within you!) they wouldn’t do anything about it. Until, one night I heard her really having issues with it and that morning I called off work to take her to the ER. Clearly those doctors understand asthma and now Mum has what is called: cough variant asthma so it is even harder to shake once you are in the throes of it. And, of course, now her doctor is willing to discuss her asthma issues. Oy. Not sure why a visit to the ER fixed that communication issue but that’s where we are apparently in healthcare.

I went back to work and everything was fine until a few days later when they clearly weren’t fine anymore. I remember waking up on Wednesday and feeling like I had caught the worst cold – called off sick and thankfully had some sick days I could use to cover my time off work as that was the part I worried about the most. I was hopeful in three days I would see a corner turnt and I could get back to work as it didn’t seem like it would linger. Oy. Foolish thoughts. By Friday, I felt even worse than Wednesday but my eye looked infected too and my ear was out. Oy. Turns out I didn’t have a cold at all but an aggressive case of strep throat – with antibiotics and eye drops by the weekend, I was starting to see myself turn the corner I had hoped for earlier in the week. I’m not used to being out of work for four days (I only had enough sick days to cover three) and it only happened one other time in the last two years and once before that where I was out for longer as I caught a really bad virus.

Meanwhile, Wyrd And Wonder is about to get underway and I’m still sorting out my reading route with the stories as I have some wicked wonderful ones this year to read! Every year feels that way which makes the even wickeder somehow! Laughs. I’m hopeful I can knock out some of the #bookstagram posts today, start writing the Announcement post and seeing what I can do to turn my blog back round as I’ve lost so many lovely hours this month again.

I’d rather focus on talking about the books arriving by Post, my plans for Wyrd And Wonder and limiting how much I share about being sick as honestly, I just want to be ‘over it’ at this point!

In regard to my blog and readerly life:

I sadly missed the blog tour stop for The Half-Life Empire – of which I listened to the audiobook for my blog tour book review. You can read my fuller thoughts about what took me out of the story on my Review – however, what the story did for me was to get me out of my readerly funk and back into STORIES. I credit this to both the narrator and the author – as the narrator had such a beautiful approach to her narration of the story and the characters within it whilst the author gave me such an alarmingly realistic world set in a Post-Apocalyptic America. It just wasn’t well suited to me as a reader overall due to some of the things which became inclusive of the storyline. However, I was able to give feedback on the narrator’s performance and on behalf of some of the bits of the story I felt the author did very well to anchour the reader into understanding certain aspects of her world.

Aside from finishing the post a bit delayed due to being ill – I haven’t been able to pick up a book or listen to an audiobook for the duration of my illness. The coughing made it impossible, and the exhaustion took the focus right out from under me! Oy. I was planning to be a bit more active this April in respect to reading and posting on my blog – however, some months just go a different way than we first plan them too.

I will say, I have some exciting reads planned for May – as Wyrd And Wonder is my exploration of Fantasy where I set sail into different subniches of genre and new inventive worlds to seek out as I continue my adventures into Fantasy as a whole. And, that dear hearts has me itching with excitement! Plus, we have a lot planned behind the scenes as a team of hosts and I am even more eager to see what we as a collective community of Wyrd And Wonder will be doing this year, too.

Posted Sunday, 27 April, 2025 by jorielov in Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blogosphere Events & Happenings, Bookish Memes, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story, The Sunday Post