My newest hobby is paint-by-numbers. I bought a small paint-by-number project at Michaels of a few lavender sprigs and really enjoyed doing it, mostly because all I had to do was match the paint with the number on the canvas. Then I remembered that for a Christmas gift, Josh’s best friend gave us a paint-by-number of a picture of Josh and I from vacation in Maine. So I’ve been working on that most nights after dinner, and it’s very soothing to work on. I usually have the Sox game on in the background, or one night, I listened to Noah Kahan’s new album. I’d say I’m about 75% of the way done so far. Maybe I’ll get another one after I finish this one…

We celebrated our three-month anniversary of having Cannoli! She continues to be the best girly-girl, and she’s definitely showing us her personality now. Whenever we have the windows or the living room slider open, she’ll walk around and become so chatty, meowing like she’s telling us what she sees outside. Unfortunately, Cannoli will come in to the bedroom around 5:00 am and “scream” at us. By now, we’ve gotten used to it, and Josh says half the time he just sleeps through it. Lucky him.

Sinus infections: 2, Becky: 0. I had my second sinus infection of the year this month, and I’m so over it. Because of the time of year, I first assumed it was allergies, but then it definitely turned into an infection and off to urgent care I went. Shout out to Mucinex extended-release, antibiotics, and prescription cough syrup. I’m still feeling the last, lingering bits of it this week, but I’m feeling much better; the cough usually hangs around for longer than it should.

I have some exciting things to look forward to. I’ve spent some of the month planning for a few things: 1. being the tattoos I’m getting tomorrow, and 2. our trip to Cape Cod in early June. I scheduled the tattoo appointment about a month ago (one of them is a matching one with my mom) and it came up so quickly. Josh and I are doing our weekly vacation in the Cape again, so we’re doing some fun things we enjoyed last year but also looking up new things to do.

Miscellaneous:

• As part of a Christmas gift for my mom, we went to a local antique shop and then out to lunch. We went on a Sunday morning, and it was fun to look around at all of the things in the shop. It reminded me of the antique shops Josh and I go to when we’re up in Maine.
• I guest-spoke in my boss’s IT class about my current role in the marketing department at the university. I’ve been doing this for years, so at least I can just reuse the same presentation. It was also nice to see the rest of my co-workers in person since I’m fully remote. I don’t mind an occasional trip up to campus; it’s even better when the cherry blossom trees are out, like they were in the middle of the month. And I stopped into the bookstore to get a new t-shirt and a really cute tote bag.

What I’m Watching

TV

• The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
• Law & Order: SVU
• Law & Order
• High Potential
• Will Trent
• NCIS Origins

Peacock

• Chicago Fire (S3E12-S5E5)

HBO Max

• The Pitt (S2E12-S2E15)

YouTube

• CohhCarnage Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 (Episode 136-158)

What I’m Reading

• The Academy by Elin Hilderbrand: 4 stars
• Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson: 5 stars
• And Now, Back to You by B.K. Borison: 5 stars

Okay, so the reason why I only finished three books this month is that out of the eight library books I got out, I only finished two of them (The Academy and Not Quite Dead Yet). I started and DNF’d six books, so I ended up reading hundreds of pages, but not ones that can be counted as a finished book, unfortunately. I went to the library again the other day and got 10 new books; hopefully, I’ll have better luck this time around.