Books of the Month: May 2026

 As I mentioned in my last blog post, I read four glorious books in the month of May. I finished up the rest of the historical fiction books that my grandmother gave me and got a chance to move on to memoirs. Because my brain works in very atypical ways (thank you, ADHD), I generally cannot skip around from one genre to another between books. (And before you tell me that I actually can do this, dear friend, I ask that you look do some research into ADHD, and you will find that I am indeed telling you the truth.) Because of this, I tend to read multiple books in a row on the same topic. Since I always have a healthy portion of as yet unread books, you will find several books waiting to be read in the same genre. 

Prior to this slew of 11 books on the Tudor family, I had never heard of historical fiction before, and if I did, I didn't register it into my brain because when my grandmother told me that she loved to read those types of books I had to look them up and see what they even were. I decided to give one a try because I love my grandmother, and I figured if she loves historical fiction books, maybe I would too? 

I actually wasn't unimpressed with them. I don't think they will be my go-to style of book as non-fiction still reigns queen in my favorite types of books to read categories, but I do think that if there is a historical topic that interests me, that be too dry to read as non-fiction, I would definitely try and seek it out as a historical fiction book. 

I know that most people have their own preferences in books. My kids love certain types of books that I have zero interest in reading, or they might love a certain book in a genre we both enjoy, but I find it kinda blah, but I still like hearing their thoughts on the books, so in the event that you are like me in this way, here are the books I read last month and a little something about what I thought of them. 

Book 1:

Okay, so THIS is the book that challenged me to get out of my reading slump because it took me months to get through it. In fact, I believe that this book took me longer to get through than any other in my adult life. And this was with me reading a few pages every night! It's not that I didn't like the topic, several of the 11 books I read on this topic were on Elizabeth I, and I found her life to be exquisitely fascinating. It just took me forever to get through. 

I do like the writing style of Margaret George. I find her books to be easy to read (despite the amount of time it took me to get through this one).I read her Autobiography of Henry III and Mary Queen of Scotland. She does a good job of keeping her readers engaged and provides good descriptions in her stories without being cumbersome (like The Hobbit).  The only issue I think I really had with this time period is that John Smith was also known as the Earl of Pembroke and so both names would be used in the story and it sometimes got confusing as to who was whom. (Because there were a ton of Earls/Dukes, etc...so it seemed like every person had two or even three names.)

Book 2:

Okay, so this book tripped me up a bit. It was interesting in the fact that it was written about Henry VIII's maternal grandmother, paternal grandmother, and his maternal great-grandmother.  It was fascinating to learn about these women as they were all strong women in a time when women were supposed to be meek and mild. Royalty was a cutthroat world, and it was so neat to see how much these women (for better or worse) shaped and influenced the history of our world. 

What ended up tripping me up was the each of these women's (Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Elizabeth Woodville, and Maragaret Beaufort) stories was written by a different author, therefore presenting the reader with three different styles of writing within the pages of one book. I wasn't a fan. I would have much preferred that the book was written by one author, or in one voice, so that it made the fluidity of the story more seamless. 

Book 3:

This book is about King Henry VIII's mother, Elizabeth of York. I found the book to be interesting in the fact that it showed just how much most women did not have agency over their own lives, yet how much of their lives they lived alone. (Which would lead one to think that this aloneness would allow for personal choice but actually does not.) I was also fascinated by how little love plays into familial relationships whether that is love between spouses, or parents and children, or siblings. You are raised almost on an island of aloneness with no one really looking out for your best interests. Royalty is all about image and titles and appearances, and of course, money. 

Book 4:

Okay, confession time. I absolutely love me some Sister Wives. (As in the show, not real life. I would be in jail if another woman tried to share my husband with me.) I've never been into shows like Love Island, 90 Day Fiancée, Mormon Wives, etc...But put out a new Sister Wives episode and I am all over it like flies on shit. I have seen every episode of the show throughout the years. I feel vested in that show and am very pro Christine and Janelle. (Meri - meh. Robyn and Cody - ughhh.) I read the book they published altogether - was it called Sister Wives? I forget. 

The whole family fascinates me in both a way that I root for some of them and also feel like I am watching a train wreck simultaneously. So, when Christine came out with a book of her own, I knew I had to read it. (But first I needed to wait for the price of a used version of the book to come down to a reasonable price because ain't nobody got $29 + tax for a new book.) 

Her book did not disappoint. She answered some questions that I had. Wrote in a non-dramatic way, explained some behind the scenes stuff that was going, and conveyed what it was like for her to live the life as a sister wife. (She even got some soft jabs in on Robyn which made me happy because I do not buy into Robyn's holier than thou persona.)

If you in any way, follow that show and are a reader, I would say this is a good pick for you. (I would be interested to see if any of the other Sister Wives write a memoir...)

The Reading Scare

 I am always reading something. Always. (Yes, yes, I know that using absolutes such as never and always are very frowned upon, but in this instance, it is the honest-to-goodness truth.) 

I love reading and owning books so much that we have converted our formal dining room into a library of sorts (which of course is organized by category/topic, hardcover/softcover, and then by size - welcome to the world of my ADHD brain). I keep this library of books (that I buy almost exclusively used) because I read these books more than once. I don't keep books that I won't read more than once. It seems pointless to me to do that. (And yes, I completely get that some people think it is useless to own a book instead of just borrowing them from the library - to whom I say, to each his own.)

But...last year (or maybe it was even the end of 2024?) I started noticing it was taking me longer to get through books. Instead of getting through 3-5 books a month, I was reading one book a month, and sometimes not even that. I was finding that instead of reading chapters and chapters each night, I was reading several pages and then putting the book down not to be picked up until the next evening before bedtime. It was completely discouraging me. I tried to reason with myself for months that maybe the content I was reading was just too much for my brain at the end of the day. Afterall, I tend(ed) to mostly read non-fiction books about hard topics (like the Black experience, women's rights in the Middle East, 1800's history, Native American history, the Hispanic experience along the border, drug cartels...ya know, light easy reads before laying my head down to rest for the day). I didn't think that this could be the case though because I have been reading topics like this for years and never had a problem getting through 30-50 books a year. 

I started to wonder if maybe my phone usage had anything to do with it (f*ing Instagram). So, I deleted my sole social media kryptonite, the Instagrams. I could spend hours on Instagram - days even - if my guilt-addled brain would let me. I freaking love Instagram. Love it. I love following people that inspire me. I love following people that astound me. I love following people that disgust me. I love Instagram so much that I am surprised that some of these accounts I follow don't invite me over to celebrate Christmas Day with them because I know them so well. I mean I see all of their content, engage in a post or two here and there that really speaks to me. I know all about their families, their habits, their likes and dislikes and since everything they post online is true and their actual lives, and all of these people are genuine (insert sarcasm here) and not presenting their accounts like they do to solely make money either indirectly or directly off of me, then doesn't that mean we are BFF's in this day and age? And don't BFF's sometimes celebrate holidays together? Especially if their families are spread out all over this country of ours?

 Yeah, so maybe I am a bit obsessed with Instagram. Which explains why the past few months I have deleted my account more than once, only to wait out the 30 days before the account "actually" gets deleted (because, ya know, Meta knows how addicting its social media conglomerate is, especially for personalities like mine, and they give you a 30 day "grace period" after you've requested to delete your account before they actually do so just in case you don't actually mean it) and then after the 30 day period has expired (because f*@k you, Mark Z. I'm not gonna let you tell me that I am too weak minded to stay off Instagram for less than 30 days) signed back up again. And thus, the detrimental cycle begins again for me. Look, I have tried 500 million different ways for Instagram not to be addictive for me. I feel like I could write a goddamn book about the topic, but at the end of the day, the truth is, it is addictive for me (and the truth is also that it is set up this way on purpose for a variety of reasons I am not going to get into today, or maybe ever) and addictions, no matter what kind, are never good for a person.

I digress. 

All of this is to say, that I think that my phone, and more specifically, my usage (and abuse) of it has completely altered parts of my life in ways that feel utterly unauthentic to me. I do not like this one bit. I do not like this because my phone makes me feel like a ghost of myself. I am here, but I don't necessarily feel alive. Which is completely stupid because isn't the point of living to be alive while we have this one-shot opportunity? (Cue Eminem.)

So, sometime in April (?), I broke up with Instagram. I had a relapse in May (after the 30 days, of course) but rebroke up with it shortly thereafter. I do miss it. I miss seeing my kids' stuff on it, and if I am being completely honest, I miss the people that I used to follow that I have no idea who they are other than I liked their content, but you know what I didn't miss? Only reading one book because...

I read four books in May. 

And it felt like a homecoming of sorts. In fact, I was shocked by the visceral reaction my being had when I realized that I was indeed back. I've missed reading. Like really reading and immersing myself in book after book. (Another shocker...my ADHD brain tends to like it best when I read several books on any one given topic, so I am inclined to really dive deep in my topics before moving on, and then often find myself coming back to them again after I have immersed myself in said other topic.)

 (If you are curious, I just got off of an 11-book historical fiction marathon - that took me f-o-r-e-v-e-r to get through. I've never done historical fiction before, but my grandmother likes it, and so i started to read her hand-me-down books and got caught up in the topic of Henry the VIII and the Tudor family. In June, I began reading memoirs, and have quite a stack to get through, but might end up splitting them up and switching topics at some point before finishing them up.) 

I feel like I (fingers crossed) may be getting back to my old self in terms of my love for reading and the quantity of books I go through. Reading books (real ones, not Kindle or audiobooks - not knocking those who use those mediums for their stories - I personally just need pages and a spine in order to read) is a part of my lifeblood. I need books in order to survive. They are just as important to my authentic self as oxygen is to my body. 

 I was scared there for a hot second that I would never devour books again.  I am so glad that is not the case.  I mean being away from any semblance of my normal known reading pattern for over 18 months was unnerving to me. 

Now if only I could only break up with my whole phone, I wonder what else in my life I could change, rediscover, come back to, relearn about myself...I think I'm gonna have to look into getting a flip phone with google maps. (Hopefully, those exist.) Because if getting off of Instagram can have this kind of a change in my life, imagine what stepping away from the whole plugged in rig-a-ma-role will do? To be continued...

When Only A Mama Will Do - A Visit to Austin

I imagined he would move away and never need his mama again. Always trying to do his own thing - to find his own way. He would usually come back around at some point, only to push off again to pursue whatever was calling him at that moment. His growth has almost always been a bit painful for me - he is not good with words - and they come off sharp and prickly to a mama's heart when she is trying to learn how to let go in all of the ways he needs.

I said good-bye to him on that August morning in 2025 thinking that he would never really need me again - that he was officially an adult now and that he would fill his life with other relationships - that the necessity of a mama is only for the growing years. 

As time passed (and he tolerated my almost daily Facetiming calls), something changed in him and perhaps, even in me. It was harder than he thought to build a new life from scratch. Harder to find the kind of quality people he wanted to build a tribe of his own out of. Sure, he was meeting people and having new experiences, and he even fell in love with the city of Austin, but...it was different than he thought it would be. Not in a regretful kind of way, but in a maybe I don't want to be my own island kind of way. 

I offered to come down in January which he readily agreed to. I figured that he would only want me to stay for a few days at the most, but he asked me to stay longer, and so I did. I stayed for a week and took care of my boy. We spent time on trails and at parks. We went downtown. We ended up spending every waking moment together when he wasn't working, and it was absolutely wonderful. 

While he was at work, I did his laundry, cleaned his apartment, made dinner, bought groceries and some furniture for his apartment that he needed. I took care of my child in all of the comforting ways you can when you are both adults. I made his burdens lighter and brought the essence of home to him.

He loved being taken care of and I loved taking care of him. 

I thought that once my children were grown and out on their own, they would no longer need me. That my role would transition to something else, but I was wrong. I realized this visit that there are some aches that only a mama can heal, some comfort only a mama can give, and some love only a mama can offer. 

I need not worry for the rest of my days about what role I will have in my kids' lives. I am their mama - a special, one-of-a-kind role, that for my children, only I can fill. What a beautiful gift. 

Me and my boy in Austin, TX.

 

Around The Neighborhood

We are lucky enough to have a large tract of wooded land surrounding our development. I leave no trace and enter into this peaceful space as often as I can and always bring along our two dogs. I love giving them free reign of these woods off leash. It makes me feel happy to see how much joy it gives them to be able to roam the land of their own accord. 

It is a quiet wood. We have seen deer a small handful of times (even though the traces of them living among this space are abundant) as well as a black coyote on a couple of occasions. Other than that, the birds keep their library voices, and one must strain to hear their stories. I don't mind the quiet though. It is enough just to know that I am in Mother Nature's space. I don't need to see or hear her creatures. I know they are there somewhere in their secret spots. 

It is hard to capture the peace I feel when I am in the woods (or ocean or desert or mountaintops), but I do my best to capture the moments that call my attention. This is just a glimpse of what caught my eye the last time I was there.

This little boy is such a rascal, but so very loved. n

That lone mushroom towards the bottom of the picture caught my eye. It was so cute and so tiny growing all by its lonesome.

The struggle for this little guy to make it to maturity is very real, but its delicate strength gives me hope that perhaps it is possible for him. 

 

Something New

A new journey stands before me, and as I stand at the precipice of the unknown I cannot help but feeling excited. I am a woman whose four children are now adults living their own lives, creating their own stories. I have spent the last 25 years of my life, almost my entire adulthood, being someone's mother and enveloping myself in all that it means to be a good one. So....now what? What comes after our children have grown? Who do we become when 'Mother' has been our calling, an all-encompassing passion? 

I always thought I would be devastated when my kids were grown. That I would somehow forget my true north because my children were always my compasses and guides. I wondered sporadically if I would I drown in an ocean of purposelessness. I mean, I was a homeschooling stay-at-home mama whose family moved around a lot. If that doesn't create some type of vacuum and single-mindedness of sole focus, I don't know what does. 

And yet...while I was sad at certain points, and I did worry about what was to become of my life - who would I be now that 'mother' was no longer my full-time role? When the point of release finally came and Elizabeth graduated high school and turned 19 a few months later, I didn't lose hope that there was nothing else left of value to accomplish in my life.

 In fact, the opposite has become true. A whole future of possibilities opened up before me. In fact, my possibilities seem limitless. (It helps that I have an incredibly amazing husband who says that he considers me retired because I successfully raised and educated four amazing humans, and that I can pursue anything I want to - or nothing at all.)

I would love to share my journey with you. I hope you'll come along for the ride as I am so curious about what the future holds in this new chapter of life.