“Building the Book Fort” is a weekly post where I track my bookish life.

Currently Reading:

• Handbook for the Heartbroken by Sara Avant Stover
• Enid Blyton’s Christmas Stories by Enid Blyton

DNF:

• Interesting Times by Matthew Storm

Total pages read this week (and last week): 28

Total books read: 97 of 100

TBR (goal is -24): -30

#ShelfLove Challenge: 55 of 51

I think this is the lowest number of pages I’ve read in a week this year. My Thanksgiving morning started out wonderfully. I made myself a good breakfast, since I knew I wouldn’t be eating again until much later in the day, and I watched “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.” However, my neighbor started smoking weed very heavily and I decided, as a last ditch attempt to get the smoking indoors to stop, to go next door and beg my neighbor to please stop smoking. I really thought that would work, but I got the exact opposite reaction from what I was expecting. She started screaming at me and followed me back to my door as I tried to get away from her. Luckily, I was able to get inside and lock the deadbolt before she reached me. Just as I was starting to calm down, she came over and began banging on my door, ringing the doorbell, and screaming through the door. She eventually left, after I told her through my doorbell camera that I would call the cops, and soon after that, I left (walking the long way around to my car so I wouldn’t have to walk past her apartment) and I went to a Bob Evans near where I live to have Thanksgiving dinner.

I, of course, reported everything to the apartment management in an email, but didn’t get a response. I’m not sure if that’s because they’re not bothering to do anything about it or perhaps they didn’t open the office on Friday. Regardless, I took the next step by talking to an attorney, and we’re working on legally breaking the lease so I can move out. Knowing that this ordeal will be over with one way or the other within a couple of months gave me enough mental breathing room to shift my focus to all that I’m grateful for instead of the negative. For instance, I’m grateful I had the energy last weekend to put up my doorbell camera, and I’m grateful that Bob Evans restaurants were open on Thanksgiving, giving me a warm, safe, and comfortable place to enjoy some good food. I’m grateful that, despite all of the issues, I have a place to live, and two amazing fur babies who demand lots of snuggles now that the weather has turned icy and gloomy. And I’m grateful for my tea kettle and blankets and books, especially my Christmas books! Oh, and the very long list of Christmas movies for me to watch this year.

I know that my reading will pick up through the rest of the year, and I’m grateful for that, too.

What are you reading? Let me know in the comments!