Quick Life Update

I've enjoyed the last 5 months off from work immensely. It's allowed me to rest and recuperate from a rather intense and stressful job and just get reacquainted with myself.

One thing I obviously did was stay off blogger. I was pretty much off social media entirely. And it was heavenly. I was able to gain some new perspective, figure out what interests of mine were being used as a coping mechanism for stress, and so forth. I did a lot of growing, just as a result of the layoff circumstances. God has been very gracious.

In other news, I start a new job next Monday! Unlike my previous roles, I'm not going to go into specifics about the company or the position other than to say that it is still with an NGO. I'm excited to start and see where it leads.

I am now a business owner. My earrings boutique is called Butterflies and Bows Boutique and is proving very successful. I make primarily dangle earrings although I did branch out into little post earrings for my last craft fair and they were quite popular so I'll keep with that trend. They're super fun to put together anyway, so I enjoy that. But dangle earrings are still my favorite. Click here to visit my etsy shop if you're at all interested. I only have about 1/8 of my inventory online so I'll be working on that the rest of the month. I've sold roughly about 175 pairs of earrings so far, a lot in person at craft fairs, but several online too so that's been a lot of fun.

Which leads me to the last update, which is, I finally caught covid. Or it caught me. Not sure how that works. Anyhow, I tested positive this week so I'm just keeping a low profile. Thankfully my new job will allow me to work remote whenever needed so I don't need to worry about that. And my brain is working just fine. It's this darn sore throat and sinus pressure that's the most annoying. I did have to bail out on a craft fair this weekend which I'm not happy about, but I do realize life happens so I just let it go. 

I just finished reading Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express for the first time so there should be a post with my thoughts coming out on that sometime soon for my Agatha Christie Project.

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The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie (1936)

It's hard to believe that The A.B.C. Murders is #13 in Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot series, yet there it is. It is the story of a serial killer running rampant through England killing people in the chronology of the alphabet. So Mrs. Ascher is murdered in Andover and Betty Barnard is murdered in Bexhill, and so on and so forth. Clearly a madman is behind the murders, and like most serial killers, this individual must write a letter to someone, either to give them a sporting chance at stopping them or to gloat over their genius. The recipient of said letters is, naturally Hercule Poirot, and so he partners with the police on this manhunt.

The A.B.C. Murders is undoubtedly intriguing, but it would have been more so if it hadn't been for Captain Hastings as the storyteller. I've only really read one or two other Poirot novels, so I found Hastings to be quite the irritant. This is a shame, because I love Hastings in the series with David Suchet, but found him irksome in this novel.

Poirot was his usual genius self, as expected, and I enjoy that he has a twinkle in his eye and good humor about many things as the story progresses. I heard Suchet's voice in my head and enjoyed envisioning an episode of the series that I know remarkably well.

Agatha Christie is quite the master craftsman. The plot is excellent from start to finish and based on my understanding, she developed the ending first and them worked backwards, which makes a lot of sense and is probably the best way to write a solid mystery. If you're not familiar with this story then you may have some surprises in store.

The copy of The A.B.C. Murders in the photo is one that I newly acquired. It is a HarperCollins edition and was available for purchase from England through Waterstones. I love the art deco cover style and am pleased with the quality.

I am very slowly reading Agatha Christie novels as part of my personal Agatha Christie Project. Emphasis on the slowly. And clearly I am not reading them in any particular order.

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