Weekend odds & ends

• Annoying thing/blogging note:  Writing a recent book review, I suddenly realized I hadn't changed the little blurb I put at the end of each book review from "Goodreads 2022 Reading Challenge" to 2023.  (Everything else within the blurb that referred to the year said "2023.")  Oops. It only took me four full months to realize this...!  (Insert red-faced emoji here.)  
• I went back and updated all my reviews to date this year (thankfully, just 16 so far!). Better late than never, I guess....!
• Infertile Phoenix is looking to interview childless-not-by-choice women for her research study. Details here! 
• Next week (April 23rd to 29th) is National Infertility Awareness Week in the U.S. and in Canada (where it's now apparently called National Fertility Awareness Week) -- something I will admit I don't pay much attention to these days. I don't follow many infertility blogs these days (many of the ones I used to follow no longer exist) and most of the social media accounts I follow have more of a childless/free perspective than ones still focused on trying to conceive. But it does still pop up as a subject there too! 
• Katy at Childless Collective (formerly Chasing Creation) had a great post on Instagram drawing attention to "Five Types of Toxic Positivity You'll See During National Infertility Awareness Week (and how to avoid them in your messaging)." I think you can read the post, even if you don't have an Instagram account yourself. The comments are instructive too! 
• From the Washington Post: "How -- and why -- you should increase your social networks as you age."  (Something that I know concerns a lot of us who are aging without children.) 
• In her regular column for Psychology Today (which is called "Unapparent" -- lol!), Kate Kaufmann has some practical suggestions on how to meet other people without kids.  
• From The Guardian this weekend:  "Not being able to have a baby was devastating – then I found people who embraced a childfree life." I've often said, childless and childfree people come from different places/mindsets -- but we have a lot in common and there's a lot we can do to support each other! Sample passage (from near the end of the article): 

I wasn’t sure joining the world of the childfree by choice was going to provide me comfort. Would these women, so certain that parenting was not for them, understand why it was what I had always wanted? Perhaps I, too, had internalised the idea that women without kids were cold and lacking in compassion, which could not be further from the truth. The “unsung sisterhood” has got my back.

• Not adoption/loss/infertility/childless-related, but an article that made me go, "Oh, hell YES!!" when I read the headline (bringing out my inner curmudgeon -- "now, back in MY day, kids..." -- lol): "Welcome to Wedding Sprawl."  
• Subheading: "Proposal parties. Extended bachelor and bachelorette weekends. Multiple honeymoons. Modern marriage celebrations can feel endless." 
• I think the same could be said for babies: it's not just baby showers any more, it's gender reveal parties, ultrasound photos and regular pregnancy updates on social media, "babymoons" (pre-birth vacations), "sprinkles" (mini-showers for subsequent children), post-birth "meet the baby" parties, christenings and huge, elaborate birthday parties (especially the first one)... 
• His website hasn't been updated in eons -- but Alan Bradley, now 85 years old and the author of one of my favourite mystery series of books, announced on Facebook this weekend that he will be producing two more Flavia de Luce novels over the next two years -- the first to be published in fall 2024 (title: "What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust") and the second in fall 2025!!! 
• Longtime readers here may recall that I ADORE Flavia (who is 11 years old at the start of the series, and a budding chemist/detective with a special interest in poison, lol). All 10 Flavia novels to date (with the exception of the first, "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie," from 2009) are reviewed on this blog.  
• The tenth Flavia novel, "The Golden Tresses of the Dead," was published in 2019. It was the last one Bradley was contracted to write -- although at the time, he didn't rule out more to come. (Understandably, though, after 10 novels in 10 years, he was looking forward to a break!) 
• In response to the question "Do you have any insider news on the Flavia tv series that you are free to share?" -- which I first heard about at least 10 years ago, with British director Sam Mendes connected to the project -- he responded, tantalizingly, "soon..."  (SQUEEEEEE....) 
• I decided I had amassed enough Flavia-related posts on this blog to give Flavia her own label, lol. Here it is!