I wear my sunglasses at night...

Well, not quite -- but I couldn't resist a great '80s song reference, lol.  I HAVE been wearing my sunglasses around the house, during the day -- at least I did for the first few days, post-eye surgery -- but it's become less and less necessary as the week went on, thankfully! 

So, I survived my eye surgery on Monday morning -- which, in medical lingo, is actually called a "superficial keratectomy." You can Google it, if you're interested, but be forewarned, it's not for the squeamish...! My appointment (at the downtown hospital we'd visited back in late April) was 8 a.m., and we got there early. (Got a parking spot, no problem.) I was the first appointment of the day, and I was in & out in half an hour, tops (although it seemed like a lot longer while I was in the chair...!).

There were a couple of surprises along the way.  First surprise:  the nurse who escorted me into the procedure room mentioned "she'll be with you in a few minutes." She?? I said, "Dr. Opthamologist (the older male doctor I saw back in April, who my referring optometrist had assured me was "the best there is") isn't doing it?"  Oh no, she said, he hasn't been doing these procedures for about five years now (!). (He's probably winding down towards retirement; at least that's my guess.)  

So my procedure was done by another opthamologist I had not yet encountered, a young-ish (mid-30s to 40s, I'd guess) woman, as well as a younger-still guy. They both worked on me -- and it soon became evident, from their conversation, that he was an intern she was coaching (greeeaaatt, I get the amateur!! lol).  

Another surprise -- it was NOT a laser procedure!!  (Perhaps that's enough said, lol.)  They did put some freezing drops in my eye so I didn't really feel much. (At first, anyway...!) 

At the end of it all, she put a contact lens bandage on/in my eye -- which will stay in place until my follow-up visit, next week -- and taped my eyelid down so that I couldn't fully open it. She said I could take off the tape when it started to lift. (I removed it before I went to bed that night.)  And she handed me some prescriptions to fill. 

One prescription was for Tylenol 3 with codeine, for pain. I told her my past experience with Tylenol 3 was NOT good (30 years ago, when I had my wisdom teeth out -- I had to stop after taking a couple of them, because I could not keep them down -- or anything else, for that matter!).  She said I could try Tylenol Extra Strength instead -- and added, "I suggest you take something as soon as you leave here, before the freezing wears off." 

She also gave me prescriptions for steroid eye drops (four times a day) and doxycycline (once a day for 30 days), which is related to tetracycline, which treats acne and other skin conditions (?!).  It's an antibiotic, and apparently it is also effective in treating dry eye -- who knew??  

She also added a few over-the-counter items to the list:  Omega 3 vitamins, and Hydrasense eye drops for dry eyes (at least four times a day, or up to once an hour if I felt I needed it -- and I have). My sister -- who had a similar procedure done last year, for different reasons -- suggested I keep my eye drops in the fridge. The prescription drops must be stored at room temperature (check the labels, if you want to try this yourself), but I keep the Hydrasense in there and it DOES feel good! 

I knew we had some Tylenol Extra Strength at home -- purchased at the start of the pandemic, just in case we needed it -- but it is (just) past its best before date -- probably still effective, but... I've been looking for a new bottle every time we've been at the drugstore for the past month or two, but the shelves for pain relief, cough and cold medicine, etc., have been completely bare (and people say covid is over??).  There was a drugstore on the main floor of the hospital near the exit, though -- and I figured if any pharmacy would be well stocked, it would be one associated with a hospital -- so we stopped in there, and the shelves were full -- so we bought a big bottle of Tylenol Extra (it was even on sale!) and a bottle of water, and I took one pill in the car on the way home. (Dh went to our regular drugstore after we got back and got the prescriptions filled, and the rest of the stuff.)  

By the time we got home, I was wishing I'd taken two pills. I won't lie, those first few hours were pretty painful!  By evening. I was still hurting, and horribly light sensitive (I spent a lot of time lying in the bedroom with my sunglasses on and the curtains closed for the first two days) -- but overall, I felt like the Tylenol Extra was doing a pretty good job, and I'm glad I stuck it out and didn't take any Tylenol 3s. (Not sure what they'll give me or what I'll do for pain relief when I have my gallbladder out, a few weeks from now, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there...) I took close to the maximum daily dosage for the first two days or so, but I've been gradually tapering off. I took one this morning, but I haven't had another since. 

So -- today is day 5. I have to admit, I was hoping I would be "back to normal" more than I am. My sister told me she noticed a significant improvement in her vision almost immediately after her similar procedure last year. My experience has not been that dramatic -- but I am seeing gradual improvement every day. My eye is still rather irritated/raw/dry, and my vision is still fuzzy/cloudy/blurry -- but it's better than it was -- getting a little better every day -- and my eye is definitely less red and less light sensitive.  

It's been five (almost six!) days since I've been on my laptop. My sister warned me I'd have to lay off the screens for a while. Nobody actually forbade me from using them (except maybe dh, lol), but the dr did tell me to keep my eye closed and rest it as much as possible, at least that first day -- and I HAD to, because it was so uncomfortable, especially in bright light. I have been on my cellphone, increasingly -- liking posts on social media, glancing at email and notifications, etc. -- but nowhere near the amount of time I'm usually online (aside from listening to podcasts, which I've spent HOURS doing over the past few days). It's not so much a question of whether I should or shouldn't be on screens -- I just haven't been able to tolerate them.  Spending too much time on my phone or laptop can get uncomfortable after a while, although that's been getting better as time goes on too. 

So -- I'd better wrap this up!  One more update: dh went to see our family doctor today, following up on his urgent care visit re: his eyes last week. The dr said the prescriptions were pretty much what he'd have given him. He is MUCH better since he started them, the ointment in particular. 

So that's all the medical reports, lol.  It will take me a while to get back online fully, but this was one of the first places I wanted to come, when I could!  :)  Thank you (again) for all your good wishes and tips/advice. (I'll need them again in a couple of weeks when I go for my gallbladder removal surgery -- eeek...) 

Pre-surgery odds & ends

• My eye surgery is early Monday morning at a hospital downtown, three months after I was diagnosed with a patch of scar tissue om my right cornea that's been affecting my vision. It's a quick, in-office, in-and-out laser procedure. I'll be getting up at the crack of dawn to make sure we get there in plenty of time, but at least it will be over with early on, and I won't have to spend half the day in nervous anticipation (that's what this weekend is for...!). Wish me luck!! 
• Depending on how things go and the restrictions I'm subjected to (my sister, who had similar surgery last year, warned me I will have to limit my screen time for at least the first few days), I may not be around the blogosphere much over the next week or two.  
• If I can come up with a #MicroblogMondays post before then, I'll write it and set it to post automatically on Monday morning, albeit it won't be linked to Mel's list, at least not right away. But if I don't come up with anything, I won't fret...! 
• Poor dh has been suffering for at least two weeks with fits of violent sneezing, and itchy red eyes... not even so much the eyes themselves, but the skin around them has been puffy/baggy, itchy and red. He has seasonal allergies, and they've been especially bad this year (even though he no longer has to mow the lawn, which was always a trigger in the past!).  He also has very dry, sensitive skin at the best of times. (And, of course, like many men, does nothing about it...!)  
• We tried Benadryl, Claritin, Reactine, saline eye drops, cold compresses, warm compresses, even tea bags! but nothing was helping much. We couldn't get an appointment for him with our family doctor for more than a week (! -- our health care system may be "free," but it is absolutely swamped right now, with another covid surge and shortages of staff, many of whom are sick, burned out/fed up and/or quitting -- and who can blame them, after what they've endured in recent years??) -- so he wound up going to an urgent care clinic near us yesterday (Thursday). They gave him a prescription for both Reactine (stronger dosage than the over-the-counter stuff) and an ointment for the skin around his eyes.  
• He wound up going to two different pharmacies trying to get the prescription filled -- the Reactine was no problem, but the ointment had to be special ordered. It was SUPPOSED to be ready this afternoon.
• You guessed it -- he went to pick it up and they still didn't have it... told him to come back Monday. :(   Poor guy -- very frustrating. :(  
• I was trying to think if anything in our environment had changed recently to trigger an allergic attack -- same laundry detergent, no new foods lately -- and then we realized dh had come home with a new bottle of shampoo and started using it right around the time this all started. He has mostly used Pert 2-in-1 shampoo for almost as long as I've known him (40+ years!)... and this was Pert, but they didn't have any of the "regular/classic" Pert in stock, so he bought a variety marketed towards men called "Ocean Rush." It was very strongly scented, and I am willing to bet money that's the culprit. 
• He's going to try using baby shampoo until things settle down, and then maybe go back to using his regular/classic Pert. 
• Speaking of shampoo:  I have used Neutrogena's Anti-Residue shampoo for something like 40 years too. A university friend used it, and left me a half-used bottle when she went back home for the summer. I tried it and loved it, and have been using it two or three times a week since then, alternating with another shampoo (currently Pantene 2-in-1 Volume & Body formula). I've noticed it was getting harder and harder to find (the conditioner that went with it was discontinued years ago) -- and my current bottle is about 2/3 empty, so I've been looking for another bottle lately, without success. Did some Googling, only to find... you guessed it -- it's been discontinued!! (Someone said they found it on Amazon... for $70 a bottle!!)  Their Canadian website is full of customers in the review section, wailing "WHY???"  :(   They have introduced some new formulations (which I have not yet seen on the drugstore shelves here), but the buzz on the website, and on a Reddit thread I found, is that they don't work nearly as well. Boo, hiss.... 
• I saw the Twitter thread mentioned in this New York Times article before I read the article -- related to parenting, sexism, learned helplessness, and the division of household labour. Sadly, I wasn't surprised...! 
• Speaking of Twitter, I've noticed something odd recently. I get a couple of emails every day featuring about a half-dozen tweets that Twitter thinks will interest me, generally from people I follow. If I click on the tweet in the message, it takes me to Twitter, where I get to see (and like or share) the original tweet and some of the responses -- and then sometimes a section of "More tweets," which are usually related, at least tangentially, to the original tweet. I follow a lot of childless and childfree people on Twitter -- and invariably, the featured tweets from them (usually about childless/free topics) are followed by other tweets related to either (a) parenting & pregnancy (!!) or -- (b) artistic photos from Germany. (??!)  
• Bloglovin' outage: still ongoing for more than a week (since Thursday night, July 14th!).  :p  

It takes a village, but how do we build it?

Anne Helen Petersen (who is childfree by choice) has had several conversations with guests recently on her Culture Study newsletter on Substack about building community, and how difficult that is to do. 

She's also hosted several recent subscriber threads/conversations on this subject. About a week ago, she asked: 

So tell us: how did you become important to someone else’s kid? How did you strengthen or formalize the relationship? If you wish you had someone like this in your kids’ lives: what’s made it hard? And if you wish you could be this person in a kids’ life: what’s the roadblock?

There were 105 responses -- a lot of them childless & childfree people who have developed relationships with their parent-friends' kids -- or who would like to do so, but have run into obstacles. 

That conversation was for subscribers only (of which I am one!). But she asked the same question on her Instagram Stories, and featured some of the answers she got on there as well. Unfortunately, IG Stories are only available for 24 hours (which drives me nuts sometimes).  There was a lot of talk about how people are reluctant to impose on each other (parents on childless friends and childless friends on parents), and how the relationship needs to be reciprocal and not just childless/free people supporting families.  Lots of food for thought! 

A few days later, there was another subscriber thread on the community-building theme:  

So tell us: how have have you shown up for and otherwise shown care for your friends who aren’t parents?

I’d love to hear from people who aren’t parents and are forming communities with other people who aren’t parents, and I’d especially love to hear from people who are parents are thinking about the ways they can continue to form community and networks of care with people who are showing up for them, as well, even when their everyday experience is different than your own...

If you’re struggling to figure this out: what’s stopping you? What are your hesitations? How would you like to be better?

That one got 185 responses. 

Today, her latest newsletter brings together the wisdom from the subscriber threads and Instagram Stories mentioned above into a post titled "How to Show Up For Your Friends Without Kids — and How to Show Up For Kids and Their Parents aka How to Be in a Community."  I don't think you need a subscription, and it's worth a read! 

Some of the key points: 

1) Most people feel left behind in some way, no matter what their life is like (parents and non-parents). "Everyone’s struggle is different — but life is not a struggle contest. Competing for the most aggrieved is what keeps us from actually creating the sort of solidarity that can result in change."

2)  People need and want help, and people need and want to provide help. 

3) People are also incredibly bad at communicating with one another, because... 

4) American culture is all about the myths of self-reliance and perfection. 

5) Because we are so bad at asking for and receiving help, we need scripts and plans. (AHP goes on to offer tips for both parents and non-parents about how we can better show up for and support each other.) 

6)  "Friendship, care, and community-building is periodically no fun at all. It’s un-optimizable. You can’t put it in your resume. You can’t buy it, or hack it, or fast-track it. But its value is beyond measure."

(She's also tweeting about this.)  

What do you think? Fellow childless/free readers, what makes it hard for you to build relationships with parents and their kids?  Parents, what are the barriers you've encountered to building relationships with your friends who don't have kids? 

Odds & ends from a busy weekend

• The second Childless Collective Summit is over, and I hope you had the chance to at least sample some of the amazing (FREE!) presentations offered! It was a pretty hectic & exhausting four days, trying to keep up with everything (and if *I* found it tiring, I can't imagine how Katy, the organizer, feels...!) -- but it was a good kind of hectic & exhausting ;)  and well worth it!  
• I actually missed most of the presentations on Saturday, because we were busy with haircuts and family birthday celebrations for BIL & SIL -- and I missed a few on Sunday as well -- but I bought a "Pace Yourself Pass" (again this year), which will give me access to all the presentations for a full year (as well as some other perqs).  If you missed the summit in full or in part, or want to revisit some of the presentations you enjoyed, the passes will remain on sale for the rest of this week, until Sunday July 24th. 
• This year's summit had 2,200 people registered, which -- as I noted last year -- is absolutely MINDBLOWING, when I think about what was out there when I first came to childless/free living 21 years ago (i.e., not a whole lot...!). 
• On a note related to the point above -- it was 21 years ago today, that I made my very first post to the Childless Living message board on iVillage (which no longer exists). This was my first tentative step towards accepting a childless life, and so I consider today my "childless anniversary."  I've written about it in the past several times, and you can find many of those posts tagged "iVillage Childless Living message board."  
• (Appropriately -- today is also Jody Day's birthday! -- happy birthday, Jody! :)  ) 
• Speaking of Jody and Gateway Women -- some major announcements were made at the summit about what Jody, Katy and Gateway Women will be doing next: 
• Jody has said she wants to focus more of her efforts over the next few years on her Conscious Childless Elderwomen project and -- once she finishes the novel she's been working on! -- a book on the subject! 
• To create more space for this, she's entrusted Katy to take on the leadership/stewardship of the Gateway Women online community. Jody will continue to be part of the community, serving as a mentor to Katy, and leading the NoMo Tribe and Gateway Elderwomen sub-groups. 
• Jody will be retaining the Gateway Women name for her own work, including her Reignite Weekends. As a result, the online interactive Gateway Women community she founded had to find a new name. Members were involved in the search, and at the end of the process, the new name is: Lighthouse Women.  
• In part, the name was inspired by this passage from the introduction to Jody's classic book, "Living the Life Unexpected":  

Hope is a light in the dark. It is my deepest wish that you find your place in this world again through the pages of this book, and that your dream of motherhood can be put to rest with the tenderness and love it deserves. Letting go of hope when you can’t see any other kind of hope ahead is terrifying, like swimming away from the shore in the dark without any idea when you’ll reach land again. Let this book be your lighthouse; let it be your hope in the dark. Those of us who’ve already made this trip are waiting for you on the other side, and many others are in the water alongside you, each feeling that they’re swimming alone.

 But you’re not alone. Welcome to your Tribe.

• In addition to her new role with Gateway/Lighthouse Women, Katy plans to continue organizing an annual Childless Collective Summit, and to continue offering some of the support circles and webinars she's been doing over the past several years.  
• As a Gateway Women member, I've known about these changes for a couple of weeks now, but they were not "officially" announced outside the group until this past weekend. I am looking forward to benefiting from Jody's continuing work, particularly in the "childless elderwomen" space, and to new ideas and inspiration from Katy, whose work I've also followed and admired for several years now.  We are so very lucky to have both of these inspiring women in our community! 
• In her presentation at the summit, another inspiring community leader, Karen Malone Wright of The NotMom (which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year), announced a new survey of both childless and childfree women, which will update the information from an earlier survey several years back. "We need to know more about what your lives are like NOW, and how we can serve you better," she writes. "As for potential sponsors, well, we're still here."  
• Take the survey here -- it only takes about 6 minutes to complete. 
• I loved this Washington Post article outlining "14 ways to get out of a reading slump" -- I've tried some of them myself!  :) 
• From The Globe & Mail recently: "People undergoing fertility treatments need greater flexibility at work."  I would agree with that. 
• A few commenters said something to the effect that "People need more flexibility at work, period, not just those going through fertility treatments."  Yes, that too! 
• After a couple of weeks of normal service, Bloglovin' went on the fritz (again!) Thursday night. I've been getting a few (very few) posts on the Bloglovin' app on my phone, but nothing on the laptop/website. SO. FRUSTRATING. 

#MicroblogMondays: In the Garden of Angels

Dh & I were back in our old community for haircuts, early on Saturday afternoon, and en route to the salon, we made a stop at the cemetery to visit Katie.

We hadn't been there on a Saturday in quite some time, and it was busier than usual, with lots of cars parked along the roads -- visitors, and preparations underway for a couple of funerals. As we parked near the columbarium structure where the urn containing Katie's ashes is interred, we noticed several other cars parked nearby, and small groups of people milling around.  

A few more cars and people arrived -- about 20-25 people in all, including a couple of little girls clad in white dresses -- and a foreboding feeling came over me, as I realized exactly where they were all congregating. 

Then we saw them begin to walk slowly in a procession toward the back of the section nearby, where the cemetery staff were waiting for them. 

One man was carrying a very small white casket in his arms. 

My heart sank. "Look," I whispered to dh. He looked. "Oh no," he said quietly, and his head dropped.

We both knew: they were in the Garden of Angels, the nearby section of the cemetery reserved for infant burials. When we visited the cemetery to make Katie's funeral arrangements, 24 years ago this summer, we were shown this section as an option for burial. All those tiny plots seemed unbearably sad, and we chose to purchase a niche for her in the nearby columbarium instead. (We later purchased a niche for ourselves in another columbarium structure nearby.)(All the niches in Katie's structure had long since been purchased.) 

Over the 10+ years that we attended a local pregnancy loss support group -- first as clients, and then the as facilitators -- we came to know several families whose children were buried in the Garden of Angels. We would sometimes visit those tiny graves when we came to see Katie. We haven't walked over there in quite a while now, but the last time we did, we noticed how many more graves had been added over the years, how much further back towards the tree line the markers now extended.  

We stood quietly watching, heads slightly bowed. "This brings me back a few years," dh said. "They have a long road ahead of them." 

I briefly thought about walking over and introducing ourselves when the service was finished, telling them that we were so sorry for their loss, that we'd experienced something similar. That we'd survived, and they would too -- but it would take time. Lots of time. 

But we had an appointment to keep, and we did not want to intrude on their grief, so raw and new. We left quietly. 

But I haven't been able to get them out of my mind since then. 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

#MicroblogMondays: The looming spectre

Yesterday was stepMIL's 80th birthday party. We've avoided most large family gatherings thus far since covid began, but this one was pretty hard to say no to (especially since we've only seen stepMIL & her family two, maybe three times since the pandemic began) -- and so we went, with BIL & SIL. It was a beautiful day -- clear and sunny, but not too terribly hot or humid, thank goodness -- so we were (thankfully) able to spend the entire time outdoors. The only times I briefly ventured inside were to stow away my purse, use the bathroom, and to fill my plate with food in the kitchen. (And it's a big house, and there were few if any other people inside at the time.) 

There were between 30 & 40 people there -- members of stepMIL's family, including her nieces and nephews and their families, and dh's uncles & aunts (his late dad's brother, sisters & brothers-in-law, all now in their 70s & 80s)(but not any of his cousins). We hadn't seen any of them since pre-covid times, and (against my better judgment) there were lots of hugs and kisses on both cheeks (Italian-style) all round.  Dh, BIL & SIL greeted them ahead of me and did not fend off their hugs & kisses -- and they were all so clearly delighted to see us. It's hard to be the churlish outlier...! 

Older Nephew's wife wound up with a case of food poisoning (!) from takeout the night before and stayed home, but Older Nephew still came with Little Great-Nephew, who was, of course, the hit of the party (sorry, stepMIL!  lol).  ;) None of the aunts & uncles had seen LGN before -- their GREAT-GREAT-nephew!! (now 2 & 1/2 years old) -- and I will admit I felt a little sad as I watched them fuss over him. I work on family trees on paper and computer, and here were FOUR generations of the extended family, all together right in front of me. Something I never got to experience myself, and never will. It was special, but also a bit of an "ouch" moment. 

The looming spectre of covid -- now in its SEVENTH wave hereabouts, running rampant in the almost complete absence of masks or any other restrictions -- hung over the gathering. As I wrote a few posts ago, Younger Nephew & his wife, the most covid-cautious people we know, were not planning on attending -- and then (despite all their best efforts at covid avoidance) Younger Nephew actually came down with the virus last week!! (He's pretty sure he got it from his SIL & her two little girls, who also got sick shortly after they visited.) He is feeling a lot better, albeit still a bit plugged up, but was still in no shape to be going anywhere. (His wife wisely decamped to stay with her parents nearby until he is fully recovered.)

StepMIL's youngest sister would have been there, but first her husband and then she succumbed to the virus. She's feeling better, but still testing positive, and so her only appearance was via Facetime on her oldest son's cellphone. 

Little Great-Nephew was fascinated by 
the gargantuan fountain in stepMIL's front yard. :)  

Her other son and his wife were also there with their absolutely adorable 17-month-old baby. We were warned the baby had a cold, however, and so regretfully admired from a distance. 

One of dh's aunts told us her son (dh's cousin) recently spent a few days in Paris on business -- his wife came with him and once his work obligations were done, they spent a few days there as tourists. They arrived home to the current crowded chaos that is Toronto Pearson Airport and spent more than four & a half hours going through customs and waiting for their luggage. Despite the fact that masks are still required on flights and in airports here, they tested positive a few days later. (They decamped to their cottage "up north" to wait the virus out.) 

We came home, tired, full of food, and sunburned. 

Hopefully that's ALL we came home with...

(The first of my two summer surgeries -- the keratectomy/eye procedure -- is two weeks from today.) 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

"Anna and Her Daughters" by D.E. Stevenson

This summer, my D.E. Stevenson fan group will be reading and discussing "Anna and Her Daughters," published in 1958. Our discussion begins on Monday, July 11th. 

While you might assume from the title that Anna is the main character in the book, the novel is actually narrated by the youngest of her three daughters, Jane. I liked Jane's voice here very much, albeit she seemed very mature and articulate for a 17-year-old, lol.  

The opening pages dive into the action with very little preamble: 40-year-old Anna Harcourt and her three daughters -- beautiful, spoiled and selfish would-be debutante Helen; middle sister Rosalie, who has always lived in Helen's shadow; and brainy youngest sister Jane, who is planning to head to Oxford -- have always lived a very comfortable, free-spending life in a big house on Wintringham Square in London (the setting for several other DES novels). But their husband/father recently and very suddenly died, leaving them with no income and very little savings. Brother-in-law/Uncle Leonard urges them to downsize to a small flat and find jobs -- but Anna resolves instead to sell the house and return to Ryddelton, her hometown in Scotland (and the location of several other DES books -- and there are several nods made to those other stories and characters), where they can buy a small house and live more cheaply.  

And then tall, dark, handsome Ronnie Ferguson enters their lives. 

As I said, I enjoyed Jane's narrative voice, and the story of the three very different sisters (as well as their mother). To me (I have a younger sister), the sibling relationships and rivalries rang very true. About halfway through, there was a plot twist, and it felt like everything was going to wrap up nicely -- but (like life), the story just kept going -- and then there was another twist (a few of them, actually!) -- and then suddenly everything wrapped up (perhaps a little too suddenly and neatly) and it was the end. If there's one consistent fault with DES's books, it's that too many of them end rather abruptly. (And I'll admit that a few of the machinations that it took to get to the end of this one didn't sit quite right with me... I can't say much more without revealing some massive spoilers!  lol)  Still, she does always leave me wanting more...!  

3 stars on Goodreads.  I will count this book as a re-read when we are finished our group discussion in late August. 

This was Book #31 read to date in 2022 (and Book #2 finished in July), bringing me to 69% of my 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 8 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2022 tagged as "2022 books."