Notes 07.

My first 24-hour readathon, two excellent books, and teasing the next NYC Craft Club event!

Welcome to Notes, my biweekly round-up of the books on my nightstand, the outfits I’m styling, musings from my journal, and snippets of my adventures around the city.

Last week I was immersed in two incredible books. First I was reading and loving DEATH OF THE AUTHOR by Nnedi Okorafor. Then I paused that temporarily so that I could dive into GOOD DIRT by Charmaine Wilkerson ahead of my book club meeting yesterday. These are the two books I was read during our 24-hour readathon (more on that below)!

Both of these authors are amazing storytellers. DEATH OF THE AUTHOR features a book within a book situation, which I’m such a sucker for. Not to mention that it’s an absolutely beautiful book on the outside as well. Then Charmaine Wilkerson has a way of writing these stories that pull you right in and keep you turning the pages.

Thanks to the readathon, I got a great chunk of reading time in this past weekend and I loved spending time in both of these worlds.

From day to night (see video below!)

When I was younger, I feel like women’s magazines were always giving advice on how to take your outfits from day to night. I don’t really remember any of that advice, but taking my outfit from day to night was something I had to put into practice the other week!

I had an all-day work conference and then book event directly afterwards. Originally I was going to wear the same outfit the whole day, but then I decided to tame down my look for the work conference (and I’m so glad I did because my bright red hearts sweater would have stuck out like a sore thumb in the sea of black 😅).

As I was putting together this outfit, I decided to wear a longer skirt since I was attending a work event. I went for a black sweater on top for your classic all-black New Yorker look. Then I also packed my heart sweater to change into later, along with my heart earrings, because the book event I went to was a Palentine’s Day party. It was like a little outfit puzzle that I had to figure out and in the end I was really happy with my outfit for each event!

One of my big goals is to keep up with my journal because I feel like when I fall behind, it can be quite hard to catch up. I was doing pretty well, but as I write this, I’m currently behind by a few days. However, I hope that by the time you’re reading this, I will be caught up again!

Sometimes when I’m doing a spread, it just comes together so easily and organically, and that was the case with this spread above. I felt like the color scheme of the “junk” I’d collected worked so well together and I loved using the pink guest check as a space to write about the day.

Speaking of journaling, I’ve been working behind the scenes on the next NYC Craft Club event, so stay tuned for the official announcement coming soon!

I did my first 24-hour readathon this weekend with my book besties, Taylor and S, and it was soooo much fun! I hosted it at my place and I loved planning and prepping for it. We were originally supposed to do it at the beginning of the month, but had to push it for various reasons. I’m so glad it finally happened!

I first saw someone doing this challenge on TikTok and when I went back to watch the video for inspo for our own readathon, I realized that it was from February 2024. So this idea of doing a readathon has been percolating in my head for a year and I’m thrilled we finally made it happen!

Our rules were pretty simple: the goal was to read as much as we could in 24 hours and we would take breaks to eat, sleep, etc. The night before, I actually didn’t sleep that well, I think because I was too excited. It felt like Christmas was coming or something! But, because of that, I was much more tired than I wanted to be on day 1 of the readathon.

I woke up on day 2 feeling more rested and energetic, and that’s when we really locked in for the remaining hours of the readathon. If I had to guess, I’d say we spent about a third of the twenty-four hours reading and the other two-thirds yapping, eating, sleeping, etc. There was definitely a lot of yapping on the first day, which did not surprise me one bit! 😅

And having a good night’s sleep definitely made a difference. On the first day I felt like couldn’t focus for as long and was easily distracted, while on the second day I was much more clear-headed and able to read for longer stretches at a time.

Final Reading Stats

• Me - 508 pages, 1 book finished (GOOD DIRT) + 1 book continued (DEATH OF THE AUTHOR)

• S - 473 pages, 1 book finished (SERVANT OF EARTH) + 2 books started (KATABASIS and THE LOVE LYRIC)

• Taylor - 381 pages, 1 book finished (GOOD DIRT) + 1 book continued (THE SEVEN YEAR SLIP)

This was truly such a fun experience and I cannot remember the last time I read this much in a weekend. Normally I’m trying to do a gajilion things on the weekend, but it was so nice to have this past weekend be dedicated to reading. I think it also really enhanced my reading experience for both books since I was able read for longer sprints than usual and really immerse myself in the stories.

10/10 recommend doing a readathon with friends (or by yourself!) and I already cannot wait to do this again soon 📚

I did vlog the experience as well, so stay tuned on my IG and TT if you’d like to see that too!

That’s all I’ve got for you in this week’s report! I’ll be back soon with my February reading recap and/or to announce the next NYC Craft Club event, so I’ll see you then!