The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly, or for a monthly wrap-up. See the rules here: Sunday Post Meme
2023 Reading Wrap-Up
Full wrap-up: https://app.thestorygraph.com/wrap-up/2023/tessa_talks_books
It’s been quite a start to 2024 this week!
The Good: For Christmas, my husband and I decided to give each other a cruise to the Virgin Islands, and this week, I’ve been finalizing plans for that trip. We never thought we’d enjoy a cruise, but we went on one around Europe’s western coast in 2018 and loved it! And I figured out that taking a cruise helps me with my gluten-free diet. (If I ingest any gluten, I get very ill – sort of like I have food poisoning thanks to Celiec’s disease – so it’s important that I avoid gluten at all costs, especially on vacation) So I’ve been planning a once in a lifetime style vacation 😊
The Bad: We’ve also been dealing with a dentist issue that our oldest daughter managed to get herself into. Back in November, she decided to needed to make some adult decisions, and one was finding a local dentist. She has an unreal amount of anxiety when it comes to the dentist, so this was huge! She found one that advertises itself as perfect with people who have anxiety about the dentist. When she went for a consult, they wanted to perform $20,000 worth of dental work (concerning decay – no implants or anything else) in one day. A big portion of that fee would be for her to be sedated for 8 hours, I believe. The scope of what they wanted to do was just insane, not to mention the cost. And they encouraged her to take out a loan. 🤦🏻♀️ We thought we had helped her to get out of this all successfully, but then a creditor contacted our daughter for repayment to a loan she didn’t ever take out – concerning the dental work. So now we are trying to figure out all that and have contacted a lawyer to help us. It’s very stressful, to say the least.
So, that was my week – how was yours?
The Exciting: Did you look below yet? If you have, you see that I was given a widget for Emily Henry’s newest book that comes out in April! I am over the moon excited about this, especially since last year, Berkley only gave me the opportunity for a chance at a physical book (which I didn’t get). I also got 9 other books that look amazing, too – all on NetGalley.
The highlight of my watching this week was a crazy episode of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Bravo is a guilty pleasure for me – I don’t watch all of the shows, but I do watch many of them. And boy, this week, Salt Lake City went to a whole new level of drama. Is Bravo a guilty pleasure for anyone else?
Many streaming or TV shows were still on pause this past week (for the holidays), but I think there are new things coming out this week.
This Week on Tessa Talks Books blog
- Today: Sunday Post
- Monday: Goodreads Monday
- Tuesday: Top Ten Tuesday – Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2024
- Wednesday: WWW Wednesday
- Thursday: Book Reviews: Northwoods by Amy Pease (thriller), The Expectant Detectives by Kat Ailes (cozy mystery), and Recipe for a Charmed Life by Rachel Linden (women’s fiction)
on Tessa Talks Books blog
- Dec 31: Sunday Post
- Jan 1: Two thriller excerpts – The Weekend Retreat by Tara Laskokowski and Two Dead Wives by Adele Parks (they both look excellent)
- Jan 2: Top Ten Tuesday
- Jan 3: WWW Wednesday
- Jan 4: Blog Tour Book Review of If I Go Missing by Leslie Wolfe
24 responses to “Sunday Post 102 | What a Start to 2024: The Good, the Bad, and the Exciting”
Contact the NC State Board of Dental Examiners and send a letter to the attorney general’s office and copy the dentist. And, report them to the credit bureaus. It’s a very easy thing to do to remove the credit ding from your account because the onus is then on the office to prove the claim. They rarely do. Most people don’t know o do this so these shysters to get away with this stuff. I’m a letter writer and it works. Good luck.
That cruise sounds wonderful! I’ve been to all three islands and St. John has the best beaches. Have fun!
Congrats on a fantastic reading year, Tessa💜
You may get an email from me if I have trouble figuring it out. I already was planning on reporting it to the NC Dental people but I didn’t even think about the attorney general’s office. I like how you think! I’ve never run up against anything like this before. It’s completely crazy.
I have. They count on people giving up. I’m dealing with a shyster doctor right now. Working on my letter. Good luck!
FYI, in my old job, I used to work with Josh Stein when Roy Cooper was AG. I coordinated several Wachovia employee town hall events for him. Feel free to tell him I recommended you contact him. I was the state government relations director for Wachovia.
Thank you! That’s a great connection you have. I’ve only met a few state senators but only met – didn’t work with.
Oh goodness you’re poor daughter, what an awful situation that dentist has put her in!!! I really hope you can sort it all out, especially with the comment Jonetta’s left above. Your cruise sounds lovely and all those books look fab!
I’m hoping the lawyer can set it right without too much issue. But we’ll see. Absolute worst case scenario, we’ll cover what she owes, and I told her to not even entertain the idea of a loan for dental work again. She goes to a new dentist I helped her pick out this week, and I told her how to handle it so that they take things in smaller chunks that she can afford and how she can use a thing we have over here called a Flexible Spending Account – which is money taken out of your paycheck before taxes that is put into an account to cover medical and dental expenses. But I really want that dental office held responsible for forging her signature on loan documents and not paying back the portion of the loan the creditor gave them immediately. I didn’t even know there were scammer dentist like that.
Congrats on getting the Emily Henry book. That dentist is a scammer, and should be reported! Outrageous. Have a great new year. I think I’m going to have to check out Storygraph. I love the year-end stats.
Definitely! They advertise themselves as perfect for patients with anxiety and then they prey on them. It just makes my stomach turn. And StoryGraph is excellent! It allows you to put five books in an “Up Next” list which I love plus all the stats are so cool and informative.
Are cruises good for gluten free then? I’d love to go on a cruise! I’m so sorry about the dentist issue, they sound so shady.
I had an excellent stress-free experience on a Disney cruise from Barcelona to Dover. You need to alert them ahead of time to your dietary needs, and it helps if you schedule your dinners for a specific time each night so that way you can be put with the same waiter who will bring you the next night’s menu once you finish your dinner. Choosing the night before gives the chefs plenty of time to prepare for any changes they will need to make for you. In other words, it takes some self-advocating and some organization but after the initial setup, it usually goes pretty smoothly.
Thanks for the tips, will look into a cruise!
The Good – Yay for the cruise! I’m anxious to hear how it goes. Hubby and I took cruises years ago, and we’re considering another this summer. The Bad – That’s crazy with the dentist and your daughter! What a mess – hate you’re having to deal with all that, Tessa. Hope it gets cleared up soon.
I’m hoping that the lawyer can do what lawyers do best! And I will definitely let you know about the cruise. We chose Celebrity Cruises since it’s just the two of us (we did Disney cruises in Europe) and splurged for a small suite with a balcony in their Retreat area. Celebrity cruises seemed more like a floating resort whereas Royal Caribbean, which we also considered, seemed more like a floating amusement park. We are more the resort people when it’s just the two of us.
Yikes, what an awful situation your daughter ended up in. Sounds really predatory! I hope everything gets sorted out.
Quite the book haul you have — hope you enjoy them! I need to try that Mark Lawrence one, or at least, the first book in that series.
My weekly roundup.
It is completely predatory and the fact that they prey on people with an anxiety disorder just makes my stomach turn.
I’m going to read the first book in that series by Mark Lawrence soon – before I get to the ARC of the 2nd book. It looks really good and had good reviews.
I’m so sorry to hear about the problems your daughter is having. It boggles the mind! I do hope you’re able to get everything straightened out–and quickly!
On the plus side, enjoy your cruise. What a wonderful time of year to go.
I’m still stunned you read 200 books in 2023. You need to come up for air in 2024, LOL! 😂
I couldn’t believe how many books I took on. I even DNF’d a good number of them and still read 200. It’s like eating too much dessert – it’s great in theory but the reality is not so good. 😊.
And the dental thing boggles my mind too. I’ve always been good about going to the dentist and have had to change or chose to change many times over the years, but never have a run across straight up scammers before. I’ve had dentists that made me feel like I was personally funding their vacation home but that’s not even close to this. They prey on people with anxiety but advertising themselves as the perfect place for people who suffer from that disorder. But then they use aspects of the disorder to get those patients into a mess. It makes my stomach turn.
I’ve been fortunate in finding really good, reputable dentists over the years. It’s so sad how people prey on others for profit. 🙁
That amount for dental treatment is insane. 😮I would rather not have teeth and look like 100 yrs old than spend that much to have toothpaste ad-worthy teeth. 😂 I hope you can solve that situation pretty soon.
The dentist situation sounds horrible! Things like that makes me so angry. Hope you manage to sort it out quickly without further stress.
Thank you! We are working on it 🤞
I hope you have fun on your cruise! Sounds like an awesome present to each other!
That’s really cool that they have gluten-free options and can make sure there’s no cross-contamination. I was tested for Celiac’s a few years back. Fortunately, it came back negative. As with my husband’s severe allergies, you end up making due. It’s a good thing so many places and grocery stores are embracing gluten-free foods.
It’s always a challenge with you have dietary restrictions but I’ve been navigating it for a long time. And yes – gluten free choices have expanded so much!