Hello, January!

Hello everyone!! It’s a new year, with lots of adventures and experiences around the corner for us! However, I read something today that said to not forget about the old you, and to celebrate that you as well – you have survived terrible days, hard things, heartbreak, and that you is a fighter and not to leave that you behind. So while we look ahead and make changes let’s not leave that part of us behind.

And speaking of changes, Billy and I do so much planning in January! I get out my planner and make lists and set dates; I plan ahead using the Exploring Nature with Children curriculum, and the Kids Moon Club for different things we might want to do as a family. I also reserved a vacation home in Holland, MI for March for Wyatt’s birthday, and we are looking ahead and planning for that. Our pie project in November didn’t go too far, so we are going to get back to that a little bit as well, just baking in general. We have some different fun things in store for the month as well that we are looking forward to.

A big change for me this year – I have been a vegetarian for twenty some years, and I have decided I am going to eat meat occasionally this winter. I don’t think I am going to crazy overboard and eat meat constantly, but I do want to incorporate it more into my diet. I have really low iron and Vitamin D and as it is winter, I am hoping that adding in eating meat will help. I do want to try to eat meat that I know is humanely raised, and minus all the antibiotics if possible though, so I am placing an order with a local farm later today. We will see how this goes!

I am also really excited about another project we are working on this month – my home office! This room has basically been ignored for the last five years and it needs some love and a new purpose. We are going to do the works, repaint, redesign its function and style, and really make that room work for us. We live in a small home, like we could probably be on a tiny home living show, but honestly, we kind of like living small. We are outdoors a lot, and as we examine our life and lifestyle, we are making changes that make the house more functional for us. Last year at this time we flip-flopped our dining room and living and seriously, it was the best move ever. Our living room, which we call the den, is a small space, the smallest in the house, but we downsized our furniture, hung our tv on the wall, pared away what we didn’t need, and it works perfectly for us. Our old living room is a dining room/play room that we call the family room, and it is a great space now too. We oddly can fit more people in our house now than we could before! Sometimes you just need to be creative and rethink a spot. So – that is what we are doing with my office. It is going to be an office with a spot for a day bed or guest area, in case my mom needs to ever stay the night, or we just need the extra bed. I am really excited about this change; I just need to decide on the paint color!

So, we have some things in the works this month! I am also very much looking forward to down time at home too, now that the holidays are over. Curling up on the couch, with a tea and a book sounds like heaven. So good in fact, I think I will go do that right now!

Currently…January

Currently..is a meme hosted by Anne in Residence. I missed December but today we are sharing what we are currently….. reading, resolving, cleaning, creating, and planning.

Happy New Year everyone!

Reading: A mix of nonfiction books and fiction this month on a variety of topics, mostly nature and cozy feeling books. Some books on my list for the month include Gathering Moss, The Secret Life of the Owl, the Cozy Minimalist Home and Winterwood. I did get a gift card for Barnes and Noble for Christmas though that I am excited to use!

Resolving: This year I am hoping to get back to practicing yoga again. I have been saying that for four years so hopefully it sticks this year!

Cleaning: Everything! At least that is how I am feeling right now. Lol. We are overhauling my office though this year, to make it more functional for our family. I am looking forward to the changes – I just need to commit to a paint color! We are also getting organized – I started labeling and boxing up different crafting and art supplies the other day and that part of the closet looks great. I love being able to just go in and get what we need so easily.

Creating: I am working on little gnome people for my son and his cousins, and I am making clay ring dishes for my friends as well. My stepmom and I love to try all the different crafts out there – we recently went to a wet felting class which was fun but..well, wet. I don’t think it is my craft medium, although I had a blast doing it. My stepmom did fantastic though, and I think her piece was the best in the class! That is it pictured above, she did a poinsettia themed runner which graced the table over the holidays.

Planning: So much!! January is such a big planning month for our family! We are planning our garden, something I love to do in the depths of the cold winter. I am getting together with my sister-in-law to go through the catalogs and see what we are both ordering, and where we can combine forces. I am also planning out what we are going to do with the Kids Moon Club, and with the Exploring Nature with Children curriculum. Wyatt goes to preschool but I like to supplement at home and I love the nature/science/art focus of this homeschool curriculum. I have a Passion Planner, which I absolutely love. In fact, I am planning on curling up with it right after I finish here! Yeah, I am a nerd.

My Sunday-Monday Post

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

The week before Christmas was not what I was expecting – little man came down with a fever at school and I had to pick him up early, poor kiddo. Then I got sick. We were laid a little low for a week there, and it was not fun. I hate when he is sick. So that week before Christmas was filled more with anxiety and kleenex than I had planned on! Thankfully we were all better by Christmas!

Read Last Two Weeks:

I picked this up at the library purely for the festive cover and of course, the owl. I am such a bird nerd that I couldn’t pass it by. I really enjoyed it! It was just what I needed during the craziness of the last two weeks. And best of all, I learned there are 26 books in this series to go back and enjoy. Lol.

Reading This Week:

I am not sure which will be my first book of the year, but I am super excited to read them both!

Posted Last Two Weeks:

Quick Reviews on Some Holiday Reads

A Great Holiday and a Return to Routine

What Wyatt’s Reading – December

My Favorite Reads of 2019

Watching:

Christmas movies. And Shetland! We just finished the entire series and thank goodness there are more coming – we were blown away by how amazing this series is. We also just started Lost in Space season 2 – Billy is a bit more into it right now than me but that might change hopefully.

Thanks for visiting my blog! I am looking forward to seeing what you have been up to as well!

My Favorite Reads of 2019

Hey all! I can’t believe it is this time of the year already! Wowzer. I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday or at least a few great days in December.

I feel like I read some pretty great books this year! I don’t keep up on my Goodreads very well – I get about halfway through the year and forget, so I can’t give stats which is a bummer, because I love everyone’s stats posts. Goals for next year! I know that I read a lot of nature books, thrillers, some magical realism, cozy mysteries, and some romances. And probably some other things too! I also participated in Paris in July which was so fun, and also Nonfiction November, which was pretty spectacular. I feel like I have a great idea of what to expect of them both next year and I am looking forward to them both again.

As I look back, some books I just really liked. My list is sort of based on just what I actually really loved, whether it was a bestseller or not – just a book that I really couldn’t stop reading and wanted more of when I was done. So, that being said, here they are!

I can’t believe this is the first time I had ever read Anne. Now I love her to pieces. And The Wolf Wilder was so so good. If you are going to read it, read it when it is cold – and if you live somewhere warm, just turn that air conditioning way down! Lol.

My love for these two books is real. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating touched my soul, and The Wood I read first, and then read aloud to Billy and Wyatt over the course of this year, that is how much I loved it. John Lewis-Stempel is one of my very favorite authors to read and I am slowly making my way through his books.

I am pretty sure this is the first time I have had two graphic novels on my list! I absolutely adored Pumpkinheads, but what can you expect from Rainbow Rowell, but greatness, in my opinion. And Brazen – I picked this up on a whim at the library then read it cover to cover without stopping during Wyatt’s nap. I never reviewed it properly but it was seriously amazing.

These are three new to me authors – and I believe Luanne G. Smith and Glendy Vanderah are new authors in general! I loved each of these books for different reasons, but I can’t wait to read more by all of them. Read my review of The Vine Witch here, and Where the Forest Meets the Stars here. And hey I did review Brazen! A mini-one in the same post as Leaving Time!

Hands down my favorite book of the entire year. I am always a little skeptical of big best sellers for some reason, but when Gulfside Musings posted that she loved it, I gave it a shot. And I am so glad that I did. It was everything – nature and mystery and emotional. It was spectacular and I recommended it to everyone I know.

What Wyatt’s Reading – December

This is a very image heavy post, I apologize! We read like crazy this month! When I returned books to the library the other day, I could barely lift the bag, and this is with us going every week as well. I check out books for the month and also weekly, and rotate them out. The favorites we keep for the time, which is only one week longer than we are allotted (I of course renew those) and then some we read just once and they go back. And then of course our own well stocked library here at home contributes to our reading…. Anyway, I have listed here our favorites this month, some Wyatt’s, some mine, some both of us.

Wyatt is a big fan of the Duck and Goose books, as well as the Bear Stays Up books. I like the Bear Stays Up books too, they are cute! And I also like Duck and Goose purely because sometimes you need a quick fast read, and those are perfect for that. We also really loved Marion Dane Bauer this month, reading Winter Dance and The Longest Night quite a few times. I enjoyed Long Night Moon, and discovering different names for the different full moons and it was well done between the illustrations and text. Owl Moon is a winter favorite around here – this is one of the first books we ever bought Wyatt, and we read it to him all the time. And I have to admit, I checked out The Christmas Quiet Book as a hint to my child…. lol. An introvert raising an extrovert over here.

Jingle Bells and My Christmas Treasury are great reads for learning about how Christmas is celebrated in other countries, something I have loved since first reading about it in My Christmas Treasury when I was around Wyatt’s age. I actually had to buy that book used, I couldn’t find it anywhere! Bear’s First Christmas is just beautiful and a story of a bear waking up in the winter – it’s a long one but good. Wyatt loved Christmas Wombat and Merry Christmas from the Very Hungry Caterpillar, and I have to admit, I did too. I love A Homemade Together Christmas, about a family who opts to make their gifts that year. A very sweet story told in a very easily accessible way for kids. Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree has been a favorite of mine for years, and Wyatt really liked it too. I love this tale of how one tree can make so many different families happy! Then Wyatt’s two stand out favorites this year – Little Christmas Tree and The Animals’ Christmas Eve. We probably read these two books a million times. The Animals’ Christmas Eve is about the stable animals remembering a long ago Christmas in Bethlehem, while Little Christmas Tree is well, about a Little Christmas Tree in the woods, and all the other flora and fauna in the woods. It is beautiful and glittery and has little lift the flaps.

Did your families read any good picture books this month? Let me know, we are always looking for more!

A Great Holiday and a Return to Routine

I had a wonderful time with my family the last few days! From the Saturday Solstice to Sunday at my dad’s for our holiday celebration, to Christmas Eve with my husband’s parents, to Christmas Day with my family, we had busy days packed with loved ones.

On Saturday we celebrated the return of the sun, and our love of nature by going on a nature hike at our favorite metropark. We have been having some unseasonably warm days these past few days, so the weather was actually beautiful. As we walked through the woods, looking for signs of winter, a flock of geese flew directly overhead, honking their hellos. Later we made sure we fed the birds and other wild things in our neighborhood a little feast, filling up our feeders to the brim and giving them some special treats as well. We finished up our evening with a beef stew over polenta and Nantucket cranberry pie, read a few picture books, and looked back on our year of hikes, some of the highlights, some of the things that we saw along the way. We also talked about our journey with the Kids Moon Club that we took last year, where we all learned a lot! We signed up as Lifetime Members and are looking forward to this new year.

Our three Christmas’ were fun as well! Wyatt had a blast with his grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, and was a lucky little guy who received some thoughtful and fun gifts as well! Lots of dinosaurs and musical instruments and books and baking toys, and some exploration gifts from us too – including a bird call that I am currently listening to. Billy and I never exchange much with each other, we do “small” Christmas for each other and feel so happy to have received this beautiful bracelet and another John Lewis-Stempel book, about owls no less! He also bought me a warm wool hat, gloves, socks and a set of blank books. We had a wonderful few days, the best of all being all the family time.

Today we start to get back to our normal non-holiday life. Wyatt is getting all the time he wants to play and explore his new things, to just play and relax and have fun. We will have music on, a full coffee pot for me, and I will attempt to make some dent in putting our house to rights. But on some level, I enjoy doing this after a holiday, saying goodbye to some things, rearranging, making way for new. We will leave the tree up a while longer, but I really need to dig out our bedrooms which have taken a huge hit. They became a bit of a dumping ground in between holiday events!

I hope that you all are enjoying your holiday season!

Quick Reviews on Some Holiday Reads

A Holiday by Gaslight: I am an helpless romantic, I can’t help it. And this book is so sweet and lovely. I started loving these historical Christmas romances when I was in high school and gravitate back to them every year. There is something comforting within their pages, all happiness and joy. This one was no different. A country house, two people finding love at the holidays – and I loved these two characters. I love the juxtaposition between tradition and modernism in this story – with Ned trying to aspire to old traditions, thinking he needs to act a certain way to fit in to a society that he doesn’t really belong to despite being desperately rich; Sophie who has some pretty modern ideas, is smart, an avid reader, and wants to be her own person, despite it being the Victorian era. A heartwarming, quick Christmas read!

Half-Spent Was the Night: Oo I loved this VERY quick little read. Perfect for those stolen minutes, this 112 page book sure packs a lot in! I loved The Witches of New York so it was neat to join them at Yuletide. If you like these characters and their stories this is a must read!

The Afterlife of Holly Chase: This YA book was such a fun and unique read!! I loved it. Holly Chase is a failed Scrooge – and a dead one. Her afterlife is now spent working for Project Scrooge, a company that spends the entire year for their big event, which is to rehabilitate that year’s Scrooge, Dickens style, complete with real ghosts. I loved the framework of this company, how it uses A Christmas Carol as a blueprint for their work, finding the Fezziwig, the Belle, etc. That every character has their real name, and their Dickens name. It was just really well done and fun to read.

My Sunday-Monday Post

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

I am in overdrive mode – is anyone else? Lol. I must have been on super coffee last week, because I feel like I did all the things. I finished shopping, read three books, posted here like every day, and still managed to get breakfast with a new friend, get my hair done, go to work at my job, and make cookies with my friends. Along with all the other regular things we all have to do every week. ‘Tis the season I suppose! This week coming up has far less on the calendar.

Read Last Week:

I have been waiting forever to read the Queen of Nothing and it did not disappoint! I loved this book and these characters. Holiday by Gaslight was delightful – I have such a love for Victorian/Edwardian Christmas books. When I was maybe a senior in high school, my mom started gifting me Christmas romances, all set in those eras and since then, I have loved them. The Glittering Hour was also fabulous. I read it as part of a blog tour, and it was beautiful but also a tearjerker.

Reading the Rest of the Month:

I am just posting the books that are on my nightstand lol. I have these lined up to read the rest of the month and since I probably won’t be posting at all the week of Christmas, or really after the 20th, I thought I would share them all. They all look so good! Half Spent Was the Night is a tiny little thing, so I will be done with that in no time flat. I also started the Karen White book the other day, and I am really enjoying it.

Posted Last Week:

My Almost Last Minute Outdoor Inspired Gift Guide

My Almost Last Minute Kid’s Gift Idea Guide

Book Review Shorty: Wrapped Up For Christmas

Our Week in Photos

Book Review: The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey

Watching:

Christmas movies! We are also watching Shetland (season 3 blew us away!) and Virgin River.

What is happening in your world?