Author: Erin @ Cracker Crumb Life

I try to create a culture of celebration in our home. For life, for the little things, for wonder and for whimsy. I try to find the beauty around us and teach my son Wyatt to find it, and appreciate it and love it as well. We are a homeschool family, and we love it. We love the freedom it gives us to explore a topic or idea more deeply, and I like that I can adjust our schedule around Wyatt’s other needs. Wyatt has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, and his week often has therapy, doctor’s appointments, naps peppered throughout which would make a traditional school schedule difficult. He is also an asynchronous learner, and I love that I can tailor learning to where Wyatt is at that moment. We have a house full of animals and will probably add more because we like a zoo. We have one cat, Miso, who is a rescue. She is 14 years old and my little floofy girl. We also have one leopard gecko, Luna, a pictus gecko named Harlow, a pacman frog named Freddy, and two crested geckos, Applejack and Oliver. We love all of our little friends! My husband Billy, Wyatt, and I are all curious, creative, stubborn humans which makes for some fun times around here. We love the outdoors, except we are not made for high temps so we retreat inside when the temps start to soar. We are nature lovers through and through. We are trying to downsize our lives too, to live more simply, to buy things that last and eat real food from small local farmers. (and of course Goldfish crackers) We live seasonally and are always up for adventure. We love books and reading, and can be found at the library at least once a week!

Sunday-Monday Post

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized24 Comments

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

Hello everyone! We had a pretty busy but good week last week. Wyatt had a good EEG, he had a blast at Dream Night at the Detroit Zoo, we have seen a lot of family… it’s been fun.

Ok, so what did I read? I read the best romance book. Like, seriously, it is probably my favorite one I have ever read. I don’t read a lot of romance. There is no real reason I don’t, it is just not a genre I gravitate to much. But Wyatt and I were at the library last week and I was looking for something that would be easy to pick up and put down as needed in the hospital, and I spotted this book on the shelf, and it just sounded so me.

I guess I should have heeded the blurb that says it is impossible to put down, because I really loved it. I am planning on posting some reviews this week, and this one is on the list to review.

And now what is on the list for this week? It’s hard to say! I really enjoyed The Jewel of the Isle, and now I don’t know which way to bounce. Do I want scary? Or something classic and cool like L.M. Montgomery and Jane of Lantern Hill? Do I want nature nonfiction? I really don’t know. I will have to see which way the wind blows (hopefully blowing this smoke and dust out of the Detroit area!) this week. So, I will list all the possibles here.

I just bought Otter Country off of Pango! Does anyone else use that? I love it! Books are very reasonably priced, you can list books to sell super easily, and you can earn money to either send to your actual bank account, or you can use the money as Pangobucks and spend it on … more books!! Anyway, it is a super easy site to use and I find a lot of books on there that I have a hard time finding elsewhere.

What I posted last week:

Hello June!

Top Ten Tuesday: Summer Camp!

Saturday Morning Coffee Catch Up

What We Have Been Watching:

Not much. When we get a chance we watch Yellowjackets, which we are obsessed with. It is so freaking good!

Online Things Happening:

Not much on my own end here, at least through the summer. I do plan to host an autumn fun thing with Lisa, but that won’t be until October.

We are still having our crafternoons once a month or so! My last one for a month or two is coming up June 21st but Lisa will be holding the doors open for us throughout the summer. Please email me if you are interested in joining our zoom and I will add you to the group email. I am thinking I might pop in to July and August though, even if it is just for a short time, since the crafternoons are light and easy, drop in style. Come and go as you please!

And that is that from my end today! I hope that whatever you do today you do something that makes you smile.

“I tell you this/ to break your heart, /by which I mean only/ that it break open and never close again/ to the rest of the world.” – Mary Oliver

Saturday Morning Coffee Catch Up

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized16 Comments

Hello everyone!! I am drinking Cafe Bustelo this morning, which isn’t too bad. It’s new to me and I am still finding the right balance in making it. I need the caffeine today; it has been a busy week!

Last weekend, Billy spent all day Saturday putting up shade for Wyatt and me around the deck. Wyatt loves to be out there – it is a great spot for him that was an unintended byproduct of the ramp building, but I am so thankful for it. It really is the perfect place for him to play outside. And he can go in and out all by himself, which makes him feel so much more independent. However, it was like being on the surface of the sun at times, with the complete lack of shade in our yard. So, Billy did what he does best and fixed the problem! Billy wanted to also make sure that we could wheel Wyatt out there after surgery and have it be a safe place for him to get out of the house and get some fresh air, and that required massive shade. Billy’s plan – he turned canvas dropcloth into curtains by adding grommets and hooks, and hung them on rods he had in the garage leftover from an old pop up gazebo thing. He also ordered an actual sun shade sail for the top, and now it is perfect! I can take Wyatt out there and move the curtains around as needed to keep him safe and not overheated (he doesn’t react to heat well, like a lot of people who have suffered brain injuries) and unburned. I do use an Australian sunscreen on him, Blue Lizard, because I believe Australians probably are the experts on it, but still, you know?

Sunday Billy got to use his new grill, which he got on sale over Memorial Day Weekend. We figured the deck area is going to be where we spend most of our time this year. Billy will be out of vacation time after taking time off for Wyatt’s surgery, so no little trips for us this year. And this is fine, we just want kiddo’s surgery and recovery to do well, and then we will be perfectly content spending our days and evenings in our little DIY oasis.

Then Wednesday, Wyatt and I headed to Motts Children’s Hospital, where he was all hooked up to some electrodes for a 24-48 hour EEG. It’s not necessarily a difficult procedure, just long. He needs to stay in the room the whole time, but he is allowed to play and move around and do whatever, as long as he is in the room. He does well for being stuck in a hospital room with all sorts of wires attached to him. He really is such a good kid guys, seriously. We watched The Wild Robot, read from his library book, drew, colored, and then he just played on his tablet. When Billy got there they played a game while I took a short walk around. And we had a surprise treat! My brother door dashed us delicious goodies from Tous Les Jours bakery! I talked about this place in a previous post, it is an Asian-French bakery and is so good! He sent us so many things, and I was grateful because I was starving!! Wyatt had eaten lunch and had snacks but I hadn’t, so when I grabbed the door dash and brought it up, I demolished the ham and cheese croissant. Lol. It was sooo good!

The next morning when the doctors came by, we had a good report!!! Wyatt had had no seizure activity captured, and the spike waves that he has near constantly at night (called DEE-SWASS) all originate in the same little spot in his brain. DEE-SWASS is continuous spike waves while you sleep, which can disrupt REM and can create issues with memory and also cognitive loss. If they are too frequent, doctors try to treat although DEE-SWASS still doesn’t have a lot known about it yet. However, the doctors felt that since Wyatt’s was located in just one area, that doesn’t cause the same issues and felt comfortable not being aggressive with it. So we were able to go home, and honestly, I was so relieved I could have cried about this report.

Last night, Wyatt got a reprieve from medical appointments! The foundation, A Kid Again, gifted us with tickets to the Detroit Zoo Dream Night! This is an evening for special needs families, where everything is open and free, even the carousel, movie theater, and the special Dragon Forest. They provided dinner and snacks, had zookeepers on hand for animal chats, a silent disco, and sensory friendly activities. The tickets are limited as well, so it is a quiet evening, without too many people. It is just a very special night for the kids and families. I know that my son had a blast. The smile never left his face!

We wandered the whole zoo, saw the wolves, and had to go through the Dragon Forest twice. Wyatt picked out a dragon toy, which he didn’t let go of the rest of the night, and ate chocolate chip cookies. Basically, we just had the best time and laughed so much and had fun. It was the perfect antidote to follow up his overnight stay at the hospital, and I am so grateful that we had that opportunity.

This weekend will be a little more low key, with tacos at my brother’s tonight, and a bowling birthday party tomorrow. Still fun but much more relaxed!

I hope that whatever you do today, you do something that makes you smile my friends!

Today I am linking up with Lisa, at Boondock Rambings, for her Saturday Afternoon Chats!

Top Ten Tuesday: Summer Camp!

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized43 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

This week’s prompt: Summer Freebie

Hello everyone!! I was so excited about this post! I decided to do mine on Summer Camp themed books. I have always been interested in this concept of summer camp, thanks to movies like the OG Parent Trap, books, etc. At the same time, I was always questioning whether or not it was something real, because certainly no one I knew was ever doing anything like that! I also grew up in the wild 80s, and I watched and read so many scary books growing up – some of them set in summer camps. Like Sleepaway Camp, the Friday the 13th series. You know them. So I was excited to do this post about camp, and also, some camps that just would not be that fun to attend. (read that in a scary voice ok?)

And off we go! Let’s start off easy…

Yours Till Niagra Falls, Abby || There’s a Bat in Bunk Five || The Unplugged Summer

These three are all middle grade, non-scary books. I read the first two when I was a kid, and I don’t remember too much about them honestly, but I do recall reading them. The Unplugged Summer is a nonfiction memoir I read a few years ago, and I found the hoops that the author had to jump through to get a job as a camp counselor in the United States very interesting, as well as his experience.

The Lake House || The Box in the Woods || You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight

It is crazy to me that The Lake House is written by the same woman who wrote The Spellshop – such totally different books! I have this one on my TBR for summer.

The Box in the Woods is part of the Truly Devious series, which I loved (well all but that last book) This one was particularly interesting to me because of the summer camp tie in!

You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight, now this one – if you are looking for that slasher movie feel, look no further. The characters in this book are literally re-enacting scenes from a horror movie as part of an entertaining immersive experience, like a haunted house. It was fantastic.

Camp Creepy || The Girls from Hush Cabin || The Last Time I Lied

I think these Sinister Summer books look so fun! I haven’t read any yet but they are on my TBR.

The Girls From Hush Cabin was a pretty good thriller about girls who were inseparable as kids at camp, but maybe now don’t have as much in common. Until the camp counselor they revered dies and they realize it wasn’t an accident. They get back together to find out the truth, and secrets start to surface about those years at camp. It was a pretty good read although I think it sort of wandered.

And The Last Time I Lied was my first Riley Sager read, and it sucked me right in. It was so twisty turny and full of surprises. The main character is not super likeable and that added to the uneasiness of the book for me.

And finally, The God of the Woods, one of my most anticipated summer reads – and hopefully I get a chance to pick it up from the library today!

And that’s a wrap here today! I can’t wait to see what all of you have picked!

Hello June!

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized16 Comments

Hello everyone!!

Today is sunny and bright, and our deck has plenty of shade, and a brand new grill. We have strawberries in the refrigerator, and ice cream in the freezer. It is definitely getting to be summer here, bit by bit.

So the big thing of our summer – Wyatt’s surgery. Wyatt is having double hip surgery July 9, along with tendon lengthening at the same time. I can feel it hovering over us, as I try to make this June as fun as I can for him. The recovery for it is supposed to be very intense, and he will need to be basically in bed for a month, with a wedge between his legs 24/7. I am extremely nervous about next month, but I keep telling myself what the surgeon told me, that this is short term pain for long term gain. I am just going to have to grit my teeth and push through, and help my son get through this time as easily as I can.

We are trying to pack as much as we can into June for him. I had him make a bucket list for the summer, with a few things we can do during recovery, like ice cream for dinner, but most of them are things we need to do either this month or the end of August. He wants to go see the movie How to Train Your Dragon, have a car picnic, where we drive somewhere and then have a picnic in the back of the Subaru, ride the train at Greenfield Village again (hopefully without barfing this time!), and see the dragon exhibit at the zoo. He has a few others on there too, which I am hoping we can accomplish!

We also have his yearly EEG this week. On Wednesday we head up to the hospital for 24-48 hours, where he will be all hooked up with wires. I am packing his tablet and books and drawing supplies, and hoping we get the go ahead to leave on Thursday morning. I am also taking a book and my headphones for myself, for when he goes to bed that night. TV in the hospital is always the worst! Lol.

This month is RicStar Music Camp too! A million thank yous to Jeanie at Marmalade Gypsy who told me to look into this camp for Wyatt, it has been a blessing and we can’t wait to go back this year. We are starting to feel like we are part of the RicStar family now, as this will be our third year in attendance. We are looking forward to seeing everyone again! I am hoping to get to the Children’s Garden this year after camp lets out for the day. I have said that for two years now, so fingers crossed!

And then we have a birthday party for a friend and fellow scout of Wyatt’s, and our beginning of summer Scout party, where the kids will be able to play and enjoy some pizza and ice cream and I will award them their pins that they earned this year. They have all done so well and I am so happy with how Scouts has turned out for all the kids. They are a little community now and that is what I wanted, for the kids and parents to have fun in scouts together, and to form relationships. I have made new friends and so has Wyatt, and the other mothers and kids are hanging out as well, and it just makes my heart so full. It is everything I hoped for when forming this pack. We have a few other things on the calendar as well, like getting together with my brother Devin and Chrissy and Mermaid Girl and Hurricane whenever we can. I am trying to pack it all in guys!

I have also been planning like a maniac. I have the first four months of our history curriculum planned, and one read aloud for history so far. I am in the process of choosing our language arts books, and think I have a rough list to work from. I am thinking: Secret of the Andes, Bud Not Buddy, Because of Winn Dixie and either Call it Courage or Heart of a Samurai. I would love to hear thoughts on these choices! I have a whole other list for history, but I am solid on two right now, By the Great Horn Spoon, and Rascal. I also want one for the Oregon Trail and one about Harriet Tubman or the Underground Railroad, so any suggestion would be welcomed!

I have also planned out the entire next year for scouts, or at least what we are doing each month. It’s going to be a fun year!

This month is going to be a whirlwind, and I hopefully have lots of iced lattes in my future to keep me going!

And that is where I am at today. How are you?

I hope that whatever you do today, you do something that makes you smile!

My Sunday-Monday Post

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized35 Comments

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

Hello everyone! We have been working on projects around here like maniacs, but we are getting things done. Billy has been working outside on the yard, while I have been neglecting the house while I work on school and scout stuff for next fall (I don’t want to be planning after Wyatt’s surgery), handling Wyatt’s prehab exercises, and finishing up the bit of school we have left. I need to clean today…..

What I have read lately:

Let me start with Anywhere You Go. I wanted to like this one so much, but I didn’t. It is a LGBTQ retelling of The Holiday, which is such a fun premise. However, I felt like Goldilocks. One of the relationships moved way too fast for me – I don’t like the trope of insta-love – and the other was way too slow! Lol. I ended up DNFing it.

Beaches, Bungalows, and Burglaries was another one that I didn’t love, but I did enjoy it. Like, not love. I am going to read the next one though, because I am curious about where this series goes. So I guess that says something.

Of Salt and Shore however, was amazing. It is a middle grade but wow, it was fantastic. It is translated from Dutch (the OG title is Lampje) At first, I didn’t know if I was going to like it. It has some darkness swirling around in it, but the story that evolved was a beautiful tale of friendship and found family and loyalty. I just loved this one, and so far it is one of the best books I have read all year.

Reading this weekish:

Posted since my last update:

Top Ten Tuesday: Books About Travel

10 Books of Summer

Mini Book Reviews: Two Cozies and a Horror

Top Ten Tuesday: Animal Companions

Wednesday Morning Coffee Catch Up

Homeschool Thoughts: A Review of the Year?

What we are watching:

We are still watching Wheel of Time, although it was cancelled. Billy is bummed, but knew it was probably coming.

We also finished up The Brokenwood Mysteries, and I will have to be sad now until more come out. It is my favorite show and it is so short!

We also started Yellowjackets, which I have been wanting to watch for ages, and we are obsessed. However, if you don’t know much about it, it is pretty gory, just wanted to put that out there. Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci are amazing in it. I love Ricci in anything and I don’t think I appreciated Lewis enough back in the day, but her performance in this is fantastic.

We haven’t had a night where we can watch a movie together (other than movies with Wyatt earlier in the evening, we just watched the OG Lilo and Stitch which he loved!), so we are still waiting to watch the first two on our list, Holland with Nicole Kidman and Wait Until Dark with Hepburn.

And that is it from me today! I hope that whatever you do today, you do something that makes you smile!

Homeschool Thoughts: A Review of the Year?

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized15 Comments

For the first time since we have started homeschooling, our year was more of an amble than guided hike. I must be getting more used to this homeschooling thing and Wyatt and how we work together! I didn’t stress as much about sticking to arbitrary timelines that I just decided on, and let ourselves explore as we wanted. However, that does mean that we only made it as far as the brink of the Revolutionary War this year! Did Ben Franklin really need two weeks dedicated to him? Probably not, but Wyatt was enjoying learning about him so we really spent time on him, which is one of the perks of homeschooling.

Since I started with American History, I might as well talk about that for a minute. I have been rolling Michigan history up with American history, adding in the lessons about Michigan as necessary in the timeline. I feel like we are walking the timeline of history here. What do you expect from a woman who has a history degree though? We really dig in here. We started with the Native Americans of Michigan, specifically the Anishinabe. We read Birchbark House, which was fantastic, and made a birchbark house, a winter cabin, and learned more about the way of life of the Anishinabe. From there we wandering into the fur trade, and read The Littlest Voyageur, which I felt was a less traumatic way to learn about this time period. It was less historically accurate, as it was told from the viewpoint of a squirrel, but my introduction was Eagle Fur by Robert Newton Peck which was extremely violent, honestly, and I was maybe 12 when I read it. It has stuck with me forever. (As a side note, his book A Day No Pigs Would Die also has haunted me forever)

From here we segued into the 1600s over there on the East Coast, the puritans, the 13 colonies, and colonial life, which we apparently lingered over for a while, but I wanted to be thorough. We ended the year in the years leading up to the Revolution, and our last study was good old Benjamin Franklin. We read a lot of good books, like The Courage of Sarah Noble, Who Was Benjamin Franklin, Your Life as a Settler in Colonial America, Explore Colonial America, and we started Sign of the Beaver but we just couldn’t finish it, as we had just finished two books about kids surviving on their own in the wilderness. ( My Side of the Mountain and The Courage of Sarah Noble) and couldn’t do another.

Wyatt loved history this year. I will say his one of his favorite things was learning about the different jobs that were available during the Colonial times. At the end, we pretended that he was getting ready to move out as an apprentice (since kids did at like 11 in that time) and had him choose his job. He had a hard time choosing – first he thought silversmith, then thought about blacksmith, before deciding on printer, which I thought was a good choice.

We did put history on hold in March while we did a whole month of Irish legends, folktales, and culture. I mixed things up a bit here and there.

In the spirit of that, we celebrated Appreciate a Dragon day, and had a school day dedicated to dragons.

Science was another area we really lingered! I had only planned for dinosaurs to take like 6-8 weeks tops, and we spent much longer on them. We started at the very dawn of existence though, with the Pre-Cambrian period and trilobites and worked our way on up. After that we sort of dodged around, talking about the environment, conservation, and then even the experiments of Ben Franklin, so no formal unit the last few months.

Our book studies were pretty awesome this year too, with the exception of Alice in Wonderland, which I hated although I tried to like it. I think that trickled down to Wyatt a little as well. Neither of us cared for it. Next we read The Phantom Tollbooth, and Wyatt loved that book so much. I think that was his favorite book this year, hands down. (He also loved Fortunately the Milk which was also that same absurdist type style) From there we leaped to My Side of the Mountain. This book was so crazy to me as a mother to just think this kid did that, his family knew and were like ok, see you later. Wyatt liked that one. Then I wanted to read a “fun” book, so we read The Wolves of Greycoat Hall, which was the book that generated the interest in conservation. Plus it had wolves for Wyatt.

Art – I was disappointed in our art this year. We learned about some great artists- Hundertwasser, Maud Lewis, Charley Harper, Emily Carr – but we just didn’t get as much time to work on art as we usually do. We had to focus our attention elsewhere, which is fine, but I missed it and so did Wyatt. Hopefully next year we can add it back in more. We will see, as every year is different and fun in its own way.

We of course worked on reading and math and English type things as well, but those are not super interesting to talk about here. Just, we did them. I think I am going to write a post about homeschooling resources soon, maybe next week, and these will come up there too.

I have started planning for next year, of course. I usually do this time of year, so we can be ready. It is even more important to be ready this year, as next year we will be jumping in post-surgery and I don’t want to have to worry about planning school during his recovery time. I am also working on planning out Cub Scouts too, for next year. This is such a time of getting ready for us!

And with that, I am going to go do just that before we start school for today!

Whatever you do today, try to do something that makes you smile!

Wednesday Morning Coffee Catch Up

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized19 Comments

Hello everyone! It has been beautiful here lately – finally! We had been hit by constant rain for a week or so straight, and the past few days have been sunny and not too hot. Perfection!

It’s been a few weeks since I posted one of these! We just have had a lot of life stuff that hasn’t been all that interesting, like a flurry of doctor appointments, appointments for equipment for Wyatt, school stuff, just the minutia of daily life. I also started going through areas that I rarely weed through to get rid of things and reorganize. Fun stuff here guys.

I have recently gotten into genealogy again, and have been tromping around cemeteries. There is one that Wyatt and I visited together, but I didn’t want to leave him in the car too much while I searched so that was more of a scouting expedition, that I followed up with a real exploration later that weekend with Billy and Wyatt. I found my mom’s grandparents, but for the life of me I could not find my dad’s great grandparents. My dad, Wyatt, and I went last Friday and finally found them. I told Wyatt we were standing in front of his great-great-great grandparents graves. I don’t think he was particularly enthused, but one day he might be!

If you read my post about my genealogy saga, I had a mystery about an ancestor, Marie Domaine and her mother Josephine Bernard. Well, I still haven’t solved that puzzle yet, and I ran into a new head scratcher. My great grandfather was born in Ireland, moved to Pennsylvania and was a brick layer in the Pittsburgh area. However, I found a passport application that states he was planning to go to Colombia for a month for work, which sounds sketch. Then later, he died after being struck by a car, which isn’t really that suspicious unless you are plotting some sort of criminal story in your mind, like I did. Was he in the mob? Who knows? Lol. Well that might be a stretch but I do enjoy making up these narratives about ancestors right now.

Speaking of my dad, he recently had a birthday! Number 78. We went to his house for a very casual get together and had a great time. The kids had fun playing and visiting their grandparents. There were also three different birthday cakes for us to choose from, so lots of cake!

We kicked last weekend off by making lunches to be distributed to the public. I wanted Wyatt to start becoming involved in community service projects occasionally, and of course our church is a good place to start with him. He was a great helper and I was very proud of him, although I did not have him help make sandwiches. His grandmother did that. Wyatt, Billy, and I were an assembly line of filling the lunch bags instead, which was a much more suitable job for a ten year old.

When we got home, it was time for our Drop In Crafternoon that Lisa at Boondock Ramblings and I are hosting. We had a great time hanging out, chatting, and crafting with the fellow bloggers who have joined us. Since it is drop in, it is all very casual, just come for however long you can or pop in when you can. Send me an email at crackercrumblife@gmail.com if you are intestested!

On Sunday, we went to a nursery garden center that was new to us. Wyatt had gotten a small garden bed for Easter, one that is raised so that he can access it from his wheelchair, and he needed some plants to fill it! He made some good choices – dahlias, a delphinium, and a strawberry plant. It looks really nice! Billy and I had too much fun in the bonsai area and the terrarium areas, poking around. We ended up buying a tiny little silver needle tree (?). It says it gets like 6 feet tall, but we can’t find anything about it online, so I am thinking it has a different name than what it said on the tag. It was in the bonsai area so I am also guessing we can do that with it? Right now it just looks uniquely pretty. I also picked out a teeny tiny little tiger head planter and stuck a succulent in it. I love it.

Afterwards we stopped at Lowes for dirt, and ran into my brother and his family. They were also getting supplies, for Mermaid Girl’s fairy garden.

These guys came over on Monday to hang out, have some dinner, and enjoy the evening. It was a nice time. My mom came too, and was not happy I made her wear a big hat. But it was really sunny and I was worried she would burn. She did it, and I told her she looked like a Dame. She will also be unhappy if she knows I posted this photo of her on here, so don’t tell ok.

I hope you all have been having some good moments filled with smiles and laughter.

Top Ten Tuesday: Animal Companions

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized44 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

This week’s prompt: Animal Companions (real or fantasy)

I have always loved books with animals – I am a huge animal lover, as evidenced by our enormous menagerie of pets. I am that mom who will never say no to their child’s request. And I even do the caretaking. I just love all animals and always have. So this was a fun post to write!

Let’s start with the cozy mysteries! There is Charles from the Lighthouse Library series by Eva Gates, Emerson from the Magical Bookshop series, and Huckleberry the pug from Crime and Cherry Pits!

Next, we have Barnabas from At Home in Mitford, Neil the Puffin from Little Beach Street Bakery (I want a puffin!), Mouse and Mister from The Dresden Files, and Shadow from Emily Wilde.

And of course, all of our animal friends in children’s books. Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web, Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, Winn-Dixie from Because of Winn-Dixie.

And finally, a non animal companion. Does he fall under the fantasy version of companion at least? He’s non-human, sort of? He’s a magical baked good, the little gingerbread man from A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking.

I can’t wait to see what you have all chosen, and more than likely expand my TBR.

I hope whatever you do today, you do something that makes you smile!

Mini Book Reviews: Two Cozies and a Horror/Thriller

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized14 Comments

Hello everyone!! I decided that this year I am going to be doing book reviews in groups of three, and just little short mini reviews. And it is finally time for me to do three more!

First up is a cozy mystery in the Lighthouse Library series. I really enjoy this series, which I started reading a few years ago. I am pretty behind now so I need to catch up! I just finished book 9, Death by Beach Read.

As always, I love the parts with Charles, the library cat who has moved out of the lighthouse library with Lucy. He is even a hero cat this time around! Lucy and her fiancée, Connor have moved into a fixer upper house on the beach. It is a historical beauty part of the Unpainted Aristocracy of Nag’s Head, and like some old homes, it comes with a bit of drama and secrets. I love books with houses that contain all these old legends and family ghosts and secrets – I can’t help it. I am that person who wanders through old homes and buildings and thinks, “If only these walls could talk.” It’s the history lover in me, I can’t help but wonder what lives have been lived there, what beautiful moments passed there, and also, what sad and tragic ones. Lucy and Connor’s home has quite the legend too – one that scared the child of the former owners away from the home for forty years. It was a sad tale, in a way, but I felt like the mystery unraveled very organically, and the resolution was filled with hope. We also get bits and pieces of Lucy and Connor’s upcoming wedding, which I am looking forward to as well!

And since we are talking about houses with secrets… let’s talk about Home Before Dark.

I have not read all of Sager’s books, but of the three that I have read, this is my favorite so far. This book is about Baneberry Hall, and the secrets it holds…and from what people say, what it remembers as well. After Maggie’s father dies, she learns she has inherited the house that launched her family into infamy – Baneberry Hall. Her family lived there for a brief time, not even a month, when Maggie was five, but it was the single most influencing event in her life. Her family fled one night, saying they would never go back, that it was haunted and dangerous. And then her father wrote a book all about it which went, as kids would say now, viral. But what really happened in those two weeks? Maggie is not certain she believes the story she has been told her whole life, and intends to find out the answers, despite having been warned off by her dad before he passed away, and then later by her mother.

This book kept me reading until the wee hours of the night, and then made me want to sleep with all the lights in the house on. It gave me the super creeps, and I could not put it down. I can’t wait to read another of Sager’s books and be scared out of my mind again!

And finally, Beaches, Bungalows, and Burglaries.

So, this book was a short little cozy at 164 pages. I enjoyed it, but I did feel like it needed a bit more, like it was bare bones. However, it was not a bad read – it just needed to be developed a bit more – the plot, the characters, the mystery. And now that I am finished, I can see why they are addicting because I am sort of wondering what happens in the next one. I also feel like the main character, Mae West, needs a pet of some sort. It just doesn’t feel right to read a cozy without a little animal sidekick! Maybe once she settles into her new of Happy Trails campground, she will adopt a little cat or dog.

Have you read any of these?

10 Books of Summer

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn reading challenge23 Comments

10, 15, 20 Books of Summer is hosted by Emma over at Words and Peace, and Annabel at Annabookbel.

Annabel states the challenge over on her blog as:

  • The #20BooksofSummer2025 challenge runs from Sunday June 1st to Sunday August 31st
  • The first rule of 20 Books is that there are no real rules, other than signing up for 10, 15 or 20 books and trying to read from your TBR.
  • Pick your list in advance, or nominate a bookcase to read from, or pick at whim from your TBR.
  • If you do pick a list, you can change it at any time – swap books in/out.
  • Don’t get panicked at not reaching your target.
  • Just enjoy a summer of great reading and make a bit of space on your shelves!

I have been seeing this around in the blogging world and thought I would add a small list myself! I like the flexibility of this challenge, since I often make a list then change my mind halfway through.

Also, since my son is having a major surgery in July, I am not sure what to expect at all in terms of anything but taking care of him. I figured though I would aim small and see what happens! I will be reading him a few books while he is recovering, so I am including those as well on here.

First, my own reading choices. I am throwing a bunch out here to choose from.

And then for books I am thinking about reading to Wyatt – some are ones he has had on his shelf, a few are some books I am just throwing in there. I wanted to find some quiet gentle type books for when he is home and not feeling that great but not wanting to sleep either. He loves being read to so that is always a win to make him feel comforted and better.

I guess we will see where summer reading takes us this year!