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!
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date
Hello everyone!! I hope that if you celebrate this time of year, that you had a wonderful holiday! And even if you don’t celebrate this time of year, I hope the last few weeks have been good for you as well!
Read:
I actually listened to this on audio and I absolutely adored it. It was the perfect little book to listen to at the holidays.
Reading:
Billy and Wyatt got me these two books for Christmas and I plan on starting the new year with one of them. Probably Winter by Melissa Harrison. They are both so lovely!
Billy and I are all wrapped up in Lark Rise to Candleford. It’s all we have been watching at night honestly. I have also been catching up on my favorite YouTubers – Forgotten Way Farms, Darling Desi, Gold Shaw Farm in particular for the moment. I’ve watched this one numerous times just because it is so cozy, and because I am often interrupted lol and need to rewatch in order to see everything.
And that is it from around here! I hope you are doing well!
Hello everyone!! This is always such a fun post to put together. I love going back and looking back at what I read, and what I loved. I used Storygraph this year to help me out, and I really love it. My list of favorites is short this year, as I did a lot of re-reading of old favorites, and I never include them here. They have already been established, no repeats. I also seem to have been hit or miss with book reviews this year; hopefully this year I can be more consistent. We will see.
This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. I would earn a small commission if you were to purchase something, at no extra cost to you.
In no particular order, let’s begin!
The House in the Cerulean Sea – Still the only Klune book I have read, and I need to fix that because I loved this book.From my review: ” This book could not have come into my life at a more perfect time. I needed this book, this warm and fuzzy read about found family and courage and becoming who you really truly are inside. It was simply beautiful, and I wanted to hug it close, along with just about every character (but especially little Theodore the Wyvern).”
Warrior Girl Unearthed: This book was such a powerful read for me. I felt like it really opened my eyes to a whole world I was unaware of. From my review:This book was thought-provoking, eye-opening, impactful, powerful. There is much more to this story of Perry and the running mystery throughout the book, that goes much deeper and speaks to a truth that is not often discussed or brought into the light. This book does that, drags these ugly truths out into the open, all within the confines of this young adult book’s pages.
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries: I love anything faerie, I always have. I have never ever outgrown it and I don’t plan to. So when this book started popping up all over, I knew I had to read it. I absolutely loved it! From my review: “My only complaint is the ending! I needed more story and now I have to wait for the next installment and I hate that! I am not good at waiting and I want to know more about Emily and Wendell and this world of faery.” And…. I don’t have much longer to wait! The sequel, Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands is going to be one of my first reads of 2024!
Tom Lake: So I actually listened to this one, and Meryl Streep’s reading matched the depth of soul that can be found in this book. It was a deliciously beautiful story. From my review: This book is a book for when you feel like lazing about, soaking up words and a story. Meryl Streep as the reader of the audiobook just elevated the whole experience for me. She wasn’t just reading a story, she was Lara, telling the story of her youth to her children in the cherry orchards. This book was absolutely beautiful, and is definitely on my favorites of the year list.
The White Hare: Ok, so if you have been around here you know that I absolutely love rabbits. (and foxes) When I saw this book mentioned a hare, was set in Cornwall, one of my favorite settings, and was a bit mysterious, I knew I had to read it. And I am so glad I did! From my review: I could not get enough of this book. I love books that feel heavy with mystery and history and folklore, that are atmospheric and surprising. This book had all of that, PLUS rabbits! Ok so not like rabbits running around being super cute but sort of maybe ominous and curious most of the book because you are not quite sure what the heck is going on but you know, just know, something is afoot, and the white hare totally has something to do with it.
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches: This book was like another warm little hug, a book that I cozied up with that left me with the warm fuzzies. I apparently never wrote a review on it, but I absolutely adored everything about it.
Lodge: An Indoorsy Tour of America’s National Parks: I still need this book! I read it, I loved it, and wanted to buy it to look back on and dream about again and again, and… I didn’t buy it yet. Soon. It is filled with the most beautiful photos and history and added oh so many destinations to my wish list!
The Shop on Royal Street: I have a deep love for New Orleans and this series set there just transports me. The old houses, the ghosts, the characters, the secrets, the everything – yep, I love it. I am very anxiously awaiting a third book!
Crime and Poetry: Near the end of the year, I picked up this Magical Bookshop mystery by Amanda Flower and can’t get enough of this series either. I want a magical bookshop!!!
I am so excited about this plan for January! Usually such a weird month, full of gray weather, (at least here in Michigan), that post-holiday let down, it will be nice to have something to look forward to. And the plan is to continue buddy watching movies with Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and sharing about them here on the blog and on Instagram.
We are going to watch four adaptations and we will both have the linky up on our blogs, just in case anyone wants to join us! This linky however, is not just for the movies we are buddy watching; feel free to link up with ANY Jane Austen themed posts for the month. It’s a Jane-extravaganza!
The four movies we plan to watch are: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Miss Austen Regrets. The first up is Sense and Sensibility, and we will post about it on the 11th of January! But… as I said above, feel free to link up before then about anything Jane Austen related!
This version of Sense and Sensibility is my absolute favorite. It is also my favorite Jane Austen story. And I love Hugh Grant.
As for Pride and Prejudice, we struggled with this choice as we both believe the 1995 mini-series with Colin Firth is the superior version, but for the sake of time, we went with the 2005 movie version. I love Colin Firth though. And don’t make me choose between Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. I don’t think I could! And now I want to go into a whole tangent about Love Actually but I am reigning it in because this post is about Jane Austen January, not Love Actually and Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. But first, before I move on..
We are also watching the 1996 BBC version of Emma, starring Kate Beckinsale, and finishing up with a movie about Jane Austen herself, called Miss Austen Regrets.
This was probably one of the most difficult lineups we have ever worked on! There are so many options! And which way to go? Mini-series? Classics? Modern retellings? We could probably have this movie watching event for months and barely scratch the surface of different adaptations. (that might be an exaggeration, but I am feeling like it is not!)
I will again have a dedicated page on my blog for the linky. The linky will be active from January 3rd and will stay active until February 2nd.
Jane just feels like a cozy way to recover from the holidays, and I am looking forward to all of our upcoming choices!
Good morning everyone! Or afternoon or evening or whatever time you are reading this.
It’s been so rainy and foggy here in Michigan the last few days. So strange for Christmas weather here in the mitten state. This morning I am enjoying my coffee in one of my two new mugs (the other is from the same potter, but with a rabbit instead of a fox), with Miso next to me, purring away. We have been in and out so often the last few days she must be happy that I am finally sitting still.
I hope you all had a good holiday, if you celebrate a winter holiday this month! We had a pretty good Christmas!
We kicked things off Saturday night at Billy’s mom’s house, as our Christmas Eve plans were changed, since my little nieces were sick and we couldn’t go to Billy’s brother’s house as we had planned. So we went to his mom’s the night before, on Christmas Eve Eve. Wyatt enjoyed spending time with his grandparents and opening his gifts. I enjoyed spending time with them too, and with snuggling with this muppet faced dog Murphy.
On Christmas, Wyatt definitely enjoyed himself, and he cracked me up with all his dancing in front of the Christmas tree both Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. He is joy. He loved his readers are cool shirt that we got him at the street fair this summer. We think the shirt is supposed to be a pun with “readers” meaning the glasses type readers, but we thought it was cute anyway and it was good we did since he put it on immediately.
He of course enjoyed all of his other gifts as well.
Wyatt got lots of books and games, and a train, which was a last minute curve ball he threw at us. I should have figured, he is really into trains and has been since we learned about John Henry last year. He also loved his Bob Ross ornament I picked up at Bronner’s in Frankenmuth, when I went on my girl’s trip out.
We sat around most of the day, took a walk together because the day before, I saw a PIG in someone’s yard. We live in a suburb, and it was a very unusual sight. I was on that walk by myself and now I am obsessed with getting Billy and Wyatt to see it too, partly because Billy is a little skeptical. Lol. We went to my brother’s that night around dinner and had a very casual and laid back holiday evening which was a great time.
The next day (yesterday) we drove out to my dad’s house for our Christmas brunch with him. It was another laid back very good time, full of stories and food and laughter. The kids were so happy, and I think tiny bebe had a fantastic first Christmas! Can you believe that tiny little girl is standing and just about walking? Her older sister Mermaid Girl was walking at that age too!
I caught everyone eating (food or their hands, didn’t matter I guess – looking at you kid).
And now, just some random pictures from the past few days… and unfortunately, I did not get one of the pig.
I am feeling very thankful and blessed. I hope you all are doing well too!
Hello everyone!! I wanted to post one last post before the holiday. I also want to thank everyone who has been linking up with us or just reading our posts! Lisa and I have had so much fun with our Comfy Cozy Christmas event, and I hope that you enjoyed it too.
Yesterday, Wyatt and I spent some time celebrating the Winter Solstice. Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year – and we celebrate the return of the light! I love that this has multiple meanings, the return of the light. Yesterday though my sunshine boy and I focused on the sun. He has endured a lot this year and this smile keeps returning. He is my brave, tough, boy and inspires me everyday to be a better mother.
We spent time making a sun garland to wrap around the little tree, sun bread, and then frosted some pre-made sugar cookies to make them all bright and cheery, like the sun and my boy’s smile.
And I realized that I never shared any of our decorations. We are sort of minimalistic when it comes to holiday decorations, but things still look sort of cute around here!
Our little den and bedroom (and one from the kitchen). They both feel so festive and cozy right now! The white tree is one that was my grandmother’s. I have been trying to revive it this year. It had orange bulbs which was just sort of odd so I ordered clear replacements. It is growing on me, although I am still considering painting it green. It is so mid-century though as it is, so maybe not.
Wyatt created the little area with the owl and silver tinsel tree. I thought it was cute! And I made a little scarf for my dresser snail. He needed one, it is pretty cold for snails right now. And I never do things like buy new bedding for holidays, but this year, I felt like I needed it. I love these trees and the color and every night when I get in bed I feel so happy, so it was a good choice.
I could never get a good photo of our tree though. So, here are a few pictures of our favorite ornaments, and my two favorite guys decorating. And I can’t forget Wyatt’s little wolf that he loves so much!
Just a little reminder: Our holiday linky will be up until Jan. 2 so that you can add any of your after holiday posts as well! Then – Jane Austen January begins!!
Good morning everyone! I have my coffee, a well worn quilt thrown over me, and my little boy next to me watching cartoons.
Wyatt’s MRI results were good! Thank you to everyone who was praying and sending good vibes to him – the neurosurgeon reported that his scans looked great. I am one relieved mama!! Exhausted but relieved. The MRI itself was not as smooth, but we worked through it and got the images they needed. His neurosurgeon did not want him sedated at all as she said that would not give her as good of an image as she needed, so we had to power through. It took two tries, a call to Child Life Services for assistance, and Billy laying on top of him, but Wyatt made it through the MRI tearful but not as terrified as he was when we started.
The night before the MRI (which was scheduled for 6:15 am!) we stayed at a hotel that is just fifteen minutes from the hospital to make things easier. Weber’s in Ann Arbor is amazing – they offer a University of Michigan hospital rate Sunday through Thursday and it is so helpful. We have stayed there twice in the past two months for early morning appointments and although we found out about the service only the second time, they have always been very accommodating of Wyatt and his needs.
It was a very cold and wintery night Monday night! Wyatt and I headed to Ann Arbor early for check in, while Billy was meeting us after work. We were trying to wait for Billy to order pizza but he got held up at work and then the weather was bad making his drive longer (and scary for me, on the other end waiting for him!) so we ordered up room service! I felt so fancy. And Billy’s food was still warm when he got there, so it worked out pretty well.
Wyatt and I passed the time in the giant bed, watching tv and reading. We are pretty easy.
In the time between his ER visit and MRI follow up, we stayed pretty close to home. We played games and wrote a letter to Santa that we popped in a mailbox, ate cookies, read books, made Christmas ornaments, and waited for MRI day to come. It has been a long, long, two weeks for me!
We also made a gingerbread house!
It turned out pretty cute and kudos to Wyatt and I for not eating all the candy before using it!
And that is it from my side of the screen. Hope all is well with you all.
So the day after Thanksgiving, Wyatt and I made a paper chain to countdown until Christmas, but with a twist. We wrote either a title of a Christmas book that we own or the words library book on each link, and every night Wyatt pulls one off and we read the book. If it says library book, he gets to pick one of the many holiday books that we check out from the library. It has been a lot of fun and it has been a nice way to end the night with him before bed.
So, what have we read? Settle in and take a look!
I have been saving the links and dating them too, because I am that sort of mom.
And..
And….
We are a night or two behind, for different reasons. But the books coming up are:
Plus a few library book surprises that haven’t been chosen at the time of this post yet!
I am not going to talk about all of these books. But there were a few favorites, of course.
I absolutely love A Simple Christmas on the Farm! I love all of the holiday books by Phyllis Alsdurf and buy them for Wyatt whenever she releases a new one.
We both loved The Christmas Book Flood by Emily Kilgore.
Then The Christmasaurus and Me and My Dragon: Christmas Spirit were huge hits with Wyatt! The main character boy in Christmasaurus is in a wheelchair, which made it a million times better. Wyatt loved the idea of flying through the sky, being pulled by a Christmasaurus!
I also have to give a shout out to My Christmas Treasury, which was a well read favorite of mine as a little girl, and also The Animal’s Christmas Eve. Both are classically timeless in my opinion.
This has been such a wonderful cozy time with my boy, and we all look forward to it every night.
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date
Hey all! Last week was a whirl! I had so much to catch up on, plus homeschool, and also of course Christmas things – shopping and planning and activities with Wyatt. It’s that time of year! And, to think I am keeping it simple! We are in the home stretch now!
Wyatt also has a follow up MRI on Tuesday from his hospital visit. If everyone could please send prayers and good vibes for my little guy I would appreciate it.
Reading:
I am still working on the Amanda Flower book, but I am enjoying it! I am also listening to The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan, who is one of my favorite authors. I just love her books!
So much! We watched We’re No Angels – which I highly recommend- and Coyote Creek Christmas. We also watched Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas with Wyatt, and he giggled through the whole thing. He loved it, and I loved watching him love it.
When we aren’t watching Christmas movies, we are watching Lark Rise to Candleford and I am obsessed!! Has anyone else watched?
And that is it from me today! I hope you are all are doing well!
Note: I have posted this before, once in 2018 and then again in 2020
My grandmother was a fantastic baker. I live in the same house where she raised my mother, aunt and uncle, with the world’s tiniest kitchen (for real), yet she could make holiday dinners for the whole family, and baked every single day, some sort of treat for my grandfather who had a very big sweet tooth, in that tiny kitchen. Two things she was famous in our family for- her coconut tarts and her Empire biscuits.
My family is divided into two camps: The Coconut Tart people, and the Empire Biscuit people. Don’t get me wrong, we will gladly eat either/or, but..we have a preference for one or the other. I love a good Empire Biscuit, but Coconut Tarts are my weakness. My grandma made them every Christmas and it was the dessert I looked forward to the most.
When my grandmother passed away, my Uncle Art took over the making of the coconut tarts and Empire biscuits, and one afternoon I spent learning how to make coconut tarts with him. It is one of my favorite memories of him, as we lost him to COVID in Nov. 2020. And now I am crying while typing. My uncle and I had a special relationship, with him trying to teach me to garden and bake and even knit, which I never did learn. He did his best work teaching me to love gardening, although I CAN make coconut tarts.
When I posted this in 2018, my aunt called to tell me just how tickled Uncle Art was that I posted on my blog about our day together. I hope he is somewhere up there with my grandma, still being tickled about this being posted.
So to make these bad boys – because they are delicious but most definitely not healthy, read on…
Ingredients for the gooey coconut filling:
3/4 cup sugar 1 can Eagle Brand condensed milk 1 tsp. vanilla 1/4 lb. butter melted 1 egg 3/4 cup coconut, firmly packed
For the pastry : 2 c. flour 2/3 c. butter flavored Crisco + 4 additional TB (my mom uses cold butter but I don’t know how much) a pinch of salt 2/3 c. water
Preheat the oven to 425.
We made the filling first, but I don’t think it matters which you start with. It was easy! Basically, just combine all the above ingredients in a bowl, and whisk until everything is mixed really well. You want to make sure you really incorporate the sugar, it has a tendency to want to sit on the bottom.
Next we made the pastry- this was a little bit more complex but not too terribly difficult. I just really hate getting my hands dirty. Bleh. You start by adding all the ingredients together in a medium to large size bowl- we used a vintage Pyrex one which I am sure was not bought vintage like mine were. Then I cut it in the Crisco using a pastry cutter. Once this was all cut in well, my uncle showed me the next technique, of making the dough all crumbly. I am not sure of the technical terms, but we called it making it crumbly.
This technique involved running it between his hands, using the friction to combine it and make it all crumbled into little balls. Once the mixture was all crumbly, we could easily roll it all together into a ball.
Ta-da!
Once we had this nice round ball of dough, we split it into two balls. Next, we placed one of the halves onto a floured piece of wax paper to roll out. We also put another piece of wax paper over the top of the dough, so it was sandwiched between two floured sheets of wax paper. Then I commenced rolling. You want it nice and thin, but not too thin. Maybe 1/4 inch thick.
We had some little helping hands too. My cousin’s three year old daughter assisted me. Once it is rolled out, you can cut circles to place into the muffin tray. I would say the one my uncle used was about 4″ across. He said this was not perfect but it worked for him. So maybe the size of a wide mouth water glass.
Once you roll out all the dough and have cut the circles, you can start slowly placing them into the muffin tin. This part is the slowest, most laborious part in my opinion.
Mine were a bit messy but looked like this when I was done. A bit of a trick – instead of using your fingers to press the dough down into the tins and onto the sides, once you have it set in loosely, you can use a small lump of dough as a little press instead of your fingers. Once you have everything ready to go, you are ready to fill! Give that filling a good whisking again to stir up any sugar that may have settled while you did all this stuff with the dough. When finished, add about 2 TB filling to each tart. This is entirely up to you, how much is added. I just wouldn’t suggest all the way to the top, because then they will overflow during cooking. Pop them into the oven for about 15 minutes (12-17, but we did 15) until the dough is a nice golden brown, and the filling has a nice golden color as well. My uncle then covers his with a dish towel for a few minutes to trap the heat a little longer without baking.
Once they cool, enjoy! Perfect with a milky, sugary cup of tea. Yum!
And that is all there is to it! I hope I did an ok job explaining this – I didn’t realize how difficult it was to write down a recipe that is mostly conveyed by look and feel in our family. If you try to make them, let me know how it goes!
Billy and I have been immersed in a world of Hallmark Christmas movies lately, and the time has come to break out of that cozy world and start watching old favorites. And who better to watch a classic movie with than Lisa of Boondock Ramblings!
We knew we were only going to buddy watch one movie this month – and this was the winning pick. I had seen it years before and loved it, so I was excited to revisit it. It was new to Lisa though, and I feel like I deserve a gold medal for picking an old movie that she had not seen or heard of!
This is a very unusual Christmas movie, but I absolutely loved it. It is wholesome but…not, as well. Sort of a tainted wholesome, if you will.
The internet (I literally just saw this in the sidebar of Google but I liked it) summarizes this movie by saying:
After breaking out of prison on Devil’s Island, Joseph (Humphrey Bogart) and his two cohorts flee to a nearby town and hide in a shop run by kindhearted Felix (Leo G. Carroll) ; his wife, Amelie (Joan Bennett) ; and their daughter. The three men plan to rob the store and board a ship the next day, but they soon change their minds after sharing Christmas dinner with the family. When they learn of the family’s financial troubles, the convicts decide instead to carry out a few good deeds.
Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray, and Peter Ustinov were fabulous in their portrayal of these criminals who find they have a soft spot after all. Bogart plays Joseph, who is the leader of the group it seems, Ustinov plays Jules, who really had some of the best lines and delivery the whole movie, and Ray plays Albert, who was the most sinister of the three – just something about his character gave you the chills, despite the fact that he also wanted to help the family they had originally intended to rob.
Lisa and I were watching this practically at the same time and she was chatting me at first, saying “Erin! What kind of movie do you have me watching?” which cracked me up. I mean, a Christmas movie about escaped convicts does seem a bit weird. And the humor in this is dark, which really works set against the sunny backdrop of this French colonial village.
The Ducotel family is a sweet family, just not very financially savvy – they are much too kindhearted, I believe, unlike Felix’s (the head of the Ducotel family) cousin, Andre, who is absolutely loaded and owns the shop that Felix runs. He is also a huge jerk and could give Ebeneezer a run for his money. Unfortunately for Felix, who is running the shop in the red, Andre shows up at Christmas to check on the finances. At first, the family thinks they have a bit of time before he shows up, as he is onboard a boat and can’t leave, but he somehow manages to get off the boat early – before Joseph can cook the books for Felix, which Felix didn’t want anyway. Because Felix, unlike Joseph, is not a criminal.
However, before Andre gets there, the family and the convicts are able to celebrate Christmas together, and it is so cute and charming, despite the fact that we know what the three men are capable of. Joseph wears a pink frilly apron in the kitchen (and a giant knife), Albert helps to decorate the summer house with flowers and it all seems so very innocent. They even perform a song for the family, which was very nicely done.
Before I forget, Albert has a pet. A pet snake, named Adolf, who is a very deadly snake. We never see said snake, but we do see his cute little cage.
Adolf plays a very important part in this story….
I don’t want to give too much away honestly, because this movie is fantastic, and I highly recommend watching it. It is witty, fast paced, quirky, surprising, and does celebrate Christmas. Joseph, Jules, and Albert may not be Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, but they do change the lives of this family for the better, in their own way. They are comfortable with who they are, they are fine with being criminals, but got so wrapped up in this family, cared about them so quickly, that they were willing to change their plans for them, on multiple occasions. They took the Ducotel’s into account with all of their decisions once they decided they liked them.
And I will leave it at that. I highly recommend that you watch this wholesome not wholesome Christmas movie!
And… I wanted to share that in January we will be starting a whole new event – Jane Austen January! Get ready for movies based on the works of Jane Austen. We will post more about that after the holiday though.
Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.. 