Hi all! I hope you have had a great weekend! We have spent ours outside working on our front garden. We let Wyatt choose our color scheme, and honestly he didn’t do a bad job! We have lots of reds and purples and pinks happening out there. Wyatt and I also hung out with my dad on Friday, visiting Greenfield Village and walking around. It was a nice day, and we hope to go back soon. So many schools were there on end of the school year field trips that we couldn’t get on the train ride, so we are definitely going back for that.
We have got a lot on our agenda for this week, but lots of fun stuff! Stuff with flowers and bees and turtles – should be a lot of fun!
Read Last Week:
I finished The Familiars and I really loved it. Review soon hopefully! I also started Common Ground, and I am enjoying it as well.
Reading This Week:
My husband just started Caraval, so I am looking forward to entering this world again so we can talk about it!
Watching:
Criminal Minds on Netflix, Monty Don’s Big Dreams Small Spaces, Game of Thrones, and American Gods. That last episode of GoT!!!! Wow. And American Gods is so good! I am a fan of Mad Sweeney. Anyone else watch this?
Posted Last Week:
In addition to my Sunday-Monday Post, I posted a book review of Bonavere Howl, which was really good.
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date
Happy Mother’s Day (belated!) I hope you had a wonderful day.
We took a mini-break vacation over the weekend and we had such a great time! We went to the tulip festival in Holland, MI and then spent some time in Saugatuck as well, which is a cute artsy community on a waterfront. I had a fantastic time, and just in time for Mother’s Day!
Read Last Week:
Watership Down is my favorite book and I read it every year. I don’t think I will ever get tired of Hazel-rah and his rabbit friends! I also read The View from Alameda Island, which was the perfect book for last week. I really enjoyed it! Review soon!
Reading This Week:
I worked on some of my review books, now I want to read these before I have to give them back to the library! I am looking forward to them both. Common Ground will be a slow read for me. I love to read a nonfiction book slowly over time, so it will be here for a little bit. 🙂
Watching:
Not a ton right now – just Game of Thrones and the old Criminal Minds on Netflix. I was thinking about watching the Ted Bundy movie too, to see how Zac Efron handled the role.
We read a lot in April! We read some books specifically for Earth Day, and we also read a lot of spring and pink themed books as well. Pink for the Pink Moon last month, of course. Lol.
There were so many great books in this bunch!! Wyatt’s favorites by far were A Big Mooncake for Little Star, which he looked at and we read a million times, Plant the Tiny Seed, which is interactive with instructions in the book for kids to tap, and wiggle their fingers and all sorts of things, to help plant the seed and make it grow. He also really loved Todd Parr’s The Earth Book. I of course had my own favorites. I loved loved loved The Pink Umbrella, and read it out loud to Billy and Wyatt one rainy night after dinner. I loved the art and everything about it. I also loved Blackout, Pink is for Boys, which was about how all colors are for everyone, and A Boy and a Jaguar, which was an amazing true story of a boy who stuttered and ended up establishing a protected sanctuary in Belize for jaguars. He fell in love with them at the zoo, and talking to them was the only time he didn’t stutter. He promised the jaguars that if he could beat his stutter, he would fight for them and be there voice. Such a powerful picture book. I loved it.
All of our combined favorites will eventually be bought and added to our home library, since these were all checked out from our local library.
Flora and the Flamingo was fabulous to look at – the artwork is so pretty and retro. The books itself is wordless, with interactive flaps. And the book inspired Wyatt and I to try dancing like flamingos around the house! All of these books really were great in their own ways, the Jane Goodall book, Planting the Wild Garden, all of them, honestly. Not a bad one in the bunch!
Hi everybody! I hope you had a great week! I didn’t get a ton of reading done, as I was healing up from a wee accident, but I did get some good time with my son! I had a lot of time to make plans for the rest of the month, and I am super excited about some of our ideas! I also caught up on Game of Thrones, holy cow!! That last episode….wow!! I can’t wait until tonight!
Read Last Week:
This was a NetGalley read that I picked because..well..New Orleans! I will almost always pick up a book set there. And Caitlin Galway killed it when creating an atmosphere – she can set a mood and a feeling, that is for sure! Review soon.
Reading This Week:
I forgot I had The View from Alameda Island to read! I am happy I forgot honestly, I think it is the perfect week to read it. I am also still rereading Watership Down, my favorite. Love those plucky clever tough rabbits.
April was for the most part, a cold and rainy month. But it is a new month, and a new moon, so here is to hoping that April Showers do bring May flowers, because I am so ready for those lovely colors to be popping up everywhere!
Last weekend was the last weekend in April, and we spent the majority of it outside. The first nice weather really this spring and we were making the most of it. Saturday we spent messing about in our small garden, trying to get things ready for planting, and admiring our new blueberry bushes and cherry tree that we planted. Midway through the day we took a break to drive into the city for a bike garage sale at Back Alley Bikes, which is a non-profit that works on bikes with kids and volunteers fix up bikes that people donate which they then sell cheaply to raise money for their mission. They also will give a free bike to any kid over the age of 5! The last Saturday of the month they have a garage sale where they sell off some of their fixed up bikes and my husband who is a bike nut wanted to go take a look at the bikes. So we did, although I was not really super interested as I am not a great bicyclist. So, it was to my surprise that I fell totally in love with an old bike from the 70s, a Sears and Roebuck Free Spirit, red. My husband had attached our bike rack just in case, so we paid our $50 and headed home. It was getting a little cold and dark by this time so I didn’t get a chance to try it out, but I am looking forward to giving it a whirl. Although, that might be a while…
Sunday we got up early and decided to visit Belle Isle. The sun was shining, and everything was almost technicolor in it’s beauty. We drove around, then got out to look at the conservatory, the gardens, and the koi pond (which freaked me out- did I mention I am weirdly afraid of fish?) I took a billion photos, one of which the Belle Isle Conservatory actually shared on their own Instagram page, which was pretty cool!
These were all taken around the koi pond. In all the times we have visited, we have never walked around in here!
After we had explored to our heart’s content, enjoying the beautiful tulips everywhere, we got back into our car to visit my mom for her birthday. We had a lovely visit complete with ice cream cake, and then as we were getting in the car to go home, I had a bit of an accident. I was putting stuff in the back of the Jeep, and when I shut the back hatch door, which swings up, I forgot the bike rack was still attached. And slammed it down on top of my head. It was instant searing pain, and an instant enormous goose egg on my forehead that my husband wouldn’t even let me look at. We went to the ER where they decided I was ok, but told me as I left that it was going to get really ugly…and they were so so so right. Even as I sit here now typing this 6 days later, I still have two black eyes, a bump on my head, and bruising down my cheeks to my mouth. I spent most of my week laying as low as I could, taking care of Wyatt but not doing much else. For a few days I couldn’t even really read due to swelling, although ice packs every twenty minutes one day took care of most of that. (thank goodness for moms who will take care of your kiddo so you can put ice on your eyes) I’m feeling and looking a lot better, but it was not an experience I ever want to repeat again! So a little PSA for you all: when you take the bike off the bike rack of your car, take the bike rack off too, if you are not someone who uses it a lot!
How about you all? How did you spend your last days in April?
We had such a fun filled week last week! We took a midweek break, and headed out for a walk in the marsh, which we followed up with bakery fresh pepperoni rolls as big as Wyatt’s head. Seriously. Lol. We also planted a cherry tree for Arbor Day, and while walking around the garden center, impulsively bought two blueberry bushes! An impulse buy I can totally live with. I can’t wait for this stuff to grow up and begin to bear fruit. I am not sure how long for the blueberry bushes but I am sure our tree will take a year or two, if it is anything like our apple tree. We also did a few other really cool things, including checking out the Tin Can Tourists that rolled into town with their vintage campers. I took so many photos that I am turning it into a blog post! Anyone else in love with old vintage campers?
Read Last Week:
I stuck to my plan! I finished my book club book Bohemian, which I loved although it’s been a long while since I read a romance novel like this one. Lol. I am a total setting junkie and this book, set in Big Sur at an old bookstore named The Mad Ones for all the Beat poets and authors that used to hang out there was like a setting dream come true. Plus all the literary name dropping! And I am part way through Bonavere Howl, another book I chose for the setting – if a book says New Orleans, I usually at least pick it up and give it a whirl.
Reading This Week:
It’s time for my annual reread of my favorite book Watership Down!! I am also finishing up Bonavere Howl, and reading Bohemian reminded me of how much I love Mary Oliver, so I am paging through some of her poetry again this week.
It was to be the perfect wedding—until the bride disappeared.
Annie Taft’s wedding is four days away, and it will be one of the grandest anyone can remember in her small South Carolina town. Preparations are in order. Friends and family are gathering in anticipation. Everything is going according to plan. Except that Annie herself has vanished. Did she have second thoughts?
Or has something much worse happened to the bride-to-be?
As the days pass, the list of suspects in her disappearance grows. Could it be the recently released man a young Annie misidentified as her mother’s killer? Could it be someone even closer to her?
While her loved ones frantically try to track her down, they’re forced to grapple with their own secrets—secrets with the power to reframe entire relationships, leaving each to wonder how well they really knew Annie and how well they know themselves.
My Thoughts:
I really could not put this book down! I read it in two days, which in the past was no big deal, but these days is a sign that I am hooked, since that means I squeezed reading in whenever possible, possibly even at the expense of laundry or grocery shopping…
Anywhoo, I wanted to know what the heck happened to Annie! Did she just take off, like a runaway bride, or did something more sinister happen? Told from multiple points of view, we got to know the people closest to Annie well. Their good points, their flaws..but we never really got to know Annie. And I think that was purposeful, as I don’t think the people in Annie’s life knew her all that well either. She was that sort of character, you know? Where you think you know someone, but then maybe yo don’t, not deep down? That is Annie. And this book was full of secrets – secrets by the bucketful. Every time you turned a page there was a revelation it seemed by one character or another. I loved learning all these hidden secrets as they were revealed. It was like going to coffee with a good friend and getting all the dirt on something crazy!
The ending gave me mixed feelings, honestly. A few things happened, and while one was pretty much like holy moly I didn’t see that coming, another one was a bit disappointing.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. It was a bit slow to unwind itself, but once it did get going, everything really started to become undone. Not as good as When We Were Worthy, but still a good read.
I received an advance copy from Little Bird Publicity and Lake Union Publishing in exchange for an honest review.
