Winter is coming here in the cold north of the United States and with it long dark nights, and chilly temperatures. For some people this is a nightmare. I however, look sort of forward to it. It is good to slow down, and winter here forces us to do just that.
“Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it.” – Richard Adams, Watership Down
I do look for things to make the winter cozier though. I am all about the cozy and comfy over here, and spending time with a book under a blanket on a cold evening is something I love. Especially if my tummy is full of soup.
Weirdly, I had this idea before I started reading my current book, The Enchanted Greenhouse, and if the idea was just turning over in my brain when I started the book, halfway through this book it was a full fledged one. This book takes place in winter and they eat soup, a lot.
So the idea: On Saturdays, we share a soup we made or ate during the week, or maybe just one we really like, and if possible, share the recipe. Then, of course, we share a story. You can tell us about the book you are reading, or if you want, just share a story of something that happened to you over the week. Maybe even a story of a memory, since I feel like winter and fall make us more reflective. Think of it like we are all sharing a table together, feeling proof against the winter, enjoying our warm food and companionship. And now, I feel like this is so hobbity and I am even more excited!
I will have a linky so we can all pop around and visit, and our first soup and story Saturday will be November 15. I am really looking forward to this!
Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl
Today’s Prompt: The First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed from My Shelf
So today’s prompt is so random and fun! I unfortunately don’t own as many books as I once did, I use the library most of the time so I didn’t have as many books to choose from here but it was still a lot of fun!
We were supposed to “stand in front of your book collection, close your eyes, point to a title, and write it down. If you have shelves, point to your physical books. If you have a digital library, use a random number generator and write down the title of the book that corresponds with the number you generated. You get bonus points if you tell us whether or not you’ve read the book, and what you thought of it if you did!“
So, let’s get started!
Shady Hollow: I listened to this once on audio, and now I am excited to read the physical book. I want to read the whole series and need to remind myself about it.
Inkspell’s Enchanted Holiday: Not yet, I am saving it for December. I don’t know much about it but I bought it from a book festival of independent authors last month.
The Honey Witch: I did read this and I loved it!! This was a gift from an internet friend.
Nancy Drew The Bungalow Mystery: I did read it and I am going to read it again I think for Lisa’s Nancy Drew November. (I am not sure if this is linky event or if she is just doing it) Or maybe I will just get a new one since there are so many. Lol.
The Echo of Old Books: Jeesh, another no! But now that I have had it in my hand again I think I will soon!
Seacrow Island: Yes! I loved this book! I definitely recommend it.
The Blue Castle: Another yes, and another recommendation. And, another book gift from a friend!
The Salt Path: Yes, I read this and I enjoyed it. I did not however like the second book, sadly.
Hello everyone!! A new month is here, and that means a new link up for the bookish link party that Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and I co-host every month!
It’s just all about books!
So, some guidelines.
1. For Bloggers, you can link unlimited posts related to books and reading. These can be posts about what you’re reading, book reviews, books you’ve added to your shelf, reading habits, what you’ve been reading, about trips to bookstore, etc. You get the drift.
2. Link to a specific blog post (URL of a specific post, not your website). Feel free to link up any older posts that may need some love and attention, too.
3. Please visit at least two other bloggers on this list and comment on their posts. Have fun! Interact! Get some book recommendations.
4. Readers can click the blue button below to visit blog posts.
5. If you add a link you are giving me permission to share and link back to your post(s).
It’s just another fun way to build our bookish community!
We had a whirlwind October, and so I am looking forward to a less busy November. I want to fully embrace a slower fall, now that Halloween and October is over. We went all out for October because Wyatt had such a crappy summer, and we definitely had a blast. But, now we are ready for relaxing!
Most of the month should be pretty quiet, although we do have two milestone events this month. First, happening Tuesday, is Billy and my 25th wedding anniversary. It seems unbelievable that we have been married that long, but I guess it is true. I am pretty sure we are still only 17.
Which leads me to the next milestone – guys, I turn the big 5-o this month. What the heck? I really really can’t be that age. It sounds insane to me, but again, here we are. Honestly, I’m not really that hing up on the number. I feel every year is a privilege. I am not sure what sort of celebrations we will be having, but I am sure they will be pretty simple affairs. I do know that my besties here are planning a night out, with a bit of fun at the tie dye place downtown followed by dinner at Ima, a noodle house I have been wanting to go to for awhile now! I am the oldest of our group, by one year. Jill is a year younger than me, Kelly two, and Chrissy – well. Nine. Nine years younger than me. I am very much looking forward to our night out though. I miss my crew and life gets in the way a lot of us hanging out. Kelly has a senior in high school this year, and is busy with all of the events and different things happening in her daughter’s life, Jill works so hard – she is a respiratory therapist at two different places, a full time job during the day and then some night shifts at the hospital. Chrissy works and has two children, one of which is a toddler. So it will be nice for us to have some time together, hanging out and having fun.
Billy has plans for our anniversary, dinner out at an old favorite of ours, and he took the day off to hang out with Wyatt and I. We are hoping for a hike somewhere, full of fall colors and brisk weather.
Outside of these two big events, the rest of our month should be quiet, with the exception of Thanksgiving, of course, but my brother is hosting so I just need to provide a few dishes, including my Nantucket cranberry pie.
I want to try to repair my vintage quilts this winter. I don’t know how though. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. I plan on making a post about this, with photos of them as they are. I love them so much, they are so soft and warm but they need some help and I don’t want them destroyed. But I do want them to be used.
Wyatt also wants me to make some mini-felt animals. He found a book at the used book store with photos and patterns, don’t ask me how, of little animals and wanted me to sew a few. So I am giving that a whirl to this winter. He wants to sew too, but I can’t figure out how to do accommodate that for him yet. He has full use of his left hand, he is a lefty, a natural one so that is good, but his right hand is more of a helper, and he does not have much in the way of fine motor skills with that hand. More like big movements that are sort of clunky. So I do plan on researching that a bit for him.
I also have some other goals, that are pretty small but I am looking forward to. I want to make really good cinnamon rolls, for one. I am not a great baker but I like to try and focus on something until I can perfect something, and have it be like, my good version. I have the nantucket cranberry pie, chocolate chip cookies, scones, and gingerbread cookies under my belt, and have my sights set on cinnamon rolls next.
I am also thinking of doing a little Soup and Saturday Stories feature on my blog. Doesn’t that sound cozy? Maybe make it a link up, and we can all share the soup we are eating, the recipe, and the book we are reading? I love soup. It is one of my favorite things about fall and winter, that it is soup season! And I have Billy reinvigorating his sourdough mother that has been sleeping all summer, because sourdough pairs perfectly with soup and stews.
I am of course thinking about Christmas. I would like to try my hand at painting some Christmas cards, but if that proves to be too much for my talent, I am going to just purchase some. I have been listening to the podcast In the Meadow, and Vic has been talking about how analog and doing things the way we did just two or three decades ago, can make such a difference in our lives. Screens, quick information, the digital life, has its good points, but it is also good to step away sometimes, do something like send Christmas cards again, or letters. Maybe use an actual clock or watch. A radio. You get the idea. I am going to start small – Christmas cards. What better way to connect?
So that is where I am mentally tonight, on this cold dark night already, the day after Halloween. I am sitting in the den with my husband and son, Billy watching some documentary on tv, Wyatt playing with his magna-tiles on the floor, my cat purring asleep next to me.
Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and I are back to watching and sharing about comfy cozy (and as we move closer to Halloween, spookier) movies for the fall season. Feel free to join in with us!!
This week’s movie was the 1999 film The Mummy, starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and Oded Fehr.
I absolutely love this movie, for many reasons. I think it is a wild rumpus of a movie, cheesy in parts, creepy in others, with goofy little funny scenes, and Oded Fehr. Yes, he is a reason I love this movie. But we will get into that more later.
Google Overview: “The Mummy is a rousing, suspenseful and horrifying epic about an expedition of treasure-seeking explorers in the Sahara Desert in 1925. Stumbling upon an ancient tomb, the hunters unwittingly set loose a 3,000-year-old legacy of terror, which is embodied in the vengeful reincarnation of an Egyptian priest who had been sentenced to an eternity as one of the living dead.”
I love movies with academic women going out on expeditions. I love books with that as a theme as well. And I think this is the movie that started that love for me. Evie is an awesome female heroine; intelligent, beautiful, human with her mistakes and clumsiness, brave, and best of all, a librarian! Rachel Weisz plays her part so well, she is charming and adorable and funny.
On the other hand, of course like in all movies like this, she is paired with a rough and tumble adventurer, Rick O’Connell, played by Brendan Fraser. And whew his cardio for this movie had to have been intense. Billy and I think he spent 90% of the movie running! All of them really because it was one action scene after another.
The duo is rounded out by Evie’s brother, Jonathan, played by John Hannah, who is a bit a wastrel but she loves him and he loves her. And he does have some worth, as he can also read and speak ancient languages, which is important later on in the movie. Although it cracked me up how many scenes he raced into, to skid to a stop in horror before joining the fight. Despite being comic relief, he is also a valuable member of the team.
And then there is Oded Fehr. He plays Ardeth Bay, a Medjai warrior and chief who is dedicated to preventing Imhotep from returning to life. I guess he wasn’t counting on a librarian spoiling those plans! He rounds out the group as the action and danger really begins.
I also had a huge crush on him after this movie all the way back in 1999. In fact, last night when he came on the screen while we were watching it all together, Billy turned to Wyatt and said “Your mom thinks he is handsome,” in that singsong type of voice. Lol. I couldn’t deny it. And then when I texted that to Lisa, she had a little confession of her own about him as well. Sorry Brendan, had we been Evie our affections would have been for a different man.
Sigh.
Ok, back to the movie. There is a race to the treasure, because of course. Former associate of Rick’s, Beni, an opportunistic thief is leading his own group of men to Hamunaptra, which is said to contain treasure. Evie is interested in a book, because she is a librarian.
Of course, all manner of disasters and mishaps and calamity ensues. People die (all offscreen). Imhotep is obsessed with reincarnating his girlfriend, and plans to use Evie to do it.
This movie has a bit of everything – action, adventure, comedy, horror, romance. A little something for everyone!
However, how much did this movie get right about Egyptology? I was surprised to read that an actual Egyptologist did work with the film, a man named Dr. Stuart Tyson Smith. According to a post from Egypt at the Manchester Museum, there were quite a few things that were accurate, including some very small details. One such detail was the book that Evie was reading near the beginning of the movie, while onboard the boat during their journey to Hamunaptra, is actually a book that someone studying or interested in Egyptology would have been potentially been reading at the time. It was The Dwellers on the Nile, by E. A. Wallis Budge, and was published in 1885. I love that the filmmakers and Dr. Smith thought abut keeping this small little detail so accurate!
I also got sucked into this analysis by Dominic Perry on TikTok. If you are interested in any of the history surrounding this movie, give this a watch. It is fascinating.
Overall, I absolutely love this movie. It is just fun and cute in parts and I don’t think it is particularly scary, but that is all subjective to the person watching of course. Billy loves it as well, and Wyatt seemed to be before he fell asleep. Lol.
Next up, we turn back to the cozy and comfy, watching The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain.
And with that, I will wrap this up and say goodbye! Don’t forget to check out Lisa’s post here.
Hello everyone! Remember the senior superlatives in school? I was never nominated for anything, but Billy was chosen twice, as Most Unique and Most Artistic. I was not surprised, he was and is both of things, unique and artistic. (and many other things as well). Anyway, I thought it would be fun to “award” superlatives to book characters for this spooky season!
Cutest Couple:
Ellis and Cooper from Falling Like Leaves. They are just adorable! And if you want a book that fully immerses you in the fall season, pick this one up.
Best Dressed:
Clio from Play Nice. She is a fashion stylist and an influencer and as she says in the book, if she says something is fashionable, then it is. She sets the trends.
Most Likely to Succeed:
Is there anyone else who wants so bad to achieve perfection as Annie? She wants to make everyone happy, solve all the problems and look good doing it. She is motivated and driven and has magic up her sleeves as well.
Best Entertainer/Class Clown:
The answer, obviously, is former theater kid Tristan, who turns his ghost tour into another way to play a roles and entertain the crowds.
Biggest Chaos Monster:
Eliza from The Late-Night Witches. She is like the younger sister who just bumbles into all the messes, but has a good heart.
Most Artistic:
Maeve from Uncharmed. I don’t want to give too much away, but she is a very talented young artistic witch!
Most School (Town) Spirit:
No one loves their town more than Sophie!
Most Responsible:
Cassie is basically a single mom of three, who also feels a maternal responsibility for her little sister Eliza (see above). She also becomes the chosen one who has to save humanity. No big deal right? Cassie has a very large sense of duty, and one could definitely rely on her to do the right thing.
Today, let’s talk about haunted houses! I love books with ghosts or pretend ghosts or even sentient houses because of mushrooms, haunted by memories – just creepy houses. Gloomy houses. So today’s list is all about the haunted houses.
Bag of Bones || Home Before Dark || Play Nice
Mexican Gothic || A House with Good Bones || The House Next Door
The Haunting of Hill House || Rebecca || The Turn of the Screw
And finally The Shining. Not technically a haunted house, but a very haunted hotel.
Ooooo today we bring you ghosts of my TBR, books that have been on my list so long I have forgotten about them entirely….
I have gone back on Goodreads to find titles that I added between the years 2015-2020, and chosen one or two from each year. And I have made this sound way spookier than it is. But, it is Halloween week so I am going all out.
Let’s begin at 2020ish and work our way back, shall we? Follow me, and watch your step, you never know what might be lurking here.
The Cold Vanish– From Goodreads: “It’s a tricky thing to write about missing persons because the story is the absence of someone. A void. The person at the heart of the story is thinner than a smoke ring, invisible as someone else’s memory. The bones you dig up are most often metaphorical. While much of the book will embrace memory and faulty memory — history — The Cold Vanish is at its core a story of now and tomorrow. Someone will vanish in the wild tomorrow. These are the people who will go looking.”
Owls Aren’t Wise and Bats Aren’t Blind: From Goodreads: “In this fascinating book, wildlife expert and enthusiast Warner Shedd refutes popular animal myths like squirrels remembering where they bury nuts, wolves howling at the moon, and oppossums “playing dead.”
Have you ever seen a flying squirrel flapping through the air, watched a beaver carrying a load of mud on its tail, or ducked when a porcupine started throwing its quills? Probably not, says Shedd, former regional executive for the National Wildlife Federation. Offering scientific evidence that refutes many of the most tenacious and persevering folklore about wild animals, Owls Aren’t Wise & Bats Aren’t Blind will captivate you with fascinating facts and humorous anecdotes about more than thirty North American species– some as familiar as the common toad, and others as elusive as the lynx.”
Anya’s Ghost: From Goodreads: Of all the things Anya expected to find at the bottom of an old well, a new friend was not one of them. Especially not a new friend who’s been dead for a century.
Falling down a well is bad enough, but Anya’s normal life might actually be worse. She’s embarrassed by her family, self-conscious about her body, and she’s pretty much given up on fitting in at school. A new friend—even a ghost—is just what she needs.”
Toil and Trouble: From Goodreads: “From good witches to bad witches, to witches who are a bit of both, this is an anthology of diverse witchy tales from a collection of diverse, feminist authors. The collective strength of women working together—magically or mundanely–has long frightened society, to the point that women’s rights are challenged, legislated against, and denied all over the world. Toil & Trouble delves deep into the truly diverse mythology of witchcraft from many cultures and feminist points of view, to create modern and unique tales of witchery that have yet to be explored.”
The Man From the Train:From Goodreads: “Riveting and immersive, with writing as sharp as the cold side of an axe, The Man from the Train paints a vivid, psychologically perceptive portrait of America at the dawn of the twentieth century, when crime was regarded as a local problem, and opportunistic private detectives exploited a dysfunctional judicial system. James shows how these cultural factors enabled such an unspeakable series of crimes to occur, and his groundbreaking approach to true crime will convince skeptics, amaze aficionados, and change the way we view criminal history.”
Daughters of the Lake: From Goodreads: “After the end of her marriage, Kate Granger has retreated to her parents’ home on Lake Superior to pull herself together—only to discover the body of a murdered woman washed into the shallows. Tucked in the folds of the woman’s curiously vintage gown is an infant, as cold and at peace as its mother. No one can identify the woman. Except for Kate. She’s seen her before. In her dreams…
One hundred years ago, a love story ended in tragedy, its mysteries left unsolved. It’s time for the lake to give up its secrets. As each mystery unravels, it pulls Kate deeper into the eddy of a haunting folktale that has been handed down in whispers over generations. Now, it’s Kate’s turn to listen.
As the drowned woman reaches out from the grave, Kate reaches back. They must come together, if only in dreams, to right the sinister wrongs of the past.”
The Magic Apple Tree: From Goodreads: “Looking out from Moon Cottage, Susan Hill records the sights and smells, the people, gardens, animals, births, festivals and deaths that mark the changing-seasons in the small Oxfordshire community.”
The House Between Tides:From Goodreads: “An atmospheric debut novel about a woman who discovers the century-old remains of a murder victim on her family’s Scottish estate, plunging her into an investigation of its mysterious former occupants.
Following the death of her last living relative, Hetty Deveraux leaves London and her strained relationship behind for Muirlan, her ancestral home in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. She intends to renovate the ruinous house into a hotel, but the shocking discovery of human remains brings her ambitious restoration plans to an abrupt halt before they even begin. Few physical clues are left to identify the body, but one thing is certain: this person did not die a natural death.
Hungry for answers, Hetty discovers that Muirlan was once the refuge of her distant relative Theo Blake, the acclaimed painter and naturalist who brought his new bride, Beatrice, there in 1910. Yet ancient gossip and a handful of leads reveal that their marriage was far from perfect; Beatrice eventually vanished from the island, never to return, and Theo withdrew from society, his paintings becoming increasingly dark and disturbing.
What happened between them has remained a mystery, but as Hetty listens to the locals and studies the masterful paintings produced by Theo during his short-lived marriage, she uncovers secrets that still reverberate through the small island community—and will lead her to the identity of the long-hidden body.”
Poet’s Cottage:From Goodreads: “Poets had always lived there, the locals claimed. It was as if the house called to its own…
When Sadie inherits Poet’s Cottage in the Tasmanian fishing town of Pencubitt, she sets out to discover all she can about her notorious grandmother, Pearl Tatlow. Pearl was a children’s writer who scandalised 1930s Tasmania with her behaviour. She was also violently murdered in the cellar of Poet’s Cottage and her murderer never found.
Sadie grew up with a loving version of Pearl through her mother, but her aunt Thomasina tells a different story, one of a self-obsessed, abusive and licentious woman. And Pearl’s biographer, Birdie Pinkerton, has more than enough reason to discredit her.
As Sadie and her daughter Betty work to uncover the truth, strange events begin to occur in the cottage. And as the terrible secret in the cellar threads its way into the present day, it reveals a truth more shocking than the decades-long rumours.
Poet’s Cottage is a beautiful and haunting mystery of families, bohemia, truth, creativity, lies, memory and murder.“
I still don’t know if I will get to these, ever. They will continue to haunt me for years to come.
How is the state of your TBR? Any ghosts lingering from a five, ten years ago…maybe even longer?
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date
Hello everyone! I hope that you are all doing well! We are finally experiencing a real Michigan fall here, with the blazing colors and cool temps, and I love it. It’s perfect weather for reading! I did get new glasses last week though, and I had ordered progressives because I was tired of taking my glasses on and off constantly (I need glasses to read) and I am having a hard time adjusting. Is this normal? I did buy a pair of $7 readers from Amazon that I wear at night when reading in bed, and I don’t need to transition or multi-task and that is helping, but I didn’t realize I could do that until near the end of the week. I had a hard time reading books with my “good” glasses and at least now I have these cheaters to help. I do really like my new glasses during the day, when I am cooking, etc because they do make my life easier that way.
Anyway, I didn’t get through the books I wanted to last week because of this adjustment period, so I am behind on my own self-imposed schedule. Lol. So this week I am reading hopefully two of these. We will see how it goes! Why did I have such an enormous spooky reading list??
I am sort of leaning towards The Bewitching and What Moves the Dead but we will see. What Moves the Dead is a retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher, and we are watching the Netflix series of Usher right now, so I sort of want to read that one. But then I am also sort of feeling the Lazy Bones Bookshop and Crazy Spooky Love. Ugh. Problems, problems. Lol.
Billy and I have been watching the Netflix series of The Fall of the House of Usher, which is fantastic but I have to cover my eyes a lot. Mark Hamill is in it, and wow, his performance is amazing. I feel like he steals the show. You wouldn’t even know it was him! It is definitely not for the faint of heart though, and is very creepy and scary. It is a modern reworking of the Edgar Allan Poe story and the writers were so clever, and I love all the little hidden Poe easter eggs. (Roderick Usher Enterprises= R.U.E., etc)
When we need something not scary, we go to an old favorite, and watch the BBC series Victorian Farm. (we watch all of them all of the time, but right now, Victorian is the one we are rewatching)
We are also watching Halloween cartoons and movies with Wyatt, like Charlie Brown Halloween, and Coraline. I think tonight we will watch Hotel Transylvania, which is so cute, or Casper. It’s going to be a tough choice!
Lisa and I watched Coraline for our Comfy Cozy (creepy) Cinema last week, and this week we are going big with The Mummy, starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. Then we settle back down into cozy.
Other Internet Happenings:
Lisa and I have also paused Crafternoons for the holidays, and will be resuming in January. We will start our Comfy Cozy Christmas in December, so stay tuned for that.
And that is it from me today! I hope that whatever you do today, you do something that makes you smile!
Hello everyone!! it is actually cold here this week, and temps next week will be cold as well. I think it is safe to say autumn is here for real.
And it seemed to blow in all at once. We were having a warm sunny day the other day, then all of a sudden it was overcast, gray, and a storm and rain moved in. And that was that. Fall was here in a flash.
We have just been moving along over here. We had a few Halloween events last week, where we gave Wyatt’s costume a trial run, and then a family get together with my brother’s family and my cousin’s family. Billy, Wyatt and I also went to the apple orchard, one of my favorite outings of the season, if not my very favorite.
Let’s start there. It was sort of a neat moment – we went on the same day, October 18th, that we went to the very first time we went to this orchard with baby Wyatt. When Wyatt was a baby, I wanted to find an orchard that we could make our tradition, like I had when I was a kid. The one I grew up going to has turned into a circus, with too many bounce houses and people with tables selling things – it’s just too much. I wanted a more simple experience. Pumpkins and cider and doughnuts and apples – we don’t need anything else. I found one online, Bennett’s Orchard, and off we went with tiny Wyatt. And we have been going there ever since. So this past Oct. 18th was our ten year anniversary of sorts, of going, and it was ten years to the day.
They also have this gentle Lab who will sometimes join you in your wanderings. He has to be getting up there in age now, and is such a sweetie. I love when he joins us.
We had such a good morning at the orchard, although I couldn’t talk Wyatt into wearing a pumpkin hat for old times sake.
The next day was the party at my cousin’s house. He and his partner had it all set up for the kids, and it looked so good! They did a great job making a nice party for our kids of all ages, from 16 years down to 2. There were pumpkins to paint and sticker, doughnuts, pizza, and we brought a jug of hard cider from the orchard to share, while my brother brought different chips and dips. It was such a nice time!
I also picked up my new glasses this week, and just in time, because I broke my only pair! I really like my new pair but I got progressives for the first time and I am finding them confusing. I like them when I am doing stuff around the house, because I only need them for reading and I don’t need to take these on and off all the time, but when I am just sitting and reading and not multitasking I am having a difficult time. So I bought a pair of $7 readers from Amazon that work perfectly for that. It however made for a slower week of reading until I figured out I could do that.
It was a week for reading and hanging out with Brian, my cousin this week, because I hung out with him again on Wednesday! We tried out a place in Detroit called Sip N Read, which is like a bookstore bar. It was cold and rainy and really the perfect night to sit somewhere warm and read. Sip N Read is so pretty inside too! I loved the velvety furniture in shades of green and burnt orange, the space itself was so inviting! There is a small bar when you walk in, and then on the opposite wall are bookshelves. The books are there to be perused and read while you enjoy libations, and they offer wine and mocktails to their patrons. You can either choose to buy the book or not, or just read from different books, or whatever you choose. We had so much fun just reading and hanging out with our drinks. It reminded me of an adult version of when we were kids and would go to the library, check out some Stephen King, and head to his house where we would drink Capri Suns and read together. It was pretty empty but I am chalking that up to the night – it was a Wednesday, and it was so cold and rainy! We had a great time, reading and chatting, and then Brian treated me to the book I was reading as an early birthday gift!
I also did some baking this week – I made cinnamon apple scones, and chocolate chip cookies. I think I am going to be baking more since life is so expensive these days, and the groceries I am buying look different now too. I bought a whole chicken yesterday to turn into a few meals, as it was a better cost value than buying anything else. We are also having meals that turn into leftovers, like chili and stew, and Billy is going to start baking his sourdough again this weekend. Every bit helps!
It’s been fun baking again though. I am not great at it, but I have fun bopping around the kitchen to Oingo Boingo, Taylor Swift, Yaelokre (an Icelandic band my brother introduced me to that has really cool story and lore behind it), and also listening to the In the Meadow Podcast.
All in all, it’s been a pretty darn good week! The leaves are finally turning to fire, the weather is fully fall, and things are getting pretty cozy around here!
I hope that whatever you do today, you do something that makes you smile!
Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.. 