books-in-translation – Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs..

Hello everyone! It is time once again for me to post a few mini reviews!

A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping is perfectly adorable. This book is all about love, what we will do for those we love, and finding the people we love. Just so much love. There is also some very villainous villains in this one too, a zombie rooster, a talking fox who is really a witch who has been cursed by her own curse, and various other magics at play. The characters are all those who have been hurt by others, whose existences were not deemed acceptable, for being different or “other”. The inn is a place whose real magic is love and healing, and it is just such a cozy, heartwarming read.

Yay for book one for me this year in the Books in Translation challenge! The Amberglow Candy Store was a very cute, simple, and quick read. I wasn’t in love with it, and I felt like it read pretty young. I actually even looked it back up to see if it was maybe middle grade but it isn’t. However, it wasn’t a bad book. It is split up into different little stories, like most of these healing fiction style books, and I definitely had my favorite stories. I loved the story of Ayumu, and I loved the story about Kogetsu, the han-yu who runs the shop. His story was probably my favorite. This story also made me want to try the types of treats mentioned in this book! All of them are unknown to me, and now I want to try them myself!

I do love this cover immensely as well.

I picked this up as a blind date with a book and it was an amazing read! This is a fictional thriller, murder mystery book, and I literally didn’t want to put it down. The mystery was well done, but even more so the depiction of social media. The ups and downs, the reality and the facade. What is authentic, what is not. And how even when we know that, we are still drawn in by the images and stories we see. I loved too that this was all juxtaposed against investigative journalism and social media, and research vs. opinion. It was all fascinating and I couldn’t stop reading. This is not to say either that all stories and images we see online are inauthentic or fake; just that maybe we all need to realize that everyone no matter how perfect they seem online, is still human.

I also really enjoyed the author pointing out that these women influencers are very powerful, rich women, some of them billionaires behind the scenes from their work as influencers, yet they are under the radar or not acknowledged as such. They might have a different sort of job, but at the same time are CEOs of their brands, which can pull in the big money. Why are they not acknowledged as highly as other powerful CEOs, or even acknowledged at all? I thought this was a very interesting viewpoint.

J0 Piazza spent five years down the rabbit hole, doing research, and is in fact a journalist herself. When she had her baby in 2020 (I think) she began a deep dive behind the moms behind the blogs and Instagrams that always looked so perfect and had it under control, and began the podcast Under the Influence which is all about this topic. I of course started listening and it is just as fascinating as this fiction thriller!

Happy New Year everyone!! It’s a fresh new year out there, full of first sips of coffee to be had, new books to flip through, blank journals to scribble in.

The past few years, my word of the year has been “community”. I wanted to build a bigger community for myself, for Wyatt, for our family. And I feel like I have really done that! Through new blogging friends, our Scout/Blackbirds group, new friendships here, church, and all of our relationships built at our favorite destinations, I feel like we have a nice little community out there for us. As a very shy person, this was actually difficult for me. I had to push past my nerves and learn to find my voice. To engage with other people, to initiate. Sometimes this can be very scary for me, and it is easier for me to stay in my nice cocoon of comfort at home. Which if it was just me, that might be ok. But it is not just me. I mean, Billy is able to do all this for himself, and he is an extremely outgoing and extroverted person so he does, but as Wyatt’s parent at home and the parent who spends the most time with him, I can’t keep him in this cocoon. He needs to do things, experience things, have friends, see all he can. So, I made it my goal to make sure that happens, even if it gave me butterflies. And the more I did it, the easier it became for me. And so this year, my word is “connection”. I want to connect more deeply with what we are doing. I can move past the nerves now, and really experience what we are doing, and who we are with.

I also want to reconnect with nature. This is a part of my life that has been neglected for a few years. Billy and I used to be out in the woods all the time, and that is one area that we haven’t quite figured out yet, accessibility for Wyatt. I did find a front wheel that we can add and remove from his wheelchair and I am going to try to apply for a grant for it this year, but until then, it is tough unless it is paved. But, now with our new deck and ramp in the yard, we can turn our yard into an outdoors area that is accessible right here. Billy is putting in a pond this spring, and we are laying pavers in part of the yard to place wheelchair accessible raised garden beds, and a space for his outdoor toys. Billy and I are also hoping to get some flowers in this year. I dream of adding trees but I have been saying that for years now. Maybe this will be the year!

2025 had it’s challenges – the biggest one being Wyatt’s surgery, which all of you know about it if you read here regularly. That was a difficult time, and I honestly didn’t know before the surgery how we would make it through. And then it happened, and the support we received from people blew me away. We had neighbors send meals for days, friends drop by with food or sending gifts in the mail to make Wyatt’s days easier (and mine), grandparents who stepped in when Billy had to go to back to work and spent the entire day with Wyatt and I, helping me through the hard stuff. Cards and e-cards, comments of support here on the blog. There was just so much love and kindness and encouragement. And that was honestly my biggest takeaway from 2025. Not the hard stuff, but the love.

And we did do some really great, fun things too last year. Wyatt was on a bowling league, and went to music camp. It was a year of bookstores, and dragons. Of milestones – Wyatt turned 10, Billy and I turned 50, and our marriage turned 25. I got my mom’s insurance and medical help all settled, and I know that she is safe and taken care of where she is. It was a year where I found the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe, and the perfect lipstick color.

This year, one thing I want to do is keep reconnecting with myself as well. Somewhere in parenthood I lost a bit of me, which I think is normal. You live for your child. But there are places I can still be me, Erin, not “Wyatt’s mom”, which is what I am known as most of the time when I go places. I used to love getting cute outfits together, and now that I am no longer in my 30s (wahhh) and just didn’t bother much in my 40s, I want to reclaim that part of me now. Maybe not on an everyday basis, but I want to find my style now. One that works for my lifestyle but also is more than a tshirt and yoga pants on the daily. I’ve been on that quest for a while, and I have steps one and two conquered, now I am on to the harder part.

I also joined a movement from Little Truths Studio, the Analog Life Project. I’ve been listening and reading a lot about this new move back to life before all social media all the time. Like life in the 90s, the early 2000s, when we had access to the internet and social media but it wasn’t what it is now. I don’t want to give up social media and the internet, I believe it is important for access to all sorts of things, but I want to reclaim that space. I don’t want it to be a place I retreat to in order to doomscroll because I am bored or need to decompress or whatever. I want to put that energy or lack of energy in some cases, into other things. My journaling, reading, game nights, art nights, daydreaming. Puzzles and crafts. Learning to draw and paint. Pen pals and snail mail. I just don’t want to aimlessly scroll anymore. I also did a crazy thing and bought a book that is written in French. Do I speak French? No. Do I read French? No. I took French in high school, I took Latin for four years, and I took Russian in college, and I have always been pretty good at picking up languages when I try them. So, this will be something I do to decompress. Slowly, slowly translating this book. It might take me a very long time but I will do it!

I am also attempting two different reading challenges this year. The Nonfiction Reading Challenge hosted by Shelleyrae at Book’d Out, and the Books in Translation challenge hosted by Jennifer at Introverted Reader. I think I can manage probably the smallest level of each. Maybe more! We will see. I am excited about both. I am already working on a memoir for the Nonfiction Challenge, Dinner for Vampires by Bethany Joy Lenz.

And that is it from me this morning my friends. I will leave you with some random photos, and as always, I hope that you do something today that makes you smile!