Friday Favorites

Happy Friday Friends!  I am so happy it's Friday.  It's been a looonnnggggggg week.  I've had something every night this week after work and I'm pooped. Tonight I am doing my monthly craft night with Branch and Bloom and then Saturday and Sunday I don't have any plans except to work on crafts for the Holiday Market.  I just love relaxing weekends at home.\

1.  One of my favorites this week was going out for dinner and celebrating my friend Heidi (in the red/black striped shirt next to me) who is going to run the Richmond Marathon on Saturday!  She is the fittest girl I know and she has been training for months for this race.  I am SO SO proud of her and I'm happy that we got to go out and celebrate her this week.  I will be cheering for her tomorrow!!

2.  Another favorite was the Order of Omega induction ceremony.  I advise this fabulous group of fraternity and sorority leaders and I am always happy when we do the induction ceremony every semester.  

  3.  My BFF Rachael and her family own a health food store Wednesday they started "we cook Wednesday's" and this past Wednesday was the first one.  I stopped on our way home and got dinner for our family.  Ava was so hungry after basketball practice she starting eating hers while we were walking to the car.  I think this is a great idea and I hope it's super successful!  We will be getting dinner there every Wednesday night.  

 4.  They cut the Rockerfeller tree yesterday and I got this pic from instagram.  It's hard to believe it's been two years since our tree was "the tree!"  You can read all about our tree here.    It was such a fun experience and I hope this years family has a great experience like we did. 

5.  Last night I did my last official duty as Race Director for the Pit Run.  I presented a $55,000 check from proceeds from the race to the Parisian Foundation.  This isn't a great pic of me-ha ha!  But I am so happy and proud of this!  The money will be used by the foundation for youth programs and scholarships.

6. I just love Joanna Gains and I'm so exicted that I am going to visit all things Gains when I go visit my sister and her family for Thanksgiving in Waco!!  I am so excited to see them and my Dad will be there too so that will be fun.  I got Joanna Gains' new book yesterday.  It is filled to the brim with beautiful pictures and I can't wait to sit down and read through it.  

7.  My favorite part of this week was going to the annual Gala.  It was so fun to get dressed up with my friends (Graig hates dressing up so he stayed home) and go have a fun night out!  I was on the committee this year and we spent a lot of time planning and preparing for this event.  It was a fun night!

I hope you had a great week!!
Xoxo

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday Friends! I'm so happy it's the weekend.  We have one weekend left before we move back home and classes start again for the fall.  I am going to try and soak up and enjoy every second of this weekend.  Before the craziness of packing and moving next week.  As always I am joining up with Erika, Narci and Andrea to share my Friday Favorites.  

1. The BEST thing that happened this week was having Brock home.   It was so much fun-we laughed, ate good food and celebrated his 21st birthday.  We even went to NYC for an overnight trip to see the Yankees play a game.  It was a great week and it went by way too fast. I'm so happy that he's happy.   He LOVES Arizona and is working really hard at his full time job at State Farm and going to school full time at Arizona State.  It's crazy to me that he's all grown up.  He is doing great and we couldn't be more proud of him.

2.  My dear friend Stephanie had a birthday this week and we celebrated by going out to dinner Sunday night.  We went to an Italian place in Cooperstown that had the most amazing homemade pasta.  We each ordered something different and shared them all. It was a night of fun, friendship and delicious food.   Happy birthday Stephanie!!

3.  Last week Rachael and I taught a small group of women who were at a week long camp for adults (how fun would that be?) how to make mercury glass.  These are so easy to do and we had such a fun time.  I hope to do a full tutorial on DIY mercury glass votives soon.

4.  In August I love canning and freezing fruits and vegetables for the winter.  So far this year I have made freezer corn.  I used this recipe.  I just left out the sugar because I thought the corn was sweet enough without it.  The corn is from my Father-in law's garden and it is SO good.  We all love it!  I hope to make some strawberry freezer jam this weekend.  

5.  Tonight I am going to hear one of my favorite authors-Margaret Atwood-speak in Cooperstown.  She wrote two books that I read ( The Handmaids Tale and Alias Grace) both have become TV shows in the past couple of years.  I have been looking forward to her talk all summer and I can't wait to hear her speak.  

I hope you have a great weekend!
Xoxo

Book Review {May}

Last month was a good reading month for me.  I love reading and the best days are when I can spend a little time each day reading.  This month I read three great books and I can't wait to share them with you! 

You can read my other book reviews from this year here 

January

February

March

April 

My favorite book this month was The Lightless Sky by Gulwali Passarlay.  I read this book for my book club and it was so so good.   We had a great discussion of this book at our monthly book club meeting.  This book told the true story of 12 year old Gulwali who fled from Afghanistan at his mother's insistence  after his beloved father and grandfather were killed and 12 year old Gulwali was recruited by the Taliban.  His harrowing journey lasted a year and during that year he was at the mercy of his handlers who were helping him escape.  As a refugee he was passed from handler to handler and was treated horribly at times.  He was also imprisoned, and faced many days of having no access to food or water.  In the end he did make it to England and got asylum there.  He graduated from College, eventually reunited with his mother and even carried the Olympic torch in 2012!    This was a hard book to read and it's amazing to me that he survived all of the trauma he endured during his year of being a refugee.  It's so crazy to me that there are millions of people just like Gulwali who are refugees at this very moment.  It made me realize that the freedom, safety, security and comfort that I have always had is a big blessing.  

I also read The Paris Wife by Paula McClain.  This book was about Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley.  Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding the couple moved to Paris, France where they fall in with a fun and lively friend group that includes lots of drinking, partying and affairs.  Ernest struggles to write and takes many unfulfilling day jobs until he can afford to write full time. Hadley struggles with Ernest and with being his wife.  In the end the pair divorce because Ernest falls in love with another woman.  

The last book I read this month was Present Over Perfect.  I had heard great things about this book and I was thrilled when I saw it on my library app.  I downloaded it and finished it in a few days.  In this book the author Shauna Niequist talks about how she was exhausted from trying to be all things to all the different people in her life.  She was tired of being tired all the time and she knew something needed to change. She started focusing on what matters most to her-her family and being present with them day to day.  I struggle daily with being so busy and trying to fit everything in and this book was a breath of fresh air.  I need to slow down and focus on what is important and this book really brought all of that into focus for me.

If you've read any good books lately.  I'd love to hear about them.  I am always looking for good books to read!

Happy Thursday!
xoxo 

Book Review {March}

This month I read three really great books. They were all different and unique but I love reading different kinds of books about different kinds of people so I really enjoyed them all.

 Two were fiction and one was non-fiction.  I have SO many books I want to read.  It's a good day when I can spend a little time at night reading.  I just love it.!  I am so happy I got through three books this month.

My library has a new online app  called Libby that you can borrow books from. It is fantastic!!  And it's really changed the way that I read.  It's a reading app like a kindle and you read books directly on the app.   You can check out books for two weeks and audio books for one week.  At the end of you time they disappear from your bookshelf in the app.  You can also place holds on books that you want to read.  My actual library has many more titles than what's available in the app but I always check the app first to see if the book I want is there and then I check my library.  If I can't get the book I want from either of those places then I buy the book on amazon.  I honestly am so excited this app is free. All three of the books I read this month I got from the Libby app.  

This month my bookclub read The Last Painting of Sara DeVos.  This book was about the Sara DeVos a painter in the 1600's in Amsterdam.  The book alternates between her story and the story of the couple that owned the painting in NYC in the 1950's, and a art historian who in the year 2000 was living in Sydney Australia.  In the late 1950's the art historian was a struggling art student who painted a forgery of Sara's original painting.  After that her life became intertwined with the painting and the husband whose family owned the painting.  The plot is complicated but the author did a great job of juggling the three story lines.  I honestly loved this book so so much!!  

The next book I read was called Rich People Problems and was the third book in the trilogy of books by Kevin Kwan about crazy, rich Asians.  All three books were so funny and highly entertaining.  There are also a ton of footnotes in the book where the author explains all of the Asian references and phases that he uses throughout the book. This third book starts when the matriarch of the family Sun Yi becomes very ill and the family gathers at the giant family home to say their goodbyes to their beloved grandmother and to jockey for position to see who will inherit her amazing house.  The first book  in the series Crazy Rich Asians is being make into a motion picture that will be released on August 17. I can't wait to see the movie!!

The third book I read this month was a memoir by Jillian Lauren.  It was called Some Girls: My Life in a Harem.  She was paid many thousands of dollars to live at the Palace and party with the Prince of  Brunei and  his friends.  She spent time with the Prince in the mid-1990's and this book talks about her life at the Palace and back in NYC where she lived.  In this book she puts everything out there and I thought she did a beautiful job telling her story.  It wasn't always a pretty story but she told it in her own terms and in her own way.  This month for book club we are reading her second book Everything You Ever Wanted and I wanted to read her first book first before reading the second one.  If you love memoirs I highly recommend this book.  




That's it for me this month.  I have some fabulous books picked out for April and I can't wait to start reading!!  What are you reading?

Xoxo 

Book Review {January}

Happy Thursday friends!  I hope everyone had a great Valentines Day.   G and I went to the movies and we saw Three Billboards...I’m trying to see all of the Oscar nominated films this year.  I’ve seen 5 so far and Three Billboards is one of my favorites.  

 This week has flown by! In January I read two books and since I have book club tonight I thought this was a good day to post my January book review.  I absolutely love reading and if I can spend a little time each day it’s a good day.  

Last month I read two books.  The first one I  read Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate.

I thought this book was absolutely incredible and I couldn’t put it down.  Historical fiction is my favorite kind of book to read. This book follows a family of children taken from their parents.  The family lived in a shantyboat on the Mississippi river and there  were very poor but they were a very loving and the parents adored their five children.  When the mom goes to the hospital to have twins the kids  are taken and their story of survival begins.    This book was based on s real place-The Tennessee Children Home Society and a real woman- Georgia Tann who ran the whole operation.  I honestly had no idea about that terrible place or that awful woman until I read this book.  This is a hauting book and one that I keep thinking about.  I think we will have a great discussion tonight at our book club about this book.  

From Amazon

Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family's Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge--until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children's Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents--but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility's cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty.

The second book I read was Fire and Fury:  Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff.  There was so much buzz about this book and so much on TV about the release of this book that I started reading it the day it came out.  I was both fascinated by this book and angered by it at the same time.  One year into his presidency, I still cannot believe that Donald Trump was elected.  

From Amazon

With extraordinary access to the West Wing, Michael Wolff reveals what happened behind-the-scenes in the first nine months of the most controversial presidency of our time in Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

Since Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States, the country―and the world―has witnessed a stormy, outrageous, and absolutely mesmerizing presidential term that reflects the volatility and fierceness of the man elected Commander-in-Chief.

This month I am reading Beartown and Kevin Zraly's Wine Course.  I really love both books so far. I'll have a full report on both of them at the end of the month.  

Happy reading

xoxo

March Book review

It's my March book review!  This month I was able to read 6 books and they were all so different.  I love reading and I happy I was able to finish 6 books this month.  Honestly there are SO many good ones that I want to read!

I read two novels, one cookbook and the last three were about things I love-organizing, plants and flowers!

My favorite book this month was We Were The Lucky Ones.  This book is my favorite book so far for 2017 and I keep thinking about the characters in the book.  This book is about a Jewish family that lived in Poland.  The main characters are the parents, their adult children and their spouses.significant others.  The book takes place during World War II.   There are so many twists and turns in this book and I love the fact that this book is based on real people and events.   I have recommended this book to so many friends since I have finished reading it.

The other novel I read this month was The Good Girl.  I chose this book for my bookclub last month and I finished it in Florida in early March. It was very suspenseful!  It was a page turner and it was a quick read. If you like mysteries you will love this book.  

Last spring my friend Sabrina and I went to the Country Living Fair.   While we were there we went to a session on Terrariums.  The speaker of that session was the author of this book
Terrariums:  Gardens Under Glass   I got this book because I love creating terrariums.  We did a craft class on Terrariums earlier this month for Branch and Bloom and this book gave us lots of good tips and tricks for the class.  I refer to this book all the time when I'm working with terrariums.

I adore the book Winter Cocktails.  There are so many good recipes and tips for creating the perfect cocktail.  I use this book all the time for parties.  I used the recipe in this book to make a sour mix for my amaretto sours for Bunco and I used the Bloody Mary mix recipe for a craft day I had with some Moms from Ava's basketball team.

Simply Clean is a  brand new book all about organization and cleaning.  As soon as I heard it was coming out I ordered it.  The author is a blogger at CleanMama.net  and she has so many tips and tricks for keeping your house clean.  Her blog is amazing and there is a mountain of information in this book about keeping your house clean and organized.    If you are busy like me then this book is a must read!

I love creating flower arrangements so I got the book The Flower Chef to learn more about arranging flowers.  This book has 85 flower arrangement recipes.  I learned so much more about flower arranging by reading this book and I want to create the beautiful flower recipes that she highlights in the book.  Each year my friends Rachael, Ashley  and I compete in Art in Bloom which is a flower arranging competition in our town. We love doing it each year and  it's so fun to see the creativity of the different designers.  This book includes beautiful pictures and so many tips for flower arrangements.  I know that I will refer back to it often.

That wraps up my March book review!  What did you read last month?  I am always looking for new books to read.  

xoxo 

February book club {The Good Girl}

 Wednesday night I had book club at my house.  This month we read The Good Girl.   It was a good book---very suspenseful!  Honestly I'm not done with the book I hope to finish it on vacation-ha ha!  

For book club I did a Mardi Gras theme and made an amazing cocktail from the Dixie Delights blog.

 

 

I rimmed the glasses with colored sugar.  

 

These drinks were so good!   One of the best cocktails I've ever made.  I will be making these again for sure :-)

 

We also put together a wine basket as a donation for the Boys and Girls club gala.  It was so easy everyone just brought one thing and then we put it together when we were together at book club.  

 

I always love book club night.  It was a fun night!

Xoxo 

Sick Day {Book review}

Ugghhhhhh it seems like everyone I know has been sick with a cold and finally I got it :-(

I'm home from work today resting and I hope I'm up for Avas basketball game tonight.  It's senior night and I would hate to miss it :-(   Here is Ava at a game last week with a few of her teammates. ❤. She loves her teammates and it's been a good season for her.  I'm so sad it's almost over.  

 

 I hate being sick but I do love lazy days at home and I hardly ever get them so I'm catching up on my reading.  Right now I'm reading these four books.  

A Man Called Ove is great so far.  I'm 1/2 way through this book and it's a wonderful story about a man and his life.  He's super crabby and his wife died and he tries all sorts of ways to kill himself but he never succeeds. Which sounds so morbid but it's actually a funny, heartwarming  story about life after loss.  My book club read it this month and everyone    loved it! 

Mix and Match Mama Eats-I live cookbooks and this one is cute.  It's chapters are divided into months and recipes are based on that.  I'm reading the February chapter.  I'm hoping to get ideas because I am hosting bunco and book club st my house this month.

A Complete Guide to Home Organization-I got this book last year for my birthday and I haven't had the chance to read it.  I just started it and I'm loving it.  It's got tons of great tips and pictures and I think it's a great book for anyone wanting to organize their home.

The Life Changing Magic Of Tidying Up- This is another great book on declutteribg and organizing,  I got this book as a Christmas gift for a few friends.  This book has so many great tips and things to think about.  

 

I hate being sick but I'm glad to have a nice warm bed and these books to read.

I'm hoping to be on the mend soon.

Xoxo