Life: It Goes On - September 15

Happy Sunday! It's another beautiful Sunday morning which finds me about to head outside to water, harvest and work on that dresser that seems to be the never ending project. There's a lot of potential for rain in our forecast this week so I need to get busy on that so I can finally get that piece out of my kitchen! Whenever I eventually get my basement decluttered entirely, I need to create some space where I can work on projects inside so I don't end up with half finished things sitting in my kitchen (or taking up space in my garage) for weeks on end. Work continues on that front - I'll be taking another load of stuff to Mini-him today and more stuff went off to charity this week. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: Alix E. Harrow's The Once and Future Witches, which I'll finish this morning. Next up is Griffin Dunne's The Friday Afternoon Club. 

Watched: Lots of volleyball and lots of football and as much of the debate as I could handle. 

Read: Timothy Schaffert's The Titanic Survivor's Book Club. I'm a little over half way finished with it and I would love to find the time this evening to just sit down and devour the rest of it. Not sure what's up next - I have four more library books checked out and several Netgalley books that need to be read soonish. I think this is going to be a quieter week so there should be more time for reading. 

Made: There was a lot of eating out this week and not much cooking, other than the ubiquitous BLTs. 

Enjoyed: Got my hair done, went out to a new place for dinner with friends, won some auction items that I picked up yesterday, and watched a lot of Husker wins. 

You may be wondering why I've posted a picture of the University of Northern Iowa Panthers instead, Nebraska's football opponent yesterday. See #5 right there in the middle? That's our great-nephew. It was so much fun to get to watch him play in Memorial Stadium last night and have a good game. So proud of him and all of his hard work. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: On getting that dresser finished, doing a lot of reading, and getting more stuff out of my house. My goal right now is to make a charity drop-off at least once a week until my house feels lighter. 

Thinking About: Campaign commercials are really heating up. It's not just the number of them increasing, but the lies and vitriol. I may have to convince The Big Guy to turn off the t.v. as much as possible in the next couple of months to avoid them. 

Feeling: A little disappointed. I was supposed to have tomorrow off, just because. I had been looking forward to using the day to get a lot done around here. Instead, I'll be going to work primarily for four meetings. I hate Monday meetings almost as much as I hate Friday meetings, especially when they mean I can't have a three-day weekend. 

Looking forward to: Book club on Tuesday. 

Question of the week: What are you reading? Anything you'd recommend? 

***This week's books are tied together by both being from Netgalley for review and both having a mystery/thriller element***

The Art of Home: A Designer Guide to Creating an Elevated Yet Approachable Home by Shea McGee

The Art of Home: A Designer Guide to Creating an Elevated Yet Approachable Home by Shea McGee

408 pages

Published September 2023 by Harper Horizon

Publisher's Summary: 

Whether it's through her thriving design business, Studio McGee, her popular Netflix series, Dream Home Makeover, or her online community of over five million followers, Shea McGee has shown the world how the principles of high-end design can be applied to any home. As the title of her new book suggests, designing rooms for maximum impact while also remaining approachable to any who enter is an art. But it's also a skill that can be learned because it's inside each one of us.

In The Art of Home, Shea takes us through every room of the house, starting with an explanation of process and then guiding our entryways, living rooms, kitchens, offices, kids' rooms, and even our utility rooms. With step-by-step guides paired with her own design projects and the power of her personal stories, Shea helps us transform the most important parts of our lives and how we live.

What I love about design is the opportunity to dream and then will that vision into existence.

Join Shea as she teaches us to dream and then shows us how to make it reality. Her new book, The Art of Home, is as functional as it is heart-stoppingly beautiful and it will maintain a presence in your home for years to come.

My Thoughts: 

You may have heard of the Studio McGee line of home goods at Target.  I mostly became aware of it there because of influencers on Instagram, who go nuts every time a new collection is released, causing so many of the pieces to sell out quickly. But it wasn’t until I was browsing Netflix for something to watch and came across Dream Home Makeover that I actually became aware that the Studio McGee was created by Shea McGee as part of a company she and her husband own (of course it was – Target isn’t collaborating with just anyone!). Think Chip and Joanna Gaines and you’ll understand how McGee’s efforts have expanded into television, both higher end and more affordable product lines, and now books. 

I learned about the book while watching Myquillin Smith (the Nester) in a Cozy Minimalist community video. The community had a summer reading group - best I could do was try to read a couple of the books (success on that score!). I expected not to be able to get this book for a long while so was surprised to have gotten it in time to participate in the discussion. 

The Art of Home is very much a book designed on the outside to live on the coffee table of a room designed by McGee. Neutral, uncluttered, and yet, somehow, eye catching. And that’s just the outside. It’s equally beautiful inside, filled with two-page spreads of full-color photographs of rooms McGee has created in the past ten years and her own home. Are they all my style? No. McGee has a distinctive style and uses a lot of neutrals (something I always find beautiful but can’t make myself do in my own home). But are they all beautifully done? Yes, yes, they are. Which makes me want to read what McGee has to say about why the spaces were created they way they were and why they work. 

McGee walks readers through the full process, from the very earliest stages architecturally designing the room to the finishing touches. She demonstrates how to mix patterns, provides definitions, guidelines, and tips for a variety of design and décor topics. If you’re not formally trained or haven’t been doing room renovations for years, there is a lot to learn here. I think it would be really useful to have as a resource if you were contemplating renovations. One day, hopefully in the not so distant future, we’ll be doing some renovations and I can definitely see myself purchasing a copy of this book to help walk me through the process. 

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Read by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

45 minutes

Published 2014 by Fourth Estate

Publisher's Summary: 

In this personal, eloquently-argued essay-adapted from the much-admired TEDx talk of the same name-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century. Drawing extensively on her own experiences and her deep understanding of the often masked realities of sexual politics, here is one remarkable author's exploration of what it means to be a woman now-and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.

My Thoughts: 

• Why has it taken me 10 years to read this? Especially given that I've owned it for at least half of that time and it's only 45 minutes long in audio version (to be fair, I had no idea it was quite that short, but still). 
• I'm very glad that I own a copy of this one because I will definitely be rereading it. But I highly recommend listening to it. 
• I may very well put a copy of this into all of my children's hands. Not that any of them need the lesson, but it's nice to have for ammunition when someone tries to say that we don't need to worry about feminism. 
• A big piece of that is Adichie's statement that to argue only for "human rights" is to deny the very specific problems of gender. 
• Adichie challenges all men to recognize that the problems women face actually limit all people. 
• Despite some very heavy examples, Adichie also manages to work in some humor. 
• Adichie includes a lot of examples from her home of Nigeria, but the reader will recognize that these same problems occur in the United States - world wild, in fact. 

Feminist: a person who believes in feminism, and tries to achieve change that helps women to get equal opportunities and treatment.

Feminism: belief in and advocacy of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes 

Given those definitions, wouldn't you agree with Adichie that we should all be feminists? 

Life: It Goes On - September 8

Happy Sunday, late! We made a 24-hour trip to Kansas City this weekend to spend time with Miss H and help her with some things. It's always good for my soul to spend time with one of my kiddos, especially when I get to mother them. We got some things hung, some things repaired, some things reorganized and The Big Guy and I did some cleaning to help her get caught up. Meanwhile, let's don't talk about how so many of those things need to be done around here! How it is so much more fun to help out around other people's homes than our own? 

Miss H and I made a Trader Joe's run yesterday. She got actual groceries; besides picking up lunch, I came out looking like a 10-year-old who'd been let loose in the store with a hundred dollar bill. All. Of. The Snacks! Oh, and leave it to Trader Joe's to get me to finally start looking forward to fall - I picked up a half dozen small pumpkins and a couple of little mums. And now I want more pumpkins and more mums. But also I want it to still be summer. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished Trust by Hernan Diaz and started The Once and Future Witches, which I also have in print. It's a joke in my family that my sister is the wicked witch of the east, while I'm the wicked witch of the west. We're also both fierce feminists so this book seems like a fit for both of us. Which is why my dad pulled a fast one and tricked us into mailing a copy to each other. 

Watched: The Paralympics, a whole lot of football, and Shrek with Miss H (because we always watch an old favorite when we're together and BG wouldn't let us watch Hamilton, which was our first choice). 

Read: Rainbow Rowell's latest, Slow Dance. 

Made: BLTs, chicken salad, a tortellini casserole. 

Enjoyed: Dinner out in KC with Miss H's former roommate and the roommate's dad. We tend to do dinner with them almost every time we're in KC and we all just call it family dinner now. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: I'm hoping to finish Mini-him's dresser this week. We may be having company this weekend so I'll be doing that cleaning that I didn't get done this weekend. And at least one more load of stuff will be getting out of my house this week. 

Thinking About: Tired. Not sure why. While we did get a lot done at Miss H's, we also got in plenty of just hanging out, talking and relaxing. 

Feeling: I continue to feel inspired to get my house under control. And frustrated because I'm the only one in the house that seems to feel that way. 

Looking forward to: Another three-day weekend coming up. 

Question of the week: Are you a football fan? If so, college, pro or both? Favorite teams? 

**This weeks reviews are both nonfiction reads.**

All Things In Common - Greece

I haven't done one of these posts in a long while and I'm not sure why. Certainly I have been reading books that had things in common with other books I'd read recently. But this time, the books were close enough together that it really stood out for me. In fact, almost too close - it almost had me confused about which book I was reading. 

Ladykiller, by Katherine Wood, followed on the heels of my recent read of Ella Berman's Before We Were Innocent and now Rachel Hawkins' The Villa. So many places where these books had similarities! 

• Ladykiller and Before We Were Innocent: largely set in Greece, featuring a Greek heiress and her family's home. 

• All three books have to do with the relationship between friends and in all three of the books the storyline has to do with friends who have not seen each other in some time. 

• In Ladykiller and The Villa, we are getting a good part of the story from documents written by one of the characters. And in both, those points of view are coming from highly unreliable narrators. 

• In both The Villa and Before We Were Innocent, someone dies, although in very different ways. In Ladykiller, someone might or might not have been killed - we're left pretty confident of it but not entirely sure. 

• All three books kept me guessing until the end, wondering about the relationships and what really happened, which, as it happened, was just the kind of book I've been needing lately. 

 

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins

Read by Julia Whelan, Kimberly M. Wetherell, Shiromi Arserio

7 hours, 57 minutes

Published January 2023 by St. Martin's Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable. But by their 30s, their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives. So when Chess suggests a girls trip to Italy, Emily jumps at the chance to reconnect with her best friend.

Villa Aestas in Orvieto is a high-end holiday home now, but in 1974, it was known as Villa Rosato, and rented for the summer by a notorious rock star, Noel Gordon. In an attempt to reignite his creative spark, Noel invites up-and-coming musician, Pierce Sheldon to join him, as well as Pierce's girlfriend, Mari, and her stepsister, Lara. But he also sets in motion a chain of events that leads to Mari writing one of the greatest horror novels of all time, Lara composing a platinum album--and ends in Pierce's brutal murder.

As Emily digs into the villa's complicated history, she begins to think there might be more to the story of that fateful summer in 1974. That perhaps Pierce's murder wasn't just a tale of sex, drugs, and rock & roll gone wrong, but that something more sinister might have occurred--and that there might be clues hidden in the now-iconic works that Mari and Lara left behind.

Yet the closer that Emily gets to the truth, the more tension she feels developing between her and Chess. As secrets from the past come to light, equally dangerous betrayals from the present also emerge--and it begins to look like the villa will claim another victim before the summer ends.

My Thoughts: 

Chess is a highly successful self-help guru. Emily is a less successful cozy mystery series writer going through a bitter divorce and far behind the deadline to submit the latest book in the series. When Chess suggests Emily join her in Italy and they can both spend time writing, Emily agrees. And that's about the last time the two seem to really enjoy each other. 

After they arrive, Emily is just not inspired to return to her Petal Blossom character (and who can blame her - what a ridiculous name - even for a cozy mystery series). Instead, she begins reading Lilith Rising, the only published novel by Mari Godwick which became one of the greatest horror novels of all time, a novel Godwick wrote the summer she spent at Villa Rosato and reading the lyrics of Mari's sister Lara's uber famous novel, Aestas. Soon she's obsessed with uncovered the secrets in those works and in the villa itself. And that's when things become very tense between Chess and Emily. 

Between Chess' and Emily's chapters, the story of what happened in 1974 is revealed through Mari Godwick's eyes. That storyline overshadows the contemporary one, in no small part because the reader is playing a game of "I see what you did there" with Hawkins. Mari Godwick = Mary Godwin Shelley; Pierce Sheldon = Percy Shelley; Noel Gordon = George Gordon, Lord Byron; Mari's step sister Lara = Mary's step sister, Clair. Lilith Rising, created on a stormy night = Frankenstein (although with a twist); Aestas = Tapestry (ok that one doesn't link back to the Romantics, but still). 

What's good here? 

• Playing "I see what you did there," although I'd far preferred that Hawkins let the reader figure out the connections without stating them outright. 
• The twists that I was expecting from Hawkins that which she delivered. 
• The readers are great (but I expected that as soon as I saw Julia Whelan was one of the readers). 

Where it fell short for me?

• The relationship between Chess and Emily, even before the reveal that I can't tell you about. 
• That reveal about Chess and Emily's reaction to it. Not believable to me at all.   
• Although Hawkins' use of multiple narrators in The Heiress was one of my favorite things about that novel, in this book the dual storylines (interspersed with passages from Lilith Rising) didn't work as well for me because it felt uneven. 

Reviews are mixed on this one - some readers and reviewers really love it, others felt it could have been better. I fall in that latter category, but that doesn't mean it wasn't worth reading - there was plenty to enjoy. 

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand

Read by Erin Bennett

12 hours, 45 minutes

Published June 2023 by Little, Brown and Company

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Publisher’s Summary: 

Hollis Shaw’s life seems picture-perfect. She’s the creator of the popular food blog Hungry with Hollis and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, he leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis’s perfect life—her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline—grow deeper.

So when Hollis hears about something called a “Five-Star Weekend”—one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her life: her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife—she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend on Nantucket. But the weekend doesn’t turn out to be a joyful Hallmark movie.

The husband of Hollis’s childhood friend Tatum arranges for Hollis’s first love, Jack Finigan, to spend time with them, stirring up old feelings. Meanwhile, Tatum is forced to play nice with abrasive and elitist Dru-Ann, Hollis’s best friend from UNC Chapel Hill. Dru-Ann’s career as a prominent Chicago sports agent is on the line after her comments about a client’s mental health issues are misconstrued online. Brooke, Hollis’s friend from their thirties, has just discovered that her husband is having an inappropriate relationship with a woman at work. Again! And then there’s Gigi, a stranger to everyone (including Hollis) who reached out to Hollis through her blog. Gigi embodies an unusual grace and, as it hap- pens, has many secrets.

My Thoughts: 

Is it possible this really is my first Elin Hilderbrand book? I think it may be. I know she has legions of fans and has written 28 (or 30, depending on what site you look at) books and I’m pretty sure I own at least one on my Nook* (undoubtedly bought based on a friend’s recommendation). 

I’m sure you’ve noticed, if you’ve been reading this blog for very many years, I’m not a big beach reads reader. Consequently, I can’t speak to how this one stands up to any of Hilderbrand’s other books or, for that matter, any other beach read. These are, as always, just my opinions. 

• Hilderbrand seems to want to check off all of the boxes. Black character? Check. Asian character? Check. Gay people? Check. One Goodreads reviewer really didn’t like this book at all, in part because of this and the “wokeness” of the book. To me, it just felt like Hilderbrand was trying to appeal to everyone, which is really hard to do well. 
• Hollis knows all of these women. She knows how many of them feel about some of the others. She does NOT know one of them in real life at all…honestly it didn’t feel like she knew her all that well as an online friend, either. And still she fully expected that they would all just have a great time together over the weekend. Spoiler alert: they don’t. 
• I could 100% have done without the old love interest appearing in the book and the book would have been better without him. And I would have liked Hollis better without him – it all felt so much like the behavior of high school kids. 
• There’s a lot of brand name dropping. 
• There’s a lot of talk about food. Which I enjoyed but it made me hungry all of the time. I can’t help but wonder if there are some delicious recipes thrown into the end of the print copy of this book. 
• I wasn’t a fan of most of the women, at least until later in the book when things began to resolve (no give away there – you all know that will happen because of the kind of book this is). So their behavior really annoyed me when they were letting petty things and past grievances impact a weekend that was supposed to be about helping their friend. 
• I did appreciate Hilderbrand’s take on social media: things aren’t always what they seem, we are often too quick to think of the people we “meet” there as people we truly know, and things can get blown way out of proportion and spread all too quickly (often causing real harm). 
• Erin Bennett does a fine job of reading the book and capturing the voices of so many people. 
• And the food – did I mention the food? Good golly, I want to get into the kitchen and pull out my cookbooks! 

Kirkus Reviews says “Hilderbrand always gets it right.” On the other hand, Goodreads reviewers by and large seem disappointed with this one. Which makes me feel better and more willing to try another Hilderbrand. 

*Actually I own two – 2009’s The Castaways and 2012’s Summerland

Life: It Goes On - September 1

Happy Sunday! It's cliche and perhaps a little Boomer-y to ask, but I'll ask it nonetheless - how is it September already?! 

On social media, the "influencers" have long ago begun decorating for fall; but, for me, fall doesn't begin until at least today. Even then, I'm not yet particularly happy about it - just means that my plants are going to be dying, it will be darker sooner in the evenings, and I'm going to have to start wearing a jacket. 

One day, before long, I'll wake up and think "I really want to throw on one of my new sweaters" or "what a beautiful evening to have a fire in the fire pit." Then I'll know that I'm ready for autumn. And I'll try to live in the moment, not worrying about the imminent arrival of winter; and focus on the good parts of autumn, and not the fact that my gardens will soon be nothing more than dirt. Maybe this year I'll bring back Fall Feasting - a couple of months of reading food-centric books.

Last Week I: 

Listened To:  Finished Elin Hilderbrand's The Five-Star Weekend (which I thought was her latest and last but isn't) and started Hernan Diaz's Trust. 

Watched: Three more episodes of Emily In Paris - I know I said I was pissed at it and might not watch any more, but I did and now I'm even more annoyed. I may or may not watch the final episode of the season. BUT the exciting news is that college volleyball and football are back and hopes are high! 

Read: Kate Atkinson's Death At The Sign Of The Rook. Today I'm starting Rainbow Rowell's latest, Slow Dance. 

Made: If you can use tomatoes in it, we've made it this week: wedge salads, BLT sandwiches, pasta with tomato and basil, pico de gallo.

Enjoyed: We went with friends Friday evening to see a one-man play, Democracy Su*ks - *unless we can fix it. Tiny theater (might seat 60) - I can't imagine acting that close to your audience and having no one else to lean on. Funny show, with some riffs on Broadway songs, some raunchiness, and a lot of heart. Dinner and drinks afterward, where we solved all of the world's problems. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: I meant to get back to Mini-him's dresser yesterday; but I'm so fired up to declutter that I spent most of the yesterday doing that and I'm fired up to keep at it. Hoping to get another load of stuff out of the house yet this weekend. THEN maybe I'll get back to that dresser. 

Thinking About: I have a big crowd coming for Thanksgiving and I'm already thinking about what all will need to be done before then. I'm trying to think of ways to make life less stressful. I'm pondering hiring a cleaning service for the first time. Do you use a cleaning service? If so, how do you like it?

Feeling: Torn. I have a set of dishes ready to donate. I only use it once a year and have plenty of other options. But it was my mom's. It's the sentimental things that I have a hard time letting go of. I'd ask the Big Guy if I should keep them, but I know he'll say yes (he says that about everything). Clearly what I'm looking for is someone to tell me it's ok to let them go. 

Looking forward to: Not having to go to work tomorrow. And maybe starting to take more time off work. 

Question of the week: Are you a minimalist, a maximalist or somewhere in-between? 

***This week's review theme will be "just for fun" (also, how did I not get any reviews posted last week?).***