Life: It Goes On - September 29

Happy Sunday! Holy cow, where did September go? September is one of my favorite months - it's still warm, but cool nights have arrived; football and volleyball are back; flowers are still blooming but you can start mixing in mums; tomatoes are still being harvested. Even though we have a lot to look forward to in October, I'm sorry to see September go. 

And now time for me to go get all of the pumpkins. Slowly I've started to remove the signs of summer and replace them with fall around the house - acorns instead of seashells, more muted colors instead of crisp whites and bright blues, pumpkins instead of fresh cut flowers. Although I did cut off past-their-prime zinnias today, but loved their muted colors so much that I've now got a bowl of dried zinnia heads on my dining room table. I'm taking a cue from Myquillin Smith (the Cozy Minimalist) and using what I have to decorate for the season. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: Rebecca Makkai's I Have Some Questions For You, which I'll finish either today or on my drive to work tomorrow. 

Watched: Football and volleyball, of course. And I finished the last of the latest season of Emily In Paris. It's so funny to me that I like that show so much, but would never read a book that had the same exact storyline. 

Read: I finished Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful. Today I'll start Erik Larson's The Demon of Unrest and continue with Jodi Picoult's By Any Other Name. 

Made: I loaf of sourdough bread, which turned out beautifully and tasted great but didn't rise enough. So today I've got another loaf rising. Fingers crossed! 

Enjoyed: Thursday I had dinner with a former coworker and her six-month-old. Friday night we saw Dear Evan Hansen, which we both really liked, followed by a visit with The Big Guy's brother and his wife. Then last night we enjoyed a perfect evening on the patio, with a fire and s'mores. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: On finally finishing Mini-him's dresser, continuing to work on the basement and my office, and, hopefully, getting BG to help clean out the garage (another of his favorite hoarding places). 

Thinking About: Whether or not I want to winter the two Boston ferns on my front porch. They are still so healthy and lovely. But they are so messy in the house! 

Feeling: Tired. It's time for a new mattress. 

Looking forward to: A quiet week? I make that a question because I have yet to turn the page in my planner. 

Question of the week: Pumpkins - how many do you buy each fall? 

The Titanic Survivors Book Club by Timothy Schaffert

The Titanic Survivors Book Club by Timothy Schaffert

320 pages

Published April 2024 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

For weeks after the sinking of the Titanic, Yorick spots his own name among the list of those lost at sea. As an apprentice librarian for the White Star Line, his job was to curate the ship’s second-class library. But the day the Titanic set sail he was left stranded at the dock.

After the ship’s sinking, Yorick takes this twist of fate as a sign to follow his lifelong dream of owning a bookshop in Paris. Soon after, he receives an invitation to a secret society of survivors where he encounters other ticket holders who didn’t board the ship. Haunted by their good fortune, they decide to form a book society, where they can grapple with their own anxieties through heated discussions of The Awakening or The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Of this ragtag group, Yorick finds himself particularly drawn to the glamorous Zinnia and the mysterious Haze, and a tangled triangle of love and friendship forms among them. Yet with the Great War on the horizon and the unexpected death of one of their own, the surviving book club members are left wondering what fate might have in store.

Elegant and elegiac, The Titanic Survivors Book Club is a dazzling ode to love, chance, and the transformative power of books to bring people together.

My Thoughts: 

I've been a fan of Schaffert's since 2010, when I first met him at Omaha Lit Fest, an event he organized and which I very much enjoyed attending for several years. The Titanic Survivors Book Club is the sixth of his books that I've read and very much enjoyed. I still count his The Coffins of Little Hope as one of my favorites, but his writing has expanded far beyond the Nebraska borders of that book. 

What I Liked About This Book:

• When you read the title of the book, you are definitely expecting a book about a group of people that managed to get into lifeboats as the Titanic sank into icy waters. These are not those survivors, which is makes them so interesting and so bound to one another. 
• The core of this book is the trio of Yorick, Zinnia and Haze and their trio of love stories. Such interesting and unusual characters. I loved how they both made each other better and broke each other apart. 
• Paris...the book store...the clothing and food and drinks. Schaffert is a master at creating atmosphere and painting a picture. I would love to see this book made into a movie so I could see all of this come to life...assuming Hollywood could do the writing, and the image I've created in my head, justice. 
• There is an epistolary section of the book which was an interesting interlude and allowed readers to see the story from many angles. 
• There is always a darkness to Schaffert's writing that draws me in; this one may be the darkest. But they also always contain an amount of humor (which, if you've ever seen Schaffert speak, will not surprise you). 
• I've remarked on this before and I will again with this book - there are no "happily ever afters" in Schaffert's books and that's just as it should be.

What Didn't Work As Well For Me: 

• I would have liked to see more the meetings of the book club. So many interesting characters to learn more about. 
• Of course, a book set just after the sinking of the Titanic was going to reach the point where the First World War began and these characters were pulled into it. That was logical, but I felt a little bit like it pulled me away from story that I'd been enjoying and the aftermath of what happened in the war was a slow collapse before things came back together. 

All in all, a very satisfying book that gave me exactly what I was expecting from Schaffert. I miss his books set in Nebraska but I'm also thrilled to watch him explore the wider world and its history. 

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell

400 pages

Published July 2024 by HarperCollins

Publisher's Summary: 

They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.

Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.

Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.

When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?

The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.

Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.

It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.

My Thoughts: 

This week I'll be reviewing this book by Omaha author Rainbow Rowell and Omaha author Timothy Schaffert. As I looked back to see which was the first Rowell book that I'd read, I found that in April 2011, I also reviewed books by these same authors. That Rowell book was my first book by her, 2011's Attachments. In that book I found that her writing light and humorous, but also heartwarming and heartbreaking. I was so excited that she agreed to write a guest post for my then two-year-old blog. 

Since then I've read 2014's Landline, 2013's Fangirl and, one of my all-time favorite books, 2012's Eleanor and Park. Since then, though, Rowell has written three books that were a spinoff of Fangirl that were not something that interested me and some manga, also outside of my reading comfort zone. I've missed her. I can't tell you how excited I was to find that she'd finally written something that harkened back to those books I so enjoyed a decade ago. And then worried that Rowell's style might have changed over the years, that this book couldn't live up to my memories of the other books. 

What did I expect from this book (which, of course, I knew nothing about going in because I didn't look, I just automatically knew I'd want to read it)? Humor. A relationship between two characters who keep putting roadblocks into their paths to happiness. Complicated family relationships. At least one quirky character, most likely one that makes me think that they are modeled in no small part on Rowell herself. Great dialogue. Omaha. And I got all of that, every bit of it. 

This is what Kirkus Reviews had to say about this book: "Both of them are smart, clever, misanthropic, and stubborn. They are also, along with the omniscient narrative voice and tertiary characters, very funny. Rowell does longing like nobody’s business. She pits epic love against relatable, painful foibles. Cary and Shiloh want each other palpably, but they get hung up on little details, feel shame, project, overthink. They struggle mightily to believe they’re lovable."

In this book, Rowell blends her understanding of adult life and relationships (as she did so well in Landline) with her astonishing ability to recall the angst and pain and struggles of young people. In this book, readers are treated to both the current storyline of Shiloh and Cary as they try to reconnect and pick up where they left off and to glimpses into their pasts, into their friendship that would long ago have become something more than that had they had the ability and courage to express what they truly felt. In the end, it's probably just as well that they didn't. It wouldn't have lasted. They had to work their way to each other as adults. I'd worry that I've given away something here; but you know this book for what it is, a romance where you'll get the ending you're hoping for. Even if you can't imagine, for a goodly part of the book, how these two will ever be truly honest with each other, get over their fears, and find a way to make things work out, no matter how many obstacles are in their path. 

Welcome back to adult fiction, Rainbow Rowell! I've missed you! 

Life: It Goes On - September 22

Happy Sunday! Unlike so many of the Sunday mornings when I'm typing this up, today is overcast following a night of rain and the arrival of a cold front. Yesterday we were in the low 90's. Today the mid 60's and breezy. Probably should get out and get some things done in yard but we have other things on the agenda today. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished The Once and Future Witches and have nearly finished Griffin Dunne's The Friday Afternoon Club. Really enjoying it...although it has reached a very hard, emotional time in his life. Next up is Rebecca Makkai's I Have Some Questions For You. 

Watched: I finished the current episodes of Emily In Paris, watched a lot of HGTV and Magnolia Network, A Tourist's Guide To Love on Netflix (keep trying to find new rom-coms that measure up the ones I love, and, of course, football, and volleyball.

Read: I finished Timothy Schaffer's latest, The Titanic Survivors' Book Club and am now reading Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful and Jodi Picoult's latest, By Any Other Name. 

Made: I also watched some cooking shows this morning, leading me to make some tomato/basil soup, with fresh-picked tomatoes and basil, which we'll have for supper tonight. I'm also reviving my sourdough starter for bread in a couple of days and I ordered ingredients to make my take on Molly Yeh's beans and greens. Clearly my brain is making the switch to fall, even if my heart doesn't want summer to be over. 

Enjoyed: The Big Guy was out of town for several days this week - is it wrong to say that I enjoyed the peace and quiet of having the house to myself? I got to watch what I wanted, eat what I wanted (ok, that meant fast food a couple of times), and sleep in the middle of the bed. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: Work will continue on clearing out the basement and my office. My goal is at least one box every week out of the house. 

Thinking About: How to get BG to make good on his promise to sort through his things and start getting rid of things. Any hints? 

Feeling: I started taking magnesium this week because I heard that it can help with sleeping. Didn't see much help the first couple of nights but I slept much better last night. Fingers crossed that this is the beginning of restful nights. 

Looking forward to: Meeting a former coworker for happy hour on Tuesday. Then we're headed to Lincoln Friday to see Dear Evan Hansen. I know the music, we've seen the movie, but we've never seen it in the theater. 

Question of the week: We're headed off shortly to a political fundraiser. This introvert is not really looking forward to it. If you're an introvert, what do you do to help yourself handle these situations better? 

***This week's books for review are both written by Nebraska (Omaha, actually) authors.***

Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate

Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate

368 pages

Published June 2024 by Random House Publishing Group 

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary: 

1909. Eleven-year-old Olive Augusta Radley knows that her stepfather doesn’t have good intentions toward the two Choctaw girls boarded in their home as wards. When the older girl disappears, Ollie flees to the woods, taking six-year-old Nessa with her. Together they begin a perilous journey to the remote Winding Stair Mountains, the notorious territory of outlaws, treasure hunters, and desperate men. Along the way, Ollie and Nessa form an unlikely band with others like themselves, struggling to stay one step ahead of those who seek to exploit them . . . or worse.

1990. Law enforcement ranger Valerie Boren-Odell arrives at newly minted Horsethief Trail National Park seeking a quiet place to balance a career and single parenthood. But no sooner has Valerie reported for duty than she’s faced with local controversy over the park’s opening, a teenage hiker gone missing from one of the trails, and the long-hidden burial site of three children unearthed in a cave. Val’s quest for the truth wins an ally among the neighboring Choctaw Tribal Police but soon collides with old secrets and the tragic and deadly history of the land itself.

In this emotional and enveloping novel, Lisa Wingate traces the story of children abandoned by the law and the battle to see justice done. Amid times of deep conflict over who owns the land and its riches, Ollie and Val traverse the rugged and beautiful terrain, each leaving behind one life in search of another.

From Lisa Wingate:

"Shelterwood began with an unexpected spark on an ordinary day, when the research for another novel led to a vintage newspaper mention of “Oklahoma Kate” Barnard, a female elected official (a rarity in a time when women couldn’t even vote) who was compelled to investigate reports of three “elf children” living in a hollow tree and begging for food at nearby farmhouses in 1909. In rescuing the children, Kate would discover that they were not elves at all, but orphans of Oklahoma’s Five Tribes (the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole). Along with fifty-one other children, they were under the protection of a court-appointed guardian, who had “lost all track of ” most of his wards. He was living lavishly on their oil monies, while the children survived in the woods and became so malnourished, skittish, and small that people thought they were elves."

What Worked For Me: 

• I always enjoy when a book directly ties to a piece of history, especially one that I'm not as familiar with. I love learning about what inspired books, particularly when that inspiration is based on a piece of unknown history. Here Wingate has done a terrific job of taking this small piece of history and crafting a world around these children. 
• Those children. I really grew attached to all of them...even the bad boys. They were all done wrong by the adults in their lives. Their tenacity, resourcefulness, and relationships were believable to inspiring, even if that part was fiction. Equally as believable was the way they couldn't help but be the children they were, destroying what they had built. 
• Valerie, a widowed single mother who is torn between wanting to protect her son and wanting to get to the truth. Wingate doesn't make her invincible, all knowing, or fearless - she makes her relatable and realistic. 
• I liked this look at a woman breaking into a traditionally male career. I always like books that do that. 
• We've got a setting in this book that I was entirely unfamiliar with and I enjoyed learning more about the mountains of Oklahoma (I'll be honest, until a couple of years ago, I was pretty sure that Oklahoma was entirely flat). 

What Didn't Work As Well For Me:

• This is one of those books where we move back and forth in time, reading two storylines and moving to the place where they will intersect. As so often happens, the historical storyline captured my attention more than the present day storyline. Even so, in this book, I will say that I was really enjoying the present day storyline. Until the ending, where the past and the present come together. Even given that the "present day" in this book is almost 35 years ago, readers are required to suspend disbelief to a certain extent. It would have worked better for me if the "present day" of this book were in 1980 even. 
• The "bad guys" were a little too stereotyped for me and very early on I was sure about the truth of one character. 

I think Wingate's fan will find this one gives them exactly what they are looking for in one of her books and new-to-her readers will find plenty to enjoy in this book. I certainly did and will be picking up more of Wingate's books, especially working on the assumption that her other books will also have an element of historical fact that she's crafted the book around. 

Death At The Sign Of The Rook by Kate Atkinson

Death At The Sign Of The Rook by Kate Atkinson

320 pages

Published September 2024 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary: 

Welcome to Rook Hall. The stage is set. The players are ready. By night’s end, a murderer will be revealed.

In his sleepy Yorkshire town, ex-detective Jackson Brodie is staving off boredom and malaise. His only case is the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting. But Jackson soon uncovers a string of unsolved art thefts that lead him down a dizzying spiral of disguise and deceit to Burton Makepeace, a formerly magnificent estate now partially converted into a hotel hosting Murder Mystery weekends.

As paying guests, impecunious aristocrats and old friends collide, we are treated to Atkinson’s most charming and fiendishly clever mystery yet, one that pays homage to the masters of the genre—from Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers to the modern era of Knives Out and Only Murders in the Building.

My Thoughts: 

I felt certain, when I began thinking about writing this review, that I first read a Kate Atkinson book when I read Life After Life. That book was one of my favorite books of 2015; it's a book I still think about and one that has kept me returning to Atkinson. In point of fact, though, my first Atkinson book was When Will There Be Good News (which I'd clearly forgotten by this year). That book is actually the third of the Jackson Brody books. 

In 2020, I finally read Cases Histories, the first of the Jackson Brodie books. I had every intention of returning to the Brodie books, but it wasn't until this year that I listened to the second book, One Good Turn, and When Will There Be Good News (again!). I'd hoped to listen to the next two books but it turns out my library doesn't have them on audio. Which is how I went from the third book to this, the sixth. 

Do you have to read them in order? No necessarily. But would it be a good idea to do so? Yes, definitely. When I last encountered Reggie she was a 16-year-old who got caught up in a kidnapping case and ended up helping Jackson; now she is a detective, who is very fed up with Jackson's questionable methods. In this book, Jackson's daughter is now grown up with a child of her own. How did they all get to where they are now? 

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only problem I had with this book. I've grown used to Atkinson filling her books with large casts of characters, with her books hopping away from Jackson's story to delve into other characters' stories. For some reason, in this book, I was really distracted by this and grew a little bored when we got into side stories of two of the characters. To be fair, those characters did play into the story when things really picked up later in the book, but I'm still not entirely sure that we needed to know their full back story to understand their actions in the moment. I don't know if it makes me feel better to know that I'm not alone in feeling this way. 

BUT...I really liked the storyline - the mystery of who stole a small painting, how it came to be in the owner's possession to begin with, how it ties into another art theft. I liked the parts of the book where Jackson was involved, especially his interactions with Reggie. I liked the way things played out once everything began to pick up again. Even a less than her best Atkinson book is still worth reading. And I will read book seven in the series whenever that is released. But first, I'm going back to books four and five. Because I have to know how we got to this point! 

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.**