In my opinion, this book’s audience is a beginner crafter who loves gold and glam. The first half of the book has several projects that are really, really simple and also look elegant. Then there are some coloring pages and finally some collage/template pages at the end. If you’re brand new to most of this and the authors’ style really resonates with you I think you will enjoy the projects and really appreciate the beginning section with an explanation of a wide range of supplies.
If you are a crafter already, I don’t think this book has much to offer you. For me, there was nothing new here at all. I still enjoyed looking through it but didn’t learn anything.
with gratitude to edelweiss and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
I loved and adored Anne Griffin’s previous novel: When All Is Said. It was absolutely magnificent. So I couldn’t wait to read this one. This is the story of Jeanie Masterson who, with her family, runs an undertaking business. But they are no ordinary undertakers. Jeanie and her dad can hear the dead. They can speak to the dead briefly after they pass. And they’ve been doing so forever.
Jeanie’s life looks lovely on the surface: she is married to a kind man and they both work for the family business and live with her parents and brother. But as the story unravels, the reader gets to see the choices she made along the way and the ways in which everyone in the story feels trapped in their own life in small and big ways.
This is a story about how we give up pieces of our lives and dreams when we feel like we have obligations to the world or to our family. Or when we’re too scared to take big, bold steps in our lives. And how living with regret can be so much harder, so much more damaging and harmful.
It’s about owning up to the choices we made and taking ownership of the life we choose to design for ourselves. It’s a quiet story that can feel whiny or slow at parts but I think that’s also reflective of how hard and arduous the path back to oneself can be at times.
with gratitude to netgalley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
What a sweet and delightful novel this is. Noelle and Sam meet in a stroke of luck for eight hours while their cars are next to each other in a blizzard. She figures she will never see him again since he lives far away in Oregon. But they they keep running into each other again and again in the most unusual moments.
This beautiful story is a novel about coming home to oneself and the people who support and encourage us along the way. It’s about regrets, about visible and invisible connections we have with people in ways we don’t always understand.
It’s about family and supporting each other and sacrifice. And of course it’s about love.
I loved the time I spent with this sweet story.
with gratitude to netgalley and Atria Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review
This was a slow burn for me, it took me a while to get used to each of the characters and by the end I cared deeply about each of them. Each of them is flawed and imperfect and yet they show up in the best way they can and slowly find their way through the hurdles. It’s really lovely.
I really enjoyed this novel about what it means to go back home to a life you never wanted to go back to and discover how much (and how little) has changed and finding pieces of yourself in the process.
Finally feeling calm after a long week of roller coaster. Starting my day at 4-5am every day this week was painful (worth it and still painful) and my emotions and thoughts have been all over the place. This was also the “let’s do all the things before school starts” week so we did the orthodontist, dentist, dental x-ray, tutoring, car maintenance, and hose cleaning all in one week. There was a lot to juggle and a lot to finish.
And we did it all.
As we approach to the last four months of the year, I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to do this year and how I wanted to grow. One item that was on my list was to take a class. I used to take a lot of online classes and in-person classes at local university near me. This year, except for a few art classes, I haven’t taken any and I am still craving it.
So I’m hoping I can make some progress on that this weekend.
I don’t have anything’s pithy to say today. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to change the way I interpret things and how to be more open and present and optimistic. This was my big goal behind picking yes as my word. I wanted to become a more optimistic person. Which I think starts with being open and willing to receive in a positive way.
My husband and I have been waking up at 5am every day this week to watch the sport climbing Olympics.
I watch sport climbing competitions every single morning as I ride the bike so I am very familiar with each climber in the competition and it’s been such a joy to get up and cheer for them.
This morning as I watched I could feel my heart beating super fast, holding my breath and rooting for each of them. My heart broke as a speed specialist made a tiny mistake that cost her so much and she started crying. I cheered as the favored winner topped every bolder in one shot. It was so inspiring to watch.
I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow and Friday for the finals. With live sports you never know and it’s always magical to watch and root for these amazing athletes who get to be Olympians for the first time ever.
I have found that how I choose to show up into a situation completely determines how I feel during and after it.
My expectations and attitude control if I consider the outcome a success.
Years and years ago when I was pregnant with my first son, we used to be part of a parent group at the hospital. After we all had given birth we got together and talked about our experience. One of the things my husband and I noticed when the session was over was that the people who had disappointing birth experiences were often people who came in with particular expectations that were not met.
So if they really wanted to have a natural birth and then ended up having to be medicated it felt like their experience was devastating. Or if they wanted to have all the medication and somehow couldn’t take it, they felt disappointed by the outcome. This is not to say there weren’t several cases of just completely unexpected sad stories too but those were rare in our group. For the most part, the frustration or sadness with the experience was much more correlated to the expectation as opposed to the experience itself.
I find this to be a theme in my life, too. If I show up to a situation with a very particular expected outcome I tend to be a lot more attached to how it went. Instead if I show up open and willing to take potentially different outcomes, it makes it easier for me to pivot as needed and it makes the outcome more likely to be a success because there wasn’t such a strict definition up front.
And if I show up willing to learn and grow as opposed to just trying to get things done, I tend to again be more open to receiving and adjusting and as a result growing from the process. And even when I disagree I am engaging with curiosity and not with frustration which makes the conversation a lot more productive.
So this is just a reminder to myself that things go much easier for me when I’m open and curious.
