This story is told from the perspective of a Maid who works at a fancy hotel. She finds one of the guests in his room, dead. The story unfolds from there to tell you the before and after. This maid, Molly, has a very ordered, specific life she lives and her life and the order the clings on to is completely upended as a result of her discovery.
Molly is very, very good at what she does and she lives by a strong work ethic and moral code. She is unusual and doesn’t always follow what’s going on or understand enough of the world to read between the lines. This means that sometimes people can take advantage of her.
This story has a little bit of everything. There are unexpected twists and turns. There is joy and kindness and disappointment and deep unkindness. It’s a story with so much heart that it’s not possible not to love it.
with gratitude to netgalley and Ballantine Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
Lately I find that I am running out of time often. Time is passing quickly and I am having trouble getting all the things I want to do, done. When I feel this way, I am usually cranky so I am reminding myself that time is the most precious asset I have and it’s the only one that cannot be replenished, thus it helps me to be intentional about how I use mine.
I don’t know what the right answer is for me right now and I am having a hard time choosing so instead I decided to make a list of things I never regret spending time on:
– playing games with my kids – exercising – going climbing with my husband – doing art – hanging out with a good friend – helping my kid’s with school – talking with either kids or Jake about life or us or something new we learned – reading a really good book – watching a really good movie – sitting outside
That’s some of my list. So the plan is that when in doubt I do one of these.
This morning I had a moment where I realized that I am not anxiously stressing about anything actively at this moment. I have some things sitting there in low noise bit nothing really taking up constant space in my brain.
Is this how others’ feel? If so, I’m so jealous!
I am making sure to note this moment because it doesn’t happen often but it does happen and it’s important to acknowledge it so I can remember what’s possible.
I’ve been consciously working towards paying attention to the direction of the flow lately and trying to see where I can go with the flow vs swimming upstream too often.
I’ve also actively been putting down things that aren’t mine to carry. And being intentional and really clear with what’s actually mine to carry.
Much of this also comes with trusting others and trusting the universe and I am working on that too.
When possible, swimming in the direction of the flow is considerably easier and creates space for so much more.
September felt like a stressful and challenging month for me. And yet, today, I was looking back at the goals I’d set for the month and I checked off more items this month than I had in a while.
Which was odd. It shows, yes again, that my perception isn’t reality.
And thanks to my friend Kelly, I now do seem to have a bit of a routine again.
Every Friday I am grateful for the week coming to an end and getting some downtime.
Now even more than before, I find that the line between work and life is blurred and things still feel like walking through mud too often. So when the week comes to an end, I welcome the rest.
