I’m a person with some odd food allergies. Pine nuts are one of them. At first when I realized that pesto was off the menu, it didn’t bother me that much. It’s not something I’ve eaten often. But then, when my kid wanted to try Fitz’s favorite sandwich made by Simmons (from Marvel’s Agents of Shield), I realized it was kind of a pain in the butt.
That’s where my sister-in-law saved the day. She was coming over for a visit and texted ahead, “Would you like any basil? My plant is going crazy and I can’t use all it’s producing.”
She brought me just enough for a well-packed cup of basil. Which, fortuitously was exactly what the recipe I found at Feast and Farm called for.
So I headed to the store for parmesan (not the powdered stuff), parsley, salt, pepper, and olive oil.
It was a quick step to blend it all together and pour it into ice cube trays. I figured it would store better and longer frozen into usable size cubes.
Then I went looking for a recipe for Fitz’s favorite sandwich – mozzarella and prosciutto with pesto aioli on a hearty bread.
We ended up with yummy sandwiches and the base for future sauces and more FitzSimmons sandwiches.
This was a reread for me. I originally read these in 2013 after reading another trilogy in the world that precedes these chronologically. I was head-over-heels for that series and I was looking for more Shadowhunter world goodness.
This time around I had COVID and the movie they made from the first book was mentioned in a book discussion and you know how it goes. I rewatched the movie, then re-binged the TV show (based on this series), and then realized it had been nearly a decade since I actually read the books, so that led to rereading the series. What can you do?
I bet you noticed about lot “re-” in there. Yes, I enjoy this world. The Infernal Devices is my favorite story out of all the ones she’s written so far. If you like steampunk, those might be more your jam.
SO now about the story…The Mortal Instruments is a YA fantasy series across 6 books. The story is YA for two reasons, the main characters are 15-18, and how they handle the challenges they are faced with is informed by their age and attendant maturity.
Clare ties this world together with the simple concept that “All the stories are true.” That means vampires, werewolves, warlocks, faeries, and demons. The additional group the story revolves around is Shadowhunters. Shadowhunters are part human, part angel whose mandate is to protect humans from demons without humans figuring out demons exist.
The main female character is 15, nearly 16, year-old Clary Fray. Clary’s world gets turned upside down in a 24-hour period. The 6 books are everything that happens because of those 24 hours. It’s a lot!
This is Clare’s first publication. These do not exhibit her best writing, but the writing is tolerable. In reality, it’s the world she builds that keeps readers coming back. She’s also good at writing relationships that people want to get behind, romantic and platonic. She doesn’t shy away from challenging relationship combos. Her relationships want to test boundaries.
If you choose this as your entry into her world expect a wild ride.
When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder― much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It’s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing―not even a smear of blood―to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?
This is Clary’s first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It’s also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace’s world with a vengeance when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know…
In our school district, starting middle school (6th grade) is kind of a right of passage. The kids go from minor movement around the school to a full complement of classes in different rooms, a different teacher for each subject, and a locker to stop by in between so they don’t have to carry everything.
The locker is of course the main place, outside of clothing, where a true expression of self can happen. Decorating your locker is met with excitement and trepidation. Especially when you have never had a locker before and have no clue how you’ll actually use it.
My kid got the old style, full height, metal locker. Honestly, it’s bigger than he is. Since it is metal, we went hunting for magnets for his door. Things that could help make it his, but be useful as well. After hunting and failing to find what he wanted, I got the brilliant idea to just try and make something.
He loves all things space and we want him to be able to hang pictures, notes, and his schedule in his locker, so we figured why not clip magnets. After much searching, that eventually evolved into oversized wooden clothes pins that we could decorate.
The tape rolls were just slightly more narrow than the clips. We tried some overlap and some angled combos. He decided he liked the angled ones better. I had him pair the rest of the rolls into his favorite combos.
I laid out the tape pieces on the clothespin and left some overhang to be trimmed neatly to the edge later. It wasn’t the easiest around the metal springs, but it worked. What I found didn’t work was folding the tape over the edges. They kept peeling up. Wouldn’t even stay glued down. But a sharp pair of scissors at the right angle worked just fine.
I also found magnets that were just slightly more narrow than the clothes pins. A little hot glue on the back and we now have a set of magnet clips that help him keep his locker organized and shows off a little of his personality.
I know how kids are with things and I didn’t want them falling apart before he got them to school so I let the hot glue set for nearly 24 hours. Also, the tape can get scraped or peeled off. Luckily, we still have tape left over.
I’m now trying to convince my husband that we need a few for the fridge.
So a couple of years ago one of my girlfriends from the Northeast started offering beautiful decoupage shells in her Etsy shop (Coral Door Designs is her shop). Sarah has always been so talented and her pieces that she offers speak to her dedication to her craft. I fell so in love with them that I wanted to see if I too could make them as well as she does. Not in competition mind you, because there is no comparison she’s amazing, but because I’ve always loved the idea of decoupage and wanted to give it a go.
With all that said, I went to Youtube and Pinterest to see what it would take to decoupage anything. The longer I messed around with the art the more I came to see that just about anything could be used from rocks, to shells, plates to even tin cans!
After a few years of practice I was in need of some pots. Pots to plant some excess aloe in among other plants. I needed to either give them away or offer them up as orphans to anyone who will adopt them. What better way to get them adopted than to dress them up in a fun container. Something different; something colorful & perhaps spectacular!
The thought of decoupage tin cans came to mind. In a family of 5, tin cans are easy enough to come by…hell…on any given day I could harvest 2-3 easily. So that’s what I did. Small cans, big family size soup cans, medium size cans…all different sizes for the recycling; a second life was definitely on the table.
If you are a collector of things like I am then you probably have plenty of napkin options to choose from. If not, then you can go to ebay and search up, “decoupage napkins.” If you want to do it on the cheap you can go to the grocery store and pick up any printed napkins. Home Goods also has a fun assortment. Any place that sells paper goods may have them too. Just find something that can be taken down to one ply. In a pinch you can even use tissue paper…it’s thin enough. Just be careful to go slow so you don’t tear it. If you tear it you may want to scrap it and start again from scratch. Don’t beat yourself up. Take a breath and try again.
First up you’ll want to start with clean cans. Trust a mama on this one. Next, you’ll need white spray paint or white paint. You’ll want to paint the can(s), bottom & sides. Don’t worry about the inside. Let the paint dry completely. You can go one of two ways at this point: First way I use is to pick the napkin I want to use and separate the layers of the napkin to either one ply or two ply. Or you can just apply Mod Podge straight away to the can and not care about the separation, but you may not like the outcome if the napkin is too thick.
**Note that one ply will tear easily, but will give you a cleaner look. Two ply is harder to tear, but gets kinda bubbly if you aren’t careful; it can also tear. Go slow.
Once you’ve decided, separated your napkins from their bulk, then you can start. I start with adding a layer of Mod Podge to the can; an even layer about 2″ wide. Then if the can has a line use it to line up the edge of the napkin. Slightly press the napkin into the Mod Podge. Be gentle! Then add more Mod Podge, press down more napkin and keep it up till you’ve gone all the way around the can.
If you have more napkin then you need you can cut the excess off with a scissors. Use the Mod Podge to press down the edges. At this point I’ve found it best to let the Mod Podge set up before putting a layer of Mod Podge over the top. I let it sit easily 20 mins or so. Then, carefully & slowly, I add my first layer of Mod Podge. Don’t put two coats on one right after the other you will screw the pooch. Again, go slow. One.layer.at.a.time. This isn’t a race. Take your time.
I usually stick with two layers. If you want the cans to stay outside use Mod Podge that is meant to survive the elements. I use glossy; that is only good for indoor use. After your second coat is dry I take my fingers and push it into the ridges. I also like to take and put Mod Podge on my finger and smooth down some of the bumps. If you try this with dry fingers you will rip the napkin. Always coat your finger before messing with the decoupage. If your napkin is taller than your can, use scissors to cut it close to the edge and fold it over. Make sure to spread the glue around the inside edge first before you fold it over.
After the cans are dry it’s time to turn them up side down and put holes in the bottom. I use a nail & hammer. Simple. I even chose to make a little smiley face out of nail holes; made me smile. No pun intended.
Finishing touches: soil & plants. Then et viola; all done. You can choose to add some kind of bottom to catch the water when you water them, but it’s up to you. This is how I choose to leave mine. These are ready for adoption & gift giving and I couldn’t be happier. ❤️
I had this book on hold at the library for months, patiently waiting for my turn with Roberts’ latest one-off novel. (If you’re new here, I read just about everything she writes.) I was not disappointed.
First off, she gave us a fun morally grey character. Booth is a thief. He has a code he follows and when he explains it, it makes sense how he can make the choices of a generally good person and still steal. The thing I like best about this is Roberts built it solidly into his character and definitely shows you this code way before it ever gets spelled out.
Second, the love story was not his whole story. You get Booth, on and off, from age 9 to his 30s. You get to see clearly how he grew into the man he becomes. You get to see what major events shape him and what people influenced him. The people are wonderfully colorful and I enjoyed seeing people who don’t do the quintessential 9 to 5, picket fence, and 2.5 kids. It’s truly Booth’s story and the love story is a piece of that, just like life.
Lastly, all the characters, even the villain, felt realistic. Recently, I heard someone say that in a lot of books the bad guy is an afterthought to the main characters (MCs), put in just to create something the MCs have to deal with and subsequently their motivation is hard to believe. LaPorte doesn’t feel like he’s a creation to make another hard thing in Booth’s story. He feels like he walked right out of a news article about a super-rich guy whose house was just raided by the FBI and all the crazy stuff they found.
This is definitely one of those books that can cause you to think about your own grey areas. You know the ones that make sense to you but clash with someone else’s view of morally or ethically correct choices. But it can also just be a place to step away from the real world for a little bit. Isn’t that the great thing about books?!
Harry Booth started stealing at nine to keep a roof over his ailing mother’s head, slipping into luxurious, empty homes at night to find items he could trade for precious cash. When his mother finally succumbed to cancer, he left Chicago—but kept up his nightwork.
Wandering from the Outer Banks to Savannah to New Orleans, he dons new identities and stays careful, observant, distant. He can’t afford to attract attention—or get attached. Still, he can’t help letting his guard down when he meets Miranda Emerson. But the powerful bond between them cannot last—because not all thieves follow Harry’s code of honor. Some pay others to take risks so they can hoard more treasures. Some are driven by a desire to own people the way they own paintings and jewels. And after Harry takes a lucrative job commissioned by Carter LaPorte, LaPorte sees a tool he can use, and decides he wants to own Harry.
The man is a predator more frightening than the alligators that haunt the bayou—and when he strongarms Harry into robbing a Baltimore museum, Harry abandons Miranda—cruelly, with no explanation—and disappears. But no matter what name he uses or where he goes, LaPorte casts a shadow over Harry’s life. To truly free himself, he must face down his enemy once and for all. Only then can he hope to possess something more valuable than anything he has ever stolen…
A lot of my romance reads have toed the line with erotica. LOTS of sexytimes. Not that that is a bad thing. But Meet Me in the Margins was a breath of fresh air and a lovely change of pace.
A first-person perspective and brilliantly funny inner thoughts make this book so enjoyable. Even, maybe especially, when Savannah goes off on odd thought tangents.
Savannah is a kind, loving, and absolutely walked-on kind of character. She always seems to defer to whatever is polite and non-confrontational both personally and professionally. While exhibiting the ability to defend, she doesn’t tend to do so for herself. She will, however, very much stand up for those around her. She is the every-woman who doesn’t think she’s special in anyway and is always judging herself. Interestingly, you don’t get the poor, pitiful Savannah feeling from it either. The author manages to make Savannah feel like you know her, are her, or could easily be her.
The premise of Savannah working for a haughty, commercial-fiction-is-trash publisher while secretly writing and trying to get a romance novel published is a fun vehicle for the love story. Who knew you could get to know someone so well through how they edit what you write.
All-in-all a quick, fun read. Perfect for the beach in the summer.
Savannah Cade is a low-level editor at Pennington Publishing, a prestigious publisher producing only the highest of highbrow titles. And while editing the latest edition of The Anthology of Medieval Didactic Poetry may be her day job, she has two secrets she’s hiding.
One: She’s writing a romance novel.
Two: She’s discovered the Book Nook—a secret room in the publishing house where she finds inspiration for her “lowbrow” hobby.
After leaving her manuscript behind one afternoon, she returns to the nook only to discover someone has written notes in the margins. Savannah’s first response to the criticism is defensive, but events transpire that force her to admit that she needs the help of this shadowy editor after all. As the notes take a turn for the romantic, and as Savannah’s madcap life gets more complicated than ever, she uses the process of elimination to identify her mysterious editor—only to discover that what she truly wants and what she should want just might not be the same. Melissa Ferguson’s latest—a love letter to books, readers, and romance—will leave fans laughing out loud and swooning in the same breath.
Why am I bringing it up here? Because it is the biggest solar flare in five years. If it was aimed at Earth it could have done some serious damage to satellites and the electrical grid.
AND
Because as I’ve mentioned before the sun has a cycle and this flare is a sign that it is heating up.
So if we get one of the biggest in 5 years at the beginning of the busiest parts of the cycle, is that an indication of what’s to come?
I don’t know. I just don’t know about this book. The basic premise, girl leaves town for a new job and new start after a bad break-up and we encounter her nearly a year later, dating her boss*. Her grandma passes and she has to go back to her small hometown and face everything she ran away from.
I never mind this as a premise. What matters is of course how the author handles it moving forward. And that is where I get hung up. Carlisle handled it ok. Not great, but not bad either, just ok.
I think my issue was I couldn’t connect with Jill or Garrett fully. Their breakup (which you get pieces of only when they reference it) and subsequent trying to mend it was not realistic. Maybe it is just me but they both felt like trust was a huge problem. They even bring up that Jill didn’t/doesn’t trust Garrett, but Carlisle didn’t do anything to have them work on that or talk about that.
And, this is a BIG AND, the big bad and mystery were super flat and felt tossed in to give the story a reason for being after the fact.
All-in-all I felt like Carlisle could have done so much more with this story. It had so much potential to be better than meh.
*Dating the boss as a rebound is ALWAYS bad in stories. And when he’s an ass, its an uber red flag.
When beloved town matriarch Pearl Clemmons dies on a warm June afternoon, the folks of Adams Grove, Virginia, can hardly believe it. Sure, Pearl was eighty-five years old, but everyone — particularly her granddaughter Jill — just assumed she would live forever. Now Jill must return home to settle Pearl’s estate, comfort a town in mourning . . . and face Garrett Malloy, the man who broke her heart years ago.
Making matters worse, a string of break-ins at the Clemmons place has Jill and the rest of the town on edge. She can’t imagine what Pearl possibly could have had that is worth stealing. But when Jill’s safety is threatened, she and Garrett must join forces to unearth Pearl’s secrets before someone else — someone dangerous — gets there first. Garrett may have been the last man Jill wanted to see, but now, she may not want to let him go.
This book tosses you into the midst of Rob’s life after his marriage has failed, he’s in recovery for alcoholism, he’s doing a job he enjoys from his parents’ couch and not much else. He’s super anxious, awkward with people, and is much more comfortable staying in than anything else.
But as anyone with social anxiety can tell you, while staying in feels good, it also starts feeling like crap and you feel like you should push yourself to go out and do like everyone else.
This book is a bunch of Rob doing just that and learning what “adventure” means to him.
A handful of years ago I moved with my wife to a house on a quiet street in a quiet town and lay quietly in a room for a long time.
I used to love an adventure, and I had jobs on magazines (remember magazines?) which provided the opportunity for plenty of them, but when I hit my thirties I started to become increasingly afraid of the world, until I was too frightened to even go outside at all. And I had no need to go outside: I’d somehow wangled it so my job was mostly tweeting, which meant no colleagues, no bosses, no office, no alarm clock, no deadlines . . . just me, my phone and my social media feeds. Doesn’t sound too healthy, does it? It wasn’t.
Everything went bad.
Rob Temple runs a social-media empire from the comfort of his sofa. Living the dream! But what happens when a lack of colleagues, bosses and alarm clocks means that your sofa, and the four walls of your very quiet living room, become your whole world?
In this tender and life-affirming memoir, Rob explores what it will take for him to become a little less Bear (Pooh) and a little bit more Bear (Grylls), and how mild-mannered, anxious rule-followers can get their own share of (gentle) adventure from time to time.
A cozy murder mystery. When you pick one up, you generally know what you are in for: a main character who, either while trying to find the killer or not, keeps stumbling upon dead bodies and is regularly in danger or experiences near-death numerous times; a savior, usually police or PI; and hopefully a good mystery.
This first book by Kate Carlisle hit all the highlights. And it did so while introducing the reader to book conservation. Not an easy subject to include enough of to be interesting, but not too much to prevent boredom. And yet, she walked that line well.
Brooklyn is a realistic character and manages to stumble her way through the circumstances around her reasonably and in an understandable way. Derek is your typical scowling security guy and fulfills the role of savior well. Carlisle definitely sets them up for future books in the series, but doesn’t make it obvious that it will end up the way you think.
All-in-all a cute, quick, cozy read if you like a simple murder mystery.
Book expert Brooklyn Wainwright discovers that murder is always a bestseller in the first novel in the New York Times bestselling Bibliophile Mystery series.
Brooklyn Wainwright is a skilled surgeon. Sure, her patients might smell like mold and have spines made of leather, but no ailing book is going to die on her watch. The same can’t be said of Abraham Karastovsky, Brooklyn’s friend and former employer.
On the eve of a celebration for his latest book restoration, Brooklyn finds her mentor lying in a pool of his own blood. With his final breath Abraham leaves Brooklyn with a cryptic message, “Remember the Devil,” and gives her a priceless—and supposedly cursed—copy of Goethe’s Faust for safe-keeping.
Brooklyn suddenly finds herself accused of murder and theft, thanks to Derek Stone, the humorless—and annoyingly attractive—British security officer who found her kneeling over the body. Now she has to read the clues left behind by her mentor if she is going to restore justice
Everyday Sisters 