Monday, September 30, 2019

What We Read in September

September felt like a slower reading month but I actually read 8 books! I think my reading will likely slow down over the next couple of months as we prepare to move/list our house but I know I'll still find ways to make time for it!

Lighter/Page-Turner Reads:

The Mother-in-Law was a page turner from Modern Mrs. Darcy's Summer Reading Guide. In this book, a woman is found dead. It appears to be suicide - but was it? It's a dual-narrative story from the points of view of the women who died and her daughter-in-law.

Evvie Drake Starts Over was a fun read about a woman dealing with the loss of her husband. She takes on a tenant who was a major league pitcher that suddenly just can't pitch.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is about a young woman living in Scotland. She has a very quirky personality. You know that something awful happened when she was young as she was in the foster system and has scarring on her face. It's kind of a belated coming of age story as Eleanor is in her 20s, so older than the usual 'coming of age' stage.

The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street is a middle grade novel set in NYC. The family's lease has been terminated by the landlord. The family loves their home so the children try to change the (cranky) landlord's mind. It's really delightful and something I'd love to read aloud to Paul some day.

The Girl He Used to Know was a page-turning romance that featured a neuro-diverse character. It was set in Chicago, which is a city I'm very familiar with so that added to my enjoyment of the book!

Literary Fiction Reads:

The Most Fun We Ever Had is a very character-driven novel. It reminded me of Anne Patchett's Commonwealth or Ask Again, Yes. It's the story of a couple living in Chicago with 4 daughters. Each daughter faces challenges and those challenges unfold over the course of the book. I really enjoyed this but you need to like character-driven novels (which I LOVE) to enjoy this as there is really no plot whatsoever!

Hum If You Don't Know the Words was a heavy novel set in Apartheid-era South Africa. A young white girl's parents are killed during an uprising so she goes to live with her aunt. Her aunt is unprepared to care for her child so she hires a black woman to move in and care for the child. The novel addresses different socioeconomic statuses and the terrible treatment of blacks in South Africa during Apartheid. For instance, it was illegal for the nanny to live with a white family so she had to hide the fact that she lived there.

Non-Fiction Read:

Everything Happens for a Reason was my only non-fiction read in September. It's a memoir by a young woman who finds out she has stage 4 colon cancer. This book is about processing this diagnosis with a particular focus on how the diagnosis interacts with her faith. She has a section at the end where she lays out things NOT TO SAY to someone in her position, like "everything happens for a reason" or "God doesn't give us more than we can handle" or any statement that starts with "at least..." or "it could be worse...". Actually, no matter what situation a person is in, can we all stop saying "at least... " or "it could be worse... "? Those are not empathetic statements. Have you ever felt better or more understood when someone started a sentence with those phrases? I haven't.

Paul's reads:

His favorite book these days is definitely his "tractor" book. He can now say tractor which sounds like "tack-toe." It's so cute! There are different noises on each page which is why he especially loves this book!

He still loves lift the flap books, too, like "Where is Baby's Belly Button" and "Dear Zoo."

Lately he's enjoyed sitting on the floor by the ottoman, "reading" a book to himself.

At bedtime, one of his favorite books is Moo Baa La La La. He knows all the animal sounds so can kind of 'read along' (it says things like "the cow say moo" and "the sheep says baa" so he'll provide the animal sounds when we read the book) and loves saying "la la la" when we get to that page!

What are you reading these days?

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Currently: September

September has been a bit of a whirlwind with all the excitement over finding a house! Here's what's happening in my world!

Reading: The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves. It's about a couple who dated in college, broke up for some reason unknown to the reader, and then run into each other 10 years later. The girl in the relationship is on the autism spectrum which makes the book a bit unique/interesting as you get a sense for what life is like for someone who has a hard time reading social cues, etc. I can tell this is going to be a fast read for me!

Loving: the fall weather that arrived on Sunday. September has been a warm, humid month. We ran our a/c more in September than we did in August. I love sunny weather but could do without the humidity! But the humidity finally broke and now it's just gorgeous outside! Here's hoping it stays that way for a LONG time!

Feeling: kind of overwhelmed by everything we have to do in the next 6 weeks. We'll list our house after we close on the new house so we can move some of the furniture over to the new house. That way our house will look more spacious and show better. Our realtor sent us a list of things to do before listing/what furniture to move and it's kind of overwhelming. But I know it will pay off when we list. Luckily my parents are going to come down the weekend before we list our house so they can help with Paul while Phil and I move things to the new house (I'm sure my dad will help with some of the schlepping but he's 71 and has a wonky ankle so we'd prefer to not have him do too much!). Fingers crossed it sells fast! We'll list it on a Thursday and go to the lake Thur-Sun so we don't have to deal with showings with a (destructive mess-making) toddler. We're planning to move that following week so hopefully the house sells that weekend as it will show better with furniture. After looking at houses for 2 years, we think our house will sell pretty fast as it's turnkey and has perks like a big kitchen, central air, a nice garage, newer windows, etc.

Anticipating: settling into our new home! I haven't been motivated to do anything around our house in terms of gardening or decor for the last 2 years since we knew we'd be moving eventually. I can't wait to move into the new place and make it our own!

Grateful: that we have a warm weather getaway to look forward to in February! The weather is nice now, but I know what's coming next... So we decided to book a trip to the Tampa area of Florida in late February for 4 nights. My parents are joining us again. I mean, check out that view from the condo where we'll be staying!

Working: on decluttering! We're slowly working on each space in our house. I'm starting to collect boxes from work/co-workers/friends so we can start to box up the non-essentials. I'm also using this as a time to get rid of stuff we don't need. I have 2 bags of books to sell at half priced books and Phil dropped off 3 small bags at goodwill last weekend.

Listening: to podcasts, as usual! I haven't discovered any new ones lately so I'm listening to my usual combo of podcasts about books and parenting!

Watching: the Ken Burns documentary on Vietnam on Netflix. The episodes are very long so it can take us several nights to get through one - plus I can only handle so much in an evening as it's a very heavy documentary obviously. I know hindsight is 20/20 but I keep remarking to Phil that it was just such an awful idea for us to go to war with the North Vietnamese. I know our nation was trying to fight communism but gosh we gained nothing from that war and lost so many lives. Plus it bothers me that the political leaders lied so much to the American people about what was going on! Gah, it just makes me so mad even though I wasn't alive back then!

Wishing: that buying a new house was less stressful for Phil. The last couple of weeks have been rough for him as he just does not like change. I mean, it is stressful to buy a house and move but my excitement for our new place far outweighs the dread of packing/schlepping our things to the new house... but Phil mostly just feels stressed and is worrying about the new garage as it's pretty small so we likely won't have room for things like our lawn mower, snow blower, stroller, etc. I'm sure we'll come up with a solution (probably a shed of some sort) once we are moved in and see what fits.

Bonus Paul pics!

Checking out Minnehaha Falls - He loves 'agua' so was pretty amazed by the waterfall

A typical pants-free weekend morning. He really looks like a toddler in this photo!

Looking through his tractor book!

A boy and his books. Most of the books on these shelves are kid books. He loves pulling them down and looking through them!

What are you currently loving, anticipating, and grateful for?

Monday, September 23, 2019

We Found a House - Finally!

I was beginning to feel like this day would never come, but we finally found a house! Last week was quite the whirlwind. Our realtor texted me on Monday afternoon to let me know a listing that was a good fit for us came on the market. We were free that evening so went to see it at 5. After looking at houses for 2 years, we quickly know when a house is right for us - and this one was! While it's a 1925 home (most homes we look at are built in the early 1900s), it had newer windows, forced air heat (many homes had a boiler heat system which we hoping to avoid), central air, and a great layout. The house was significantly renovated about 11 years ago so that's why it has newer windows and some modern updates like forced air heat.

After seeing the house, we talked it over and decided to make an offer that evening. We figured the owners would wait to accept it until the following day as they had more showings set up on Tuesday. But they ended up accepting the offer that night! They have 2 kids under 3 and didn't want to put up with more showings. We also had offered a bit over asking price so came in with a strong offer.

The photos below are a bit blurry but give  you an idea of what the house looks like.

It's a 2-story home with great curb appeal. While I love the look of stucco, the vinyl siding is much more low maintenance. I love the window boxes!

The house is about 2,500 square feet. We wanted to stay below 3,000 square feet and were hoping to stay in the 2,100 to 2,500 area. We like that the main level has a very open floor plan and is bright and sunny. The windows also have plantation blind window treatments which is another nice perk!

We also really liked the kitchen. Down the road, I will probably hire someone to paint the cabinets white as I don't love the 2-toned darker brown/cream color. But that's something we'll tackle several years down the road.

The kitchen opens up to a dining room and there is a little window seat area in between the kitchen and dining area with built-in shelves.

Upstairs, there are 3 bedrooms. The master bedroom has a walk-in closet and a master bath which is another rare feature in an older home! We were hoping for 3 bedrooms upstairs as we are hoping/planning to have 2 kids so they will each have their own room. Additionally, there is a guest room and bathroom in the (finished) basement as well as a family room area down there. It will be nice to have a guest suite for my parents since they don't live locally!

The backyard is really nice as well. There  is a deck off the dining room and a stamped concrete patio that the sellers put in a couple of years ago.

After looking at houses for 2 years, we knew no house would be perfect. So the "not ideal" aspect of the house is that it's on a hill. So we'll have to walk down some stairs to get to the garage. We have the corner lot so Phil will have to do a lot of snow removal and since we are on a hill, the sidewalk on the north side is on a hill... We have a corner lot now so he's used to moving a lot of snow but the hill/slope of the sidewalk will add a challenge!  I told him that Paul can help him in 10 years or so! ;)

Also, the garage is much smaller than our current garage. It's a 2-stall garage but it's going to be a tight fit for our 2 cars. But that is city living for you. Garages in south Minneapolis are smaller and you access them through the alley. We'll have to add some sort of storage shed for things like our lawn mower, snow blower, stroller, etc.

We've got a hectic 2 months ahead between buying this house and selling our home. Phil doesn't like change or spending money so buying a house is, well, a nightmare for him. I'm hoping he feels less anxious once we are in the house. I think anticipating change is always worse than just dealing with it. But by Thanksgiving, we should be pretty settled!! Outside of updating some of the paint colors, the house is very turnkey so that is another nice perk.

I'm hoping we love this house so much that we stay here until our kids are done with high school but we'll see what happens over the years to come!

Monday, September 16, 2019

Working Mom Meal Planning Routine

It's definitely taken some time to figure out a meal planning routine that works for our family, but I *think* we've arrived at the optimal routine so I thought I'd share it with all of  you in case some of you are looking for ideas on how to improve meal planning.

I think meal planning is challenging no matter what your household looks like, but it's extra challenging, in my opinion, for moms who work outside of the home. I'm gone about 50 hours a week between work and commuting, so I really need to make it as easy as possible to make dinner on week nights. I do 99% of the cooking in our house as it's just not Phil's thing (he grills and will do some basic things but it mostly falls on me). But we've made some adjustments since having Paul to make meal prep more equitable.

Here's what meal planning looks like in our house.

Step one: what's for dinner??

On Wednesday or Thursday night, we look at the weekly grocery ad from our local store to see what's on sale and then I page through my binder of recipes. Together we come up with 3-4 meals to make for the coming week. 3-4 meals is enough to get our family through the week as Paul doesn't each much of what we make and we usually have 2-3 servings of a meal left over to eat later in the week.

Pre-Paul, I pretty much always picked out the meals but since having Paul, I have asked Phil to help come up with meal ideas. The mental fatigue of coming up with meal ideas without someone's input was just too much for me! I've talked about this before, but I have a binder full of recipes, organized by course. I only put recipes in there that we tried and liked. The recipes are in plastic protectors so they don't get dirty. I love this approach to meal planning. I am such a tactile person when it comes to meal planning - using something electronic, like a google doc, would not work for me. But I know it works for others!

For this coming week, we decided to make Turkey Meatloaf, Cheesy Ham and Broccoli Rice Skillet, and Smoky Lentil and Potato Soup in the instant pot. The meatloaf and soup are tried and true recipes; the ham and broccoli skillet was a new recipe I got from Iowa Girl Eats One Pan Recipe post. We are trying several recipes from this post this fall as I'm all about easy one-pan recipes! The soup recipe yields a TON so that will be my lunches for most of the week. I usually bring lunch 4 days and let myself eat out one day/week.

Step two: grocery list and grocery shopping

Next I use the recipes to finish up our grocery shopping list, which we save in a shared iPhone note so that Phil and I can both add to it. Then Phil goes grocery shopping, usually on Saturday morning while we are at swimming lessons. Pre-Paul, I did the grocery shopping but now Phil has taken over this task which I LOVE.

Step three: prep-work planning

For the next step, I use the "Prep Dish" approach to meal planning. If you aren't familiar with pre-dish, it's a meal planning service. They send you the recipes, a grocery list and a 'task list' for the recipes. Having as much of the prep work done ahead of time makes it so much easier to get dinner on the table at a reasonable time. Pre-Paul I would do all the chopping the night I made a recipe but that just doesn't work anymore. So these days, I figure out what all needs to be chopped ahead of time. It's probably hard to read my writing, but I basically cut up all the vegetables/meat ahead of time.

Step four: do the work

Next up, I get to work chopping everything. I try not to do this during nap time as I would prefer to relax and do something I enjoy during nap time, like read. Phil is usually home when I do my prep work so he can help out with Paul but Paul tends to like to hang with me in the kitchen. When I did my prep work on Sunday, he took his kitchen toys (3 plastic containers and a wooden spoon) and took them out/put them back into the cupboard over and over and over again. He must have done it 50+ times! But hey - whatever entertains the toddler works for me!

I didn't keep track of how long I worked but it was probably less than an hour. During that time, I cut up the veggies and sausage for the soup (the lentil soup is vegetarian but we add sausage), chopped the broccoli and ham for the rice skillet, and cup the onions and chex cereal for the meatloaf in a small food processor (I use chex cereal in place of bread crumbs to make it GF). Later that day when the meat had thawed out, I mixed up the meatloaf and put it in a glass bowl. That way I just have to put it on a baking sheet, top it with the sauce, and put it in the oven.

It's so satisfying to see my glass containers full of chopped veggies/meat. My future self is very glad that my past self did all that prep work!

Step five: make dinner!

On Sunday night I made one of the 3 recipes - cheesy broccoli and ham skillet. I joked that this was a totally 90s mom kind of meal. But hey - it was easy and relatively healthy.

I started dinner at 5:20 and we all sat down to eat around 5:50. So it was truly a 30 minute meal. And the toddler actually ate some of this. Probably only 3 spoonfuls but I'll take what I can get. Next time I'll cut up the broccoli smaller so it's less detectable. He spit out the ham (Paul is not a fan of meat in general) and any large pieces of broccoli. But he did say 'yum' when he ate it so I guess it was somewhat successful!

How do you handle meal planning in your house? Do you fly by the seat of your pants or plan things out in detail like we do? Some day I won't have to plan things with such a level of detail but I think we are years away from that!!

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Virtual Coffee Date

It's been quite awhile since I've done a virtual coffee date, which is a way for me to share some random things that are on my mind! So settle in, grab a coffee or tea, and pretend we are sitting across from each other at a cozy coffee shop!

If we were having coffee today...

- I'd probably talk about our super frustrating house search. I'm so fatigued by looking at listings. So many people talk about how fun house hunting is or how much they enjoy looking at listings. Let me tell you, it's not as fun when you really want to find something and are striking out. I'd also talk about how surprised we are how little effort some people put into staging their homes. The market is hot for first time home buyer houses, but in our price range, things are not selling super fast unless they are priced right and have a beautiful kitchen. So staging is still super important. In fact, even though our house should sell very fast (it's a first time home buyer kind of house), we will still really focus on staging it to make sure it gets a lot of traffic and sells quickly. We are also surprised how over-priced some houses are. I imagine the owner must insist on a certain price because it does not make sense to us to price something way over what it will sell for. We've really gotten a feel for things should be priced after looking for 2 years, so I imagine their realtor has to know it's over-priced. It seems like it's best to come on the market at the appropriate price... it's not like you are going to trick buyers into thinking it's actually worth what you list it at! Anyways, I'd ask you to send good thoughts and cross your fingers that we find the right house soon!

- I'm sure we'd talk about Paul, too! I'm really loving the toddler stage. It's so fun to watch him explore the world and learn new things. He's still so obsessed with books. I didn't know that a toddler could love books as much as her does! Whenever he encounters a cat in a book, he wants to show Oscar (see pic below). He's handled the transition to the toddler room really well. He naps for 2 hours on a cot, which is amazing. He doesn't nap that long at home! I'm so glad he takes good naps as his teachers deserve a break. His poor infant room teachers rarely got a break from him as he usually napped for about 20 minutes! He's learning new words and concepts, which is cool to see!

He loves playing with this rotary phone. He says 'hello' in the cutest little voice!
 - I'm sure we'd talk about books since that's one of my favorite topics! I'd talk about how surprised I am that I've had my best reading years since becoming a mom. I guess being a mom makes you really, really prioritize your free time. Also, since becoming a mom, I make way fewer plans and have more free nights which gives me more time to read. So in general, I wouldn't say I'm busier as a mom than I was pre-kids - I'm just a different kind of busy if that makes sense? When I didn't have kids, I kind of hated it when people would say things like 'you think you are busy now, just wait until you have kids!' But now I can say you can be busy with kids or without kids. You are probably just busy in a different way.

- On that topic, I'd talk about how much harder it's been for me to fit in exercise since becoming a mom. Working out before work just doesn't work for me since we are all out of the house around 6:50 am. My day would have to start far too early for my liking. And then I'm busy with Paul until around 6:30-7 and am usually famished by the time he goes to bed. The best time for me to workout would be around 8pm and that's just too late for me. So I've had to settle for considering walks exercise (we take family walks on week nights and long walks on the weekend). I'm content with my weight so I guess it's working out ok? I will admit that I'm a bit envious of moms with flexible schedules. My work schedule is pretty inflexible... I'm also envious of Phil for being able to run during lunch. That's just not an option for me as I'd get so sweaty that I'd need a shower and there's no way I'd have time for that... nor would I feel comfortable coming back to my very professional/polished work environment looking like a hot mess (Phil has access to a shower at work)! I'm reminding myself that this is a season of life and right now, walking will need to be good enough! There are probably moms that would workout at 5am or 8pm but I guess I'm prioritizing other things over vigorous exercise right now.

- We'd close by me asking how you are doing and what's on your mind.

So tell me - how are you and what's on your mind?

Thursday, September 5, 2019

Paul at 18 months

This is my first Paul post that doesn't use "Baby Paul" in the title! He'll always be my baby but it's time to acknowledge that is no longer a baby! We are loving the toddler phase for the most part. Paul is such a charming little guy who loves to laugh and make us laugh. It's fun to watch him discover the world! There are things I miss about the baby phase, like all the cuddles and holding a sleeping baby, but for the most part I much prefer the toddler stage.


- The biggest milestones between 15 and 18 months was learning to walk! He took his sweet time to practice this skill as he didn't walk until 16.5 months. I was definitely stressed about how long it took him to walk but he's definitely showing me that he does things on his own time frame.

His early walking days!
- Trip to Target! When I posted about his first trip on IG, some were surprised that he didn't go to Target until he was 16+ months. In general, we do not run errands with Paul. I think it's a lot of work to take a toddler in and out of the car seat so we tend to run errands while the other person is watching Paul. Plus there is a Target a block from where I work (dangerous!!) so I usually go to Target during the work week. But I took him to Target shortly after he learned to walk to buy him some shoes. He loved riding in the cart and looking at all the other people!

- We got a water table for him in July and he has loved playing with it! He sees it when we leave the house/come home and always says "agua!" and points to it. This table was an absolute pain to put together but in the end it was worth it!

Words: Paul's language skills really took off in the last 3 months! He says so many words now! His favorite words are 'uh oh' and 'no.' Go figure! It's hard to write down all the words he says as he says so many now! I love hearing him say "kitty" - he says it in this sweet higher pitched voice. He loves her so much but the feeling is NOT mutual. Ha!

Growth: After a huge growth between 12 and 15 months, his growth has leveled out. He weighs 21 pounds and is 31 inches tall. So he did not gain any weight between 12 and 15 months. His doctor said that is common once they start walking and she's not concerned. So he's back down to 10th percentile after his surge to 26th percentile at 15 months! I guess when you look at the stature of Phil and I, it makes sense that he's on the leaner/smaller side as we are both naturally pretty slim, especially Phil (Phil struggles to gain weight  - lucky guy!). Paul also has very tiny feet - he just moved into size 4 shoes which is very small!

He is still mostly in 12m clothes, although I've started to buy 18m shirts since they aren't too big on him. He could probably still wear 9m pants as the 12m ones are pretty lose and plenty long on him.

One thing that has grown in the last 3 months is his hair! It's so white that it's hard to see in pictures, but you can see how much hair he has in the picture below. We joke that he looks like Bernie Sanders or Larry David as he doesn't have much up top but has lots of fluffy hair in the back/on the sides of his head.

School: He started to transition to the toddler room during the last 2 weeks of August. This is his first full week in the toddler room. The transition has gone smoother than I thought it would but I imagine he will continue to adjust to being in a different environment with different kids/teachers. He's been crying at drop-off, though, so I can tell it's still a hard transition for him. Hopefully the crying subsides soon, but at least Phil is the one that deals with it since he does drop off and I do  pick up.

I think his language skills will advance even more now that he's with bigger kids and has a more challenging curriculum. They have a weekly curriculum in the infant room but I don't know how much he got out of it until the last couple of months. I think he'll get more out of the toddler curriculum.


- he still loves reading which makes me soooo happy! He loves books with flaps and touch and feel books. He is very particular about what he wants to read. We have a stack of books next to the rocking chair in our living room. I will show him books from the pile and he will say no and wave his hand until I pick up one he's interested in reading. Ha.

 - he still loves playing peekaboo! This game just never gets old. I think we have a future class clown on our hands as he loves to laugh and make people laugh! Below he is playing peekaboo with cousin Anna and I also included a short video of him playing peekaboo with us as at home.

- He loves spending time with his cousins. He gets so much attention from them. But he definitely has a huge soft spot for cousin Matthew! Matthew is so good with him and the admiration is mutual!

- He loves to look at pictures and watch videos of himself. We spend a lot of time looking at chatbooks, which are filled with pictures of Paul. It's a good way to work on identifying family members. I let him watch videos of himself when we gave him ear drops during his ear infections. I'm trying not to make a habit of letting him use my phone, though!

- He still loves stroller walks. I know he'll eventually reach a stage where he will want to walk on his own so I'm savoring the days of being able to take long walks with him in the stroller!

Eating: Feeding Paul is still a challenge. He eats super well at daycare so I've kind of given myself a pass at home and we tend to feed him the same 3-5 meals over and over. I want to work towards eating family meals and exposing him to more things this fall/winter. Right now it doesn't work to eat together since we take family walks after work which leaves very little time to make his dinner. So meal prep needs to be very quick! But when the weather is colder and we are cooped up indoors, I'll have more time to make dinner when we get home from work and we can eat together more often. One thing I don't love about meal time is his propensity for throwing food. When he throws food, we take his food away but then he asks for more so it's not like he is throwing it because he's not hungry anymore... I hope he grows out of this stage very soon.

Dislikes: getting his diaper changed, getting dressed, taking oral medications, and getting ear drops! I hate it when he has a fever because he absolutely hates children's motrin and tylenol. Most of the time he spits it out. Even if we shoot it into the back of his mouth, he will usually gurgle it and spit it back out. So we usually try to mix it in with something like yogurt. 

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

What We Read in August

August was another strong reading month as I finished 8 books, bringing my 2019 total to 73! I was surprised to see how many non-fiction books I read. That is a genre I've been more drawn to this year! My favorite reads of the month are in italics.

Non-fiction Reads:

Bringing of Bebe was an interesting examination of the French approach to parenting. There are approaches I'd like to borrow but it's tough to completely mimic what they do since their culture is so different from ours! I was surprised to read that many French parents send their kids to week-long sleepaway camps as early as age 5!

Cribsheet was an excellent book that looks at the decisions parents make from birth to preschool. My takeaway was that, at the end of the day, quality of parenting trumps all of the decisions you make. For example, the decision to stay at home, have a nanny or send your child to daycare doesn't have a super meaningful impact on the child - what matters more is the quality of child care and quality of parenting you provide. The author said it's better to focus on what works best for the parents/family than feeling like a certain decision is best for the child.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone was an interesting look inside the relationship of a therapist and their clients. I kind of love being a voyeur so it was enjoyable to take a peek inside a therapist/client relationship and see how they help people work through the challenges in their life.

The Year of Less was a short memoir about the author's decision to give up shopping for a year (with some exceptions like toiletries, replacing clothing that is damaged/worn out, etc). I'm not much of a shopper so I couldn't really relate to the author's tendency to turn to retail therapy before embarking on her shopping ban, but it was still interesting to read about how she pared down her belongings and broke her addiction to buying things.

Fiction Reads:

Resistance Women is a WWII fiction novel set in Germany. Unlike other WWII books I've read, this book starts in the early 1930s and really focuses on the rise of Hitler. I'd say 75% of the book is set before the start of the war. The novel did drag a bit for me as it was about 600 pages! I think the author could have cut 100 pages and still adequately covered the subject matter. Nonetheless, it was still a good read.

Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating was a easy, breezy romance novel. I needed something light to offset the heavy fiction and non-fiction books I read and this novel delivered. The ending is predictable but that's often the case with romance novels.

Waiting for Tom Hanks was another book from Modern Mrs. Darcy's summer reading guide. It was a light, predictable romance. After a string of heavier books, it was a good way to close out the month!

Paul's Reading:

I picked up some new books at a children's book store earlier this month and they've been a hit! I also pulled a truck book off the shelf that we got when he was born and he loves it. There is a flap on each page that plays a different sound like a tractor, ducks, and a horse.

We also checked out "Duck on a Bike" from the library. Ducks are Paul's favorite animal so I've been trying to find duck books. He really loves this book so I think we need to purchase a copy. The illustrations are awesome! In the picture on the right below, he is kissing the illustration of the cat. He does this anytime he comes upon cats in a book! He also kisses other animals but it changes based on the day!

 What have you been reading lately?