Heart the Lover, by Lily King ★★★☆☆

I saw this book recommendation on Instagram as a love story for readers who don't like love stories. My library had it on the shelf, so I thought I would give it a try. I whizzed through this book in two evenings, so it's highly readable. The writing is good, in fact Part I of the book is excellent, except some parts are a bit too graphic for me; however, I was able to overlook these few instances. 

Part II started to unwind for me and Part III completely lost it. I've been thinking about why and here's what I've come up with:

Part I introduces us to the characters and it really does a great job illustrating believable characters who make realistic choices in life. The plot was interesting and I was engaged. I loved all of the English Lit references. We can an in-depth view of life and thought processes. Plot development and characterization is rich.

Part II is where it gets complicated. The plot twists and in my opinion starts to branch in a direction not exactly anticipated. This isn't a bad thing, but just different. Plus, it's suddenly 21 years later. We experience very little development of characters. They're obviously not the same as they were, but we're sort of let to our own devices to figure out what exactly is going on with them. The storyline is sketchy and the writing in this part is strange. I had to keep rereading passages to fully understand who "you" kept referring to and to understand what exactly what was transpiring plot-wise.

Part III gets depressing. It does not match the tone of Part I at all. In fact, I could realistically say that Part III is Part I's plot foil. More so, though, it becomes unbelievable. Most people do not act this way. It's a stretch and a depressing one. Without giving any spoilers, I would just say that the main character's choices in the end do not align with the real choices any wife or mother would make. Plus her husband's character is a stretch. 

Also, the significance of the main female character's first name is lost on me. I feel like this book had so much potential, but it became something completely different and quite honestly a huge downer so much that its lingering black cloud is hanging over me as I write this.
But with that being said because I enjoyed Part 1 so much, I may try some other books by this author. 

Yesteryear, by Caro Claire Burke ★★★★☆

This book pulled me in right away, which was great because I have been in a GIGANTIC reading slump.  Honestly, I have been DNF-ing more books lately that I can even count. But this book is so well written and definitely not the AI-slop we're being pushed on social media these days. 

This topic captivated me because it specifically explores the different paths modern America women can travel. While there is certainly a lot of material regarding "trad wives" it is so much more than that. My favorite line from the book that I have since used in various conversations (including the dinner table) is "America hates women." 

The beginning to mid-point is the highlight of this book for sure. I only gave it four stars because it did become a little unhinged at end but it was not a deal breaker at all.

So much has happened in a week...

It's true! We had a derecho blow through our area last Tuesday and it demolished both my vegetable and flower garden. Plus, it's rained every single day since, so I can't even get outside to clean any of the areas up.

Right after the storm, I did prop up my precious green pepper plants because those are what I really wanted to grow the most of this year to freeze. Green peppers are soooo expensive at the grocery store! Sometimes they are like $1 each and that's crazy, especially when you know just how cheap it is to grow them. My hubby built some wooden fences for me last year to try and keep the rabbits out of my side garden and although they failed to keep the rabbits out, they have come in handy for a variety of uses, including as temporary resting places for my poor pepper plants! Today the rain has been on and off, but the humidity is 81%, so there is no way I am going out there to roll around in the humid mud. Tomorrow it's supposed to be much nicer, but there's just so much to do that I am actually kind of dreading it. 

I also tried to harvest what I could right after the storm, so I had a big ol' pile of San Marzano tomatoes on the counter ripening all week and today I threw them all in a big pot to make some pasta/pizza sauce. It is sooooo good! Let me know if I should post the recipe here. 

It's super easy. My kids and I were just talking about how jarred pasta sauce is kind of tasteless these days, but this is definitely not! I try to make a big pot and freeze some for later. 

Since it's been raining so much and gardening has not been sucking up all of my time, I have been completely engrossed in Halloween papercrafting. 𖦹˖°.👻 ̟࿔*:⋆ I pulled out all of my Halloween supplies and am having a blast. I know it's only the middle of August, but this girl's got Halloween on the mind!

Finally, I started reading Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke and so far it's amazing. I've been in a self-proclaimed reading slump and devised all sorts of reasons why it might be happening:  My eyes are tired. I can't concentrate. Everything is boring. Nothing interests me. Maybe it's menopause. Maybe my reading days are over. .·°՞(˃ ᗝ ˂)՞°·.

But really, I discovered, what has been happening is that I've been trying to read books that just aren't very good. So far, this book is so well written and the aptitude to which this author knows the innermost workings of her characters is actually astounding. I am a stay-at-home mom so I'm like an enemy reader and I think it's absolutely fantastic thus far. I hope it stays that way!

Toodles!

Gina

  

What I planted for a fall crop

Hi, everyone! 

I thought it would be fun to post about what I'm planting right now. Probably no one will read this but me, so if anything, it will be a good way to track my gardening because honestly, I am really bad at writing down what I plant and when. Sometimes I don't even know what I planted until the seedling sprouts and I recognize it. But with this last planting, that most likely is my last large seed sowing for the season, I did jot it down in a crude way 👉

I'd say about 25% of what I plant each year around this time is an experiment to see if I can grow another crop before the frost sets in and the rest are tried and true. I have found that 50% of gardening is experimentation. Sometimes you win and more often you lose. 😂

So, let's see. I planted beets, green onions, three types of lettuce, and parsnips. I know these should probably work. I've never planted parsnips before, so that should be interesting. Here's exactly what I planted:

I would like to plant some more radishes, but those grow so quickly I can do it later. I should get some more carrots out there to freeze for the winter, but then again the prospect of picking, washing, cutting, blanching and freezing seems daunting and frankly, unrealistic.

My experiment crop this time was zucchini. I am having a terrible time this summer with squash bugs, so my zucchini is not as prolific as years past. I thought it would be interesting to see if I can grow another crop of zucchini before it gets too cold. For the past ten years or so, our fall has been quite mild, so if it holds true for this year, it should work. If not, all I really lost was a few seeds! I'll keep this blog updated with the results. 

xo, Gina

Bringing back blogs

Hi everyone, 

I am sooooo excited to start this blog! I love everything about this style of blogs that first surfaced in the late 90s and early 2000s. There was something just so authentic and unique about them. Let's not talk about how long it actually took to connect to the Internet...but thinking back, the lack of speed is what made it awesome too -- you had to wait for it! 

Sometimes I wish I could go back to those days and really live it up and watch VHS tapes, listen to my collection of cassette tapes and CDs, or watch "Who's The Boss" on TV every Tuesday night. I'd give anything to go to the mall to visit the Sanrio store called Small Wonder and get a nice new pencil box or mystery bag of goodies. 

When you're in the moment and just living life, it's impossible to have the hindsight to savor all of the amazingness. It's only when you get middle-aged like me that you realize just how perfect things used to be. 😭 

Since I don't have a time machine, this is the closest I can get to reliving those days. Yay! I'm going to keep working on this blog and hopefully add a lot of nostalgic goodness one step at a time.  

 xo, Gina