This post contains affiliate links.
This post contains affiliate links.
Good morning and a very happy Friday to you. It’s January 17th, how are you doing on your resolutions? Statistics show that most peoples’ commitments have already started to crumble. If you are still at it, good for you! If you have sluffed off a bit it’s OK, tomorrow is another day, give it another chance. One way to help you achieve success is writing down your goals every day, maybe do it the night before for what you want to accomplish the next day, then weekly for what you want that month and of course have a yearly plan as well.
I hope you enjoy my Friday Favorites!
Food
Shrimp Ramen Stir Fry From Cooking For Keeps. I personally do not eat seafood but my husband loves it and he picked this out.
Slow Cooker Spicy Beef Curry from Kitchen Sanctuary. Curry is a favorite in our house and this looks delicious.
Crispy Chick Pea Salad From How Sweet Eats
I love French Grated Carrot Salad from Once Upon A Chef and if you have never had it you will too!
Blueberry Coffeecake to add a little bit of summer to your winter breakfast table.
Articles
A Downsizing Party instead of an Estate Sale. This is such a great idea.
An Abandoned Parisian Department Store is Reopening As an Ultra-Luxe Hotel.
The Most Powerful Family Ritual
A Scandal At Oxford: The Curious Case of the Stolen Gospel.
These photos of mushrooms in the Pacific NW are amazing.
Books
I am currently reading:
A year-long journey to more mindful living―day-by-day.
There’s an easier path to living a more peaceful and present life. This mindfulness journal provides effective ways to make practicing mindfulness part of your everyday routine so you can reduce negativity and grow your sense of calm.
This mindfulness journal is broken out into themed weeks, each with 7 unique prompts that allow you to deepen your practice. Discover how to live in the moment as you reflect on being conscious of your body, connecting with nature, or even cleaning your home. A year of more tranquility is at hand―why not begin today?
This year-long mindfulness journal includes:
- Weekly themes―Focus on a different aspect of mindfulness each week―centering your body, exploring your mind, taking care of yourself, and appreciating the good things.
- Daily writing―Stay engaged all year long with a mindfulness journal that has 364 prompts, ranging from examining the way you breathe to photographing the world around you.
- Mindfulness made easy―This mindfulness journal is filled with quick and simple exercises that help you live moment to moment.
Take the path to inner peace one day at a time with this engaging mindfulness journal.
In the Great Green Room: The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown
The extraordinary life of the woman behind the beloved children’s classics Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny comes alive in this fascinating biography of Margaret Wise Brown. Margaret’s books have sold millions of copies all over the world, but few people know that she was at the center of a children’s book publishing revolution. Her whimsy and imagination fueled a steady stream of stories, book ideas, songs, and poems and she was renowned for her prolific writing and business savvy, as well as her stunning beauty and endless thirst for adventure.
Margaret started her writing career by helping to shape the curriculum for the Bank Street School for children, making it her mission to create stories that would rise above traditional fairy tales and allowed girls to see themselves as equal to boys. At the same time, she also experimented endlessly with her own writing. Margaret would spend days researching subjects, picking daisies, cloud gazing, and observing nature, all in an effort to precisely capture a child’s sense of awe and wonder as they discovered the world.
Clever, quirky, and incredibly talented, Margaret embraced life with passion, lived extravagantly off of her royalties, went on rabbit hunts, and carried on long and troubled love affairs with both men and women. Among them were two great loves in Margaret’s life. One was a gender-bending poet and the ex-wife of John Barrymore. She went by the stage name of Michael Strange and she and Margaret had a tempestuous yet secret relationship, at one point living next door to each other so that they could be together. After the dissolution of their relationship and Michael’s death, Margaret became engaged to a younger man, who also happened to be the son of a Rockefeller and a Carnegie. But before they could marry Margaret died unexpectedly at the age of forty-two, leaving behind a cache of unpublished work and a timeless collection of books that would go on become classics in children’s literature.
In In the Great Green Room, author Amy Gary captures the eccentric and exceptional life of Margaret Wise Brown, and drawing on newly-discovered personal letters and diaries, reveals an intimate portrait of a creative genius whose unrivaled talent breathed new life in to the literary world.
Dreamland, FREE on Kindle Unlimited
The year is 1911 when twenty-year-old heiress Peggy Batternberg is invited to spend the summer in America’s Playground.
The invitation to Coney Island is unwelcome. Despite hailing from one of America’s richest families, Peggy would much rather spend the summer working at the Moonrise Bookstore than keeping up appearances with New York City socialites and her snobbish, controlling family.
But soon it transpires that the hedonism of Coney Island affords Peggy the freedom she has been yearning for, and it’s not long before she finds herself in love with a troubled pier-side artist of humble means, whom the Batternberg patriarchs would surely disapprove of.
Disapprove they may, but hidden behind their pomposity lurks a web of deceit, betrayal, and deadly secrets. And as bodies begin to mount up amidst the sweltering clamor of Coney Island, it seems the powerful Batternbergs can get away with anything… even murder.
Extravagant, intoxicating, and thumping with suspense, bestselling Nancy Bilyeau’s magnificent Dreamland is a story of corruption, class, and dangerous obsession.
I just purchased Music For Mister Moon for a friends children and it is a wonderful book.
A girl named Harriet longs to play her cello alone in her room. But when a noisy owl disrupts her solitude, Harriet throws her teacup out the window in frustration, and accidentally knocks the moon out of the sky.
Over the course of an evening, Harriet and the moon become fast friends. Worried that he’ll catch a chill, Harriet buys the moon a soft woolen hat, then takes him on a boat ride across a glistening lake, something he’s only dreamed of. But can she work up the courage to play her music for the moon?
In this delicate bedtime story about a shy young cello player who learns to share her music with the moon, the award-winning Philip and Erin Stead deliver another whimsical, visually oriented picture book in their signature style.
Finds
I love these stemless wine glass from Anthropologie.
And these Brooks Brothers tartan booties.
and last but not least this Bee Necklace.
I hope that you share your recipes, books, podcasts or whatever else you found interesting this week.
Have a great weekend.
Brenda Pruitt says
I love the stemless wine glass (so elegant!) and the bee necklace!
Brenda
William Kendall says
The coffee cake looks good!