current reads

Despite my mile long to-do list, after a visit from the UPS man, yesterday found me doing what could be considered an irresponsible amount of this...

I got some new books in the mail! Ones I've been anxious to order and waiting impatiently for for the entire 24 hours it took Amazon to get them to me (Amazon Prime is the way to go, I'm tellin' ya.)

The first one is this one:

 I ordered this because I need for the way I am eating to become more convenient. No offense to the more prominent Paleo bloggers, but most of them aren't trying to feed a family and homeschool and have absolutely anything else they like to do other than spend all their free time in the kitchen making burger buns and fruit snacks. Ahem. This book seemed less an intense recipe book and more an idea book. It awesome, I can't wait to try some of the wraps and soups and breakfasts. Yum!

The other book is this one!

A Beautiful Mess is the absolute first blog I ever started reading and the one that inspired me to become a blogger in the first place, almost 7 years ago now! These girls are nothing if not visually inspirational! Their photos are always so fun to look at so I knew this book would have some good ideas. I so love taking pictures, but sometimes new ideas and inspiration is needed to get better and this book fits the bill perfectly. I read it cover to cover yesterday and couldn't wait to pick up my camera and try some new things, which I promptly did. So fun.

I also decided to take the 30 day self-portrait challenge! It will certainly push me to get creative and also learn more about my camera as far as focus and settings. I plan to try some new things, many of them ideas from the book. I will not be sharing these pictures here daily because that seems, well, um, vain. But, let's face it, this blog is half sewing and thus, self portaits are a big part of that so I'd like to branch out. I will put together a mosaic every several days :)  For now, I did snap a couple fun ones yesterday and today...

I wanted to document the Starbucks because right now, a daily iced coffee is how I'm coping, ha! And lately, I've been so thankful I've been blogging for so long because it is the absolute best documentation I have of our lives together. And the little things matter--like the daily Starbucks right before our move to VA. And our hardwood floors, which are so beautiful, but make it so I have to wear shoes always so my feet don't freeze off. These are memories :)

Yesterday, since I had posted Kelby's birthday pics from all five years, the girls wanted to see their birthday posts from over the years. So we looked at those and then they spent a good hour looking through my blog archives and giggling and remembering. It was amazing and made me even happier to have started this blog so long ago!!

But, ANYWAY, I had intended to write about our current reads, ha!

I'll keep it short.

1. Laying Down the Rails 
2. Molly Murphy Mysteries
3. Meet Filicity
4. The Three R's
5. The Magician's Nephew

I highly recommend them all :)