Sunday Post/Mailbox Monday 7/16/23: I’m back and vacation bookish updates

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists…

Hello all, happy Sunday. I kind of fell off the blogging grid for a few weeks but I’ve slowly been getting back into it and have been blog hopping since last weekend. It’s been about one month since I did an updates post.

Summer has been beckoning my attention, so has my crochet and the tv. We also went away for a relaxing week at the lake which was awesome as usual. There’s something special about the Adirondacks that we never get tired of.


It’s pouring out as I type this post up and the power has been flickering so I’m hoping we don’t lose power. Forecast is saying rain all day today and flash flood warnings so I’m planning on staying in my pj’s all day and reading/crocheting….. onto my bookish updates….

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recently on the blog: I had a busy blog week!

Maribelle’s Shadow by Susannah Marren review and author interview.


Exits by Stephen C. Pollock poetry review.

I did a cover reveal for At the Ready by Sharon Michalove and a book spotlight/guest post for Becoming Flawesome by Kristina Mand-Lakhiani.

in my mailbox from vacation:

There’s a library at the lake my mom and I like to visit each year we’re out there and we always find good books.

This year they had the book sale outside. We also entered a few of the raffles so *fingers crossed*. The librarian said they can mail us the baskets if we win.


This is inside the library, it’s so cozy in there and they have a fireplace.


My book haul. 🙂 I limited myself to just 3. These hardcovers were only one dollar each and these were all on my wishlist! That’s bookish destiny. I forgot to take a pic of my mom’s book haul but she grabbed some good ones too.


I got The Silent Patient, Educated and A Man Called Ove. Have you read any of these?

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watching:
So many things. I’ll sum it up in list form, let me know if you’ve seen any of these:

–Arnold This is a 3-part documentary on NetFlix and it was so good. I’ve been an Arnold fan since I was little (Commando, Total Recall, Terminator 2) so I found his documentary interesting and inspiring.

–Terminator 2: Judgment Day We re-watched this because of the documentary and it has held up so well all these years later.

–Evil Dead Rise I went in blind and had no idea this was so bloody and gory. I had to close my eyes for alot of it but it was decent horror. I haven’t watched any of the others in this franchise yet.

–Coraline This was a random re-watch because I kept seeing it on Tiktok and it’s really cute and creepy. I took my kids to the theater for this when it first came out.

–The Righteous Gemstones My husband got me into this series and it is awesome. We’ve been watching season 3.

–Black Mirror Season 6 is out and it is so good. My fav episode was #3 called Beyond the Sea, both Aaron Paul and Josh Hartnett star in this one.

–The curious case of Natalia Grace was a strange documentary and left me wondering what was going on.

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crochet:
I’ve been crocheting alot.
I took this project with me to finish on vacation.


This is a Halloween themed bag that I started for someone last September. She asked me for a market bag but with a jack-o-lantern face. My toxic trait is saying “yes” to crochet requests without actually thinking them through or knowing if I can even pull it off. So I made all 13 squares last year, blocked them, seamed them together which was the easy part. Then I lined the bag and just kind of put it in my craft closet and was not inspired to finish it until recently.

This is what blocking looks like above.


Then I had to figure out the jack-o-lantern face, which is what I finished up on vacation. I used thick, heavy felt and freehanded cutting the face shapes out. This was the hardest part, getting the face sewed on evenly.
I sewed the fabric lining in by hand last year already so the bag is fully functional. (I dislike sewing but I did my best). This is the end result, I love it.

My SIL gifted me project tags a few years back and some are snarky so I sewed this fun one inside the bag that says “this took forever”.

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That covers my updates for now. What have you been up to? What’s your summer been like? Enjoy your week.

I’ll close with just a few more vacation pics since this post is already picture laden then I’ll share a few more next updates post in case anyone wants to see more.


Crocheting and my morning coffee on our cabin porch with the perfect view. I look forward to this all year. We stay on a private beach which you can see from our cabin porch.



Walking in town by the lake in the mornings is tradition, this is one of the views there. It’s very peaceful especially early before it gets busy.



I love iceream and my favorite icecream spot is by the lake. This place has been featured on the food network. We go there a few times on vacation week.

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Disclaimer: Nothing in this post is available for download. The photos here are my own and not be to be removed from this post.