Sunday Post/Mailbox Monday 12/27/2021: Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and 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. It’s Monday evening after work now instead of Sunday so my updates are a little late this week. I meant to log in yesterday and get this post ready but was just relaxing. I hope you had a Merry Christmas if you celebrate it and hope you are all doing well. We had a nice quiet Christmas at home. Otherwise, it’s been a busy month. My daughter had all 4 wisdom teeth removed a few weeks ago which she is still healing from believe it or not due to a complication on one side with a dry socket. 😦 I’ve crocheted a lot, I’ve been reading and I’m behind on reviews so I have a few reviews I need to share.

I’m back to working fully remote rather than hybrid since mid-December and my job extended working fully remote through the end of January due to the surge in Covid cases. I cannot believe we’re pushing two years of this pandemic. Several of our friends have tested positive lately so it’s pretty scary. Thankfully, all of them have only had mild head cold like symptoms. I had my booster shot last week which went well aside from the arm pain and body aches, it wasn’t as strong as the full vaccine shots I had in the Spring.

Also, Happy Healthy New Year 🙂 Any plans for the New Year? I should have a yearly wrap up post next week. I didn’t read as much as I would have liked to in 2021 but it’s fun looking back on the reading/blogging year.

Onto my updates….

recently on the blog:

I shared my thoughts on Later by Stephen King which was fantastic.


I shared my thoughts on Your Words Your World by Louise Bélanger which was a nice poetry collection.

in my mailbox:
My daughter and I have been sitting down by the Christmas tree these past several weeks and reading in the evenings after work. These are our latest books below. We decided we would both read them so we can discuss. So far we’ve read 1984 which I’ll be reviewing soon and Later by Stephen King (not shown here). She’s ahead of me and read Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom already and she loved it.



Others in our book stack are I Am Legend by Matheson (which I read already so I don’t think I will re-read this one), We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, The Giver by Lois Lowry and The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Have you read any of these?

crochet:
I made these two hooded shawls and this ear warmer head/wrap this month. Both were on commission and they went under someone’s Christmas tree this year which is nice.











That wraps up my updates for now. Happy Holidays from Otis! We’ll be blog hopping tomorrow. Stay well!


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Disclaimer: Nothing in this post is available for download. Some of these links are affiliate links. If you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission. The photos in this post are my own and not to be removed from here.

Sunday Post/Mailbox Monday 12/29/2019: Happy New Year and Bookish Best of 2019

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….

Happy Sunday and Happy New Year. Can you believe 2020 will soon be here? I like the sound of it though, twenty-twenty. I hope everyone had a nice Christmas if they celebrate it. Christmas here was nice, I spent two relaxing days at home. I made the peanut butter blossoms I had been wanting to bake. I also baked chocolate chip. If you try the peanut butter blossom recipe, it says bake at 375 degrees for around 8-10 minutes…that’s a big no-no. They bake at 325 for 14 minutes then I let them sit on the baking tray for another 4 minutes before putting them on the cooling rack.

Book-wise, I’ve been bad with reading and reviewing in December, I just did not have enough time. My last read of 2019 was A Crafter Quilts a Crime: A Handcrafted Mystery so I am going to try and sneak that review in by tomorrow to wrap start fresh for the new year.

Onto more updates….

Sunday Post/Mailbox Monday 12/22/19: Merry Christmas

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….

Happy Sunday and Happy Holidays. I cannot believe Christmas is just around the corner already. It’s been a whirlwind of a month between work and holiday stuff so it will definitely be nice when things slow down a little after Christmas. How are you all doing during this time of year? As nice as the holidays are it can also be a stressful time. I find the crowds and the extra traffic just add to stress levels.

And the weather has been very cold, with icy and snowy days here, a few mornings my car was covered in a sheet of ice. It will be nice to have a few days off this upcoming week and spend them at home warm in my pajamas. I finished the last of my Christmas shopping last weekend so I’m hoping to relax now and get back to my cookie baking. I found this recipe for peanut butter blossoms that I want to try out.

Even though it has been busy around here, there’s always time for frozen margaritas and Mexican food which we had last night with family. So nice 🙂

onto my book updates…

Christmas at Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop by Jenny Colgan

source: free review copy via Library Thing/ Harper Collins
title: Christmas at Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop
author: Jenny Colgan / Twitter
genre: Christmas fiction / Romance
published: November 7th 2013
pages: 341
first line: Lipton was quiet underneath the stars.
rated: 3 1/2 out of 5

blurb:
Rosie Hopkins is looking forward to Christmas in the little Derbyshire village of Lipton, buried under a thick blanket of snow. Her sweetshop is festooned with striped candy canes, large tempting piles of Turkish Delight, crinkling selection boxes and happy, sticky children. She’s going to be spending it with her boyfriend, Stephen, and her family, flying in from Australia. She can’t wait. But when a tragedy strikes at the heart of their little community, all of Rosie’s plans for the future seem to be blown apart. Can she build a life in Lipton? And is what’s best for the sweetshop also what’s best for Rosie?

my thoughts:
Christmas at Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop by Jenny Colgan is a nice read mainly centering on family life during the holidays in a small town. Rosie Hopkins left her life as a registered nurse in the big city to move to a little village in Lipton and open up a candy shop. She lives with her boyfriend Stephen, who is a Mr. Darcy type. His mother is Lady Lipton and she lives in the large estate of Lipton Hall. She is cold towards Rosie. Rosie wants Stephen to propose and she wants to start a family with him, this is a biggie for her. She wonders if staying in small town Derbyshire with no family is worth it if she doesn’t ever marry and have a family of her own.

Starry Night by Debbie Macomber

source: Purchased
title: Starry Night: A Christmas Novel
author: Debbie Macomber/ (Twitter)
genre: contemporary holiday romance
published: 2013
pages: 231
first line: Carrie Slayton’s feet were killing her.
rated: 3 out of 5

 

 

 

blurb:
’Tis the season for romance, second chances, and Christmas cheer with this new novel from Debbie Macomber.

Carrie Slayton, a big-city society-page columnist, longs to write more serious news stories. So her editor hands her a challenge: She can cover any topic she wants, but only if she first scores the paper an interview with Finn Dalton, the notoriously reclusive author.

Living in the remote Alaskan wilderness, Finn has written a mega-bestselling memoir about surviving in the wild. But he stubbornly declines to speak to anyone in the press, and no one even knows exactly where he lives.

Digging deep into Finn’s past, Carrie develops a theory on his whereabouts. It is the holidays, but her career is at stake, so she forsakes her family celebrations and flies out to snowy Alaska. When she finally finds Finn, she discovers a man both more charismatic and more stubborn than she even expected. And soon she is torn between pursuing the story of a lifetime and following her heart.

Filled with all the comforts and joys of Christmastime, Starry Night is a delightful novel of finding happiness in the most surprising places.

My thoughts:

I was in a Christmasy mood so I ordered a copy of Starry Night a few weeks ago. I am a seasonal reader and I try to enjoy at least one holiday book this time of year.

Starry Night is my first time reading Debbie Macomber. I’ve often seen her books around and I know she is popular in the genre and that some of her books have been made into Hallmark Christmas movies. In the foreword for Starry Night she mentions that she writes a Christmas book every year.

While I found Starry Night to be sweet Christmas romance, it did not blow me away like I wanted it too. It revolves around Chicago based columnist Carrie Slayton who is about to quit her job because she can’t see herself getting ahead with no serious assignments only gossip column stuff. Her boss tells her that if she can find and interview mysterious author Finn Dalton then she will have more serious assignments moving forward and be able to advance her career. Finn wrote a book about living in the wilderness that became an international bestseller and he has gone into hiding ever since. With the holidays around the corner Carrie decides to use her vacation time to find the mysterious Finn.