It's Fall Y'all

[Well, I didn't get this published before October ended. Let's just time travel real quick.] October is the best month if you live in the mid-Atlantic. There are still leaves on the trees, which gradually change color, peaking toward the end of the month. The temperatures are pleasant enough that everyone goes outside. And I mean EVERYONE. People who usually spend their lives in climate-controlled comfort emerge and take up all the parking spots everywhere. Nothing ruins a beautiful fall day by people trying to enjoy a beautiful fall day. Something in my nature rails against anything we are "supposed" to do at certain times of the year, so I find myself exaggeratedly rolling my eyes at pumpkin patches, apple cider donuts, fall festivals, boots and plaid, and pumpkin spice anything. It's not that I don't like those things. It's just that I wish I could do them in private, during the off season. So if anyone opens up a mid-January pumpkin patch, I'll be there! (We went to the beach in February this year and drove home in a snowstorm. It was great.)

Don't even get me started on Christmas. It's a whole month (at least) of spending money and obligation. Why can't we go see light displays in February when there is nothing happening and we're all tired of winter? I know Christmas is a favorite time of year for a lot of people so I'll just go grinch over in the corner.

October also meant the end of the flower season. I could have gone on longer, but I did not do a good job staking my dahlias. They are still blooming, but they all flopped over so the stems are growing in random directions. Next year I'll know better! I was pretty happy to stop, though, and take a rest. All my free time has been consumed with flowers for the past six months, and I'm ready to sit on the couch or work on other projects.

At the beginning of the month I had my annual trip with some friends. We treat this as a creative retreat, and everyone brings their own projects. My two friends are writers so they tapped away on their projects. I did some painting, cross-stitch, knitting, and reading. The house we booked was right on the water (an inlet off the Potomac River), and had kayaks and all sorts of fun things. Unfortunately this was also the weekend that a hurricane worked its way up the coast and rained for 5 solid days. We didn't get to do any hiking or outdoor stuff, but we did visit a giant antique store twice.

That's the river above - looks like an ocean, right? It was rainy and windy as I walked on the beach, collecting rocks. All was not lost since we had the chance to get cozy with blankets and a fake fire and a show about botched plastic surgery. Best of all, I was with two other grown women who clean up after themselves and don't whine constantly! We ate salad and drank tea. Who could ask for more?

I spent many hours this month rebuilding my raised bed garden. I originally built it in 2016, and I used non-pressure treated wood because I was growing vegetables and didn't want them exposed to harmful chemicals (it's difficult to find actual research on if this is a valid concern or not). Over the years the wood completely rotted out and the garden started falling apart. I took the whole thing apart and rebuilt it from scratch using pressure treated boards now that I've switched to growing flowers. Hopefully it lasts a long time because this process was exhausting. I could barely walk the next day.

Recent Books

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata was all I had hoped The Maid would be, but wasn't. Keiko is in her 30s and has worked in a convenience store for her whole adult life. She loves her job, but is pressured by friends and family to get a "real" job and find a husband. It's a short and charming book and can be read in a few hours. Highly recommend.

The Marriage Portrait was my first fiction read by Maggie O'Farrell, and it blew me away. It may be my favorite fiction book of the year. I can see how the writing style would be annoying for some people: it's quite wordy and descriptive. But it works! O'Farrell's sense of pacing is phenomenal. The first two chapters left me breathless. The book takes place in the 1500s and focuses on the first year of marriage between Lucrezia de Medici and Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. I knew very little about this time period which turned out to be super scandalous and murderey. If you're a historical fiction fan, I also highly recommend this one.

I'm on a roll with good books! I knew that The Bullet That Missed would be good since I've read the previous two books in this series. I wasn't super engaged in the mystery in this one, but that didn't matter to me because the writing is so funny. For those who have read the series, Bogdan is my favorite character. I'm trying to think of who would be the best actor to play him if they make a show of these books. (Just looked it up - Steven Spielberg bought the rights!)

Thank you to everyone who reads and comments. (Thank you even if you don't comment! I'm happy to have you.) I love keeping up with all of your blogs too, so know I am there even if I don't have the time to leave comments. Long live blogging!

September Light

The leaves are still on the trees, but the light has changed. The sun stays lower on the horizon in the mornings, and the afternoons are bathed in a golden glow. Not surprisingly, the flowers have slowed down as the plants slowly fade. I am happy for the relief from constant gardening - having a few more weekday nights and weekend hours free has been wonderful. Instead of taking on more projects, like home renovation or sewing, I've spent a lot of that time watching book reviews on YouTube and knitting socks. I typically have many projects in the works, but frankly, I just need some rest!

With my second job slowing down (just in time, because my regular job has sped up), I want to use my non-phone camera more. In years past I have taken thousands of pictures; that number has since dwindled to a few hundred per year. Sure, I could wait until the new year and make this a resolution. There is no reason to not start now, though.

I didn't have plans for this post other than to share some of the recent photos I'd taken, so perhaps here is a good spot for a social media tangent. Nothing I have to say is new, because we've all read the articles and have experienced ourselves what social media can do. I recently read Stolen Focus, which is the book I had hoped Digital Minimalism would be. This book explains how our focus has been collectively eroded by several factors, including social media and the constant stream of content. I feel this myself. I used to be able to spend hours reading, but now I am interrupted by my own drive to check a notification or Google something I must know the answer to right then (most recently: ooh I wonder if Teecino has any new flavors out). I find myself racing through books in order to move on to the next one instead of taking time and savoring the words. While Digital Minimalism took the more common line that we should, and can, take personal responsibility for our use of digital devices, Stolen Focus outlines all of the external forces that make this nearly impossible.

It has been interesting seeing these social media issues play out in the artist community. Artist Ohn Mar Win recently posted about a sabbatical she is taking. Another photographer I followed left Instagram at the end of last year and has since decided to give up her content-creating business entirely. Anne from My Giant Strawberry has written several posts about this issue; in the linked post, she links to even more stories of artists who have left or are taking a break from Instagram.

The constant demands on time and attention are some reasons for these reactions, and more recently Instagram's shift to video over images. The algorithm rewards frequent posting of a certain type, and that has led to less engagement for many creators. For people running creative small businesses, the constant stress to hussle more and produce more has increased stress, taken time away from actually being creative, and for many, led them to close their small business.

I want to focus on doing things that I love, just for the sake of doing them. I will never be a professional artist, but I like painting. I have no desire to start an art business or attempt to be paid for my work. In fact, I once had an art Instagram account that I have since deleted. We are so conditioned to feel like we should share anything that we create, and every photogenic moment, that it seems radical to fight against this.

Yes, I understand the irony here - I am posting this on a public blog. However, no one is ever going to find this by scrolling or being recommended it by a machine. I'll stay in my semi-hidden corner and enjoy it. I'm not writing for likes or attention, but for the ease of putting photos and words together. I suppose I could go back to the scrapbooking days and write this all out by hand and print out all my photos... but that would take so much time.

I'll write more in praise of day jobs later, but for now, I do wonder what will happen to the majority of those who use content creating as their sole source of income. Peak content will happen, if it hasn't already.

And now, for books! Last year I read The Authenticity Project, and when I heard that Clare Pooley was coming out with a new book I immediately put it on hold. This is the story of a group of unlikely friends, who all meet in the same train car while commuting. It's a little bit similar to the premise of Pooley's first novel. It ended up being a cute, light story that was not a romance (although it contains a bit of romance) which is somewhat rare. I had fun reading it and it made me think about all the subway riders I used to see pre-pandemic. I wonder what happened to them?

Sometimes you stumble upon a book that highlights the exact phase if life you are in, and I'll Show Myself Out was that for me. My kids are (thankfully) out of the baby years, but it wasn't too long ago that I was there. Klein tells it like it is and doesn't write nonsense like "enjoy it while you can" (because it's not possible to enjoy being sleep deprived). I thought she was very funny, which is good because she's a comedian, although there is just a touch of rich lady showing through. 

Oh, The Shell Seekers. This is the fiction book I have been waiting for. At its core, it's a multi-generational family saga. So much happens! It flips back and forth between the present and the past, mainly during WWII in England. The story of the Keeling family is complicated and full of plot, but the best part of this book is its inherent coziness. There are endless cups of tea, cottages, and gardens. This is a book to sink into and be immersed in another world. I am not finished yet (it's 630 pages), but I already can't wait to read more by Rosamunde Pilcher. (Side note, the 1989 movie version starring Angela Lansbury is on YouTube, but it is so painfully 80s I don't think I'll be able to watch it.)

Books & Blooms

Thank you to everyone who left recommendations for books on my last post. I've already added many of them to my TBR list and I look forward to checking them out! As my last few months of pictures show, books and flowers are a major theme around these parts.

Flower farming was hot and heavy during July and the first half of August. There are several bits of wisdom passed among farmers about this time, all along the lines of "Never make decisions in August" and "Don't quit in August". It can be really hard to find the motivation to go outside in the 100 degree F + heat index to work, especially after being worn down by 6 months of planting, watering, harvesting, weeding, and shoveling. Luckily the heat and humidity broke last week and so my soul was somewhat restored. 

The garden below was a long time in the making. Last year I cut the border and tilled the grass up, then planted a cover crop which grew during the winter. In the spring, Jason weed whacked the cover crop down, then I covered the whole thing with plastic to help cook down some of the plant matter. After that I covered it all with cardboard and several inches of compost. Everything you see was grown from seed. I do cut flowers from this garden, but it's become the wild English cottage garden I dreamed of, and we can see it from the house which makes it extra rewarding.

In July I spent several long nights (out until 9pm or later) planted the cutting garden across the street. (The house surrounded by all the trees is ours, so that gives you an idea of the proximity.) It's now full of zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers, marigolds, and celosia. I'll share pictures soon, if it wasn't killed by the spraying of herbicide to kill everything else in that field this morning (I have feelings about this.)

The sunflower field really did look beautiful during peak flower. Sunflower fields are a THING now and they are popping up all over the place. I'm sure this is 75% the result of social media and people's desire to take photos. 

A view of the upstairs that I rarely show. The whole second floor of our house is just 2 rooms; this library/sitting room, and through the door is my office/craft room. Jason and I also keep our dressers here and each have a closet, and we use the bathroom. I suppose that the room that I use as an office was intended to be the primary bedroom, but it has 4 windows and 3 skylights and we'd rather sleep in the cave on the main floor. These two rooms are also mainly MINE and have decorated them however I want. (A Room of One's Own, and all that.) No toys allowed! Except for one pinata.

I visited my favorite Friends of the Library used bookstore recently (home of the danger section) and it was fabulous and fruitful as always. Most of these books are $3!

I even got a book from the danger section: The Sun is a Compass, which is about a couple who travel 4,000 miles by foot, ski, and boat through some very cold places. I can't wait; I can read about other people's physical discomfort without actually leaving my climate-controlled house! I'm also excited about all of the other books in this stack. I have read Big Magic before, but it's been awhile and I want to revisit the ideas. I have already finished The Principles of Uncertainty, which is packed full of paintings and is my favorite genre of book: hand-written! 

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was published in 2017 but is super-buzzy right now because of TikTok. (I think, obviously I had to Google why I was 254th on the holds list for a 5-year-old book.) It didn't turn out to be about what I thought it would be about (I won't spoil it!) It was a fun, fast-paced read, and I appreciated that the author didn't resort to twee endings. It was also a great example of how to make an unlikeable character likeable. I would definitely read more by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

The Maid was another super-buzzy book. It turns out that the author ("Prose" is 100% a pen name) is a high-level exec for a major publishing company, so cynical me is sure that she really knew what she was doing promotion-wise. This ended up being a weird read for me. It had some fun bits, but I found the main character to be so inconsistent. She is supposed to be autistic (maybe, it never explicitly says), but she also seems painfully naïve. The main plot is a mystery, and then at the end the main character basically says, "Oh yeah I actually know who the killer is but I just haven't brought it up." UGH. Cheers to the author for trying to do something different, but in the end I don't think it worked.

Mid-Year Book Report

I don't know how this happened, but 2022 is already (more than) half over. In the first half of the year I finished 39 books. Instead of waiting until the year is over and doing one massive update, I'm breaking it into two parts to make it a little more manageable.

Book ratings are completely arbitrary, so I want to clarify that I rate based on how much I personally liked the book, not on it's objective merit. Something that I rate as a three might have been a five for you, and that's totally fine! 

• 5: A book I will remember in years to come; unique in some way
• 4: I really enjoyed the book, but it's not a complete standout
• 3: It was fine, not bad but not great. Entertaining and filled the time.
• 2: Ugh. I was able to finish it, but I didn't like it.
• 1: Doesn't exist, because if something is one star, I won't finish it

Some of these I have already written about on this here blog, and some I likely won't mention at all. Many of these were consumed in audio format; I love listening to books while I'm out gardening or working on flower stuff in my fancy studio (i.e., the basement). My favorite types of audiobooks are memoirs read by the author. 

Nearly everything on my 5-star list is nonfiction. I have yet to completely figure out why this is; maybe I have unrealistic expectations for fiction? I also tend to learn new things and ideas through nonfiction, which makes those books memorable. A lot of fiction genres, like mystery, thriller, and WWII historical fiction, can be formulaic. This is good when I just want an easy comfort read. But looking back on my Goodreads "read" shelf, I can't remember what most of those books were about.

Some genres missing from this list are science fiction and fantasy. Over the years I have had many of these books recommended, and readers of epic fantasies tend to LOVE them... I have tried, dear readers, but I just cannot. do. it. I am too literal to read about made-up worlds and magic. Dystopian fiction I like, because most of the time it seems all too plausible. For some reason I also like time travel, but maybe it's the historical aspect that makes it seem less made up.

5 Stars

• Miss Benson's Beetle - Rachel Joyce
• Unique premise and entertaining characters
• Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life - Anne Lamott
• Funny with great advice
• Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working From Home - Charlie Warzel, Anne Helen Petersen
• Academic writing but thought provoking ideas
• What Fresh Hell is This?: Perimenopause, Menopause, Other Indignities, and You - Heather Corinna
• I'm not there yet, but this was a good way to know what's coming
• Beautiful Country - Qian Julie Wang
• Fascinating memoir of growing up undocumented in New York City in the 90s
• Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
• Engaging story told well
• I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes With Death - Maggie O'Farrell
• Unique structure for a memoir and gorgeous writing
• I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir - Malaka Gharib
• Another insightful graphic memoir, with a cute drawing style
• The Man Who Died Twice - Richard Osman
• Hilarious, even better than the first in the series
• These Precious Days: Essays - Ann Patchett
• Insightful and fabulous writing
• A Very Punchable Face - Colin Jost
• I literally laughed out loud multiple times

4 Stars

• The Guide - Peter Heller
• Amazing writing and sense of place, plot took a weird turn
• Hao: Stories - Ye Chun
• Lyrical, how short stories should be done
• They Called Us Enemy - George Takei, Justin Eisinger, et. al.
• Memoir of a terrible time in the US
• Snowblind - Ragnar Jonasson
• Mystery was not that interesting, but really great sense of place (brrr)
• The Mercies - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
• Time period and location that is not often covered in historical fiction
• The Son of the House - Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia
• Interesting structure, legitimate twist, setting and culture not common in western literature
• The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman
• Funny mystery with likeable, quirky characters
• The Diamond Eye - Kate Quinn
• First half was better than the first, engaging take on actual events
• Ten Steps to Nanette - Hannah Gadsby
• Well written, funny, vulnerable
• Japanese Notebooks - Igort
• Art was amazing and skillful
• Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Live Interrupted - Suleika Jaouad
• Good writing, lots of insight into what it's like to have cancer as a young adult

3 Stars

• How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House - Cherie Jones
• Interesting setting but otherwise kind of slow
• Sidecountry: Tales of Death and Life from the Back Roads of Sports - John Branch
• Some articles were amazing, but there was very little editing leading to lots of repetition
• The Great Alone - Kristin Hannah
• Too long, too much romance, but the setting is good
• Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie - Anne Martinetti, Guillaume Lebeau, et. al.
• Too short and condensed, jumpy
• Northern Spy - Flynn Berry
• 3 stars for getting to listen to an Irish accent
• Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life - Steve Martin
• I love Steve Martin, but this was boring and not funny
• Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness - Kristen Radtke
• Could have gone deeper
• Ex Libris - Matt Madden
• Graphic novel meta-fiction. A little weird.
• Behind Closed Doors - B.A. Paris
• I read this a few months ago but I can't remember what it was about
• A Dying Fall - Elly Griffiths
• Mystery comfort read
• The Alice Network - Kate Quinn
• Another women WWII novel, it was fine but nothing special
• How to Stop Time - Matt Haig
• Interesting premise brought down by a boring plot
• Book Lovers - Emily Henry
• How much witty banter is too much witty banter? How many italics for emphasis are too many italics for emphasis?

2 Stars

• The Practice: Shipping Creative Work - Seth Godin
• Just random blog posts with no overarching message
• The Bat - Jo Nesbo
• Dated, slightly offensive, bad detective
• A Rule Against Murder - Louise Penny
• The murder method was completely implausible
• We Are All the Same in the Dark - Julia Heaberlin
• Sooooooo slllloooooowwwwww

Tell me, what fiction book blew you away? I dream of a long, engaging, plot driven, well-written book that tells a unique story. Some books that I have loved in the past were The Poisonwood Bible, Fates and Furies, The Secret History, Someone Knows My Name, All the Light We Cannot See, and A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. If you have a recommendation, please share!

Just Past the Solstice

It's high summer and flowers are a big part of my life right now, so it follows that most of the pictures I take are of flowers. Hopefully at least some of you are here for this thrilling content! The hotter weather led to most of the heat-loving flowers taking off, like sunflowers and zinnias. That same weather likely led to the worst bug season I have yet experienced. My snapdragons got infested with thrips, which I had never seen before, but there are thousands of them and they crawl inside of the flowers where I can't get them out. Having to throw out a whole crop of flowers was pretty demoralizing, but that's what happens when nature is in charge. The Japanese beetles have been terrible this year as well, stripping raspberry and zinnia foliage. There is even a mysterious tiny beetle that has been eating the zinnia flowers as well. 

No real story to the picture below, other than I was sitting in a chair reading and noticed how clean, light and put-together this corner looked.

Because this is the usual state of the living room. 

We went on "vacation" a few weeks ago to a lake in Virginia. The whole family stayed in one house: 8 adults and 7 kids aged from 1-8. The kids were living the dream while the adults took on a rotation of support roles such as accompanying children back and forth to the house to use the bathroom, change clothes, and get food; sunscreen applier; cook; cleaner; and negotiator. 

I went on a few very brief kayak runs and swam for a few minutes, but next time I will work harder to go out early or late to kayak. Fun fact: This lake is man made and exists only for the purpose of cooling a nuclear power plant. It's fine, I guess. I'm pretty sure the government would never lie about that.

Books, lately. I was so excited to read How to Stop Time because I generally love time-travel and immortals. The idea that someone could experience hundreds of years of history is fascinating. The premise of this book is that there are some people who age extraordinarily slowly, allowing them to live up to a thousand years. With that premise, I couldn't imagine this book would be boring, but it was. The main character spends most of the book pining over his first love who died over 300 years ago. I liked The Midnight Library better, and I still want to check out some of Matt Haig's nonfiction.

I had already read several stories in These Precious Days by Ann Patchett, but I still loved it. I have read some of her fiction before, but I think I prefer her non-fiction. I'm in a little bit of a reading slump right now and I found the ticket out to usually be short stories, essays, or short books in general. 

I don't buy a lot of books, and particularly not new books, but for my birthday earlier this year I bought myself The Flower Hunter by Lucy Hunter. This books is GORGEOUS. Lucy Hunter is truly an artist, using flowers as her medium. Every page is beautiful and inspiring. I haven't done too much with flower arranging yet and I'm excited to try.

This post has been sitting in draft for over a week, so it's a tad light, but so be it! For some reason having a full time job and a part time job kind of takes up a lot of time. I hope you all are enjoying the warm weather (if you're in the northern hemisphere) and are spending lots of time outside!