What I'm reading Wednesday...

 

Thirty-seventh challenge finish of the year.

I think I've read all of this author's work.  It's been a decade or so I think, and as I started this one, it occurred to me that maybe I've outgrown this type of book.  It was good, but had a slightly insipid start.  I kept reading.  

The characters were likeable, and it definitely finished stronger than it started.  And the author's notes at the end were excellent, discussing how she found a resource book that brought inspiration, and explained some of the history of the Royal Messenger service, couriers of important documents for the monarch.

In case you are not sure what a "sprayed edge" is (I had no idea), it's when the edges of the book are decorated.  This photo doesn't give much of an image of the edge, but hopefully will give you some idea.  I believe only the first run (or some limited number) actually had the edges decorated.

2025 Frugal Friday File, June 20...

 

1.  Doctor appointment Wednesday.  Afterward I left them a pint of my blood; sadly, they just throw it away.  This is a pretty regular thing for my "condition".  Though in the past I have always felt fine afterward, this time I did not feel good, and felt pretty wrung out Thursday as well.  I don't remember having that reaction before, but I'm drinking extra fluids (as I have been for the past week).  I'm not upping intake of red meat or green vegetables, because I don't need any more iron, that's why I had to give up the blood in the first place.  Have to keep the amounts pretty consistently balanced since I'm also on blood thinner for yet another "condition". 

    Essential self care is frugal when it reduces the risk of organ damage (in my case).  My mother had lost eighty percent of her liver function before she ever went to the doctor.  They never diagnosed her with what I have, but since they can tell that I got the same mutated gene from each of my parents, I suspect that she did, since liver damage is a not-infrequent result, and mom was essentially a teetotaler.

2.  I have not given up Sonic ice, but I've given up getting it from my local drive-in where the customer service is sorely lacking.  I only stop by ones in other communities when I have a valid reason to be there.  That means the frequency and ice outlay has been drastically reduced.

    (Attention Gina:  this is one of those times my mother would say, "You would bite off your nose to spite your face!)  😉

3.  Today is book club, and this time it is in the city.  Carpooling with friends.

4.  Saw a new book is coming out in September that I know Carey would like.  I don't want to pay full price for pre-ordering, so I added it to my book wish list on Amazon so I won't forget about it.  I'll cross my fingers that it is on Amazon First Reads, but if it's not I'll see if the library will order it, or barring all else I will get it for him for Christmas.

5.  Menu planned and placed grocery order.  Easier to resist takeout when a plan is in place and groceries in the pantry/fridge.

This week we ate:

Saturday:  Chicken Burgers and leftover Tomato Pie

Sunday:  Sunday family supper at Kasey & Beau's

Monday:  Spanish Rice    

Tuesday:  **frozen eggplant parmesan w/ salad

Wednesday:  takeout Schlotzky sandwiches

Thursday: grocery store sushi

Friday:  potluck for me, baseball park hot dogs for C

**designates meatless meal

What I'm Reading Wednesday...

Thirty-sixth challenge finish of the year.

I had a really hard time selecting a book to fit this prompt.  A friend has been recommending this series for about a year now.  It's not a genre I usually reach for, but for historical/magical fiction it's done well.  I like the characters.  I like the writing.  Good story.

On the other hand, it is long at 694 pages.  It has a lot of wizard, dwarf, elfen, and magical creatures that have names that are hard to decide how to pronounce, and I believe I've said here before that if I don't have a fixed pronunciation in my mind, I stumble over it every time I come across it in the story.  It makes a long book even longer for me.

I'm not ruling out reading the next in the series sometime, but I don't think it will be this year.

Tuesday treasure...

 

Fresh linens on the bed.  There's not much I love more than climbing into a bed with clean sheets.  💓

I found this antique bed at an auction about 20 years ago.  My mother had always talked wistfully about her grandparents tall bed that had to be cut down to fit when they moved from the farm to a small house in town.  She would have loved this.

This is the 'guest' room.  It only is a full size mattress, but we rarely have overnight guests anymore, and when we do it's just one at a time.  Back when my mother-in-law was able to visit, I invested in a sleep number mattress so that she and other guests could adjust the firmness to their own taste.  It is  also adjustable, so the head and foot of the bed can be raised or lowered.  When I broke my shoulder, I moved to this bed until I healed...and I'm still in it.  :)

2025 Frugal Friday File on Saturday, June 14...

 

1.  Last Saturday was Caitlyn's birthday and all but the oldest sibling was home for family supper.  Beau grilled/smoked a carnivore's feast with absolutely delicious ribs, beans, and jalapeno poppers, while Kasey made everybody's favorite potato salad.  

    Since we had kind of OD'ed on meat on Saturday, we then had two meatless meals in a row with breakfast for dinner on Sunday, and Tomato Pie on Monday.  Both were using things that were on hand, and didn't require a grocery run.  I used our harvested cherry tomatoes plus the remainder of store-bought cherry tomatoes purchased before our homegrown ones started producing every day...they were just on the verge of old age, so needed to use them up.  Also used jalapenos from our container garden, along with onions, and corn from fridge/freezer.  I sauteed the onions & jalapeno, when they were soft I added the halved cherry tomatoes, then when they cooked down a bit, I added about a third of a bag of frozen corn that I came across.  This was different from the Tomato Pie I usually make, but again, wanted to make do with what I had here at home.

2.  Made a menu plan for the next week or so, and I placed my grocery order.  Picked it up on Wednesday, so we are set for awhile now.  I even have a plan for dessert for Saturday's family supper...I usually don't decide till Saturday morning.  :)

3.  Tax refund finally arrived...only three weeks since proving my identity...not the nine they said it might be.  Saving it to go toward our annual LTC insurance premium.

4.  Placed one single online order this week; it is for a Christmas gift for family member.  Starting early.

5.  I signed up to take a salad for the coming week's pot luck lunch.  The person bringing the main dish said it would be a southwest-type casserole.  So I thought I'd try something new, and looked for something that seemed to be a good match, Mexican Rice Salad.  I don't like to take things that I haven't tested ahead of time, so I made it this week.  It was okay, but not great.  We ate it accompanying two meals on separate nights.  I think I'll take a green salad to book club.  :)

This week we ate:

Saturday:  Family supper at Kasey & Beau's

Sunday:  **Pancakes & Eggs (no bacon thawed, so did without)

Monday:  **Tomato Pie

Tuesday:  out for Tex-Mex

Wednesday:  Salmon, Rice Pilaf, Salad

Thursday:  Homemade hamburgers, Mexican Rice Salad

Friday:  Frozen Enchiladas and leftover Mexican Rice Salad

**designates meatless meal

What I'm reading Wednesday...

Thirty-fifth challenge finish of the year.

Alice Hoffman's "Once Upon a Time Bookshop Stories" series, books 1 through 4.  Included titles:  The Bookstore Sisters, The Bookstore Wedding, The Bookstore Keepers, and The Bookstore Family.

All four were available through Kindle Unlimited.  I like Alice Hoffman's work, so I tried the first one and liked it, then I read the rest of the series.  I believe they contained from 36 to 54 pages each.  I remember when I added them together they totaled 153 pages.

Now I'm reading Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan.  Not my usual genre, but I was struggling to fill the prompt "a character is a magician," and a friend recommended this one.  It is almost 700 pages long, so that will make up for the short Alice Hoffman series.  :)

2025 Frugal Friday File on Saturday, June 7...

 

1.  I took two sewing machines in for repairs, or tune ups, or whatever they need.  Hopefully he will be able to have them ready to pick up in a couple of weeks.

The repair service is in the next town over.  Which also has the nearest locksmith, so to make the most I could out of errand batching miles, I took my great-great-grandfather's document box to see if they could open it for me.  They said they could not without breaking the lock.  So I will have to hope I come across the key (which I actually thought I had stored inside the box, so I don't know how the box was locked), or do some research to find a specialist in antique locks.  It does not have anything of monetary value locked inside, just sentimental family photos and WWII war souveniers of my dad's.  :(  

2.  A whole lotta leftovers were eaten here this week.

3.  Cherry tomatoes are continuing to produce, and now we have some peppers ripening as well.

4.  Reading, reading, reading.  Again.  Still.

5.  Except for food and monthly bills, it's been a no spend week.

On the menu this week:

Saturday:  Saturday family supper at Kasey & Beau's

Sunday:  leftover pasta salad

Monday:  leftover pasta salad (yes, I made him eat it again!  But I kept adding fresh fruit/veg.  It was the never-ending pasta salad!)

Tuesday:   Sheet pan dinner: Smoked sausage, sweet potatoes, 1" thick cabbage slices; and from the stove top, creamed corn (not canned...frozen corn in a homemade bechamel sauce)

Wednesday: takeout burgers

Thursday:  leftovers

Friday:  pot pies

What I'm reading Wednesday...

Thirty-second challenge finish of the year.

Though "Prompt #31 - Audio Book Has Multiple Narrators" seems to be a direction to listen to it as an audio book, I checked the list of rules, and as long as there is an audio version that has multiple narrators, it is allowed to read the the physical book.  I wasn't in the mood to listen, so I checked out the hard-cover book from the library.

I found it difficult getting used to the format the author used, of laying out the chapters in only quotes of the characters...as if the author/interviewer asked each of the characters about a particular event, and then transcribed all of their answers and grouped them on the page...prefaced only by the speaking character's name.  I may not be describing that well, but it took me over a hundred pages to get somewhat comfortable with it.  It was interesting seeing how the different characters each interpretted a memory from their own (and sometimes conflicting) viewpoint.

I did like it, but it was a little challenging.

Thirty-third challenge finish of the year.

When my friend, the other Kathleen, finds out I liked, no loved this one, she will not believe it.  Why?  Because I have told her so many times that I never want to read another book hyped as a literary award winner or finalist.  I might not have read it if it wasn't our book club's selection for July.  Generally I find award winners either really depressing, or too high brow to enjoy.  

This starts out with the characters of Huckleberry Finn and Jim hiding out on the Mississippi River, and it is a true adventure story.  Two or three events were far fetched, but probably no more so than Mark Twain's version. 

I could not put this down.  I read about a quarter of it in one evening, and then the next morning I picked it back up, and could not put it down until I got to the end.  At almost the end, another character said, "Who are you?"  By now,  James was seeming like such a super hero to me, that in my head I almost expected him to growl out, "I'm Batman!"  LOL   Now, this is in no way a super-hero story, but the character of James started out strong, and grows throughout the story, hence to me he almost seemed like a super-hero by the end.

Thirty-fourth challenge finish of the year.

I read the first book in this series in 2016, and this one has been on my Kindle almost that long.  So, I'm extremely happy to have finally gotten to it.  Very likeable characters (except for the villain), and easy reading escapism.