Hello again….I hope you’ve had a nice week… I did a lot of sewing, reading, Hallmark movie binge-watching, and a little baking! As you can see in the photo above, I finished the patchwork quilt. I made an entire separate post with tons of pics if you missed it!
I finished the above book this week (unique plot, I loved it), along with three others. I also read The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley (another good one from this author, although I liked her recent one a little bit more), A Cat Cafe Christmas by Codi Gary (super cute, this was an e-arc that’s coming out in October), and finally, The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons. This one was my favorite. I loved Eudora and having a main character in her 80s. It’s good to read books with MC’s of all ages, I think.
I heard some devastating news this week: the Brooklyn Public Library ended its out of state library cards as of July 15. Existing out of state cardholders will be able to use their cards until they expire. I currently have one of these, but I can’t remember if I’ve written about it previously? Anyway, to recap, the BPL used to offer out of state library cards for the extremely low and reasonable rate of $50/year. This is an electronic card that is used on the Libby app to check out audiobooks and ebooks.
For someone like me, who’s library has very few ebook holdings, it was too-good-to-be-true, it was life changing. I recouped that $50 cost in one week. I completely understand why they are ending it, though. From what I’ve heard online, tons of us readers were taking advantage of it, and that’s just not cost effective for them for the price they were charging. Plus, the demand for popular books meant that for some new releases I’ve seen, the library purchased over 100 copies to keep up with demand. I don’t know how much of the demand is local borrowers or out of state borrowers (guessing this one). Hopefully by next year, when my card expires, I’ll have found a similar option, even if it’s 4x as expensive. The BPL is/was such a great option because their ebook holdings are utterly massive. I’ve done a comparison where I look at my hold list comparing BPL and my Tampa library, and most of what I want to read is either unavailable at the Tampa library or there’s only one copy with a several month-long wait.
Moving on, I found this recipe for 3-ingredient Pumpkin Muffins on TikTok and I’m smitten. If this video gets taken down, I’ll summarize it here: 1 box spice cake mix, 1 can 15 oz pumpkin puree (not pie filling), and a package of cinnamon chips or white chocolate chips. I personally prefer the cinnamon chips…they are *chef’s kiss* incredible. I realize now that the video also adds nuts. I meant to do that but my Walmart sold out of these, so I just left them out! Mix everything together, I do this by hand, no mixer needed. Bake 350o for 20-ish minutes, depends on how big you scoop them. I’ll try to take a picture of the latest batch if J and I aren’t piggies and eat them all before I do this. Yes, I’ve made two batches. Yes, I know they are sweet for muffins, after all, it’s a cake mix, but so are donuts and waffles, so???
Next, and I realize all of this is just completely random. I’m just sharing the “fun” parts of this week. I’m catching up on all my recorded Hallmark movies on FrndlyTV. I really loved this new-release movie, Campfire Christmas, that came out last month. It’s Christmas in July at a summer camp, the camp is for sale, there’s a reunion with all the old campers, a former love, a job crisis. It’s great. The setting, casting, the set design, the costumes = perfect. Just look at this little collection of scenes:
I love that plaid flannel shirt, and the red one, too. Do you see the Christmas mugs in the upper right? I can’t remember what room she’s in on the bottom left, but love the red accents. And the bottom right, where she’s reading her old camp diary…so cozy. It’s like there are little Christmas touches in every scene. Perfect perfect perfect. I bet that Christmas tree is a Balsam Hill one. They sponsored last month’s Christmas in July event on Hallmark. The trees are so pretty, but so expensive. I like to scroll through their website like I’m picking one out. You can even buy a box of branches for $29 where you get a box of sample branches from all their different styles. That sounds really fun, for real, haha!
In non-Christmas movies, have you seen any of these:
I loved Hidden Gems and Two Tickets to Paradise. Currently in the middle of Moriah’s Lighthouse (meh) and Caribbean Summer will be next.
What more can I bore you with? Oh, have you been to Target recently? I finally went. Yogi tea has their seasonal Pumpkin Spice tea available, so I picked some up. And that fuzzy pumpkin. People in the dollar spot were going wild over all the stuff. I had a fuzzy white pumpkin in my hand and set it down for ten seconds and lost it. Oh well. I did score this cute sign:
And finally a desk update. It’s late summer meets early fall right now. Thanks for staying if you made it this far. <3, C
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