Five months later...

I'm coming back.

I know, I've said it before. But this time I mean it.

See you soon!

Book Review; Miss Fellingham's Rebellion

Miss Fellingham's Rebellion by Lynn Messina

Published: June 14, 2014

Thanks to Net Galley for providing me with this book to read and review.

Publisher Says...

Twenty-four-year-old Catherine Fellingham keeps a low profile—in society and in her family. A practical young woman, she leaves the spotlight to her beautiful younger sister and prefers quiet pursuits such as reading. But all that changes the moment she learns of her mother’s very excellent scheme to keep the family out of debtors’ prison. The scatter-brained Lady Fellingham has been selling commissions in the king’s army, and Catherine must shake off her indifference in order to save her family from a potentially ruinous scandal. Lady Arabella, her mother’s partner-in-crime, readily agrees to abandon the plan but only because she finds a more absorbing project: nabbing a husband for Catherine.

Catherine pays no head to her ladyship’s lavish claim that she’ll have her engaged by the end of the season, but that’s before she overhears Arabella instructing the handsome nonpareil, the Marquess of Deverill, to flirt outrageously with her and bring her into fashion. Mortified, Catherine resolves not to be taken in by the charming marquess's cruel game—and even implements a very excellent scheme of her own. This sensible young lady seems to have everything well in hand. Or is she about to learn that her heart is a great deal less practical than her head?

My thoughts...

I really enjoyed this novel. The characters were perfect in their imperfections and the storyline was cute and entertaining. If you're looking for a fun, well-written romance I would definitely suggest trying to get your hands on this one. I don't think you'll be disappointed!

Not a summer blogger...

Apparently I am not a summer blogger. I keep just randomly disappearing! I have lots of ideas for posts but I can't seem to find the time to sit down at the laptop and actually type them out. There's lots of social stuff going on, plus work is still crazy busy and only getting worse. Today was my day off and I thought about blogging but instead I went to visit a friend and her brand new baby boy (he is less than 2 weeks old and is absolutely precious!) and then stopped in to visit with my mom for a bit. J is on his way home from work now and I think we'll spend the evening relaxing on the deck or taking Daisy for a walk. At some point I'll get back in to a blogging routine. For now I'm just going to enjoy the summer.

See you soon!

Grateful for my Husband

On Friday J and I will celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary.

Five years seems crazy, I don't know where the time has gone.

We're heading camping this weekend to celebrate. For our first couple anniversaries we went to a nice restaurant downtown, but last year we decided to get away from the city and away from our cell phones and the TV and spend some time together, just us. It was amazing. It was easily one of my favourite memories of our marriage. We relaxed. We walked. We laid on the beach. We sat by the fire. And we talked. We talked a lot. More than we had talked in months. It was our own personal marriage retreat, and we needed it. We came back home feeling closer and more in love than ever. I'm so excited to be able to do the same thing again this year.

I am so thankful to have had this man by side. We've gone through some ups and downs, but I have never doubted his love for me or mine for him. We have grown so much together, and I really can't wait to see what the next five years bring.

C'est la Vie

Don't you hate it when work gets in the way of blogging?

I'm a department manager for a grocery store so for the most part it's not really a high-stress job. It is however sometimes exhausting, sometimes challenging, sometimes frustrating, and sometimes I feel like a chicken with my head cut off. This has been one of those weeks. I put in a few long days and when I came home all I wanted to do was go to bed. (I was actually in bed well before 9pm the past two nights.)

I'm off today and I had planned on getting a few posts done up but then I looked around my house. Total disaster zone. We're going away camping next weekend and J's cousin is coming to stay at our place to look after Daisy and Sydney so I couldn't just let it go another week. (As much as I wanted to!) So I opened all the windows and got to work.

I've been pretty productive so far, but I figure I better keep going while I'm on a roll and feeling motivated. I'm having a little diet coke break right now so I thought I'd pop in, say hi, and let you all know I'm not dead before I got back to work.

Have a fantastic weekend!

What a Waste!

Something happened today that I'm not proud of.

We overspent a little last month when we were on vacation, so we're trying to get back on track this month by being super careful about every dollar we spend. I decided to go through the freezer to see if there was anything that I could use for suppers this week so we could save some money on groceries.

Instead of saving money, I found myself throwing it away.

We filled close to two garbage bags with outdated food. Not just slightly outdated - I threw away a frozen pork tenderloin from 2012, and frozen dinners from 2011. Seriously. Plus I found four bags of french fries (how many bags of fries do two people need?) and several bags of frozen vegetables plus frozen fish that I didn't realize I had. And frozen fruit. You would not believe the frozen fruit in my freezer! Five or six bags. (Smoothies for breakfast for the next month I think.)

I did come up with three meals for the week comprised almost entirely of stuff already in my cupboards and freezer but I am so disappointed with myself. It would be one thing if it was the first time this happened, but it wasn't! Financially we do okay, but we certainly don't make enough to throw money away on groceries.

I now have a small whiteboard with a list of all of the items in both of our freezers. Even though I'm almost embarassed about the whole thing, I'm hoping that by posting here I'll hold myself accountable and never, ever wind up throwing away hundreds of dollars worth of groceries again.

Silent Sunday

Daisy watching me in the kitchen.