On the final Friday of each month, I take a look back at all the things I loved and put together this list of recommendations for you: the Friday Finale. It might include the best book I read, a particularly impressive recipe I tried, or the best thing I streamed. I hope these standout moments from my month inspire you moving forward!
I’m about a week late getting this post out, but since it’s literally the first monthly favorites post I’ve written this year, I hope you’ll forgive me. If I’m being completely honest, getting pregnant put me in such an odd mental space compared to where I’ve been over the last few years. I’ve found it nearly impossible to get into any fiction books (so I’m a whopping 20 books behind in my Goodreads challenge), and it’s been a struggle to maintain any kind of routine with this blog.
But, there were some fantastic things that I wanted to share from the last month, so let’s go ahead and dive in!
Before I ever got pregnant, I knew that I would want to do a fun, casual maternity photo session. I knew that, even if I was sporting a significantly rounder face than usual, I would want those photos of me, Spencer, and the bump to remember this crazy period in our lives by. That’s why I was absolutely thrilled to discover that Kristin Brown, a Cincinnati photographer whose style I had loved since I first found her on Pinterest, was doing a series of mini sessions right in the middle of my third trimester. Considering how little Spencer enjoys getting his photo taken, a quick, 15 minutes in a local park seemed like exactly the shoot for us!
I’m absolutely thrilled by the results of our shoot (see above and a sampling on Kristin’s blog), and am looking to have her come and do a newborn session once the baby arrives. I love her casual, photojournalist style, and I’m really excited to show off our nursery. (More on that coming soon!)
I was also lucky enough to find a dress that I liked, would work for me into the postpartum period and could accommodate a growing bump in the most flattering period possible. Plus, I’ve just really wanted a nap dress style dress of my own! You can check it out on Amazon.
If you’ve been around these parts for a while, you know I love a good Jane Austen adaptation. It’s why I watched Persuasion even though I’d already heard about all the controversy from Austenites (surprising no one, I was not a fan). It’s also why I read every new book adaptation I can get my hands on. I even wrote an entire list of the best books and movies adapted from Pride and Prejudice.
Sometimes, this doesn’t work out for me for any number of reasons: it doesn’t stay true to the source material; it stays too close but without anything new or exciting to add; it’s too poorly written to stand beside the originals. But this time, I found a winner!
Pride and Premeditation is the first in a series of YA murder mysteries about Lizzie Bennet, aspiring barrister living in nineteenth-century London. She lives in Cheapside with her family and helps out around her father’s law firm, where her friend Charlotte and thorn-in-her-side future-inheritor Mr. Collins are employed. When Mr. Bingley is accused of murdering his brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, Lizzie sees it as the perfect opportunity to prove to her father that she is capable of a career in law. Of course, she meets the arrogant, unpleasant Mr. Darcy from prestigious Pemberley Associates along the way, and they’re forced to work together to help Mr. Bingley prove his innocence!
This book was so fun, and it got me out of my fiction slump. I gave it ★★★★☆ on Goodreads and am on the library’s wait list for the next book in the series, Sense and Second-Degree Murder.
Buy from Amazon Buy from Better World Books
My brother-in-law recommended this show to me when the first season came out, and now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t follow through and watch it then. It has such a good premise with an amazing cast (Steve Martin! Martin Short! Selena Gomez!). I also think the seasons are nicely put together, both with the main story arc and each character’s individual arc.
Plus, it gives me “New York in the fall” vibes in the same way that You’ve Got Mail does. Have I ever lived in NYC? No. Does seeing the city in autumn give me major nostalgia? Absolutely it does.
Only Murders in the Building centers around an old building called The Arconia. In the first season, a resident gets murdered, and three other tenants become unlikely friends as they bond over their love of murder mystery podcasts and decide to do their own podcast while in the middle of solving the murder. The second season just came out, and in my opinion, it’s just as good as the first. You can watch them both on Hulu.
This one is actually another recommendation from my brother-in-law! Parker loves Wordle, and when we all started playing each day and sending around our scores via group chat, he introduced Spencer to Symble. Similar to Wordle but more difficult and more puzzle-y, Symble is a logic game inspired by Wordle that gives you eight attempts to guess a five-letter word.
The catch? The game doesn’t tell you when you’ve gotten a letter correctly. Instead, it will give you one of three randomly generated symbols for each letter that can mean either the letter is correct and in the right position within the word, the letter is correct but in the wrong position within the word, or the letter is wrong and does not appear in the word. And you don’t know which symbol means what because they’re randomly generated for each game. If you like Wordle, I’d suggest you give a Symble a shot. You’ll feel incredibly accomplished each time you get the word right!
What’s a book you’ve read that helped you get out of a reading slump? I’d love your recommendations!
P.S. If you’re gearing up for spooky season, I would recommend these books from last October’s list of monthly favorites!
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