More Summer Highlights
Good Stuff, Vol. 9
Hi friends!
Summer break has come and gone for me. It went so fast that I catch myself wondering, did it even happen? But then I look back on all the goodness that was, and I am thankful. Last summer was HARD, and this summer was a gift. I squeezed out every drop of my favorite season this year with vacations, beach trips, good food, great books, time with friends and family, etc.
I’m now one week into the school year and we’re adjusting to life with two high schoolers (both playing fall sports), and preparing to take our oldest off to college in a week (pray for us?). Summer break is over, but there are still so many good things going on in life to distract me from the passing of another favorite season.
I hope that if you are in a transition between seasons that things are going smoothly or that you are finding little things to help make the hard more bearable. Here are some good things lately from around these parts.
🏡. At Home with the Bennetts…
📖. What We’re Reading
Gigi (18)— Rival Darling by Alexandra Moody and a reread of Winter by Marissa Meyer
Brody (15)— The Hobbit (I’m reading it, so I sent it to his kindle and he’s enjoying it along with me)
Hallee (14)— just finished an old fave of mine, Tweet Cute by Emma Lord
David— I found a kindle freebie in my account that he read and really liked, so now he is onto book 2: The Elias Enigma by Simon Gervais
Me!— As I’ve said, I usually have audiobooks going with my two kids who don’t drive. Whenever we’re in the car alone, we try to listen to these. It’s been a very enjoyable (and dare I say, special) activity for us. Current listens are…
with Hallee: Forbidden City (City Spies 3)
with Brody: The Secret of Golf by Joe Posnanski (will we ever finish this? lol)
🥰. What We’re Eating/Loving/Watching/Doing
Gigi and I spent a lovely morning in La Jolla getting our hair cut (she is donating her 8+ inches!), including stops at the highly-recommended Warwick’s Bookstore and Wayfarer Bakery.
We spent a part of a week at Bass Lake with friends and then a long weekend with extended family in NorCal. A great last hurrah of summer break. Lots of games and lakeside reading!
Brody is trying a totally new sport this fall (water polo) and Hallee made the girls golf team (her first high school sport).
As a family we have been loving the YouTube channel Good Good’s series about their golf road trip/contest. Also lots of Little League World Series games.
Maybe, just maybe, David and I will get back to watching our own shows as our kids get back on a school-night routine and get to bed earlier. We did start season 4 of The Bear and so far are liking it much better than last season.
On the drive home from our last trip, we listened to We the Children, book one of the Keepers of the School series. The girls fell asleep but David and Brody liked it, which made me happy. We also stopped by unannounced at the house of college friends of ours on the way home and enjoyed a quick catch-up, which was so delightful.
Thanks to my brother, we upgraded our tabletop ping pong net (with something like this one I found on Amazon— affiliate link) and are still going strong with Kitchen Table Ping Pong.
As I posted on IG recently, my plumerias are bursting with leaves, but I fear that our summer has been cool to give me any flowers. I’m no expert so this is just my amateur explanation. But! A little one I had thought was long dead came back to life this year with a few small leaves.
I have some very fun events (mainly bookish!) coming up in the next few month. Yay!
📚. In the Library
It is great to be back in the library. I worked hard this week to get my class schedule set and to start reorganizing my upper level fiction books into their genres. When I finish this project, I will share more about it. I am excited to have moved two taller bookshelves into my graphic novel section so that I have more room there to continue adding new books this year.
🤓. At My Writing Desk
After a terrible (embarrassing) fiasco of my domain not renewing like I thought it had, I lost email access for 2 weeks for the account I use for all my writing stuff (including, yes, queries). Queue the nausea. It’s all fixed now, and I have
to thank for alerting me to the problem. I nudged a few agents with a sheepish email explaining that my email was having problems receiving emails for the last 2 weeks, just in case someone had tried to reply to me. So we’re back in action around here and trying not to dwell on things too much!The MG historical fantasy I’m working on has been through a few iterations but I’ve never completed a whole draft of it, and I’m loving getting back into this world and story.
👩💻. On Substack
A few good posts I’ve saved recently:
It’s not too late to play Elizabeth’s summer reading bingo game:
I’d love to know what you’re reading/watching/eating/enjoying!
xo,
Nicole
I always use affiliate links with Bookshop.org when I link to books. If you purchase through my links you support me a tiny bit, and more importantly, you support indie bookstores.
Hey let's hope that the excuse for a nudge turns out to be a good thing! Fingers crossed for you!