celebrating books & the literary lifestyle
I need to cover a few events in one post; this must mean I had a great summer!!
Though it may seem strange to lump concerts and book signings together, last year I realized they have many similarities for me and sometimes book signings are even better!
Both types of events support the artists we love and allow us to enjoy their work in a different experience – outside of our headphones and off of our couches!
As the summer winds down – and I consider it summer all the way through September!! – I am contemplating my favorite books from my summer reading list.
I am still finishing up a couple of these, but I am confident in which books I can whole heartedly recommend. I wrote a blog post on all of these (no spoilers!!), so if you want to know more about any of the books, click on the link that says “Read my post here.”
Occasionally I’ll be going about my day when I get the feeling I’m missing out on something. Then I realize the feeling is coming from being in the middle of a book/story that is “on pause” until I open it up again.
I distinctly had this feeling while reading The Great Believers
My other hobby besides reading is planning vacations!! And because I did so much research to arrange for our two-week tour of the West Coast from Oregon to Los Angeles, I decided to write posts on all of our many stops.
Here are all the links below in case you missed something that interests you. I’ve covered where we stayed and what we did as well as other important details for planning your own trip.
Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland, OR
San Francisco and The Beat Museum
If you have any questions just leave them in the comments sections of each post. I’m happy to help!!
This post will wrap up my series on my epic summer vacation.
After Disneyland we stayed in L.A. one more day to see the Cubs (one of the teams we root for) play the Dodgers. We moved hotels because 1) Disney is very far away from Dodger stadium, not necessarily by distance but by time needed to travel this distance in LA traffic, and 2) Disney is expensive.
Because I spent a lot of time researching the best hotel to stay at to attend a baseball game at Dodger Stadium, I thought I’d share our experience.
I was actually surprised when my husband suggested adding Disneyland to our epic West Coast vacation, but I wasted no time researching and planning for this experience.
Luckily I’ve had the Disney credit card for several years and had built up enough points to pay for a chunk of our stay.
The Death of Mrs. Westaway
Harriet Westaway is 21 and is trying to make ends meet after losing her mom in a car accident. She is hard up for money and hiding from a loan shark. In her mail one day (in addition to a bunch of overdue bills) is a formal letter saying she has been named in the will of a “Mrs. Westaway” who had a significant estate. Harriet feels there must be some mistake as her grandma (who she didn’t even know) has been dead 20 years, but due to her desperate situation Harriet decides to go for it anyway!
What follows are twists and turns of a family drama as Harriet uses what she has learned as a tarot reader (how to read people and show them what they want) to attempt to collect this money. As emotions and history come into play, this task becomes both more difficult and easier than she expected.
I had nearly finished planning our epic summer vacation through Oregon and California (hitting Redwoods, a lighthouse, San Fran, and Disney) when I realized that we couldn’t go across the country and not swim in the ocean!! So, I added two more days on to our trip to hit a beach near Los Angeles before our reservations at Disneyland.
As is my nature, I did A LOT of research to see what beach area may be best for us, and ultimately I decided on Laguna Beach. I got the impression that this area – a former artists’ colony – would be more relaxed and casual. I am definitely more comfortable in an “offbeat” atmosphere over anything “glam.”
So I am happy to report that we had an amazing and relaxing time at beautiful Laguna Beach and would definitely go back. It also hosted a very special reunion for me!
I hadn’t visited San Francisco for decades, so I was excited to spend two days there with my family as part of our epic West Coast vacation. Obviously, one could ideally spend many more days in San Francisco, but with the amount of time we had, I feel like we did as much as we possibly could!!
So in today’s post, I’m going to tell you what activities and attractions we enjoyed in San Francisco as a family of 4, with kids ages 7 and 9.
I just finished an addictive book from my summer reading list:
by Louise CandlishFiona Lawson and her husband Bram have recently separated and have agreed to a “bird’s nest custody agreement” where their kids stay in the house full time and the parents take turns living there (in their $2+ million property in a fashionable area of London.)
Everything seems to be working out fine with this arrangement until one day when Fiona finds strangers moving into her home, and this nice couple fully believes they just legally purchased the home. It must be a mistake…
What follows (and leads up to) this confusing scene is a web of mistakes and lies that spins WAY out of control.
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