five things Friday: TBR in February edition

It was a good January of reading - 9 books, and a couple of them will still be high on my list of favorites by the end of the year, I think (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone and Long Bright River). Hoping for more of that in February, so I'm being a bit proactive with listing out which titles I want to start with.

Here's what's on the docket for this month:

The Heart's Invisible Furies: I've had this on my shelf for ages but for some reason have not gotten around to it, despite how many great reviews I've seen. Okay, I know one reason: I'm constantly getting sidetracked by new releases! This in part inspired my 20 in 2020 item of "read 10 backlist books", and I'm going to get this one going early in the year here.

You Think It, I'll Say It: another 2020 goal is to complete the Modern Mrs. Darcy reading challenge, for which one of the categories is 3 books by the same author. I decided on Curtis Sittenfeld for this, in part because she's going to be speaker at a conference I'm going to, in part because I've long meant to get around to a few of her backlist titles, including Prep and also this book of short stories that I've had sitting on my Kindle for a while.

The Antidote for Everything: I thought Kimmery Martin's The Queen of Hearts was such good juicy fun, and this new release (yeah, yeah getting distracted by the shiny new again) looks like it promises some of the same sharp dialogue combined with compulsively readable medical drama type character interactions. Just the kind of binge-worthy reading a girl needs in the depths of winter.

Dangerous Alliance: couldn't resist picking this Jane Austen era YA romance romp from Book of the Month YA a couple of months ago, and now that I've been into watching the new PBS adaptation of Jane Austen's Sanditon and have been enjoying some of the satire and intrigue that's really coming through in it, I'm extra excited to pick up this book!

I'm Fine and Neither Are You: another in the vein of "I've had this for forever and haven't gotten around to it", this one of the Kindle freebie variety. But Dana and I are doing this for our buddy read that we'll be posting on March 1, so reading it is going to happen this month, finally. You should join us if you're interested - check out our review Q&A format here...


What's next on your stack of books to read? Not that I need any more ideas for mine, but I always love hearing about what others are picking up - which is why I'm joining in with the TBR Mix & Mingle with Never Enough Novels and friends that begins tomorrow!

making lately: kid art storage solutions

Inspired by Kelsey's recent post about making a photo book of kid art (well, that and a nearly expired free 8x8 photo book code on Shutterfly), I recently finally completed an album of Hendrik art that I'd been meaning to get around to making. Which then made me think of sharing about how I manage all of the kid art and papers that every mom of school-aged kids knows start accumulating from day 1 of preschool.... and could fill your entire house if you don't figure out a process for handling them.

In order to not actually have to keep all of the million papers, but still get to enjoy them and to treasure the good ones (because, let's be honest, there are a lot of throwaway "art" papers that come home), here's my approach:

Have a designated place for (temporary) display

In the playroom we have these giant clips mounted on the wall, and I use them to let Hendrik choose his favorite items to display - but the deal is that we have limited space, so it's time to say goodbye to an older piece if he wants to put up a new one. When we did his big kid room this fall I added a bulletin board by the desk so that he has an additional spot to put his treasured items. The rest he knows we recycle (even if there are occasional times when he gets upset about seeing a "treasure" in the recycling bin - see the final step below...)

Snap photos of your favorites and include them in photo albums

This is where I ascribe to one of Gretchen Rubin's maxims from The Happiness Project: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. While it might be nice to scan the pieces for the best reproduction of the images, or get out the fancy camera for better quality shots, I remember that the point is (1) to have memories of Hendrik's interests/abilities/creative ideas from different stages of development that we can enjoy looking back on and (2) not have tons of paper clutter, so I just lay the stuff on a white table and quickly snap an iPhone photo before I recycle it. Then, a couple of weeks ago when I decided it was finally time to make the book, I just pulled all of the saved photos off my phone, uploaded to Shutterfly and put together this album (using this kid art themed layout design was perfect for making it cute and quick!). Aside from the art, it was really fun to include snapshots of how he wrote his name at different ages.

Have one storage bin for the ones you really can't part with

I keep one Rubbermaid bin in the basement for memorabilia, so the really special stuff goes in there - but then the key is to clean it out occasionally, like the end of each school year, in order to keep it manageable. Also, sometimes you'll look back and think, that was cute, but I really don't need to keep 12 daycare art projects that the teachers helped him glue together, so then you smile at seeing them once more and then let go of them later.

"Disappear" the rest

Having learned my lesson on this one, I don't toss the stuff in the recycling bin immediately when it comes home from school. First I let Hendrik show me all of his things, then I let them sit on the counter until after bedtime, and then they just disappear before morning... Key here is to not have them be visible when your kid opens the recycling bin to put in his yogurt cup the next morning. Made that mistake with a spelling test earlier this year: "but I worked so hard on that!" (Yeah, okay.) But really, part of the process is setting up an expectation that we can enjoy the process of making the drawings and enjoy looking at them, but we're not going to keep all of them forever. He just understands that by now even if he's not always super thrilled about it - but having the result of the photo album to show him definitely makes it easier, because it's so cool to see everything compiled.

That's my quick rundown, which was greatly inspired from the start by Kelsey's post on managing kid art - and then thanks to her for the updated post about putting together the art album, because Hendrik and I are both thrilled to have his here to page through now.

reading lately: retellings

Nothing new under the sun? Or tales that are for all of time? No matter your take, there seem to be lots of modern-day re-settings of classic stories lately, and I have picked up several of them. The trick with a retelling is that on the one hand, it can bring to life in a new and delightful way a favorite story - but on the other hand, it can also be majorly disappointing if it doesn't live up to expectations of beloved characters and scenes. These reviews definitely represent that mixed bag...

Ayesha at Last
I am a sucker for any thing Jane Austen, especially a Pride & Prejudice retelling, so I was excited to pick this one up, at last... but I feel a little led astray by the Modern Mrs. Darcy blog on this one. I think that the setting of an Indian Muslim community in Toronto is definitely an interesting way to go for a modern-day setting (the cultural ideas of chastity, modesty, potential arranged marriages make so much more sense with the Austen era focus on a woman needing to marry, and also needing to marry "well"), and I found the idea of making the Darcy character a very conservative religious person an interesting way to explore prejudice - the first time she sees him, Ayesha immediately pegs him as a fundamentalist she could never get along with, and conversely he imagines her as sort of a "loose" woman because she's at a place where others are ordering alcohol. But I just couldn't feel a spark in their interactions, or a love for these characters (Ayesha felt so wishy-washy, not independent Lizzie Bennett-ish, at times) that made me all that invested in their happy ending, as I am SO invested in even still when I read/watch the Austen P&P for the millionth time. Also, while I do think a retelling like this can still be good/interesting even with some change-ups (like Pride, Prejudice & Other Flavors switching the Darcy figure to a female character, and vice versa with the Elizabeth figure), I thought this one was just too muddied - there was this whole extra mistaken identity side plot that felt unnecessary and distracting, and some of the characters' actions seemed much more mean-spirited. All in all, not my favorite entry in this category. 2.5/5 stars


Of Curses & Kisses
This re-setting of Beauty and the Beast takes place at an elite boarding school nestled in the mountains of Colorado, where the wealthy and the noble from around the world send their kids - and where Princess Jaya Rao and her younger sister arrive from India after a media scandal that Jaya thinks was set up by the youngest heir of her family's longstanding enemy, the Emerson family of British aristocracy. She's determined to get her revenge by tricking the Emerson heir into falling in love with her and then breaking his heart. Instead of a literal beast, in this retelling, we have broody misanthrope Grey Emerson, who has been told since he was very young that he is the focus of a curse put on the family many years ago by an angry Rao, and he believes the old prophesy that the family line ends with him at his 18th birthday. Of course, fitting with the fairy tale, as they slowly get to know each other, they find the person beneath to be someone entirely different than they expected... While I didn't love it as much, it did give me a little satisfaction in the American Royals-shaped hole in my life, with the teenaged royalty/nobility and their antics along with their sense of duty conflicting with their personal dreams; also reminded me a little of books that involve boarding school with unique students/storied family history, like A Study in Charlotte (modern-day Sherlock Holmes retelling) and Truly Devious. And of course there's the comparison with A Curse So Dark and Lonely, given the same fairy tale focus. This was fun, and I'm definitely curious to see what is planned for book 2 in this series, but I'm clamoring more for the sequels to American Royals and A Curse So Dark and Lonely, perhaps because their characters gave me a little more of  the swoony feels I want from this YA category, and not enough of the spark of the characters I adore from this author's other (excellent) books. (Releases February 18; I received an e-copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.) 3.5/5 stars


A Curse So Dark and Lonely
Another (very popular - I'm behind the times, I know) retelling of Beauty and the Beast; in this one Prince Rhen of Emberfall has been cursed by a vengeful enchantress to repeat the fall of his 18th year over and over until the curse is broken, and at the end of each season he turns into a terrible, lethal beast, imperiling his whole family and his citizens. By the time we meet him, his family are all dead along with  many townspeople, and he has holed up in the castle in the name of protecting those who remain - except that meanwhile his citizens are suffering from poverty and threats from outside warring kingdoms. He still has his broody and dutiful (but oh so swoony) bodyguard Grey at his side though, who goes each season to retrieve a girl from "the other side" (aka Washington DC) to try to break the curse with. Only this time, he hasn't gotten the docile material he expected when he snatches Harper, a scrappy teen who is frequently getting underestimated because of her cerebral palsy. She is not going to be the damsel in distress or the fall in love with a prince type - she's independent and principled but also very caring, which means she really understands what's at stake, that it's going to take more than just breaking Rhen's curse to save his kingdom. I'm not usually into fantasy that requires "world building", but this one was grounded in the real world, so that helped - and it was interesting to see a real world character interact with a fantasy world that she had no idea existed. If I was confused at times (and I was) about the parameters of this fantasy world, it sort of made sense to be gradually learning the details alongside Harper who was also new to it. I really hated the witchy character, Lilith, who cursed Rhen, partly because she's so sadistic and awful, but partly because her powers make it seem like there's no way for the good guys to ever win, and that's kind of exhausting to me as a reader. Still looking forward to checking out the next in the series though, which was just published. 3.5/5 stars


Meg and Jo
This modern-day retelling of Little Women sets the March family in small-town North Carolina and tells the adulthood part of the sisters' story from the perspectives of Jo (cast as a laid-off newspaper reporter turned food blogger) and Meg (a stay-at-home mom of twins who still lives in their hometown). While Meg seems to have the life she's always wanted, with the house and the husband and kids, she's struggling a bit behind the scenes to juggle it all, especially when their mother starts needing more help around the farm, given ailing health. And Jo's return home to the family farm comes with the baggage of a breakup and dashed aspirations of making it as a writer in New York.
I am still obsessed with the new Greta Gerwig movie adaptation after seeing it in December, so I was up for trying out any type of retelling right now, and was also ready for a timeline that focuses mostly on adulthood with just flashbacks to or brief mentions of the classic episodes of the hair singing, book burning, near-drowning of Amy, etc. I think this is smart in some ways because it allows the reader to open up their minds a bit to modern-day, adult characters, without having to try to stretch all of the story to fit exactly a contemporary setting. I did miss a bit how having the sisters grown up and living apart doesn't give you quite as much a sense of their bond - you don't think of them as quite the "March sisters" unit. I'd consider this a fairly fluffy chick lit type of read, with okay writing, but still had quite a bit of fun reading it because of the love I have for the original characters. Especially loved the Jo romance storyline in this one - a modern day setting means we can add (a little) steam! 3.5/5 stars 


The Dead Queens Club
Henry the VIII is recast as Henry is the most popular kid in Lancaster High - he's super smart, he's also the star of the football team, he's about to be crowned prom king, and he has this magnetic energy that draws everyone to him. Our narrator Cleves meets him at "overachiever" camp one summer, and they instantly become best of friends, which means that when she moves to his town, she enters her senior year in the cool group, high school "royalty", by association. Of course Cleves has a thing for him (how could she not?), but Henry is on his 6th girlfriend in 2 years. And the girlfriends that he has dumped? Kiss of death to their reputations - except that 2 of the girlfriends actually wind up literally dead, one in a freak prom explosion that happened the year before Cleves moved to town. There are tons of rumors and theories among their classmates, but Cleves is determined to get to the bottom of it, which turns it into a bit of a girl power tale, as she joins up with some of the earlier girlfriends to investigate. A bit like YA school-based whodunit mysteries like One of Us Is Lying and Truly Devious, but with the historical retelling twist - which was fun, but sometimes made it feel overly like a stretch in terms of characters' motivations and actions. It was a little contrived or hard to follow at times, but if you're craving a YA mystery with snappy dialogue and a bit of outrageous high school action (this is not the gritty kind of YA like Sadie, it's the romp around kind with intrigue added in), or if you enjoy history from the era of Henry VIII and want to see how many little details/names are cleverly worked in to a modern scenario, give it a go! 3/5 stars


Seems like YA is a great category for taking on retellings of this sort, as you can see from 3 of the 5 on this list, and of course Pride & Prejudice has got to be the most re-told tale in all the classics... I've always loved Bridget Jones' Diary, and while it wasn't popular with everyone, I really enjoyed Eligible, partly because I lived in Cincinnati and loved those connections. Still on my list to read is Pride, which is both YA and P&P!


Sharing on Show Us Your Books.

blogger style: one item, two ways

The next installment of the blogger twin series is another appropriate "Dana made me do it" moment that has happened several times, particularly with the Everlane additions to my closet... this time we're showcasing the white v-neck bodysuit we both have in our wardrobes, and for my version, it's all about how well this type of basic works with high-waisted jeans and with winter-appropriate layered outfits.

I've often said that my style could be defined as "basics with a twist" - and here's a literal take on that: it's a basic sweater + black jeans combo that I wear all winter, only to spice things up a little, the sweater has... an actual twist! And the jeans have their own twist with the fun button-front fly that gets to stand out thanks to the sleek tucked-in-ness of the bodysuit. Also love how nicely layering works with it, with no fuss of anything getting bunchy or coming untucked beneath the sweater.

So that's how I'm wearing my bodysuit lately - now go check out Dana's take for another styling idea!

Sharing on The Style Six, Style on the Daily.

five things Friday: winter bucket list edition

We may be approaching the end of January already, but my world is just now covered in snow - after I spent all of December pretending to myself that maybe it would never come (dream on, Michigan girl) - so it's time to make the most of it with a winter bucket list!

Here are some things that I think would make my enjoyment of the season greater:

1. go on a cross-country skiing date with Peter
2. take Hendrik downhill skiing for the first time
3. spend an afternoon reading in a cozy coffee shop
4. try a new recipe
5. organize a closet (a highly enjoyable indoor activity for me!)

What better way to kick off a weekend than to pick one of these activities to do. What wintery stuff are you up to lately?

making lately: buddha bowls

We've been talking about working some more vegetarian dinners into the regular rotation over here, and buddha bowls (aka quinoa topped with veggies/legumes/sauce) are one thing making that super easy because (a) everyone in the fam loves them and (b) they require very little thought to produce, which is my ideal kind of meal because then I can manage to multitask with childcare, podcast listening, and dishwasher emptying all while making dinner!

top left | right | bottom left | right

I'm not a person who is comfortable cooking without recipes (which is why I am much more of a baker than a cook...), so the way something becomes a go-to recipe in my repertoire is if I start out by following a particular recipe, make it several times, and then become familiar enough that I feel like I can produce it on the fly, and even maybe make a few tweaks of my own. Things like fritattas work really well for this, as do buddha bowls, it turns out. So if you're a newbie to the process, here are some resources and ideas to help you make this meal your own too!

The basic recipes I started with: sweet potato chickpea buddha bowl from Eat with Clarity, Thai chicken buddha bowls from Damn Delicious (with or without chicken), and beach buddha bowls from Communikait.

But here's how you can throw it together to make a highly nutritious and delicious dinner without needing any recipe - just start with a base of quinoa cooked according to package directions (basically like cooking rice), and then top it with whatever combination of things sounds good (or is in your fridge). Then a sauce or dressing is what really takes it into super flavorful and dinner winner status.

Cooked/roasted toppers:

• Crispy chickpeas - the BEST part. Hendrik adores these too. I loosely follow this recipe - basically I just fry them up for 5-10 minutes in a little avocado oil, with a dash of salt, garlic powder, and chili powder.
• Roasted sweet potatoes
• Roasted broccoli and cauliflower
• Sauteed shredded brussels sprouts
• Sauteed bell peppers
• Roasted or sauteed kale

Raw/cold toppers:

• Avocado
• Pickled red onions - these add SUCH a good flavor punch and crunch to contrast with everything else.
• Halved cherry tomatoes
• Shredded red cabbage
• Shredded carrots
• Chopped cashews or peanuts
• Sesame seeds
• Lemon or lime wedges for squeezing over top

Sauces:

• Green goddess dressing - our current fave because it's delicious, and because I don't actually have to make a sauce myself!
• Tahini dressing - easy recipes like the one in this post
• Peanut sauce - recipes like the one in this post

Some variation of this is showing up weekly around here lately - nobody is sick of it yet, but if they start to complain, I can just change up the sauce and it's like a whole new meal!

watching lately

With all of the time spent on the couch in the last month/over the holiday season, from wrapping all of the Christmas presents to making baby shower decor to folding laundry to just plain wanting to be warm and cozy in the winter, I have plenty of new Netflix to report on! Here's what I've enjoyed watching lately:

Cheer: A documentary series about a top competitive cheer team at a community college in small-town Texas. At first I got hooked based on the way cool stunts, the drama of all of these 19-year-olds (sooo much crying!), and the nail-biting tension of watching their routine in the national finals competition - but I really stuck around for how emotionally involved I got in all of their lives. Their team rocks, but on top of that the coach exhibits so much acceptance and empathy and love. Totally binged this and am obsessed.

Derry Girls: this Irish show makes me so happy I'm thinking about just starting again from the beginning (only sad thing: there are just 2 seasons). This group of high school girls is constantly getting into (comedic) trouble and awkward situations, but their friendship keeps winning out, and you just have to fall in love with them all - all while snort laughing at their hilarious dialogue and jamming along to an awesome 90s soundtrack.

Next in Fashion: this one actually doesn't launch until January 29, but I'm so excited about it that I've been watching trailers and also the YouTube "dressing funny" tie-ins, so I'm including it here... basically Netflix's Project Runway, but WITH TAN FRANCE. Project Runway has long been one of my favorite reality TV things, but the loss of Tim Gunn has made it much less interesting to watch, so I'm eager for a good replacement to cozy up with while the days are still so cold and dark.

John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch: this children's variety special created by comedian John Mulaney is pretty quirky and weird, but pretty amusing, especially if you're a 30-something who has Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers and things like that as a frame of reference. All of the songs/interactions deal with various existential topics in an earnest but comedic way, with some rather catchy tunes. My favorite parts were the interspersed candid interviews with the kids in the cast about their gears and lives, and also the fun cameos by various actors/comedians.

Mike Birbiglia - The New One: we actually saw this performed live when he was in the area last year, and it was just as excellent to see again as a Netflix special. This one-man show chronicles his journey from "I'm never having kids" to having one, in terms of his emotions, relationship with his wife, etc. Very funny in a cynical, darkly comedic way, but also some quite profound bits about being a parent and being a human.


What have you been watching lately? I'm going to check out the new PBS adaptation of Jane Austen's Sandition next, but then I think I'm going to need a new Netflix suggestion!

wearing lately: winterized

Much as I love last week's "coat-fit" and wish I could wear it every day, winter actually set in over the weekend around here (after weirdly little snow so far this season), and it's definitely necessary to winterize my outfit, starting with a full-on parka.

But it's not just the outerwear - winterization means alllll the things, from true snow boots to wool socks/sweater to faux fur trim on hoods/footwear to extra-warm jeans. All of the above have not left my body in a while. Including the coat, which I just keep wearing indoors if I'm cold enough after arriving home from the school run (which this outfit is absolute perfection for, I must say).

As for the parka: I put on my 20 in 2020 list to find an olive green winter coat, because I love my olive green jackets so much. I always feel put-together in them (see here and here, for example), so I was hoping that by extension having something in a winter coat version would make me feel snazzier than the usual blah puffer feeling that usually comes on after months of wearing one. I actually ordered several options during the Black Friday/Christmas sales and finally got around to trying them on earlier this month - and I found a winner in this one from J.Crew. The gold details make it feel a little more fashionable, but the lining and the hood and the cuffs make it nice and warm and functional. Cross that off the list!

More options below if you like the vibe...

Sharing on The Style Six and Style on the Daily.

five things Friday: most popular edition

I'm not planning to do any shopping myself in January (thought I would just jump right on that "no-buy month" goal I have on my 20 in 2020 list, along with the yoga month!), but I always find it fascinating on other blogs when they post readers' favorite (i.e. most-clicked) items - so I thought that in lieu of my own e-cart clicking, I would check out what your most popular picks for the last month were:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

And I must say, you all have great taste - because these most-clicked items are some of my very favorite things to wear lately. Not surprisingly (based on how many times I've posted about it), the sweater blazer was my most favorite clothing purchase of last year, and was included in my top outfits of the year too, so I'm also not surprised it came in as the most popular item with readers in the last month as well. The boots were a late 2019 purchase for me, but they might have ended up being my favorite footwear addition of the year, thanks to how comfortable and versatile they are (not to mention waterproof).

Plenty more sweater (and boot) weather left, so these will all get plenty more wear here - and I recommend them all if you're in the market for anything similar!

(Post contains affiliate links.)

making lately: power balls

I feel like "power ball" recipes have been all over the Internet/Pinterest for ages, but I kind of forgot about them until this month, when I was digging around for some ways to add in more (healthy) fats to my foods. Chia seeds came up as one idea, and then I remembered the one way I'd ever used chia seeds in my own kitchen... time to resurrect the power balls!

The basics of these little energy bites are to have oats, a nut butter to make things stick together/add protein, a sticky sweetener like honey or syrup, and a "power" mix-in like chia or ground flax seeds. From there you can add whatever twist you want - think of whatever type of granola bar is interesting to you, from chocolate chip to cinnamon raisin to almond coconut.

Hendrik and I checked out the array of variations on a base recipe from Well Plated, and he immediately zeroed in on the chocolate chip and double chocolate options, so we made both! The standard chocolate chip is our favorite, but the whole family loves both for an easy "power" snack, on-the-go breakfast, or lunch treat.

around the house: kid bath remodel

Kicking off the year with double excitement in the realm of home decor... a fresh and clean bathroom remodel (finally) finished, and a home tour feature on The Everymom! I love my old house so much and I love looking at home tours so much that I made it a life list goal to have a feature of my own posted on a site somewhere - thrilled to have been able to do this interview that made me think a lot about my approach to decor and parenting, and also to share photos of several rooms in our house. Also thrilled that I was able to include the updated bathroom, because I loooooove it.

Our old house means that the bathrooms don't land quite where you'd expect them to in relation to bedrooms - probably because when the house was built, indoor plumbing wasn't a thing! So we have 2 full baths upstairs, which are back-to-back and not connected to any bedrooms. The other one we use as more of a "master" bathroom (and it is getting its own update soon, woooo!), and this one is more of the "kid" bathroom, though it got very little use, given its lack of storage and such, and Hendrik being young enough to need total supervision with bathing and teeth brushing over in the other bathroom. As he's getting older though, it'll be great to have this a much more useable and nice looking space, plus it just goes so much more with my taste and our general decor vibe - compare to the photos below... yikes.

If you look at the kitchen that I designed, you can definitely see a theme of what I like - gray flooring, marble counters, white walls/subway tiles, wood touches to warm things up, and pink/coral accents for accessories. That made it super easy to narrow down my choices for materials for this space, plus I didn't agonize so much over how things might look together, because based on the kitchen design, I basically knew! I fell in love with these really cool floor tiles first, and the rest fell into place from there.

The biggest "risk" for me in this one was going with black faucets/hardware, which normally I wouldn't gravitate toward, but I just love how they contrast with the other materials. It all is clean and polished enough for my taste, but adds a little fun with the tiles and the hardware to give it more of a kid bathroom vibe. Especially when I added in the fun bird poster sent to me by Photowall - love the colors and the slightly whimsical look (plus love that there's no need to frame since it comes with this great wood hanger) and it suits my bird-obsessed kid perfectly. To get 25% off your own order, you can use code anneinresidenceblog2020 through February 15!

How's that for an impactful before/after!

Sources
Paint color: Benjamin Moore Decorator's White
Knobs: CB2
Handles: CB2
Mirror: Umbra
Pendant light fixture: West Elm
Faucet: Delta Trinsic
Tray: Target
Soap dispenser: Anthropologie
Cup: Anthropologie
Faux plant: Target
Floor tiles: similar
Coral rug: Target
Towel ring: Amazon
Hand towel: Hearth & Hand by Magnolia
Shower head/faucet: Delta Trinsic
Shower curtain: Target (similar, similar)
Towel hooks: Amazon
Towels: Target
Stool: Target
Bath mat: Target
Hanging planter: Target
Hanging print: Photowall c/o - use code anneinresidenceblog2020 for 25% off an order

wearing lately: coat-fit

In a climate where you spend a lot of time wearing a coat, your coat can by default end up pretty much being your outfit. Which fact I use to justify acquiring multiple coat options for my wardrobe, I admit - including some fun colors! Pop it on over a neutral base, and you've got an instant outfit. Or coat-fit, as it were.

Wore this ensemble to church last weekend and felt like a fancy church lady in my tweed - but with some fun personality in the colorful flecks.

Oh, and what you see in the background was the outcome of a two-day long ice storm warning forecast frenzy. I had a literary thriller and a good jigsaw puzzle lined up, so I was fully intending to be snowed-in and love it. No ice and a tiny dusting of snow later... I still read the entire book in 2 days and nearly finished the puzzle too. A weekend well spent, no matter the weather.


Sharing on Style on the Daily, The Style Six.

five things Friday: current obsessions edition

Back to normal life after the holidays, much as the season was fun and family-filled, is feeling quite nice. And now that I'm caught up on work after a full week back, it opens up some time for talking about my latest obsessions!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 

1. Acrylic hair clips: I picked up one of these on a whim at a local salon, and it's just such a fun addition to a simple jeans + sweater winter outfit (such as this) - I've been wearing it all the time. Amazon of course has whole sets for a steal of a deal so that you can match any ensemble!

2. Pickled onions: trying to recreate a buddha bowl I had at a restaurant, I decided I needed some pickled onions to up the wow factor and came across this super quick and simple recipe. We've gone through probably 3 jars of them now - so good to add a little tasty zing to any type of taco or taco bowl as well as the buddha bowls.

3. Our finished bathroom: I just can't stop poking my head in there and admiring it, I'm so pleased with how it came out... can't wait to share the full reveal next week. But in the meantime, maybe even more exciting is that there's a preview of it, along with a tour of the whole house and an interview with me, on The Everymom this week! Having a home tour featured online checks off an item on my life list, and I am so honored to have been selected and excited to get to share the details of the cool old house I love.

4. Sorel Explorer boots: my new dog walking boot - warm and lightweight makes it just as comfortable to walk our route as my sneakers in the warmer months. They're so comfy and cozy that sometimes I just keep wearing them around the house all day as if they're slippers.

5. Little Women: I so rarely go to movies, but I'm SO glad my book club ladies wanted to see the new Greta Gerwig Little Women adaptation together, because it is just excellent. So well done. I cried on at least 4 occasions during it. And now I've been making my way through any related podcasts I can find, my favorites being Greta Gerwig on The New Yorker Radio Hour and the Pop Culture Happy Hour discussion of the film.


What's on your list of favorites lately? How about a weekend!

a sweet baby shower

Very excited that my younger sister is going to be adding a new member to our family next month - I can't wait for her to become a mom, and to get a new nephew (and cousin for Hendrik!). Beyond that, I can't quite decide which is my biggest secondary excitement: getting to pull out all of the tiny and adorable baby boy things I kept from Hendrik to see them used again, or getting to host a baby shower as the big sister...

Over Christmas break I put together a little "sweet baby" shindig with the help of my mom, a cute but simple theme that decided the menu for me - an array of sweet treats displayed below a garland. We also had some bubbly (both the real kind and the non-alcoholic) along with some pink lemonade/orange juice to make mimosas, and a fancy cheese platter arranged by my grandma. I made snickerdoodle blondie bars, peanut butter bars, and lemony shortbread cookies in advance and pulled them out of the freezer morning-of, and then added some jelly beans and mint candies in the colors of the garland.

And almost as much as I love a good theme for a party, I love having some kind of creative activity as a way for people to interact and have a take-away (or in this case, give the guest of honor a take-away) - see previous events with flower arranging, cookie decorating, pumpkin painting... Same with this shower: no cheesy games for us. Instead, I got some wooden blocks, painted them in advance with the help of my mom and brother, and then gave the ladies paint pens and free rein to decorate some blocks for the baby. It was fun to see what everyone came up with (including Hendrik's bird design on a left over one!) and will hopefully be a unique and special keepsake.

Food and creative activity were followed by presents, including the car seat and stroller, so now we just need baby!

reading lately: YA roundup

My reaching 106 books read in 2019 might have something to do with having absolutely devoured several YA and middle grade books - but there's no shame in that, because there is some legitimately really great stuff out there in these categories! To that end, a roundup of a few of the YA books that I didn't get around to reviewing yet last year:

Permanent Record
Pablo Rind is an in-debt college dropout working the overnight shift at a 24-hour deli in Brooklyn, with pretty much just a good group of friends/roommates and a fun and decently popular niche sneaker + snacks Instagram account going for him. Then one night pop star Leanna Smart (I kept thinking Taylor Swift in my head, though the character isn't necessarily like her except for the insane cultural influence/social media following) happens to stop in the deli when he is working. He doesn't recognize her at first, instead just seeing a seemingly lonely person who needs some good advice on junk food snacks. There's a spark, but she heads back to her life, and Pablo keeps slogging through his - until they randomly make a connection on Instagram, and soon Pablo is swept up into Leanna's life of private planes and other celebrity craziness, all the while hiding his true self and struggles as he tries to be part of this aspirational world. The root of this story is how people forge and maintain relationships in our heavily digital, social media  landscape; it also deals with how social media can be addictive and feed into loneliness and depression. Some serious and important topics encased in some great trademark YA banter - but I just couldn't quite fall in love with Pablo. I think part of why I didn't love this one as much as I had hoped was that I loved Choi's first book, Emergency Contact, SO much, so it was going to be hard to live up to it. This one was less compulsively readable, perhaps because for me characters who are going down a path of self-destruction in things like dropping out of school or not showing up for work - or in this case, stuffing bills into drawers instead of figuring out how to pay them - just make me squirm a bit, and that distracts me... so while I think this is objectively a good one, for me it was 3/5 stars


Frankly in Love
Frank Li is torn between his Californian high school life of wanting to date his crush and his first-generation Korean home life, in which his parents expect that he will only go out with a nice Korean girl - so to get around it, he and family friend Joy Song (who is having the same problem with her parents) create a fake dating pact. It seems like a win-win: their parents are thrilled when they pretend to leave on a date with each other, and they're thrilled when they get to spend hours with their actual crushes. But of course a ruse like this can't last forever, especially when they really forge a connection with each other. The characters are all delightfully nerdy and funny - super smart high achievers who also have just super fun interests, which gives me that spark that I'm always looking for in a YA book, leading to great banter and endearing quirks. Then on top of that, Frank's internal exploration of a feeling of not really belonging perfectly in either world gives it some great depth and heart, as we explore that age-old question that works so well in YA format with characters at an age where they are starting to separate from their parents' identities: who am I? This is more what I was hoping Permanent Record would be - that is, something that reminded me a bit of my experience of loving Emergency Contact. (Though an interesting connection with Permanent Record given the main character working in a convenience store...) The subject matter also reminded me a bit of The Sun Is Also a Star in this teenage boy trying to find his place in the world as an American kid who is also the son of Korean immigrants. 4.5/5 stars


Field Notes on Love
Hugo is a semi-celebrity in England, as part of a set of sextuplets that have been doing publicity events all their lives. He's been yearning for a bit of individual space before going off to college with all of his siblings (a free ride offered by a university, contingent on all 6 of them attending together), so a train trip across America with his girlfriend sounds like a perfect way to get this - until she breaks up with him right before it's time to go. Instead of skipping it, he decides to advertise for a replacement Margaret Campbell - since the non-refundable tickets can only be used in her name - and ends up taking the trip with NYC-born Mae who planned to head off to the University of Southern California for film school, except that she's nursing her own hurts since she unexpectedly didn't get in to that program. Intending to simply escape their own lives for a bit by going on this trip, they of course end up finding something else in each other... it's a fun and feel-good and quick read. Definitely on the lighter side and somewhat predictable, but an enjoyable experience, the type that makes a great vacation or beach read if you want something to breeze through! 3.5/5 stars 


I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
There is a litany of things that perfect Mexican (American) daughters do and don't do - and Julia just doesn't fit the mold. She argues with her parents, she wants to go away to college, she wants to spend time with friends instead of all-important family. The perfect Mexican daughter was actually Julia's big sister, Olga, who was killed in a tragic accident on a busy street in Chicago, and now is enshrined in her family's memory, especially in the ways that Julia contrasts to her. But then Julia starts to discover that actually there were some big secrets in Olga's life, and she wasn't so perfect as everyone thought. The description makes it seem like a bit more of a mystery investigation than the plot actually turns out to be; it's more about Julia's journey of how she's going to handle her "expected" role in the family, which is shaped by how she starts to uncover secrets of Olga's and her parents', and how finally bringing some of these things to light can clear up and strengthen their relationships with one another. As she tries to figure out who her sister really was, she battles with the displaced grief feelings of her parents and her own depression, which made for a very powerful story. This character reminded me of the difficult ones in books like Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine in that she's just kind of prickly and hard to like at first, which maybe makes the book a little slow to get into, but once you get underneath the layers of what she is protecting herself with and from, like loneliness and isolation and depression and grief, you can't help but love her and have so much empathy for her. I also loved the support network that formed around her, especially her English teacher (I had fears of creepy relationship, but it was a perfectly beautiful one) and her grandmother in Mexico. 4/5 stars


Only Mostly Devastated
Visiting North Carolina for a few months with his parents to help out with his sick aunt's family, Ollie has an amazing summer fling - but now the season has ended and suddenly Will has gone radio silent, and Ollie is brokenhearted. Then when Ollie's parents decide last-minute to stay for the school year instead of going back home to California, Ollie shows up at his new school to realize that not only does Will go there, but also he's kind of a popular kid jerk and is most definitely not out... As Ollie starts to find his place in this new school, he has to decide if he can give up his heart again after it was so trampled the first time, and if he's going to change himself to fit with Will - kind of a modern-day Grease. You get some of the things I love best about YA - great friend side characters, the angsty exploration of fitting in and finding love combined with snappy dialogue, and a bit of swoony-ness to boot. The female version of this, in which an openly out girl moves to a smaller town midway through high school and has to contend with hiding that identity/falling for someone who isn't yet ready to be out, would be Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruits, which I liked a lot. Overall, a sweet YA romance/coming-of-age story that is an enjoyable reading experience, even if it's not one that's going to stick with me forever. (Comes out early March; I received an advance e-copy from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.) 3.5/5 stars


Some great books here, with Frankly in Love being one of my 2019 favorite reads... and can I also say that when writing up these reviews, I'm pleased how much diversity is in these books, in terms of ethnicity and race and sexual orientation and life experience. I feel like YA is just killing it lately in all this good stuff!

Currently reading another advance copy from a favorite YA author, Sandhya Menon, and loving it too. What's the best YA selection you've read recently?


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blogger style: one item, two ways

Now that all of the Christmas stuff is put away, including the particularly festive items from my December mini wardrobe, I'm on to frequent wearings of one of my go-to winter uniforms: jeans, waterproof boots, tissue turtleneck, and warm cardigan.

I've done it before with stripes below and solids on top, or solids below and buffalo plaid on top - but today it's all about the black turtleneck as my closet twin Dana and I are both styling one for our blogger style: one item, two ways series. I like pretty pinks in January for some cozy winter softness after the bold festive colors of the holiday season, but the black underneath grounds it a bit - especially when wearing somewhat clunky black boots on the bottom is a must anyway...

So that's what's on semi-repeat around here - especially with my favorite new hair accessory for a little pizzazz - unless it warms up into the 40s and I do something wild and crazy like put a bodysuit under the cardigan rather than a turtleneck. Now pop over to Dana's and see how she's wearing her black turtleneck today!

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