November Musings

When I started my blog this summer, I had good intentions of posting regularly. In no big surprise to myself, I have not blogged as often as I hoped. A fellow writer, Molly Flinkman, does a monthly blog post with a round up of what she’s written and read in the past month. I am going to try this out and see what happens. So, here goes!

//What I Read//

I love reading; but find myself going through spurts where I read non-stop followed by a dry season where I don’t read at all. This fall was mostly a “dry” season in reading for me, but I picked back up the last month and read five books in November (two were audio).

Ghosted by Rosie Walsh
“When Sarah meets Eddie, they connect instantly and fall in love. To Sarah, it seems as though her life has finally begun. And it’s mutual: It’s as though Eddie has been waiting for her, too. Sarah has never been so certain of anything. So when Eddie leaves for a long-booked vacation and promises to call from the airport, she has no cause to doubt him. But he doesn’t call.”

I really liked this book and would call it a romantic mystery. I’m not a huge fan of thrillers (i.e. being scared), so this one fit the bill perfectly for me. It kept me guessing the whole time and I was not right in any of my predictions. I gave this book 4.5 stars on Goodreads (if you could give half stars).

Hope Unfolding: Grace-Filled Truth for the Momma’s Heart by Becky Thompson
This was a pretty quick read and it felt like Becky was talking right to you. She recently Skyped into our MOPS meeting and I enjoyed reading her book after “talking” to her in real life. I felt like I knew her a bit and enjoyed her story.

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
“Set in a remote health-and-wellness retreat, presided over by a very intriguing and charismatic guru figure, Nine Perfect Strangers introduces us to nine different characters with very little in common. Each has a compelling reason for coming to the retreat. Some seek healing while others wish to be transformed.”

I have read all of Liane Moriarty’s books, I think this is her 6th or 7th one. This book was admittedly not my favorite; but it was still a good read.

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
“Crazy Rich Asians is the outrageously funny debut novel about three super-rich, pedigreed Chinese families and the gossip, backbiting, and scheming that occurs when the heir to one of the most massive fortunes in Asia brings home his ABC (American-born Chinese) girlfriend to the wedding of the season.”

I don’t always enjoy audiobooks: my mind wanders and I suddenly realize I have not been listening and have no idea what’s going on. This audiobook was 15 hours, which makes it the longest book I’ve ever finished on audio! The narrator did a great job with the different accents and characters, which made it a really fun listen. This is a must-read/listen!

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
This book is our December book club pick of the month. I don’t remember reading it as a kid, and Rich and I listened to it on audio while we were traveling for Thanksgiving. It was a short audio and a good read. Rich was driving, which meant I had more distractions and didn’t listen as well as I would have if I was driving. He kept me in the loop with what was going on when my mind started to wander.

My goal for 2018 was to read 40 books and I am currently at 47 (thank you to the Goodreads app for helping me keep track!). I hope to get to 50 by the end of December, but I’m currently in another reading slump, so we will see if that happens.

//What I Wrote//

Since April I have taken four writing workshops; two of them were this fall and I took them back-to-back. The second workshop was “Writing With Purpose” by Coffee + Crumbs writer, Sonya Spillmann. I highly recommend it for those who love to write. She is offering it again in February; click the link above to see if there are any spaces left! You won’t regret it. During this workshop I wrote a couple essays which I am still working on, and hope to submit for publication sometime in 2019. I also wrote an Instagram post that I shared yesterday about finding my purpose in a snack filled world.

At the beginning of November, “Finding Myself in the Laundry” was published on Sweatpants & Coffee.

My latest essay “A Farmer’s Son” comes out tomorrow on Her View From Home. I have been nervously waiting for this to be published. Some essays I am more proud of than others, and this is one of them. I wrote this essay during a workshop I took this summer from “Mothers Always Write” and the workshop happened to fall during the first week of harvest. This year the first week of harvest started out with taking Rhett to urgent care two days in a row, followed by a week of sickness for the family. Let’s just say it wasn’t the best time to try and take a workshop! But when I signed up I had no idea the week would turn out that way. I’m always nervous to see the comments on essays I have written, and I would say I am more anxious about this one than others. I’m not sure if it’s because of how I feel about the essay or more that I worry people will read it wrong and make assumptions about me. Probably both.

//Final Thoughts//

Last year I discovered that Coffee + Crumbs accepts guest submissions twice a year, and they don’t accept many. I put it on my list of goals for 2018 to submit an essay to them. I wasn’t brave enough to write down that I wanted to be published on C+C, just that I wanted to submit something I felt was good enough to submit. I wrote an essay in April and I saved it all summer to submit in their open submissions in September. Patience has never been a virtue of mine. Submissions opened in late September and I clicked submit for the first time to C+C. To say I felt anxious was an understatement; then I had to wait. For over a month I waited to hear back from them. At the end of October I finally received an email: it was accepted! I don’t know when it will be published yet, sometime in 2019. It felt like such an accomplishment and I can’t wait to see it on their website next year.

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Thanks for reading! Hopefully I can keep up with this each month (and maybe something in-between every now and then). This was fun – thanks for the inspiration, Molly!