Afternoon Plans Made

I started the day by checking NationalDayCalendar.com and was delighted to learn that today is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. I now know exactly what I will be doing this afternoon. Baking cookies! I love baking cookies and chocolate chip cookies are a favorite of mine.

I found some chocolate chip cookie items from Zazzle, Amazon and eBay to share with you today. I hope you find a bit of inspiration here today. Maybe by this evening you will have spent some time mixing, baking and tasting something delicious like I plan to.

From Zazzle you can get a beautifully designed sticker if your baking leads to gift giving. By the way if you do this can I give you my address? Just kidding but consider how it could brighten someone's day to do that. You can find this item on Zazzle by clicking right here.

If you are not a baker there is always someone who is. I found a 100% rated baker on eBay. If you live in Pensacola, Florida you can pick up for free, or if not, have a couple dozen shipped right to your door. If you want to buy in quantity for a special occasion or just because you can get discounts for a larger order. Consider that and use this link to learn more.

If you want to think about cookies but not take in all the calories, consider this next item. I found this one on Amazon. You could give it to yourself, or it would make a great gift for a housewarming, wedding shower or your favorite baker. Purchase this kitchen towel by clicking here.

The power went out here for about 10 minutes as I was finishing up this post. This time of year in Arizona that is definitely not a good thing. It is going to be another warm one, it is August after all, with temperatures at about 110 degrees for our expected high.

All links in today's post are affiliate links and I could earn a small commission if you click and then make a purchase. This is no cost to you of course.

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Take care and stay cozy! 

And stay cool!

Watched on Netflix, Dumplin'

Jim and I have a lot of differences, but we have made it 47 years so far. One of those little ones is that I love binging a series and he prefers to watch movies. I usually let him pick our after dinner movie while I watch my series, currently finishing up Better Call Saul, while knitting in the afternoon before it is time to fix dinner.

Yesterday however I took the after dinner choice into my own hands. While logging in to Netflix for my afternoon knitting time, the movie Dumplin showed up in our recommendations. It seems to involve Dolly Parton. To me it seems like everything she has a hand in is wonderful, so I decided that this movie should be watched after dinner last night. I told Jim about my choice, and he agreed to watch it and then Jim as usual fell asleep during the movie and he really missed out. I don't know how he managed that because this one gave me all the feels. I laughed, shed a couple tears and even applauded at one point. I loved this movie and told him to watch it again some time when he was sure to stay awake!

Many of you may have already seen Dumplin since it was released in 2018 and we are typically slow about these things. However, if you haven't seen it and want a movie that will bring some joy into your life watch this one.

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Take care and stay cozy! 

Planning Ahead

I have a husband who loves to travel a lot more than I do. I do like to see new places and the recent road trip was a wonderful experience. Now that my Mom has passed, I don't feel so bad about being far away. With that said, we have been discussing the possibility of more overseas trips. Australia, Southeast Asia, Scottland and Iceland are just the beginning of our bucket list. Not as many trips as he would like maybe but enough to keep him content and me, the homebody, sane.

So, I have started to research travel wardrobes, fabrics and packing recommendations so that what I take is lighter, more useful and easier to handle. Quite a rabbit hole I disappeared into this morning. Some of the retail pricing for "travel" clothing seems pretty outrageous to me. Sewing an easy to wear and pack wardrobe for myself might take some time but may be worth the work. Still trying to figure it out. Maybe a combination of both retail and handmade would be best. What I want is a set of clothing that can be combined into many outfits that I can just dump in a suitcase and know I've got the trip covered for wherever we go with adjustments for seasons and weather if I find myself in Iceland or Vietnam. Too much to ask? 

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Take care and stay cozy! 

A Favorite Podcast - Completely Arbortrary

I listen to a lot of podcasts. They are the background noise in my everyday life. I like to cover lots of topics, serious, funny, political, scientific, historical, or musical.

Today I am sharing here the podcast Completely Arbortrary. This podcast is scientific and funny. The hosts are friends and the conversations they share show that which makes the pod very enjoyable to listen to even about a different tree each week. 

On the website for this podcast, Completely Arbortrary, the following description is given.

This weekly podcast is a scientific look at trees and how they affect and are affected by everything, hosted by master arborist and environmental educator Casey Clapp and his tree-curious friend and musical artist Alex Crowson. Each episode features a tree from around the world and a discussion about its unique position in culture, ecology, and history. These discussions can range from urban forestry and evolutionary biology to folk mythology and popular culture. The hard science is framed in plenty of silliness, with a casual tone, games and parody songs, and the titular arbitrary numerical rating of the tree at the end of each episode.

I can't say I am any kind of tree scholar, but I find it so enjoyable each week to hear Casey and Alex tell me all about another tree. Take a look at these guys, Alex on the left and Casey on the right, you might find you enjoy learning all about trees from them too. If you ever listen to Completely Arbortrary leave a comment and let me know what you thought about it, okay?

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Take care and stay cozy!

National Watercolor Month, July

On this last day of July, wondering what I would share here on the blog today, I went to one of my go to places for inspiration. I checked out NationalDayCalendar.com. While looking at things there I discovered that July is World Watercolor Month. This made me very happy because I love the look of watercolor art.

When in Hawaii we discovered the artist Sherri Reeve. She has a shop on Maui and it is always a very busy place. Besides the shop in Hawaii she has a web site you can shop, SReeve.com. We have 7 prints of her work and I love every one of them but I have a favorite. This one brightens my kitchen and makes me smile every day. It is called A Chorus Line.

So charming, right?

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Take care and stay cozy! 

The links above are for you to find out more information and see the sites I like to check out. Those below are affiliate links.

A Room for All of My Things

When we first moved together to this house in Arizona after Jim's retirement, Jim and I shared a room we called the office. For the most part it worked but when working in there he likes his Pandora playlists playing loud and I like to listen to podcasts and I had to use earbuds or headphones. Without complaining to each other about the invasion of space when we wanted to concentrate on things, we both knew that it would be nicer to each have our own dedicated space.

With the goal of separate offices in mind, we decided to change our guest rooms setup, we have one room with a king-sized bed in it and that room stayed the same. We had a room with 2 queen sized beds in it as well. That room is now mine. We took one of the beds out of it and moved it to Jim's office. We took my tables and all my crafting supplies and moved those things into the former 2 queen bed guest room. Some closet storage was also changed. Holiday decorations and luggage are now stored in Jim's office. My supplies are now in my office and the king guest room. Yes I need room in 2 closets, don't judge me please.

This move also gave me a chance to do some sorting and organizing. I rounded up all the yarn in various bag and boxes. They are now sorted by weight and in clear bins so I can see what I have and be reminded of what projects I have planned to do next. I have 4 goals for knitting or crocheting right now. They are to finish all planned patterns for the Shawl in a Ball yarn, finish planned patterns for the Summer Nights yarn I have, make for markets bags with the crochet thread I have on hand and to finish making the tasseled scarves collection I started with all the ladder yarn I have. I also have a quilting goal. The quilt I want to finish is a panel quilt. The hand quilting of each block is done. I need to get all the blocks joined and a binding put on. 

Of course, all this organizing feels good. I know myself enough to know that I will get an idea in my head and mess it all up looking for something, probably very soon if I stay true to form. 

I just realized on reading through this looking for silly errors (and I am sure that I still missed something because I always do) that I forgot to mention the socks I intend to make with the sock yarn I bought with my niece in Longmont. So, add that to the list of to do's and I will be one busy, never bored girl. 

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Take care and stay cozy! 

The Memory Keeper of Kyiv by Erin Litteken

I finished reading The Memory Keeper of Kyiv by Erin Litteken. The story was written about 3 women, a grandmother, mother and a daughter. 

Grandmother, who kept journals but never talked about what she lived through as a survivor of The Holodomor which happened during Stalin's reign. This was a man-made famine in the early 1930's that killed millions of people.

The mother, raised by this survivor, never knew anything about this part of her mother's life. She was raised to live in the moment and to look forward and not back.

The granddaughter in this story is a young widow with a daughter. Her grandmother gives her the task of translating the journals which she kept from Ukranian to English and in this way the story is told. Not able to do the translation herself, the love interest comes into play as a neighbor who has those skills and helps with the translation.

There is a lot of tragedy in this book but a lot of joy too. Told in two timelines, the 1930's and the early 2000's, this book kept me captivated from beginning to end.

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Take care and stay cozy!

This post contains affiliate links to the book.