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Currently Reading

Over the winter break, I had the luxury of catching up on my ever-growing reading list. Besides my monthly book club read, I rarely make the time to tackle more than one book a month. Thank you December for your grey, chilly days that prime a girl for a day spent curled under fleece blankets with a book and a cup of tea by her side!

First up, Immersion, a young adult novel by my talented friend and fellow Eph, M.J. Prest. M.J. self-published her debut novel this spring, and I must admit, I was sucked into a 24 hour literary black hole upon beginning this adventure. James, you may blame M.J. for my lack of attention to our dependents and household during that day of, well, Immersion.

The title of the novel so aptly suits the story on many levels, not the least of which is that it is the story of Atlantis weeks before its plummet into the Aegean sea. The lead character, Artemis, is a strong-willed, thoughtful 16-year old girl who I look forward to sharing with my daughters as they enter their teenage years. With novels like Twilight peppering the YA bookshelves, I’m relieved to have an option along the lines of a Hunger Games or Forest of Hands and Teeth for my daughters to enjoy as they navigate the growing-pains of their teenage years. Not only is the story exciting, complete with mermaids (and mermen!) and many sailing adventures, it tackles difficult issues of identity and class, and female empowerment and agency that my own girls will confront as they grow.

I particularly loved M.J.’s attention to the world of Atlantis. You are fully immersed in the sights and sounds and tastes of the island, drawing you closer to the story and its characters. Having experienced M.J.’s unbelievable talents in the kitchen, I was not surprised to find myself salivating at her detailed, delicious descriptions of the very food of Atlantis. Now I must convince her to cook some of those delicacies so that we may experience them firsthand.

Immersion is an  exciting coming-of-age tale that you’re sure to enjoy as much as any Young Adult. A quick read (perfect for a vacation or plane flight!), and for only $2.99, it’s far too good to miss.

Immersion available here. 

Home Improvement // Year 2

One of our projects before the New Year involved finally painting our (itty bitty) upstairs hallway the Sharky Gray color of our stairwell. This project has been on our To Do list since March of 2012. Yep, nearly 2 years.

The painting was motivated by my purchase of these FLOR carpet tiles to line the floor of the hallway. I love the rainbow array of colors that pulls together all the various schemes and patterns happening in the five rooms that open on to that hallway.

^^I love these prints by Story People that we’ve collected over the years – the original rainbow explosion in the hallway that is now complimented by the FLOR.^^

In photographing the new hallway, it dawned on me that I never shared the final result of our upstairs bathroom redo. We used hot pink FLOR tiles in the bathroom, and completely replaced the sink by making our own out of an old kitchen cabinet. We sourced the faucet and fixtures from Homeclick.

Here are prior posts about the project. Here’s our bathroom as it stands now (I’d say an improvement to the before).

Looking at these images made me realize how very much we need a different laundry hamper to finish off the room. Given my obsession with 3 Sprouts (Remember this post? Since then, we added the Whale trunk at Christmas to serve as the keeper of the girls’ costumes and dress-up clothes and the Fox bin as the holder of all winter accessories (hats, gloves, scarves, etc.)), I ordered one of their laundry hampers in the blue polar bear. It is clearly a kid-friendly bathroom, so why not adorn it further in childish awesome?

Hanna heartily approves of the new rug. She sleeps in the middle of the hallway to keep tabs on all of us. While it’s a wildly inconvenient and precarious place to rest, I don’t blame her. That rainbow calls to me, too. Now we desperately need to focus on redoing the downstairs bathroom, which namely needs an improved toilet. We have our eyes on this. Oh home ownership. How you have affected my priorities in strange (and at times depressing) ways.