Author: Trish

Into reading, decluttering, budgeting, and doing jigsaw puzzles!
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Week in Review: December 7, 2025

I had a good week with just a couple of appointments. I went to the orthodontist to get prepped and scanned for starting Invisalign. The appointment was a lot longer than it was supposed to be because their scanners were acting up, which wasn’t helped by the fact that I have a very small mouth that is hard to maneuver the scanning wand in.

I also went to the optometrist. I was happy to be able to go to the one that I prefer due to an insurance change, and he updated my prescription and added prisms to make it easier for me to focus. I will go back in six months for the diabetic medical exam.

Michael did not work again this week. He was originally scheduled for Wednesday, but that morning they texted him that they were low on product and he did not need to come in. His job coach’s manager is going to contact them to see what their plans are for his employment, so hopefully we will find out more information this coming week.

I started doing Christmas puzzles this week and have completed three already. I have also finished five books so far this month, as well as a short story called Goblins & Greatcoats. The story is by Travis Baldree and is set in the world of the Legends & Lattes series. It is a fun story that features Zyll, a goblin who appears in the most recent book, Brigands & Breadknives.

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Speed Puzzling & Puzzle Swap

I had so much fun at the speed puzzling competition last Saturday. It was really enjoyable to watch the competitors and see how quickly they finished the puzzles. Everyone was very nice, and the puzzle swap was a big success.

For the competition, the solo winner completed a 300-piece puzzle in 30 minutes. The pairs winners finished a 300-piece puzzle in 16 minutes, and the team winners did their 500-piece puzzle in 30 minutes. Those times are all so impressive; I could never puzzle that fast!

Solo
Pairs
Teams

The puzzle swap table was filled with a variety of piece counts and images. I brought 14 puzzles to swap and ended up coming home with 10 new puzzles. I am very happy with the ones I got. I could have taken more but didn’t want to bring anything home that I wasn’t in love with.

These are the puzzles I got in the swap:

  • Pumpkins & Gourds, Ceaco, 300 pieces
  • Sugar & Spice by Charles Wysocki, Buffalo Games, 1000 pieces
  • Birch Point Cove by Charles Wysocki, Buffalo Games, 1000 pieces
  • Chickenology by Camilla Pintonato, Princeton Architectural Press, 1000 pieces
  • All Cool Things Are Wild & Free by Valesca van Waveren, Workman Puzzles, 1000 pieces
  • Bon Appetit by Lucia Heffernan, Eurographics, 300 pieces
  • Home Sweet Home by Demelsa Haughton, Ravensburger, 500 pieces
  • Art Studio by Jen DellaGrottaglia, Ravensburger, 500 pieces
  • Disney & Pixar Color Pallette, Ravensburger, 500 pieces
  • Potted Posies, Page Publications, 1000 pieces

The Bon Appetit puzzle that I got in the swap was the one used in the pairs competition, so I decided to time myself doing it to see how I would compare. I did it in 53:46. I am really happy with that time, but I don’t plan to continue timing my puzzles. I didn’t like the pressure and wasn’t able to enjoy the image because I was just looking for patterns and details.

This was a fun event to attend, and I’m really glad I went.

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What I’m Reading – December 2025

What I’m Reading Now

The Bright Side of Going Dark by Kelly Harms – This is a novel focused on the place of social media in our lives. It is okay so far.

Queer & Christian: Reclaiming the Bible, Our Faith, and Our Place at the Table by Brandan Robertson – This book has given me a lot to think about. It goes beyond the regular discussion of Bible passages that have been used to condemn the LGBTQ community and covers some really interesting topics.

What I Recently Finished

Fiction

  • The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
  • What you are looking for is in the library by Michiko Aoyama
  • Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree (Legends & Lattes #2)
  • The Library by Bella Osborne
  • 3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years by John Scalzi (short story)
  • The Toy Car by Rose Tremain (short story)

Nonfiction

  • Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop: A Memoir by Alba Donati

What I Added to my TBR

  • In the Paris Fashion by Sophie Beaumont
  • Jigsaw by Jonathan Kellerman (Alex Delaware #41)
  • Revenge Prey by John Sandford (Lucas Davenport #36)
  • The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah by Jean Meltzer
  • Mr. Perfect on Paper by Jean Meltzer
  • Kissing Kosher by Jean Meltzer
  • Magical Meet Cute by Jean Meltzer
  • The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris by Evie Woods
  • Pride and Prejudice and Pittsburgh by Rachael Lippincott
  • The Midnight Train by Matt Haig
  • Now That I Know You by Heart by Amy Hagstrom
  • Goblins & Greatcoats by Travis Baldree (Legends & Lattes #1.5)
  • Not Quite Done with Dating by Bella Osborne
  • You & Me and You & Me and You & Me by Josie Lloyd
  • The Shippers by Katherine Center
  • Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell
  • A Ferry Merry Christmas by Debbie Macomber
  • The Phoebe Variations by Jane Hamilton

TBR Stats/Updates

  • I currently have 186 books on my TBR. Of those, 6 are nonfiction and 180 are fiction.
  • At the end of June, I created a focused reading list of 25 books I would like to read by the end of the year. So far, I have read 23 of those books. One was a DNF, and the last one is still on hold with Libby, so I’m hoping it will be available in time.
  • I have read 113 books this year (my goal was 75).
  • My nonfiction goal is 1 per month, which I have met so far with a total of 11.
  • Here are some more stats from StoryGraph:
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The Library

The Library is the first book I have read by Bella Osborne, a UK writer who has been publishing mostly romcoms since 2015. This book is one of her uplifting bookclub reads, and I’m sure the library setting was what got it on my radar. The main characters are Tom, a sixteen-year old boy who feels invisible, and Maggie, a seventy-two year old woman who has been on her own for the last ten years.

Tom and Maggie meet at the village library and become friends as they join forces to help save the library from being closed by the council. It is definitely a feel-good story with a heavy emphasis on books, so right up my alley.

I could identify with both characters in different ways. I can relate to Tom feeling invisible and finding solace in reading, and I can relate to Maggie having a good life but still finding something missing. For instance, Maggie finds that in her situation, the thing she misses most of all is the hugs.

“It was a peculiar quirk of polite modern society that without a partner or offspring in your life you were denied that one key comfort humans require – the need for physical contact. An embrace can be on many different levels but the basic sensation of emotional and physical warmth given freely by another is most noticeable when it is no longer there.”

I also appreciated the focus on books and reading being part of one’s life. I loved how Tom grew in his confidence with books and the library until he was recommending books to others, and these words from Maggie really resonate with me:

“Books are such an underrated essential. Every book is a key that unlocks another world, leads us down the path of a different life and offers the chance to explore an unexpected adventure. Every one is a gift of either knowledge, entertainment or pure escapism and goodness knows we all need that from time to time.”

All in all, this was a lovely story and an enjoyable read.

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Crows Nest Harbor and Young Patriots: A Double Dose of Americana

Crows Nest Harbor is a 1000-piece puzzle from MasterPieces, and the artist is Art Poulin, who was an American folk artist. This puzzle was actually the oldest on my to do shelf. I kept passing it over and finally decided it was time to pull it down and do it.

I really enjoy puzzles with buildings, and this one was especially fun with the distinct bright colors for each building. The amount of dock and sky was small enough that they weren’t very tricky, either.

It felt good to be puzzling after an almost two-week break. (No big reason for the break, I’ve just been reading a lot more.)

I was still in the mood for Americana the following day, so I did this 500-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games called Young Patriots. It is a Charles Wysocki and features more of my beloved buildings along with other charming details. It was a lot of fun.

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Thanksgiving Catch-Up

This has been a busy month, so I am very glad for a four-day weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving. Yesterday, Michael and I had a quiet day at home and enjoyed our version of a holiday feast. We are both picky eaters, so it was mostly beige foods. We enjoyed it though!

This morning, Michael had a manometry study to evaluate the motility of his esophagus. He has previously had a barium swallow and an upper endoscopy, both of which were normal. We are hoping that this test will give us some answers to his swallowing difficulties. The nurse who administered the test was great; she was very patient with him and explained everything that was happening very clearly. Michael had a bit of trouble with one small section of the test, but for the most part he did great. Actually, he did a lot better than I think I would have done!

Tomorrow I am going to a local puzzle competition. I am going as a spectator, partly because I enjoy watching people who can puzzle fast and partly because they are having a puzzle swap table. I am really hoping people bring some good puzzles to trade.

Speaking of puzzling, I just bought a new floor lamp for my living room that is a lot brighter than the one I had. It makes doing puzzles much easier and also helps me take better pictures of the finished puzzles. I am going to put the old floor lamp in Michael’s room since he only has a bedside lamp right now.

I did something a little different this year and bought an advent calendar for Michael. It is a Minecraft Lego advent calendar, and he seemed to really like it. I hope he will enjoy building each day’s item.

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Short Story Reviews November 2025

3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years by John Scalzi

⭐⭐⭐/5

This short story is the first of The Time Traveler’s Passport, six Amazon Original stories that are free to read with Kindle Unlimited. I found this one quite interesting with a good twist at the end. Scalzi has an intriguing take on how time travel could work and what part it would play in society.

The Toy Car by Rose Tremain

⭐⭐/5

This is a coming-of-age story about a young man from Greece who visits his mother’s home country of England at her insistence so that he can see what else is out there before he follows in his father’s footsteps as the owner of a small taxi company. I didn’t really connect with the characters, so this was a miss for me.

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Puzzle Haul

I have had some fun puzzle mail recently and wanted to share it here.

  • A Day at the Bookstore from Galison, Michael Storrings
  • Cat Stamps from Re-marks
  • Starry Seasons from 1canoe2
  • Spooky Sweets from 1canoe2
  • The Chocolate from Magnolia, Alice Celia
  • Corner Bakery from Ravensburger, Elissa Della-Piana
  • Princess on the Pea from Enjoy

This Saturday I am attending a puzzle swap that is part of a puzzle competition at a local game store. I purchased a spectator/puzzle swap ticket and will be taking 15 puzzles to swap. I am really hopeful that there will be some good options for me to choose from.

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Brigands & Breadknives

Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree

I love the cozy fantasy world Travis Baldree has created in the Legends & Lattes series. This is considered Book 2 in the series, although it is actually the third book published. First we had Legends & Lattes, which was Book 1, and then we had Bookshops & Bonedust, which was Book 0. The settings were a coffee shop and bookshop, respectively.

This book starts out with Fern, the bookseller from Book 0, moving to Thune, where Viv from Book 1 has her coffee shop, to open a new bookshop. Things quickly take a turn as Fern finds herself far from home after a night of drinking and desperation. She ends up on an adventure with an elven warrior and a chaotic goblin captive.

I was surprised at first by the turn this book took–away from the cozy fantasy shop setting and towards an action-filled adventure plotline. It felt a lot like some of the D&D campaigns I have been a part of. That’s not a bad thing, just different and unexpected after the other two books. It had some good fights and some fun, quirky elements. 

The parts I most enjoyed were seeing the evolving relationships between the characters and following Fern’s internal journey through her writing of letters to Viv back in Thune. I am hoping there will be more books in the series and that they will be more like the first two that were written.

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Wilder Podcast

I posted a few weeks ago about the podcast Wilder on the Prairie, a fascinating podcast which explains a lot of the terms, items, or references in the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The podcast I am referring to today is simply called Wilder, and it was produced in 2023 as a deep dive into Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life and legacy. It consists of 10 regular episodes, 3 bonus episodes, and a 50th anniversary special published in 2024.

I found this podcast to be incredibly well done and also very balanced. They cover so much ground, discussing Wilder’s life as well as her books and even the TV show. They discuss how the books came about and how they compare to her real life experiences, while also explaining the questions about the series authorship and the difficult relationship between Laura and her daughter Rose. 

Throughout the episodes, they are constantly balancing the love people have for the series with the problematic aspects of the books. One of the largest issues is how Native Americans were portrayed, and they do a deep dive into that history. They also spend time on the TV show, and one of the bonus episodes is an interview with Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura in the show.

Highly recommended!