I found Close Knit by Jenny Colgan to be quirky and enjoyable. Gertie lives on a small island in the north of Scotland, where she spends most of her time working, knitting, and daydreaming. When she develops a crush on the owner of the small local airline, she takes a job as an air stewardess despite never having been on a plane.
My favorite part of the book was the myriad of interesting characters. I especially enjoyed the storyline about Struhan, a local elementary school teacher and musician who was Gertie’s high school crush. Some of them, like Morag, appeared in an earlier book, The Summer Skies. I prefer to read books in order, but this one does stand alone if you haven’t read it.
One thing I liked about Gertie is that, even though she lacks confidence in some areas, she is willing to step out and be herself. For example, she knits using muted colors because that’s what she loves, even though the other women in the knitting circle keep pushing her to use bolder colors. She also makes the decision to move out of her mother’s house and become a bit more independent.
By my count, this is the twenty-fourth book I have read by Colgan, so I am definitely a fan! I highly recommend giving her a try.
I have been reading ebooks almost exclusively for a few years now, but there are some books on my TBR that I haven’t been able to locate for free electronically. So I have started going back to the library for physical books at times.
Here is my most recent haul from the library:
The Taste of Ginger by Mansi Shah
Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev
Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
The Book Swap by Tessa Bickers
The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society by Darien Gee
First up is Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors. I am excited for this one because it is the first in a series that are based loosely on Jane Austen.
Last Friday, there was a knock at my door and my son answered it to find my friend Jessyca, who I have not seen in several months. I was overjoyed to see her and we had a nice chat to catch up on each other’s lives. She also brought me a Christmas gift, which was a custom puzzle that she had made for me. There was no picture of what the image would be, so it was a surprise as I put it together.
This puzzle is from a company called puzzleYOU and is one of their Smart Sorted puzzles. When you open the box, you see 40 individual little boxes, each with 25 pieces in them. This allows you to choose what level of difficulty you want for your puzzling experience. You can do one box at a time or mix as many as you want together. The box did not show the puzzle, but did have a hint for what the image would be.
I chose to do one box at a time since I didn’t know what the image was. It was so fun to do each little section and then put them together. I had a few times where it seemed like I was missing a piece, but eventually I thought to check the little boxes and found that some of them had a piece at the bottom that hadn’t come out when I emptied the box the first time. So in the end, I was not missing any pieces.
Here are some pictures of my progress at various points:
This was such a fun puzzle to do, and the quality was excellent. The pieces were a nice size and thick enough to pick up easily, and it was fairly easy to move sections around. I especially enjoyed it because it had been made especially for me by a dear friend and was a reminder of the great time we had going to the Brick Fest Live event earlier this year.
I would highly recommend this company if you are interested in making a custom puzzle, and the Smart Sorted option is great for someone who might not have a lot of puzzling experience (but I also loved it even though I have done a lot of puzzles)!
Love for Holiday Baking is a 1000-piece heart-shaped, Christmas-themed puzzle from Callie Danielle. I got it at Target several months ago and have been holding onto it until now when it would fit the season.
My friend Suzanne came over one evening last week and this is the puzzle she chose to help with. She worked on the border, which is her favorite part, and I worked on some of the larger items pictured in the puzzle. Once I was on my own, I spent several evenings working on this puzzle.
Pros:
Adorable image
Fun heart shape
Unique take on a holiday puzzle by focusing on baking related items
Cons:
Very small, random-cut pieces
Thin pieces were hard for me to pick up
Extremely loose fit, came apart if bumped even slightly
I went on a journey with this one. Starting out, I felt hopeful that it would be pretty easy, but that quickly shifted into feeling overwhelmed. Once I got all of the larger items in the image put together, I sorted by shape and started working piece by piece. After a while, I started to make some progress on the big open spaces and felt better about the experience. As always, once it was finished, I felt a sense of accomplishment and appreciated how adorable this puzzle was.
I will admit that having done a few harder puzzles recently prompted me to go through my wish list and remove some that I thought might be on the harder side.
The Cookbook Club by Beth Harbison is a feel-good chick-lit novel based around food, perfect for a cozy afternoon of reading. I was immediately intrigued by a book club that is centered on cookbooks – the women in the club pick a different cookbook each month and make dishes from that cookbook to share with each other at their meeting. That sounds like a lot of fun!
In the club, we have three women who are all at a crossroads in their lives. Margo’s husband has just left her and asked for a divorce (and left her a run-down farmhouse to boot), Trista has been fired from her law firm and bought a bar/restaurant to run, and Aja is pregnant and in an unhealthy relationship.
The book follows each of the women as they get to know each other through sharing food together. There are a lot of mouthwatering recipe descriptions, including a monthly wrap up of each cookbook club meeting. I do wish there was more description of the actual club meetings, however; I think that would have been a better way to carry the story. Instead, we get a couple of meetings and then it focuses more on the individual women’s lives, although they do interact with each other outside of the meetings at times.
This book has a bit of everything in the way of chick-lit tropes – a failed marriage with a farmhouse to fix up with an old crush, a lost job fueling a new business opportunity, and a pregnancy forcing a young woman to evaluate her relationship with the father. Because of everything going on, it does jump around a bit, but I still found it an enjoyable light read.
Vintage Main Street is a 1000-piece puzzle from Cobble Hill, and the artist is Diane Dempsey. This was my second Dempsey puzzle; I find her art style very appealing.
I have done a lot of puzzles with buildings this year, and this one provides a fresh take on the concept with the vintage store fronts. The classic cars and fun holiday theme are also a lot of fun.
I did end up with one missing piece, which I was very bummed about. This could very well be my fault, as I did drop a couple of pieces on the floor. I thought I found them all but might not have. I’m still hoping it will show up sometime.
City Sidewalks is a 1000-piece puzzle from 1canoe2. This is a new brand for me. It was a bit pricey, so I treated myself to it as an early Christmas present, along with the mini and micro puzzle I did recently.
I really enjoyed this puzzle. I had to get used to the pieces, which felt almost like plastic, but once I did, everything went very smoothly. There were a few darker areas that took a while; thankfully, there weren’t any false fits so it just took a bit of patience. This was a great choice for the holiday season!
This is another catch-up post, but hopefully a bit more of a fun one. I’m not going to talk about work or health issues in this one.
In early November, Michael ran a short D&D campaign for me that he created based on Undertale and Delta Rune. It was actually a lot of fun, and I thought he did a great job writing it, drawing the maps, and running the campaign.
I tried a couple of new things in November as well. I had my first meeting on the planning committee for the 10th Annual Mother-to-Mother Luncheon. This year they are having it in three locations, one of which is Harrisburg. I volunteered to run the registration committee. I also attended a potluck and a support group meeting at a new organization called the Neurodiverse Network. I enjoyed the potluck, but the support group was a bit uncomfortable, especially when someone started saying how much they hate autism moms. I used to fit into that category and, although I have changed a lot of my views over time, I am still bouncing between being an autistic woman and the mother of an autistic adult. I haven’t interacted with them any further, and I doubt that I will.
In mid-November, our good friends Bill & Jenn came for a visit one evening. We had dinner and great conversation. Jenn even played puzzle chess with me and liked it enough that she wanted to play a second round!
For Thanksgiving, Michael was at his dad’s house, so I went to Renee’s for the day. Her boys were there as well as a couple of friends. Her boyfriend Chris cooked the meal, and it was fantastic. The brined turkey was so flavorful and my favorite sides were the sweet potato casserole with pecans and the sausage stuffing muffins. I took a 300-piece puzzle to do with whoever wanted to join in (Colorful Harvest, posted earlier this month).
On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Kim & I went to see the movie Wicked. I didn’t really know the story, although I had heard a couple of the songs from the musical before. I absolutely loved it! It was 2 hours 40 minutes, but felt much shorter than that. I can’t wait until part 2 comes out next year!
Here are a couple of pictures I wanted to share. One was taken in the front of my church while I was greeting last Sunday, and the other is a picture of my former dog Baxter with his new owner’s mother’s dog Hudson. I am so glad he is still doing well.
I finally decorated my apartment this week, after having the boxes sit in my living room for a week or so. I would like to get a bigger, fuller tree sometime, but this one will do for now.
This week has been a bit busier. On Tuesday, Suzanne came over. We ordered Panera and started a puzzle. On Wednesday, Renee took me to Gabriella Italian Restaurant for my birthday. We had a great time and some wonderful food. On Friday, Jessyca showed up at my place with a Christmas gift for me, a custom puzzle. I was so surprised and happy to see her again after several months of total silence from her. Today, Michael & I went to an open house at a center that our church is considering a move to. We would need to build a worship space to add to the existing building, but it does seem like a pretty good option for us. I’m looking forward to seeing if things work out for this.
I’ll sign off with a pic of my recent haircut. I’m not going to keep it this short, but I do kind of like how it looks.
I recently treated myself to an early Christmas present and ordered several puzzles from Puzzledly. This included a mini puzzle and a micro puzzle, which I did right away.
Mushroom Patch is a 100-piece mini puzzle from WerkShoppe, and the artist is Emma Jayne. It came in an adorable zip-lock bag. The pieces were a nice size and the puzzle came together quickly. I did it without looking at the image to make it more fun. I think it would be a good candidate for puzzle chess.
Llama Bama Ding Dong is a 150-piece micro puzzle from MicroPuzzles. I have always wanted to try this brand, and I thought this image was so cute! The pieces were even tinier than I thought they would be, but I could still manipulate them with my hands and didn’t need tweezers or anything. The quality wasn’t great, as the pieces would seem to fit almost anywhere and I had to really pay attention to whether they fit exactly right.
Here is a picture of them side by side so you can see how much smaller the micro puzzle is than the mini puzzle. Quite a difference!
After the Snow Has Fallen is a 500-piece puzzle from Bits and Pieces, and the artist is Joseph Holodook. I have done a couple of his puzzles and like his artwork a lot. This image held a lot of appeal, with Victorian houses and a bustling festive scene.
Even though this is a random cut puzzle, like the Playful Gnomes set, it was much easier to solve because there was a lot of information on each piece to help figure out where it went. Very fun puzzle for the Christmas season!
In So Many Words 