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What I’m Reading – June 2024

What I’m Reading Now:

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center – I’m about a quarter of the way through this one. It’s a cute story about a woman who loses the ability to see faces after a surgery.

The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go From Here by Kaitlyn Schiess – I just downloaded the audiobook from the library for this one, so I haven’t started it yet.

Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple by Scot McKnight – I have made a little progress on this one since last month. It’s a bit esoteric for me, but I plan to finish it still.

What I Recently Finished:

Random Death by J.D. Robb

Let’s Pretend This Will Work by Maddie Dawson

One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle

I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth by Beth Allison Barr

What I’ve Added to my TBR list:

I haven’t added anything new to my TBR in May. I currently have 90 books on my list.

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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Hot Dog Truck & It’s a Tie!

Hot Dog Truck is another entry from the Food Trucks line by Ceaco. It is a 500-piece puzzle, and the artist is Stephanie Peterson Jones. I really enjoy doing puzzles from this series. They are cute and have a lot of fun, colorful elements, including different types of words, which I love putting together.

It’s a Tie! is a 500-piece puzzle from Springbok, that I had first done in July 2021. It was only the third puzzle I had done at that point. My friend Renee had helped me with it that time, but this time I did it by myself. It is a great puzzle! I love all the different patterns of the ties; it is so satisfying to bring the all together.

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Sewing Circle and Confection Street

The day after my friend visited, I did two puzzles from the puzzle box.

The first one was Sewing Circle from E&L Corporation, which was a 500-piece puzzle. It appeared to be an older puzzle from the way the box looked. It was of average difficulty, but not too bad. There were definitely some false fits, and at the end of the puzzle, I had a piece that would not fit in the open spot, so I had to closely examine the puzzle to find the piece that was in the wrong place!

The other puzzle I did that day was a Charles Wysocki called Confection Street. It was a 300-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games. I really liked the image with the colorful houses and other interesting elements. It was quite easy to put together.

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Bon Appetit!

Bon Appetit! is an adorable 300-piece puzzle from Ceaco, and the artist is Tracy Flickinger. I got it from the local puzzle box and put it together with my friend Renee when she came for a visit at the beginning of May. She said that she really liked that piece count because it is easier for her to focus for the length of time it takes to do it and she likes the quick reward of seeing it completed.

I enjoyed it as well. It was a very easy puzzle with large pieces and a simple, colorful image.

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Flowers

Flowers is a 500-piece round puzzle from Ravensburger’s Circle of Colors line. The artist is Sherry Lee. It was a super-easy and satisfying puzzle to do. I have been a big fan of rainbow puzzles since I started this hobby, and this one was so pretty!

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Mother Earth

Mother Earth is a 1000-piece puzzle from eeBoo, and the artist is Maya Hanish. This is my third puzzle in a row from them, and they have all been great. I fell in love with this image the first time I saw it.

This puzzle was a bit more difficult than the last two I had done. There were a few decent size areas that I could put together, but a lot of it was done one piece at a time.

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Music in Montreal

Music in Montreal is a 1000-piece puzzle from eeBoo, and the artist is Caroline Bonne Muller. It is a great image that was a lot of fun to put together. There were a lot of distinct colors and textures, and the quality was just as good as eeBoo normally is.

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What I’m Reading – May 2024

What I’m Reading Now:

Random In Death by J.D. Robb – this is #58 from the In Death series, and it’s great so far, as they all are!

Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple by Scot McKnight – I haven’t made much progress on this one since last month. I’ve been reading mostly fiction.

What I Recently Finished:

What is Love? by Jen Comfort

Second Chance at Christmas by Emily Engberts

Blank by Zibby Owens

Secrets of Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth

Christmas at Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth

No Home Like Nantucket by Grace Palmer

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center

Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan

The Happiness Plan by Susan Mallery

A Little Ray of Sunshine by Kristan Higgans

What I’ve Added to my TBR list:

Beyond Fragility: A Skills-Based Guide to Effective Anti-Racist Allyship by Yara Mekawi

A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today by Bonnie Kristian

I also added 63 fiction books to my TBR list. Instead of participating in Stuff Your Kindle Day, which gave me mixed results in book quality, I went through my list of books I have read and looked up what my favorite authors had written since I last read them.

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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Alchemist’s Cabinet

Alchemist’s Cabinet is a 1000-piece puzzle from eeBoo, and the artist is Vasilisa Romanenko. It features the curio cabinet from one of the rooms in The Alchemist’s House puzzle, which I have done previously. The image is a fascinating collections of books and various objects the person must have collected over the years.

I really enjoyed this puzzle. I like the quality of eeBoo puzzles. The pieces are very smooth and a nice size. It is hard to move sections because the fit isn’t very tight, but I found I could use the poster to slide under a section and move it where I wanted it to be.

There are two more puzzles in this series – Alchemist’s Library and Alchemist’s Kitchen. I have already purchased both of them and plan to do them later this year. Love this series!

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Cat Balloon Race

Cat Balloon Race is a 750-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games, and the artist is Jeff Haynie. I am participating in a Spring Hopscotch challenge in the Casual Puzzler’s Facebook group and needed a puzzle for the Air Travel space. As I was scrolling Amazon under that topic, this one really caught my eye.

This was a very enjoyable puzzling experience. The image was too busy to easily sort pieces, so I just pulled out the edges and flipped the rest of the pieces over and put them in sorting trays. I missed a few pieces on the initial edge sort, but they turned up eventually and didn’t cause any problems.

Towards the end I did do a bit more sorting as there were a number of pastel pieces which were a bit harder to place. Overall, this puzzle provided a nice level of difficulty. The only real drawback was a ton of puzzle dust – more than I think I have seen before!

So many fun details in this puzzle! And I loved the image even though I would never go up in a hot air balloon myself. I’m too afraid of heights!