In an attempt to get back into the blogging swing, I wanted to revisit my monthly recaps but in a much more casual way! Instead of focusing on stats and posts, I’m sharing some of my favorite things about this month, from books to merch to life and everything in between!
BOOKS
Obviously, we’re here for the books. Apparently it was a month where I finally finished the one book I read in print form at the very end of the month and all of my other reads were audiobooks! I did continue ready FOUNDRYSIDE on the 29th after reading it for a month because I do such a poor job and dedicating time to reading my physical ARCs! Before that, the last print copy I finished was FOE by Iain Reid on June 30th so it alllllmost made it into July!
BOOKS READ (16):
- An Artificial Night (October Daye #3) by Seanan McGuire | 4 stars
- Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children #2) by Seanan McGuire | 4 stars
- Love, Life, and the List by Kasie West | 4 stars
- Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon | 4 stars
- Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch | 4 stars
- Late Eclipses (October Daye #4) by Seanan McGuire | 4 stars
- Listen to Your Heart by Kasie West | 3.5 stars
- One Salt Sea (October Daye #5) by Seanan McGuire | 4 stars
- Ashes of Honor (October Daye #6) by Seanan McGuire | 4 stars
- Trouble is a Friend of Mine by Stephanie Tromly | 3 stars
- Dark Matter by Blake Crouch | 4.25 stars
- Chimes at Midnight (October Daye #7) by Seanan McGuire | 4 stars
- The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas | 4 stars
- The Winter Long (October Daye #8) by Seanan McGuire | 4.5 stars
- A Red-Rose Chain (October Daye #9) by Seanan McGuire | 4 stars
- Foundryside (Founders #1) by Robert Bennett Jackson | 4.25 stars
As you can tell, I’m binge reading the October Daye series, recommended to me by Shannon (@ladyshanelise and candlemaker queen at Canterbury Road Co) after a discussion about books with great characters and sass and cleverness and they certainly do not disappoint! I’ve been enjoying them a LOT and just finished the 9th book. The 8th (THE WINTER LONG) was definitely my favorite with the most world-building and character development and so many things happened! It was the best book I read this month although I had quite a solid reading month with lots of four star books!
PURCHASES
I’ve been trying not to buy TOO many things but I’m always buying candles. I got orders from Get Fictional, Canterbury Road Co, Nerdwicks, and Dio Candle Company this month!
- Shannon from Canterbury Road Co has become one of my good friends so we often talk about candles and send each other things back and forth! She has some new candles in the shop including Literary Passport and her one year anniversary candle, The Canterbury Tales, and sent me both of those and I LOVE them so much. I’m always a big fan of her candles and also stocked up in a recent sale, adding more Hate-to-Love, The Belles (formerly Candle of the Month), and One More Chapter for burning!
- Get Fictional is another new candle favorite and I bought candles in her 4th of July sale just for burning! Sometimes I buy for fandoms, sometimes I buy for burning, and others for both and this purchase was a little of both! I had to get Sevro and The Shield of Tinos for my Red Rising love!! I also grabbed Heartrender, Mist & Fury, and The Bunker for burning purposes!
- I got my first — and only! — Nerdwicks candle, Wadsworth & Cresswell, in their store closing sale. I like to try a lot of different companies and this was the first time I got to purchase from Nerdwicks so it was sad that they closed! I love the candle!
- And lastly, I made a purchase from Dio this month! I grabbed six Adorable sized candles (1oz jars) and one 4oz jar. I can’t believe this was my first buy! The little jars really are adorable.
I made another Bath & Body Works purchase (OOPS) but they’re always sending me emails about sales and this #scentaddict can’t resist! They had a sale on soaps and so I accidentally bought A LOT of them. I stocked up on favorites like Fresh Rain & Spearmint and Sunshine Lemon and of course they tempted me with a few fall scents that I might as well buy now!!
I didn’t really buy a whole lot of other things! I tend to stick to my favorites and I desperately need to place another Book Lover’s Coffee order but I keep forgetting and I’m trying to save money, but coffee is a necessity, right?
LIFE
July was a fun month in general! It was pretty relaxing and we did some hometown exploring and some cooking. Back on the 1st, my husband and I made our own Chipotle “duplicate” recipes and had some delicious burritos with the salsas! We also made some BBQ pulled pork for the 4th and it was absolutely delicious. Shane smoked the pork on the smoker and we finished it up in the crock pot to let it cook in all the barbecue sauce, which we also ended up making ourselves! That was a lot of fun and it took a little cooking science to figure out what was missing from the recipe we used.
We went to 4th of July fireworks and it was a little scary because there was a storm approaching on the horizon so through a little drizzle, the fireworks started a little early so they could try to avoid canceling them. We went to a place where they do them over a lake and it was such a fun experience! (Minus the lightning.) We went to another town’s that does fireworks over the weekend and those were a lot of fun as well!
We visited our favorite local brewery often and we really enjoyed a lot of their new beers! It’s always a fun place to visit and Shane is working on his home brewing again a bit more so we went back quite a few times for supplies and stayed for beers.
We also ended up visiting some antique stores! I wanted some decorations for the front office of my shop and we had seen some items that were perfect the last time we had visited these stores. Thankfully they were still there when we went back! I grabbed some old soda crates to use as displays and then later on in the week, I went to Hobby Lobby to grab some more things for decorations! I’m really loving how it all came together and now I just need to shell out money for furniture of some sort to really dial it all in.
