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  • Christmas 2015

    One would have thought I’d be jumping at the chance to decorate the new house for Christmas however, that wasn’t exactly the case this year.  I couldn’t find my motivation, but I think I couldn’t find motivation because I couldn’t find my vision!  I had no clue what to do with the new house this year.  I knew I wanted candles in the windows and wreaths on the windows.

    After Thanksgiving, I ran to Michael’s and picked up some garland for the porch.  I really wanted to use spot lights for the outside of the house but due to the elevation, we couldn’t get them to look right. So we ended up outside one night just putting white lights on the garland.  As it turned out, it looked good.

    The house Christmas Eve. The neighborhood did luminaries.
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    The white tree.
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    The white tree topper. I found the gold topper and added a bow.

    As the outside was coming together, inside was slowly getting started.  I think the tree was up for a week without any decorations, whoops.  Slowly I started to make my way around the house.  I purchased a 6ft white tree from Amazon in November that I planned to put in the dining room.  I bought a bag full of pink ornaments at our neighborhood garage sale back in the summer, so I needed a tree. 😉  Matt was not happy about the white tree, hehe.  I also had my dad build a rustic box for the dining room table.  I filled it with leftover ornaments, and it may still be sitting on the table because I love it!

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    Rustic box.

    The stairs got some light garland I found at Kirkland’s on sale and the fireplace ended up with some greenery picks from Hobby Lobby.  The tree was put in the back corner of the living room and was slowly decorated.  It wasn’t my favorite tree so I’ll have to try harder next year.  My nutcrackers filled the tops of the built-in’s beside the fireplace.  Then I have to figure out what to do with my newly acquired buffet.  Mom gave it to me a few months ago and I still need to paint it but it’s currently on the back wall in the living room.  I added some wooden frames above it and put leftover wreaths in the middle.  This might have been my favorite decorating idea!  The frames will also be painted and I will put some pics from our last trip to London in them at some point.

    The buffet with the framed wreaths!
    Fireplace with greenery.

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    I didn’t take a ton of pics this year.

    ~k

  • 2015 Book List

    Oh hey!  It’s been a while.  A long while actually.  I didn’t realize it had quite been this long.  The last time I was on my blog it was because it got hacked.  Nice.  All is back to working order now, so that’s good.

    The holiday season was really nice.  I might post a few pics of some of the decorations in a few days, so stay tuned. 😉

    For now, I’m going to post my 2015 Book List.  I didn’t quite hit 50 books this year but I came close, 45.  I honestly wasn’t sure I was even going to get that many because I was only in the 20s by the Fall.  I found a few series though and plowed through. If you’d like to see last year’s list it’s posted here.

    Title Author
    Closer to the Edge (Playing With Fire #4) T.E. Sivec
    The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest Daniel James Brown
    Crown Me: Alexander and Clara #3 (Royals Saga) Geneva Lee
    The Billionaire’s Obsession: The Complete Collection Boxed Set (Mine For Tonight, Mine For Now, Mine Forever, Mine Completely) (The Billionaire’s Obsession series Book 1) Scott, J.S.
    Wreckage Emily Bleeker
    Heart Of The Billionaire (The Billionaire’s Obsession, Book 2) Scott, J. S.
    The Billionaire’s Salvation ~Max (The Billionaire’s Obsession, Book 3) Scott, J. S.
    Billionaire Undone ~ Travis (The Billionaire’s Obsession, Book 5) Scott, J. S.
    Thirty-Four and a Half Predicaments: Rose Gardner Mystery #7 Denise Grover Swank
    Never Never: Part One of Three Colleen Hoover
    The Eternals Kristie K Shafer
    Eternally Yours (The Eternals Book 2) Shafer, Kristie K.
    Abandon Crouch, Blake
    Badass: A Stepbrother SEAL Romance Barlow, Linda
    Stepbrother Charming: A Billionaire Bad Boy Romance Snow, Nicole
    Worthy Hyde, Catherine Ryan
    Life As We Knew It (Life As We Knew It Series Book 1) Pfeffer, Susan Beth
    This World We Live In (Life As We Knew It Series Book 3) Pfeffer, Susan Beth
    The Dead and The Gone (Life As We Knew It Series Book 2) Pfeffer, Susan Beth
    The Shade of the Moon (Life As We Knew It Series Book 4) Pfeffer, Susan Beth
    Virulent: The Release (Virulent Book 1) Wescott, Shelbi
    The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up Marie Kondo
    Funerals for Horses Hyde, Catherine Ryan
    The System (Virulent Book 2) Wescott, Shelbi
    The Variables (Virulent Book 3) Wescott, Shelbi
    The Color of Water in July Carroll, Nora
    Out on a Limb: A Smoky Mountain Mystery Jourdan, Carolyn
    Pines (The Wayward Pines Trilogy, Book 1) Blake Crouch
    The Last Town (The Wayward Pines Trilogy, Book 3) Crouch, Blake
    Wayward (The Wayward Pines Trilogy, Book 2) Crouch, Blake
    Primal Fear Diehl, William
    The Martian: A Novel Andy Weir
    Wrong Number, Right Guy (The Bourbon Street Boys Book 1) Elle Casey
    Dirty English Madden-Mills, Ilsa
    Hard to Let Go: A Hard Ink Novel Laura Kaye
    Shine Not Burn Elle Casey
    MacKenzie Fire: A Sequel to Shine Not Burn Elle Casey
    The Survivors Book 1: Summer V.L. Dreyer
    The Survivors Book II: Autumn V.L. Dreyer
    The Survivors Book III: Winter V.L. Dreyer
    The Survivors Book IV: Spring V.L. Dreyer
    In the waning light Loreth Anne White
    Crave Me (Royals Saga 1: Smith and Belle) Geneva Lee
    Covet Me (Royals Saga 2: Smith and Belle) Geneva Lee
    Capture Me (Royals Saga 3: Smith and Belle) Geneva Lee

    A few highlights from this year’s list:

    • Life As We Knew It – series. A post apocalyptic series about what happens when a meteor hits the Moon.  I enjoyed the first two books.  Each book was set with different characters who eventually connected in Book 3.  In Book 1, we meet Miranda and her family.  We follow them through the first year following the meteor collision with the moon.  This causes earthquakes, tsunamis that wipe out many major cities, and a sky full of volcanic ash that blocks the sun. In Book 2 we follow Alex and his family during the same time frame in a different city.  Book 3 finds the 2 groups meeting and struggling to survive.  Book 4 is a continuation of Book 3 but 2 years later.  I personally didn’t care for Book 4 and I’m not sure you miss much stopping at Book 3.
    • The Virulent – series. A post apocalyptic series about what happens when an act of bioterrorism is unleashed.  We follow Lucy, her brother, and her friends as they make their way to rest of Lucy’s family.  I don’t want to say too much more because I feel like that might give some away.  It’s worth the read and one of the better series I read.
    • Wayward Pines – If you watched the TV show then you should definitely read the books!  I think the books were SOOO much better than the series.  I read the books first and then watched the series.  I was pretty disappointed with the TV adaption.  *As a side note, I read book 3 before I read book 2.  Somehow I got out of order and there was some major freak outage when I realized what I’d done.  So be careful!
    • The Martian – Again, I read the book and then saw the movie.  Unlike Wayward Pines, they did a wonderful job of following the book.  While it wasn’t spot on, which they rarely are, I felt like you didn’t really need to read the book if you saw the movie.  The book goes into a lot of technical details that they gloss over in the movie, but honestly, I glossed over a lot of that because, well it was over my head. 😉
    • The Survivors Book – series.  Yet another post apocalyptic series (I’m hooked!) This one is set in New Zealand following an Ebola type outbreak.  The difference here is that the virus doesn’t kill everyone and some of those people end up in a Zombie like state.  It wasn’t heavily focused on that though.  We find Sandy ten years after the initial outbreak struggling to survive, alone.  Along the way she begins to meet more people and adds them to her group.  Sandy slowly becomes the leader of the group, and eventually the face for a new start. I blew through the last 3 books in a matter of days.  This was probably my favorite series of last year.
    • Wrong Number, Right Guy – this was a pretty fun book to read.  I found it similar to the Hard Ink series.  I’ve only read the 1st book but I will most like read a few more.  If you want action and romance, this is your book.

    I hope that this list helps if you are looking for something to read.

    ~k