Books Read in 2026: March

In March I read books that I had picked up at previous community book swaps.  Because there was another book swap coming up near the end of the month and I wanted to be able to take in books I'd finished in order to make room for those I would undoubtedly find and the next swap and bring home.  Gotta have priorities, right? 😉

Here is the list of what I read either fully or partially:

Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult.  You know, I just can't decide if I like this author.  I've read (I think) three books of hers over the last ten-ish years and each one I kind of like but don't like.  And yet, here I am having read another.  There were parts of this book I was sucked into, and parts I felt like I slogged through, but I did read it all the way to the end.  Which, yet again, left me with mixed feelings.

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger.  This book was weird.  Sorta supernatural, sorta old Western-y, very much about family ties, and some just Midwestern goodness (wholesomeness?).  Some parts were kind of predictable, and others had me saying "What?!?" I did read it all the way through, mainly because I wanted to know how it turned out, if (and how) the family would be reunited.

Fiction Can Be Murder by Becky Clark. This book was definitely more interesting than I'd expected it to be.  It has the look of a cozy mystery on the cover, and the blurb on the back had me thinking it is of that genre.  Yet when I read it, with the exception of a few parts, I did not find it annoying like I tend to find most cozy mysteries written in the most recent decade.  I liked it and will keep my eye out for other titles by this author.

Girl in the Mirror by Cecelia Ahern. I found this book weird. It was composed of two unrelated short stories.  The first was almost horror-ish and I will say I did not like it.  The second was more my style although it was kind of sad. Overall I did not enjoy this book as much as her full length novels but had the second story been developed into a full length novel I would definitely have read that one cover to cover, just not the first.

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl by Fannie Flagg.  I have had this book for several years, and tried reading it once years ago but didn't get past the second chapter.  I almost didn't pick it up this month, but then I decided now was a perfect time to try it again because if I couldn't get into the story, it definitely needed to go to the book swap at the end of the month.   Well, even with this second try and at a different point in my life than the last time I'd tried getting into this book, when I still wasn't interested at page 60ish, into the book swap bag it went.  Maybe it would have interested me more as it went along, but I didn't want to put that much effort into it.

Touch by Olaf Olafsson.  This I read it all the way through.  It wasn't quite the story I'd thought it would be by the blurb on the back.  Was it good?  Yes, overall it was well written and the story was interesting.  

A Bride in the Bargain by Deeanne Gist. This was my fluff reading after the previous very serious toned book.  I picked it up at the book swap on Saturday and finished it by Sunday night.  In a few spots it had the trite Christian romance novel things, but those were not annoying enough to take my interest from the story line and make me not finish reading it. I really had a hard time putting it down (and being extremely under the weather on Sunday gave me the chance to sit and read it for most of the day).  Historical, and yes, a romance, but not in the tripe category in my opinion.

Spring 2026 Book Swap Scores

 This past weekend was the semi annual book swap that my friend started back in the Spring of 2023. Other than that inaugural one (which happened to be the same day as K2's funeral), I have attended them all.  My daughters, until now, have been interested in going but not fit the swaps into their calendar.  This time, they both were able to go along with me.

They were blown away by the magnitude of the swap, and by how well run it is.  We did have to wait in line a bit to get in, but, as I had told them, there were 'book swap fairies' who came with boxes and carts to relieve us of the books we were swapping so that our arms didn't get tired while we waited.  Really, the wait was very short, less than 10 minutes (we had arrived five minutes before the doors opened for the general admission--VIPS paid $10 and had access from 9-10 a.m., Early Birds paid $5 and had access at 10 a.m. and us cheap people got in free with a minimum of one book to donate starting at 11 a.m.).

I'm pretty sure both of them will prioritize the Fall Swap and be back again, most likely with friends.  It was entertaining to hear them exclaim "Oh!  I should have told so-and-so about this, she'd love it!" with numerous different names as the so-and-so each time we'd move to a table with yet another genre of books arrayed on it. Friends, co-workers, in-laws.

While all of our mission was to clear out books we had all ready read (or realized we would never get around to reading) in order to make space in our homes, each of us also found numerous books we wanted to read and thus took home with us.  DD1 had donated a bulging grocery sack of books, but insisted she did not want a bag to carry her finds in, rather having the mantra of 'if it doesn't fit in my arms I don't need it'.  She did keep to that mantra, although her arms got rather full.  DD2, who is moving again this summer when the lease is up on the house she's been sharing with friends, I think managed to only take home three books. I'm betting that if she goes to the Fall Swap, she will take home many more books as she'll be settled into her new space by then.

I took 22 books to swap, and managed to return home with 16 'new' ones.  Number-wise, I did good on the decrease possessions aspect.  Although I think I returned with more hard-backs than I donated, so they take up just as much shelf-space as I'd emptied, if not a little more.

One of the books will be gifted to either Lucky or Octavia later this year, so that one doesn't really count as taking up shelf-space, LOL.  Another isn't pictured above because I immediately started reading it once I got home and it was on the end table by the living room couch when I unloaded the rest of the books for photographing.

Waiting on the Vet

Wednesday was Spring vaccinations and horse health care day at this little place here. Not that they don't get cared for every day, but this was the annual draw blood for Coggins tests, check and float (if necessary) teeth, listen to their heart and listen to their gut with a stethescope, give the full compliment of horse disease vaccines, vet visit.

And, like every non-emergency vet visit, you call in advance to get put on their schedule for a certain day that will work for you.  Then, the morning of that day, you call into the office at a particular time (typically 8:30 a.m. unless it's a staff meeting day) and they give you an estimate of what time the vet will be to your farm.

An estimate.  Sometimes their day is going great and the vet arrives half an hour early.  Most times, they are running a tad late.  Say half an hourish.  Because horses don't always stand quietly and cooperate, or, more often than not, the owner(s) want to ask the vet about this or that other thing "while you are here".  No big deal.  It's part of the horse life.  

There's also driving distance/time between farms and traffic to factor in.  The vet office does their best to anticipate these things and roll those into the estimates they give for arrival times.  But unforeseen things do pop up. . . accidents slowing down traffic on the route, weather delays, construction zone detours, etc.

Sometimes the vet is very late.  An hour or more late.  And, while it's kind of frustrating if you've got a tight schedule, it's also a part of the horse life.  The vet could get an emergency call. (a horse colicking, a mare in distress during foaling, a horse with a wound that is gushing blood and flesh fileted open. . .) and that shuffles the non-emergency farms to later in the day.  Or, the vet could get to a farm and have an extremely uncooperative horse to deal with.  Or, they get to the farm and the person (owner, groom, farm manager, whoever) that is supposed to meet them in order to fetch and handle the horse(s) for them is running late.  It happens.  Horse life.

Wednesday was one of those very late days.  Just how late, you never really know until they pull in the driveway, so you try to keep busy while you're waiting, yet stay where you can see them pull in.

So, for me, after bringing in horses a half-hour before my estimated appointment time, in case the vet was running on the early side, I:

--groomed horses

--called Crockett and Tubbs' owner and talked to her about some potential changes in how/where their supplements are acquired, as well as the possibility of changing farriers for them since theirs had rescheduled four times since Spring 2025 (typically a horse only sees the farrier about 9 times in a year).

--emptied the compost bucket (kitchen scraps) into the bin by the garden

--pruned back barberry and forsythia bushes near my garage

--ate a cheese stick (it was now lunch time but I don't have a good view of the driveway from my kitchen so I didn't want to be inside with a lunch that needed making)

--ate two pieces of chocolate (now it's after lunch time and I'm still watching for the vet)

--took the load of towels out of the dryer when they were finished drying (very quickly, can't see the driveway from the basement laundry room)

--gathered the trash since it goes to the end of the driveway on Wednesday nights

--looked up online sources of supplements for Crockett and Tubbs (while sitting on the mounting block keeping an eye on the road)

--ate a protein bar (body was telling me I should have had a decent lunch)

--found my shedding blade (I'd looked for last weekend with no luck)

--read some articles online

--ate some more chocolate (this was a very poorly nourished lunch day)

--wrote a blog post

And then the vet arrived, very apologetic for being about an hour and a half late.  Her day had started with an emergency call that, according to her, hadn't been a real emergency but that horse's owner had thought it was.  Add on to that the fact that she didn't have a vet tech with her to assist and she'd had two farms prior to mine where she had to float teeth.  Floating teeth is kind of time consuming, especially without an extra set of hands to prep and hand the vet things.

I assured her I totally understood.  My only limitation was that I needed to leave at a particular time (two hours hence) because my granddaughter and I were supposed to go test ride a horse I was looking at buying.

It turned out that, after examination, three of the four horses in residence at this little place here needed their teeth floated. Two were pretty cooperative, one not as much.  Of course that one was the one that needed a more involved filing of hooks and sharp spots worn into his back teeth. We finished up exactly at the time I needed to be leaving.  So that worked well.  And, in retrospect, that barberry bush really had needed the pruning I gave it.  Something I probably wouldn't have prioritized if I hadn't needed to stay where I could watch for the vet truck pulling up my driveway,

Bouillon Jars and Homemade Seasonings

 I don't know about you, but I used to buy bouillon in jars.  Chicken bouillon, beef bouillon, I have always preferred powdered bouillon to the cubed kind.  And of course when I emptied a jar I washed it out and saved it for reuse.  Because, glass jar!  Definitely designed to be used more than once.

At some point in realm of 15-20 years ago I discovered that I could purchase bouillon in bulk and stopped buying it in jars.  Ever since then I just refill my chicken bouillon jar with bulk-purchased chicken bouillon, and the beef jar with bulk-purchased beef bouillon.  

Over time, I adopted my stash of jars for other things.  First, garlic powder and onion powder that I bought in bulk at what my husband used to call the Hippie Food Store (a natural/organic food store that went out of business two years ago-- due to a Whole Foods in the early 2010s and then a Trader Joe's in 2022ish being built within blocks of it).  Luckily I found an Amish food store near me in 2024 that I now get many of my bulk spices from.  So onion powder and garlic powder still go in old bouillon jars.

Then I found a recipe for fajita seasoning, made it in about octuplicate (HA! I wasn't sure it was a real word, but apparently it is!)--in other words, 8 times the recipe--and put it in one of my empty bouillon jars.  That way I don't have to make a batch of seasoning every time I want to make fajitas.

A year or two later, DH asked me why I didn't do that with the taco seasoning recipe I've been using for decades.  Oh.  DUH.  Yeah, multiply that times 8 and stick it in another jar.  Take a Sharpie marker and label the lid.

Then came homemade Montreal steak seasoning.  And adobo seasoning.  I know I've also used old bouillon jars for other things (I remember being given a lot of fresh sage one year that I dried, crumbled, and put in a bouillon jar) but at the moment my lazy Susan only contains the jars shown in the photo below.

How about you?  Do you keep old jars that originally came from the grocery store containing one thing, and reuse them for another once the original product is gone?

Faline and the Sweater Holes

 Last year, I knit Faline a pink sweater for Christmas.  I forgot to get a picture of it before gifting it, and have missed a couple of chances to get a photo of her wearing it this winter.  By careful searching of photos taken during our big family Christmas gathering, I was able to find the sweater in a corner of one picture.  So I carefully cropped it and am using it here so you can see the sweater I'm talking about.

The pattern is Sunday Sweater; it has a lacy design on the front, making it a feminine sweater.  It is the same pattern I've used for Faline's sweaters for three years now.  I've never heard any complaints, so when it's time to make her a new, bigger sweater, I grab that pattern and make the next size (or two) up.

Apparently that was all well and good until I made both her younger brothers sweaters and used a different pattern (Little Shore).  For them I made plain front cardigans. You can see Buck wearing his in the photo below.

Well, recently Faline wore her new pink sweater to church.  I commented on how nice she looked, and how the pink of the sweater matched the pink accents in her (springy) green dress.  I then asked it if was a comfy sweater, and if she liked it.

Very solemnly, she replied that she did like it, except "Amma, you need to do something about the holes".  

Confused, thinking maybe I'd left too big of a gap in the underarm when picking up the sleeves from the body and casting on a few extra stitches so that the upper sleeve isn't too tight, I asked her where the holes were.

She pointed to her chest and all down the front of the sweater.  The lacy design.  Which, when compared to her brothers' sweaters apparently didn't look like a girly feature, but like holes.  Holes! 

I guess when it's time to make Faline a bigger sweater, I should go with a gender neutral plain cardigan and not another Sunday Sweater.  Wouldn't want holes in the next one.

Sixlet is Two!

 How can that be?  The little baby born 'the day after Leprechaun Day' (as Faline puts it) is all ready two years old.  While I suspect he will end up quite a bit taller than a Leprechaun, and most likely taller than Honorary Son, his father, he does have reddish hair and mischief in his eyes.

His birthday party was this past weekend.  It was originally was planned for the weekend before his birthday, but he came down with a fever the night before and the party had to be postponed until he was feeling better.  

For the last several months, Sixlet has been obsessed with shoes in all shapes and sizes.  In fact, at Buck's birthday party, Sixlet slyly swiped the brand new pair of Spiderman slippers about two minutes after Buck unwrapped them and he wore them for the rest of the party, until Buck actually noticed.  There was quite a ruckus when Buck asserted his rightful ownership and took them right off Sixlet's feet.

So, when DD1 send out invites to Sixlet's party, she included his clothing and shoe sizes and wrote "he loves shoes and hats".  She even made his birthday cake in the shape of a shoe.

It should come as no surprise that Sixlet received five new pair of footwear at his birthday party: some cowboy boots, some hiking/work type boots, a pair of mocassins, a pair of canvas sneakers, and a set of crocodile 'Crocs'! 

Toothy Crocs

Of course he insisted on wearing every single new shoe during the brief time between opening presents and when his party ended.

Time to try the next pair.

Kitchen Adventures: Two Yeas and a Nae

I've been trying some new recipes in the kitchen lately.  When the kids were growing up, I was pretty explorative, and somehow that went away in the last dozen years or so (really, I think I know why, as 2015-2023 were all very stressful years).  Lately I am finding that I miss that inquisitiveness and creativity and so I am trying to incorporate some of it back into my culinary life.

The first new recipe, which I tried for Pi Day, was a definite flop.  I'm sure part of it had to do with me freestyling and tweaking the recipe I was using as a guideline.  But even if I had made it to the letter as written, I don't think we would have liked it as much as it sounded like we would.

It was called Strawberry Cheesecake, but not a real cheesecake; it was actually a pie that mixed a block of softened cream cheese in with a box of vanilla pudding. In the recipe, it said to take a graham cracker crust (which I duly made from scratch), line it with fresh strawberries (which I did not have, but I did have several baggies of frozen strawberries), mix the cream cheese with the pudding mix and milk, pour into the crust, cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours before serving (so the pudding would set).

I knew that my frozen strawberries, as they thawed, would get mushy underneath that pudding/cream cheese layer.  So I thought why not just blend them in?  Make it more like a strawberry pudding layer than fruit under pudding.  Sounded feasible.

Um, yeah.  Maybe you can tell from the photo below how well that worked.  The photo was taken after I cut and removed the first two pieces.  

Runny, runny, runny.  Texture was a total fail.  Blending the strawberries was a mistake.  I probably should have reduced the milk in relation to the strawberries.  Although even if I had done that I suspect the acid in the strawberries still would have messed with the setting ability of the pudding.  Oh well. After the first two pieces we ended up serving this dessert in bowls rather than on plates.

It tasted good, although the combo of the cream cheese and vanilla pudding was a little weird.  If I was in the habit of making no-bake cheesecake mixes maybe I would have liked the taste better, but typically when I make cheesecake it's an honest to God real cheesecake that requires a springform pan and the oven. And eggs. No pudding. Completely different texture and flavor.

The next kitchen experiment was Irish Soda Bread.  I was planning on actually doing an 'Irish' dinner on St. Patrick's Day, and since I don't like corned beef (or, as I refer to it, "Salty Meat"), I was going with a lamb stew.  Stew needs some form of bread to dip into it, in my book.  So Irish Soda Bread was on the docket.

This was a yea.  Definitely will make again.  It was super easy to make, went well with the stew, and the rest of the loaf makes a nice toothsome toast or hearty sandwich bread.

The Irish Stew itself was also a win.  Lacking a Dutch oven, I had the idea of using my electric skillet (which I've had for ages and very rarely use) instead.  Lamb shoulder (from the lamb we bought last Fall and put in the freezer) cut into chunks, carrots, potatoes, four onions (was supposed to use one onion and three leeks but my local grocery store was out of leeks the day before St. Patty's and was not getting more that week), garlic, beef broth, and stout.  

Yum, yum!  It was delicious.  The meat was nice and tender, the stew was rich and creamy (not a runny thin broth), and we will definitely be eating this at least annually henceforth.