Reads, TV, et al.: recent favorites

Trying to stretch my writing muscles a little bit so here's a random list of favorites I've enjoyed recently for no reason whatsoever!

Books:
Amazon affiliates for the book links, as per usj. 

So far in 2019 I've read 5 books (working on #6, gotta keep the pace high if I'm going to hit my goal of 75 books this year) and my favorite two have easily been Uprooted and Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. I'm not sure how they just now came to my attention (besides Rosie mentioning them on Goodreads!) but HOLY COW how was I missing out for so long?

They're vague retellings of classic fairy tales -- Uprooted being a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and Spinning Silver being one about Rumplestiltskin, sort of -- but they are so much more that reducing them just to that simple quip feels disingenuous. It's really rare that I read a book from the library and instantly know that I need to own a copy because I'm going to want to reread it a million times, but these two BOTH qualified, so if that isn't a glowing recommendation I don't know what is! (The last time that happened was for the Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner, which holds up, and that was over 3 years ago that I read those, so it really doesn't happen frequently.)

Anyway, if you're a fan of fairy tales, real female characters, fantasy, or just something out of the norm, I really recommend reading these. You won't be disappointed.

I also read To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green, and I just started Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald. What have you been reading?

TV Shows:
David and I are rewatching Doctor Who right now, and even on now my 3rd or 4th rewatch, I still love David Tennant as the Doctor and am continually blown away by his acting. He's just so dang good, I want him to be in everything, forever! (Definitely why I loved Broadchurch, too -- he and Olivia Coleman can basically do no wrong together.)

The only "new" show (aka show currently airing) we're watching is The Good Place, because how can you not be? I think we'll keep up with Brooklyn Nine Nine too, and everyone's trying to convince me that Colton as the Bachelor isn't as bad as I thought he would be, but I haven't actually started watching it yet this year so we'll see if I can hold out or not.

House stuff:
You've probably seen me brag about David finishing some drawers for the kitchen but I couldn't not mention it here too! He did a fantastic job, and now we're really down to the wire on things that have to be finished before the kitchen can be considered "done." Unfortunately, I think we have to wait for a warm-ish day before the drawers can be painted and since we've had snow like 3 times in the last week, that probably won't be for awhile but oh well.

A couple people on Instagram asked if we had considered leaving them as-is, aka the wood look. Short answer: yes, but it wouldn't work. Long answer: since David used cabinet-grade plywood, you can't really leave it "raw" looking without a lot of polyeurethane, and that would change the tone of them considerably. Since plywood has such a raw edge, in a place like a kitchen you really are supposed to paint it so that the doors and drawers don't warp. Honestly we waffled on it a lot when we first started renovating! Because I do love plywood. But stay tuned for maybe some featured raw wood when we do the basement...you could probably see that coming if you follow me on Pinterest.

A view of our living room that doesn't really have anything to do with anything but I wanted to share anyway! Feeling nice and hygge in here lately, and I love it. Now to fix up the basement since I spend almost all my time down there and it'd be nice to love that, too.

Baby:

I'm 25 (almost 26) weeks! Getting to that point in pregnancy where May still feels really far away but babe feels big and I feel pregnant 99% of the time and I'm not even third trimester yet. Whew.

We're still debating on whether we think boy or girl (I think boy now because of the nose shape!), we haven't really started talking names yet because David doesn't want to (UGH) (don't worry, I still am thinking about them and making lists of them constantly because how can I not?), baby is kicking up a storm mostly when I try to take a nap or wake up in the middle of the night to pee, and babe is as big as a cauliflower, if that's at all helpful for you. I still feel very calm and at peace about being the mom of 3 sometime in the very near future, but that's all due to God's grace because I'm guaranteeing I'll have several panic attacks once baby actually gets here of like, how can this be my life? I'm supposed to raise 3 kids???? WHAT??? So yeah, that's where I know my brain *will* be going, but now I'm alright.

Not truly related but we're also doing kindergarten roundup for Kitty at the end of the month and HOW. How is that possible? She's ready and I'm ready (hahah understatement) but still, time needs to stand still for just a little bit. She'll be attending our parish grade school and wearing a uniform and like having lunch and doing little art activities and my heart can't really take thinking about that yet!

Okay, enough blabbing for one day.
HG