Author: jessintheordinary

This weekend we’re spending time with family, heading to my favorite flea market in town for the last show of the season, then I’m so grateful next week rolls right into vacation time for me to spend spring break with my son doing all the fun local things we want. I want to enjoy the time while he still wants to spend so much of it with me!

This week’s random thoughts and things to share…

This Tedx talk by Terri Trespicio was so refreshing! I’m sneaking up on my late thirties, worked at the same place for almost a decade now, and at a point mentally where the idea of having a professional passion feels currently so out of reach. I’m currently reading her book after it caught my attention during some browsing at the library lately and I’m hoping it’s just the push I need to do some serious reflection and planning for next steps – whatever the heck those may be!

The Most Haunting Truth of Parenthood – an article from my favorite author, Mary Laura Philpott, who just always beautifully describes the intricacies of parenthood in a way that always leaves me feeling like she just gets it – she really does! The article is an adaptation of part of her new book that launches next month and I am counting down the days until I get my hands on a copy!

After seeing Kendi’s Old Navy try on over on IG, I decided to order these jeans and give them a try to see if they could be that perfect pair of work from home jeans that finally are that perfect balance of not tight but also not so loose that they look baggy. That feels like such a delicate balance that’s been hard to get right, but I think these might be the ones!

I’m going to need to add this saying to my regular vocabulary…

And a favorite article that brings me to tears every time I read it. Leaving and waving has long been a tradition in my family, with the addition of the wave continuing until the other person has driven out of view. We did this most with my aunt as we would leave her house and I’m so glad I thought to capture a photo on what ended up being the last time we saw her before she passed away. We’ll keep the tradition going this weekend when we send off my parents at the end of their weekend visit!

Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight

This one is Janet Evanovich’s latest novel in her Stephanie Plum series, a series she’s been publishing since 1994 about a down on her luck twenty-something in need of a job who managed to get hired on by family as a bounty hunter thanks to some black mail efforts. The series is full of all kinds of shenanigans to put it best, both on the job with quirky co-workers and family members as well as situations she finds herself in while trying to chase down criminals who didn’t show up to their court date. Her love life is a source of entertainment too, with her complicated back and forth relationships with local cop Joe Morelli and mysterious co-worker Ranger.

I’ve liked this series enough over the years that last winter I decided to start at the beginning of the series and read the books all the way through. I stalled out at book 16 and it was fun to skip ahead and read the latest before I’m sure I’ll be back to reading in sequence. I got exactly what I wanted out of this book – a quick, entertaining read with an element of mystery to it even though it lacks any aspect of thrill. Just a nice mental distraction for a couple of days. I count on these books like an old friend, one I know well enough to know exactly what to expect and on that front this book didn’t disappoint!

3.5 out of 5 stars

The Paper Palace

Elle is a married mother of three who sleeps with her childhood best friend one night while spending the summer with her family’s at their camp in the back woods country of the Cape Cod area and then needs to make a choice: move forward with her current life or dare to leave her husband for the man her heart has loved since they were young. The book follows Elle’s life from childhood until present time, skipping back and forth as it tells the story of drama and trauma that shaped her life. (Trigger warning: sexual assault)

When I finished this book, I wasn’t entirely certain how I felt about it. There were so many failed relationships throughout her family’s history that it sometimes felt hard to keep track of who was who as she alternated back and forth in the timeline. Also, some really horrendous stuff happened in this book. The story felt anti-climatic to me, but there was something to appreciate in a story that was so incredibly nuanced in choice and in morality and I always enjoy stories that capture the messiness that is being human.

3 out of 5 stars

Then in a rare event, I had a book I chose not to finish in February too (usually I get too many books, don’t get around to starting them all, then have to return them and take note of the ones I want to grab again later). But Well, This is Exhausting by Sophia Benoit was one I just couldn’t get into. I typically really enjoy memoir style but this one just didn’t grab my attention and hold it and the heavy usage of footnotes, while usually pretty entertaining references, just got to be a bit of a distraction for me. I had lots of others in my stack of library books that I was more excited to dig into so I just let this one go.

We’ve had a few days warm enough to ditch winter coats, early mornings are getting brighter, and I’ve picked my favorite habit back up of buying tulips for myself every chance I get – spring must be out there on the horizon?!

This week’s random thoughts and things to share…

I don’t often watch shows on my own, but recently finished Single Drunk Female on Hulu and really liked it! Although the main character is an absolute mess, I found her just really likable. Next up is making my way through season two of Outer Banks which is such an incredibly unrealistic drama that it feels like a guilty pleasure!

I’ve had plenty of articles catch my attention on the topic of work and how our relationships with it are changing, but never has one resonated with me as much as this NYTimes article from Jess’s Click Read Love post a few weeks back. I’ve got the notes in my phone to prove it, with this quote hitting home the hardest: “If the tight labor market is giving low-wage workers a taste of upward mobility, a lot of office workers seem to be thinking about our jobs more like the way many working-class people have forever. As just a job, a paycheck to take care of the bills! Not the sum total of us, not an identity.”

A chicken and dumplings recipe my husband and I both loved – great and easy comfort food for a cold, cozy night at home! Edit on our part though to simplify it even more – buy a container of diced carrots, celery, and onions, put them on parchment paper on a baking sheet with a little olive oil drizzled on top and salt, pepper, and a dash of poultry seasoning. Bake at 425° for 25 minutes.

I never thought I’d enjoy a cookbook as much as I loved reading through Matthew Raiford’s Bress ‘n’ Nyam: Gullah Geechee Recipes from a Sixth-Generation Farmer! More than just a book of recipes, as one review explained, it’s like reading a memoir, weaving family history into each recipe.

I’m intrigued by the concept I’ve seen of jeans being a size range instead of a single size. I tried a pair of Express FlexX jeans in the fall and their sizing was in two size increments – I got a medium which according to their size chart was an 8-10, but they fit me horribly and were way too tight. I noticed Old Navy now has a 3-in-1 option so I ordered their 8-12 and can’t wait to see if they’re a hit or a miss!

Have you joined the wordle craze yet? It’s new for me and a friend shared this app that’s the same thing with unlimited games to play. I’ve actually spent a few evenings doing that instead of endlessly scrolling TikTok and it feels like because it makes me think, maybe I don’t have to feel so bad about it?

Survive the Night

This was the first book I’ve read by Riley Sager and I didn’t love it. It takes place in the 90s, with college student Charlie trying to make her way back home to Ohio from school in New Jersey after struggling to cope with the murder of her best friend and roommate by a killer nicknamed the campus killer, an event she feels blame for after leaving her friend alone at a bar after they argued about Charlie going home. She catches a ride with Josh who says he’s also headed that way and very quickly into the drive has her suspicions that she’s trapped in a car with the killer. And remember, this is the 90s – no cell phones, finding rides home from college from posts strangers leave on a ride share bulletin board (what?! haha). Although there was enough twists and turns in the story to keep me pushing on through the story to see how everything turned out, I just missed having the drama of trying to figure out who did it right from the start like I’m used to.

2 out of 5 stars

One Step Too Far

The newest release from Lisa Gardner, I reserved it from the library awhile back so that I could be one of the first to borrow a copy and then promptly forgot about it so getting that notification it was ready for pick up was a pleasant surprise! There’s just something about getting mentally lost in a suspense novel that’s a perfect distraction for me and Lisa Gardner is one of my favorite authors to do this with. Her new book is her second with character Frankie Elkin, a wandering loner with her own ghosts in her past, who travels the country being an often unwanted volunteer in solving missing persons cases long after authorities have lost any traction on them. It was good, just as I expected – plenty of intense moments that kept me turning pages long after my bedtime in this story set deep in the wilderness of Wyoming, helping with what’s likely to be the last chance search for a young man gone missing years earlier.

4 out of 5 stars

Creative Confidence

My lofty for my pace goal is to read one book a month that has a personal or professional development aspect to it and this one was it for January. Written by brothers Tom and David Kelley, this book pushes against the common misconception that there are creative types and non creative types, and that innovation and creative thinking are best done by those “creative types”. Instead they focus on the creative potential we all have and how tapping into that will completely change the way we approach our work and our personal lives. And between their work of David being a founder of the global design company IDEO and the Stanford d.school and Tom working closely with him, these two are a trusted source of information and strategy! A great read that opened my eyes and provided additional resources if I decide to keep diving deeper!

4 out of 5 stars