Monday Musings & Merry Christmas

Mele Kalikimaka!

My week: It was a fine week here. I feel like it was a busy one, but I can't actually remember why or what I did. I had to work all day on Saturday, but I made the best of it by wearing reindeer antlers and a Christmas shirt. Sunday we went to the beach; Jarrod goes surfing at least once a week, but it was the first time my toes had been in the sand since October!

I actually managed to snap a good picture of Alohi and me this week! We're driving home from her afternoon at doggie daycare here... but what you don't see is the desk leg she chewed into a thousand shards in the morning!

Reading: I finished "Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery" by Jenny Colgan and enjoyed it well enough. I'm soooo jealous of the protagonists' pet puffin, as well as their quaint English village. It's the third in a series and I do think I want to go back and read the first two.

Then I read and LOVED the first Rat Queens volume. It was so different than I expected. I knew it was about some spunky, badass girls, but I had no idea it was also a sort of medieval fantasy! I already checked out the second volume from the library.

After that I read the sequel to "The Bear and the Nightingale," "The Girl in the Tower." It took me for-ev-er to get into it -- I actually fell asleep reading three times in a row before making it to page 100 -- but once it clicked, I blew through the rest. I enjoyed being back in magic-tinged medieval Russia.

I felt like I needed one more holiday read, so I grabbed "Last Christmas in Paris" from the library. It's a WWI book told in letters -- right up my alley -- and I'm enjoying it so far.

Watching: We watched the newest Pirates of the Caribbean movie this week. It was ok, though I started losing interest toward the end. I didn't really watch any TV this week, or movies, but Jarrod has to work all day today (yes, on Christmas) so I'm planning to catch up on all those Hallmark Christmas movies on the DVR!

Knitting: I didn't do a single bit of knitting this week, but I did snap a picture of the bird ornament I knit for my work Secret Santa last week. (The bird is from the Flock mobile pattern on Ravelry -- my go-to pattern for knit birds.)

Buying: Tickets to see Luke Bryan! One of the things I hate about living in Hawaii is the utter lack of decent people coming for concerts, so we were thrilled when we heard Luke Bryan would be here in March!

Baking: Some really tasty cranberry-white chocolate-pecan cookies with brown butter icing! The recipe is from Taste of Home, and I was very pleased with the results. Plus I was excited to find a recipe for fresh cranberries! I highly recommend it.

Blogging:
Monday Musings
Holiday Q & A
The Grinch Book Tag

Looking forward to: My upcoming three-day weekend!

Merry Christmas to you all!

*I'm linking up with Kathryn of Book Date for It's Monday! What Are You Reading?