Turning the Page on November 2017

November positively flew by. We spent Thanksgiving week in Colorado with my family and it was so nice to get off the island for a few days (though I definitely could've done with a few more). We got lucky with the weather -- it was in the 50s and 60s, so we got a good taste of fall but it didn't test my extreme loss of cold tolerance (when every day is 80, anything below 70 starts to feel pretty chilly). Jarrod and I spent two afternoons in the mountains (and got to see some snow) and we went to a bunch of stores and restaurants that we don't have in here in Hawaii and I desperately miss (craft stores! Red Robin! Kohl's!). We also got to see two movies in the theater while we were in Colorado, "Wonder" (fabulous!) and "Murder on the Orient Express" (pretty good).

Our (rather enormous) DVR was perilously closet to being full, so I got a lot of shows and movies watched last month. We finished up this season of "Polark,"  "Broadchurch" and "Sherlock" (apparently we were in a British mood!), and watched almost all the episodes of the new season of "Stranger Things" (we have two left and I want to savor them!). I kept up with "This Is Us" and "Grey's Anatomy," and I finished season 1 of "My Mother and Other Strangers" (a new Masterpiece show this year), plus I watched some of the final season of "Switched at Birth." On the plane home form Colorado I watched the first four episodes of the Netflix show "Anne With An E" and really enjoyed it.

So basically, in November I worked, shopped for Christmas presents, took a fabulous trip, and watched a lot of TV!

P.S. If you follow the blog much, you'll know I'm in charge of a big 9-by-13-foot bulletin board in the kids' section at work, and the turkey above is what I did for November. The "feathers" are made out of kids' handprints.

Books read: 11

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas // 4 stars

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt // 3 stars (for kids' book club at work)

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman // 4.5 stars

The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh // 4 stars

Talking As Fast As I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between by Lauren Graham // 4 stars (for Non-Fiction November)

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid // 4 stars

The Song Rising by Samantha Shannon (Bone Season #3) // 4 stars

Hardcore Twenty-Four by Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum #24) // 2 stars

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne // 4.5-5 stars (not sure yet)

Adulthood is a Myth by Sarah Andersen (Sarah's Scribbles #1) // 4 stars

Artemis by Andy Weir // 3 stars

Favorite book: The Heart's Invisible Furies was such a gripping, hard-hitting read! I loved following Cyril Avery through his life, which was both ordinary and extraordinary.

Biggest let-down: Artemis by Andy Weir. I had so been looking forward to it, but it fell pretty flat for me -- and for a lot of other readers, I'm gathering. I felt no connection to the main character and the locker room humor was pretty over-the-top.

December release I'm most looking forward to: Saga volume 8.

Book I'm most excited to read in December: Probably Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan. I'm ready for some festive holiday reading!

Current library checkouts: The Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowtiz, Big Mushy Happy Lump by Sarah Andersen, Rat Queens volume 1 by Kurtis J. Wiebe, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan, Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin, and Escape From Mr. Lemoncellos' Library by Chris Grabenstein (for kids' book club at work).

Books added to to-read list: 7 (not bad!)

Most intriguing TBR addition: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah. I hadn't been at all interested in the book because I don't watch his show, but I saw it on so many Non-Fiction November lists that I had to take a look, and it sounds fascinating -- and totally different from what I thought it was.

From Goodreads: The compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime story of one man's coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.

Favorite bookstagram: The book was a disappointment, but I love the picture because it features fall colors, boots and crunchy leaves -- things I miss so much being in Hawaii! Find me on Instagram @knittinglindsay!

I've finally been knitting again! I got tons of progress done on the (ripped out and re-started) Newt Scamander scarf a friend asked me to knit ages and ages ago, and I also cast on for a hat for my Broke and Bookish Secret Santa.

Favorite post: 10 Books I'd Want My (Hypothetical) Kids To Read

Non-Fiction November posts:
Week 1: My Non-Fiction Reading Year So Far + About Me
Week 2: Five Non-Fiction / Fiction Pairings
Week 3: Be the Expert, Ask the Expert, Become the Expert
Week 5: New to My TBR

Book reviews (all in one mini review post):
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (5 stars)
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn (4.5 stars)
Origin by Dan Brown (4 stars)
Setting Free the Kites by Alex George (3.5 stars)
Red Sister by Mark Lawrence (5 stars)

Monday Musings

We found snow!

My week: Jarrod and I spent the week with my parents and brother in Colorado! The only way it could've been a better Thanksgiving is if Alohi were there.

Reading: I'd been looking forward to the latest novel in Samantha Shannon's Bone Season fantasy series, but my library in Hawaii never got it in. So I had my mom get it from the Colorado Springs library for me! It was pretty good, though I didn't love it as much as the second book. I was worried I might not have time to finish it on the trip, but I actually read it in just over two days.

After that I read a book my mom already had checked out, the new Stephanie Plum novel. These books haven't been good in several years, but they're bookish comfort food and I'll keep reading the series til the end. The last 10 or so installments have been ok 3-star reads for me, but this one just fell flat. I didn't really enjoy it at all.

And now I'm back to the book I had been reading, "The Heart's Invisible Furies" by John Boyne. I got a decent amount of reading done on the flight from Colorado to Hawaii and I'm hoping to finish it in the next couple days. So far I'm really liking it, even though it's pretty heartbreaking at times.

Watching: I finally made it to the movie theater! We saw "Murder on the Orient Express" (good) and "Wonder" (fabulous!!!).

On the plane back I watched the first four episodes of Netflix's newish Anne of Green Gables series, "Anne With An E," and I'm totally in love! I know it got mixed reviews, but it's been years since I've seen the movies and I've never read the books, so I didn't really have any expectations going in. (P.S. Did you know you can download some Netflix stuff to watch without an internet connection? I didn't until very recently, and it was a lifesaver on the looooong flights.)

Knitting: I'm making great progress on the Newt Scamander scarf! I'm probably two-thirds of the way done now and I'm sure I'll do a lot of knitting this week -- gotta watch everything we recorded on the DVR while we were gone!

Eating: A bunch of the restaurants we don't have in Hawaii and miss: Red Robin, Chickfila, Rudy's BBQ, Pei Wei, Firehouse Subs and Jimmy John's. Plus a delicious and nostalgic Thanksgiving dinner. I hadn't eaten my mom's holiday feast since 2008!

Deciding: To try to read 100 books this year! I just hit the 85-book mark (more than I've read since I started keeping track) and it's soooo close to that nice, round number that I figured I might as well try to make it! I did cheat a tiny bit and requested a few graphic novels I've been meaning to read. But since my current book is almost 600 pages, I guess it balances out!

Buying: 23andMe kits for Jarrod and me. I'd been looking at them forever (from there and from Ancestry) and I couldn't resist Amazon's Black Friday deal! We ordered the ancestry + health kits since they were 50% off, and I can't wait to see our results.

Blogging:
Monday Musings
Non-Fiction November Week 5: New To My TBR

Looking forward to: Ugh... not sure. I'm still firmly in vacation mode and I'm not looking forward to going back to work -- and to the grocery store -- today! Plus it was so nice to be home in Colorado and off this island, and I'm honestly not all that jazzed to be back in Hawaii. I'll just have to console myself with copious amounts of Starbucks peppermint mochas and Hallmark Christmas movies!

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

Jarrod and me with my dad, mom and brother. I'm so glad we were able to spend Thanksgiving with them!

Monday Musings

My week: Goodbye Hawaii, hello Colorado! Jarrod and I left Saturday night to spend Thanksgiving in Colorado with my family. It's so nice to be home for the week! And to be wearing boots and sweaters! And playing in crunchy leaves! (All that's missing is Alohi -- gosh I miss her!)

Reading: After a few really productive reading weeks, I got hardly any reading done at all last week. I had actually hoped to be finished with "The Heart's Invisible Furies" before our trip, but that sure didn't happen -- I'm only 100 pages in! I also squeezed in a few more chapters of "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry" for Non-Fiction November. It's well-done, educational and interesting, but still over my head at times.

Instead of either one of those books, though, I'm reading "The Song Rising" by Samantha Shannon, the new book in the Bone Season series. The library in Hawaii is apparently never going to get it in, so I had my mom pick it up from the Colorado Springs library. Luckily it's only 350 pages, since I have less than a week to read it!

Watching: "This Is Us" and "Poldark." I also watched two delightfully cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies.

On the plane I watched an indie movie starring Chris Evans called "Before We Go," which was pretty good. I had actually downloaded the first three episodes of the British show "Midsomer Murders" -- something I'd been wanting to see forever -- to watch on the plane, but I was so bored! I gave up 30 minutes into the first episode.

Knitting: Making good progress on the Newt Scamander scarf! I've knit more in the last week than in the last year!

Blogging:
Monday Musings
10 Books I'd Want My (Hypothetical) Kids To Read

Looking forward to: Spending time with my family, going up to the mountains, shopping at stores we don't have in Hawaii (like craft stores!!!), and eating tons of yummy food! And tomorrow we're going to see "Murder on the Orient Express," which will be Jarrod's and my first movie at the theater in a whole year, if you can believe that.

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

2015 Travel Recap: Colorado Part 2: Rocky Mountain National Park

Aloha and welcome to part six of my 2015 travel recap! It was a fabulous year of travel for us and I'm excited to share it all with you -- even if we are now rapidly approaching a year overdue!

You can see the previous posts here: Hawaii, Gettysburg, New York City, Tennessee/North Carolina, and Colorado Part 1.


Last September Jarrod and I traveled to my home state of Colorado for a beautiful autumn visit -- the first time I had been back in the fall since 2009! We had a wonderful time with my family and took every opportunity we could to get outdoors. We took an overnight getaway to Rocky Mountain National Park and were lucky to see the aspens already beginning to change in the higher mountain climate. We also did two lovely hikes and saw tons of elk!


The timing of our trip was ridiculously fitting. Jarrod and I met in college, and the first weekend of October 2005 we took a weekend getaway to Rocky Mountain National Park to celebrate our 1-year dating anniversary. Almost exactly 10 years later, we headed back -- and we even did the same waterfall hike, Alberta Falls, that we did that very first time. It was even more beautiful than I remembered, and Jarrod brought his new fold-up fishing pole and was thrilled to catch a rare brook trout above the waterfall.


The second day of our trip was a full one! In the morning we did a gorgeous though somewhat strenuous (at least when you're not acclimated to above-sea-level air!) hike to Nymph Lake, Dream Lake and Emerald Lake. Then we took the easy path around Bear Lake, which is right next to the trailhead for the three lakes.


The lakes: (top right) Bear Lake; (middle left) Nymph Lake; (middle right) Dream Lake; (bottom right) Emerald Lake.


After lunch we did one of our favorite RMNP activities: the drive up Old Fall River Road (a one-way 11-mile gravel road that quickly takes you up and away from traffic and tourists) to the Alpine Visitor Center and back down Trail Ridge Road. We saw two black bears cross the road right in front of us toward the start of Old Fall River Road, but we weren't fast enough to get a photo. That's the first time I've seen a black bear in person in Colorado -- all my previous sightings have been in Tennessee!

I absolutely LOVE the landscape surrounding Old Fall River Road and Trail Ridge Road. The end of the road is above the treeline and the alpine meadows are stunning. It's also cold -- there are patches of snow up there all year round, and the roads are closed during winter.

I'm a little bit obsessed with yellow-bellied marmots -- I think these groundhog cousins are just the cutest things -- and one was waiting for us at the visitor center. After I told him I'd make him famous on my blog, he was more than happy to pose for some photos before scampering off.

Monday Musings from Colorado #6

Highlight of the week: This weekend Jarrod and I ventured to Walden, Colorado, a tiny town nestled in the north-central part of the state -- which just so happens to the the moose viewing capital of Colorado! One of my bucket list items was to see a moose in the wild, and we definitely checked that off. We saw probably 20 moose, though sadly we didn't glimpse any males. The area around Walden and State Forest State Park is breathtaking. Mountains and stunning, untouched landscape surround you in every direction. We had a wonderful little getaway to the mountains -- my last gasp of Rocky Mountain air for a while, since we leave for Hawaii next week -- and in addition to the moose we saw a coyote, a bald eagle, elk, deer, pronghorns, prairie dogs, and some cool birds.

On a completely different note, my brother graduated college last weekend and on Wednesday we helped him move from Fort Collins to his new apartment in Denver. And while we were up in Fort Collins, I made a point to stop in at The Loopy Ewe, a famous yarn store that had me absolutely drooling. It was huge. And it had just about every yarn brand I've been wanting to try. It was very, very difficult to exercise self-control, but seeing as I have to fit everything I buy into our suitcases, I limited myself to three skeins of (gorgeous) yarn. The Loopy Ewe was exactly the kind of beautiful, organized, cozy, well-stocked LYS (local yarn shop) I dream about being able to frequent and it was hard to leave! I also finally got to try Voodoo Doughnut in Denver. That maple bacon bar was so good! (And I couldn't resist the voodoo doll donut, with raspberry filling and a pretzel "pin.")



Reading: This is the first time in a long time that I didn't complete a single book in a week! I finished  (and absolutely loved) "Uprooted" by Naomi Novik last Monday morning, but I don't count that because I had less than 50 pages to go. My current book is "All the Winters After" by Sere Prince Halverson and I'm definitely enjoying it. It takes place in Alaska, which is one of my favorite locales to read about, and I like the writing style. I just haven't had much time to read! (Gasp!) But I have to finish the book by tomorrow night because it's a library copy and our flight for Hawaii leaves Wednesday morning.

I've also got to decide what to read on the airplane. I have a copy of "Dark Places" by Gillian Flynn that I brought along, and I've also got a NetGalley advanced-read copy of "June" by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore loaded on my iPad. I guess I'll see what strikes my fancy!

Knitting: I made a bit of progress on my Cap Sleeve Lattice Top this week. I'm a few inches into the lattice that makes up the top five inches of the back and I'm pleased with how it's coming along. I've knit a little more of the lattice than what's in the photo, maybe another inch.



Watching: Jarrod and I watched the first couple episodes of the new season of "Fear the Walking Dead." I'm enjoying it, but I'm definitely not glued to the screen like I was watching season 1. We also went to see "Captain America: Civil War," and while I liked it well enough, it wasn't my favorite of the Captain America/Avengers movies.

Looking forward to: If you're new here, my husband is in the Air Force and we're in the process of moving from Ohio back to Hawaii, with a pit stop at my parents' in Colorado. I've been in Colorado since the second week of April because Jarrod had to take a month-long class in Florida as part of our move. It's been wonderful getting to spend this extra time with my family since I don't get to seem them all that often, but we leave for Hawaii this Wednesday and I'm looking forward to getting the second half of this move over with! I'm pretty tired of coordinating travel and cat shipping and car shipping and trying to decide where to live. I just want to sleep in my own bed again!

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I'm linking up with Kathryn at Book Date for her weekly feature It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

2015 Travel Recap: Colorado Part 1: Lost Lake and Pikes Peak

You can see part one of my travel recap (Hawaii) here, part two (Gettysburg) here, part three (New York City) here, and part four (the Biltmore and the Smokies) here.

In September Jarrod and I headed back to my home state of Colorado to visit my family and imbibe in some Rocky Mountain air. The weather was perfect, and we got to spend lots of time in the mountains. We hiked to Lost Lake, a breathtaking mountain lake near Buena Vista, with my parents, and Jarrod and I drove up Pikes Peak. I'd been to the summit a million times, but Jarrod had only been to the top via the cog railway and it was long past time for him to experience the fun of driving up the curvy mountain road -- sans guardrails! We also spent two wonderful days in Rocky Mountain National Park, which will be a separate post.

Lost Lake. Absolutely stunning.

At the Pikes Peak summit, 14,110 feet!

Me and my new friend.

We enjoyed the must-have high-elevation donuts and hot chocolate at the summit house, and on the way back down we stopped at an alpine meadow and visited with several yellow-bellied marmots, one of my favorite animals.

Monday Musings from Colorado #2

Highlight of the week: I went to see a morning showing of "Allegiant" on Thursday and I was the only person in the entire theater. It was amazing! I also got a much-needed haircut and took a painting class with my mom. We go back tomorrow to finish up our aspen pictures. (If you're new here, my husband is in the Air Force and we're in the process of moving from Ohio [back] to Hawaii. I'm staying with my parents in Colorado for a month while he does some training.)

Reading: Last Monday I had just started "I'll See You in Paris" by Michelle Gable, and I ended totally loving it (review). It's a dual narrative set in the English countryside in 1972 and 2001, and it features the real-life (quite enigmatic) Gladys Deacon, 9th Duchess of Marlborough, plus uncovered secrets, wonderful characters and a little romance.

I also read "A Study in Charlotte" by Brittany Cavallaro, the first in a new YA mystery series featuring Charlotte Holmes and Jamie Watson, the great-great-great-grandchildren of the original sleuths (review). I wasn't completely entranced, but I enjoyed it enough that I'll definitely check out the next installment in the series.

And last night I finished a fabulous advance-read book, "The Atomic Weight of Love" by Elizabeth J. Church (out May 3), which I happily awarded 5 stars. Spanning decades, it's a character-driven novel that starts off when our protagonist, a university student and aspiring orinthologist, falls in a love with a professor who gets called away to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to work on the Manhattan Project. (And that cover -- gorgeous!) Today I'll start "Jane Steele," a gothic "Jane Eyre" retelling.

Buying: I went with my mom to pick up her library holds on Saturday and I just had to take a trip down the library sale shelf. I came away with three new books that I definitely didn't need seeing as they have to accompany me on the plane to Hawaii... but for $1 each, how was I to resist?! (I should also mention that I have three more Dublin Murder Squad books to read before I even get to "The Secret Place," but again, how could I resist?!)



Watching: My parents' cable provider had a free HBO week so I got caught up on season 4 of "Girls." Season 1 was by far the best, but I'm still enjoying the show, about the struggles and joys of being a  twentysomething in New York City. We also watched "Infinitely Polar Bear" (it was alright). And, as noted, I went to see "Allegiant." I enjoyed it, though I had the vague notion that a lot of things were changed from the book (though it's been so long since I read the books I don't remember many details).

Listening to: I've had "Madness" by Lucius on repeat this week!



Eating: Firehouse Subs and Jimmy John's -- yummy sandwich shops we won't have in Hawaii.

Looking forward to: Going with my mom to finish up our paintings. I'm excited to have a piece of Colorado to bring some mountain serenity to our new house in Hawaii. I have zero talent when it comes to drawing and painting, but the teacher is wonderful and makes everything so easy! I'm also looking forward to visiting my best friend in Dallas for a few days. I leave on Sunday!

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Linking up with Kathryn of Book Date for It's Monday! What Are You Reading?