Simple Meals + Honest Book Reviews + Practical Living
Today’s episode is part confession, part pep talk — and 100% solidarity if you’re also buried under too much stuff. Not just any stuff: kid stuff. Stuffed animals, tiny plastic creatures, broken trucks, and one very specific, hideous plastic Belle doll that has become the symbol of my boundary battles with overindulgent grandparents.
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This summer, just like last, I curated a list of ten books I wanted to read. All of them are fiction, a mix of contemporary, dystopian, and lovely character driven stories, or so I was promised by the reviews as I made this selection.
Starting solids is one of those parenting milestones that sounds adorable in theory but quickly transforms into a chaotic reality of food splatters, persistent stains, and the bewildering discovery that a 15-pound human can create such an impressive mess with just a few spoonfuls of pureed sweet potato. Even as a mother of four, I still find myself slightly overwhelmed during this beautiful yet incredibly messy phase of development.
Hello friends, today is one of those check-in posts — the kind that comes after a week where everything falls apart at once. The kind where everyone gets sick, your to-do list goes up in flames, and you survive on adrenaline, caffeine, and the crusts from your children’s PB&J sandwiches. You know the weeks I mean.
Today we’re diving into God of the Woods by Liz Moore — a new-to-me author whose latest novel absolutely swept the internet. It even won the Goodreads 2024 Readers’ Choice Award for Mystery & Thriller. When I saw that, I thought: Okay… let’s give it a try.
I’m so glad I did. Despite being just over 450 pages, it’s the kind of slow-burn literary thriller that keeps you completely hooked — rich backstory, layered characters, and that perfect back-and-forth structure that pulls you through chapters without realizing you’re still reading.
“What’s for dinner?” It’s such a simple question. And yet, it’s one of the most soul-draining things a mom can hear at 4:04 p.m. — precisely when my daughter hops into the minivan after school.
First, she asks for a snack. Then comes the big one: “What’s for dinner?”
And I don’t know about you, but that question has a way of making my blood pressure rise just a little bit each time. So today, we’re going to get to the bottom of why this question is so uniquely irritating — and then I’ll share a few practical strategies to make it a little less rage-inducing.