March Mishmash
Cooking dinner is overrated, and I'd rather be sewing.
Hello! This month has been filled with lots of sewing and quilt-related activities, creating content for instagram, audiobooks, daylight savings time really messed me up this year more than I recall it having done in the past, and I am so thrilled to see cute little flowers popping up all around the neighborhood! The best thing about Spring is that Summer will be here soon!!
Food!
I feel like I should remove this section of the newsletter because I am just not into cooking at all lately, or I am just throwing random things together and hoping it turns out edible (so far it’s been working out okay). We have been relying very heavily on HungryRoot for meal planning and when I took a couple weeks off I regretted it. So much work goes into planning/shopping/prepping/cooking and in general I am just not feeling it! The HungryRoot recipes are so simplistic and very rarely disappointing, and it’s nice to not have to think about any of it except which of these things should we eat tonight or which vegetable will go bad first?
ICE CREAM RECOMMENDATION: McConnell's Double Peanut Butter Chip is absolutely worth your money. If you see this at the store, scoop it up and thank me later. We’ve tried a few of their flavors, and all are great, but this one is our favorite. thin ribbons of chocolate and peanut butter throughout, super creamy, and not very sweet, bordering on savory. For something completely different, I also really love their Eureka Lemon and Marionberries, it’s extremely refreshing and so lemony!!
Books
You can shop all my recent reads here: https://bookshop.org/shop/michelleflook (Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.)
I only read/listened to fiction this month, and I have them listed below in order from most liked to least liked. Let me know if you have any great non-fiction to recommend!
Fiction:
Skye Falling by Mia McKenzie - I really liked this one! A difficult main character/narrator who really grows on you as she herself grows through the story. Skye is kind of a lone wolf type of character, queer, single, childless, not close with her family, few friends, runs a travel company so is often traveling all over the world. She donated her eggs to a friend a long time ago and lost touch with the friend. When a 12 year old girl approaches her and states she is the result of Skye’s donated eggs, she slowly and hesitantly begins a journey of trying to let people in. The audiobook was great, and I love a happy ending. It’s a heartwarming story, but not sickeningly sweet or corny. A little bit of a love story in there too.
Listen For The Lie by Amy Tinterra - A fun and fast murder mystery with a narrator who is very sarcastic and has amnesia about the actual events in question (her best friend’s murder). A podcaster is digging into the mystery and seeking the truth in the small town where the crime happened many years ago. I listened to this on audio and it was well done with the podcast sections interspersed between the narration of Lucy. I found Lucy pretty entertaining, and the mystery kept me guessing until the end when all is revealed!
The Unseen World by Liz Moore - The audiobook of this one did not do the story justice. Ada is a child raised by her father David, the head of a computer science lab. Ada is home-schooled and always in the lab with him, she’s a part of the team helping them build out an early AI chatbot, and doesn’t really know anyone her own age, does not identify with other kids at all. Her father starts exhibiting signs of Alzheimer’s, and Ada is forced to join the ‘regular’ world. On top of all this, there’s a mystery that comes out that David may not be who everyone thinks he is. I think this would make an excellent tv series in the vein of Halt and Catch Fire,, as there are a lot of great characters and with ai being such a hot topic these days, I’d love to watch this as a show.
The Owl Cries by Hye-Young Pyun - I really liked this writer’s previous book, The Hole, but this one was much harder for me to get into and get through. For a book less than 300 pages, it took me almost a full month to read. It is creepy and interesting though, a village on the edge of a large forest, some mysterious happenings, troubled people, some very cool descriptive passages about the forest/wind lending to the atmosphere, but I just don’t feel it paid off in the end. This is also the only book I did not listen to on audio this month!
You Only Call When You’re in Trouble by Stephen McCauley - a family drama with messy and real-seeming characters, but just not the most memorable.
TV/Movies
Paul T. Goldman on Peacock - This is a truly unique series, that is hard to describe. Paul wrote a book based on his interpretation of his own life. This series lays out this series of events, with Paul himself playing himself in the reenactments. That’s just the beginning, and the story is just so insane. I really liked it, because I had no idea what was going to happen next.
Life and Beth on Hulu - Season 2 came out recently and is really good!!
The Program on Netflix - If you’re into very depressing cult-like stories that involve child abuse, watch this. It is centered on an ongoing situation/organization/cult? in which “troubled” teens are sent to a “school” where they are mentally and physically abused and brainwashed, leading to long-term trauma. These places still exist all across the world, and it is vile and upsetting. The filmmaker is a young woman who was sent to one of these places when she was 15, and since she was let out, has basically dedicated her life to digging into this org and affiliates and trying to get them exposed and shut down. Plenty of survivors are featured, giving candid recollections of abuse and trauma, and the long-lasting effects they are still dealing with. Just heartbreaking all around.
Projects!
I completed the rest of the blocks (5-10, if you’re keeping track. feb: blocks 3&4, jan: blocks 1&2) for the AGF Sewcialite Sampler Quilt and have really enjoyed this project. Each block is really different, and also seeing how different people write their patterns is interesting to me as well. I had a plan when I started this project and definitely veered off course, ending with a much more eclectic look overall, but I am happy that I participated in this quilt along. I learned some new techniques, made some new-to-me blocks, and had a lot of fun. I’ll probably finish this quilt next month, so look forward to that!
Blocks 5-10 of the AGF Sewcialite Sampler I completed both February and March blocks the Sweet Potato Quilts Block of the month club this month, they’re both pretty cute:
March and April Block of the Month I’ve been sorting through my fabric scraps, and I have big plans to make a bunch of cute little blocks that eventually get sewn together into a very cute scrappy quilt. I’ll share some progress once I make some!
I enrolled in a Quilt Pattern Writing course from a designer that I have followed for a while, and I am learning a lot. I am hoping to be able to sell some quilt patterns and have that coveted passive income stream from something that I love doing. I have been having a lot of fun with the course, and mocking up all kinds of quilt designs, and I even enjoy the diagraming, and the math part isn’t as hard or daunting as I expected. I’ll keep you all posted of course. I am still figuring out if I want to set up a separate sewing/quilting specific newsletter, but I intend to keep this mishmash going as usual. I still have a lot to figure out as far as all that goes! for right now, I am trying to post more consistently on Instagram to try to grow my following, so when I do release a pattern it might actually get downloaded and used. I plan for my first pattern release to be free, but I have a lot of other ones lined up that I want to work on to sell! I will also probably have sample quilts to sell, so keep your eyes peeled if you may be interested in buying one!!!! 🤓
Miscellaneous!
This month marks two years since I received my breast cancer diagnosis. It is so wild to me that two years has passed already, simultaneously ages ago and like it was yesterday. That phone call, at the end of the day on a Friday (St Patrick’s day!) was a very scary and surreal phone call. I am so thankful for that early detection, and to still be here, writing this newsletter of things I like each month.
Hair check - I straightened my hair and then curled it a bit for a fancy event we attended and felt pretty darn cute, and on the right is my hair in it’s generally everyday state, in which I feel it’s feathered like an 80s sitcom mom. JUST KEEP GROWING, HAIR! I’m so impatient.
weird hair, two ways
Remi!
Sweet sleepyhead baby princess.
Goodbye, until next month!
xoM