Pages of Penrose: Books of March

It's here again! My book recap for the month.  This month, I listened to three Audiobooks on my drives to and from work.


I've also been trying to finish what seems like the longest book ever.  I did not realize it was such a lengthy book before I started reading it and with holidays & such this month I have not been able to even really make a dent in it.  So, eventually I will recap this book that I'm actually reading a hard copy of, Five Days at Memorial which is a book about Memorial Hospital in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina disaster and what the people stuck inside the hospital went through.  

But until then, the books I've actually gotten through are:

Looking for Alaska by John Green

I liked this book, but I thought that it seemed to drag on a little.  The character development was good so that made the read worth it.  If you have not read any John Green books, I recommend reading his The Fault in Our Stars over this book.

The Collector by Nora Roberts

This was a great book by Nora Roberts.  I love the mix of romance and mystery/thriller in her books.  Being an art nerd myself, I really enjoyed this one.

Someday, Someday Maybe by Lauren Graham

Yes, Lauren Graham as in Loralei Gilmore and Sarah Braverman.  I love her and I wanted to love this book so much. I thought it was good, and knowing that it was inspired by her own experiences made a lot of the storyline comical.  I sort of wish that she had just written a longer memoir instead of a novel.  Overall, I'd say this book was okay and a nice first novel for an author, but I would be interested to read something else by her that would probably be a little better developed.

That's it for March!  
Remember, you can friend me on Goodreads here and come back next month for my books of April.

Products of Penrose: Shopping the Sales - Maternity

I'm excited to be having a fall baby.  Fall has always been my favorite season, and especially October not only because it is my birthday month but also because it is the perfect fall month. There is a fall festival almost every weekend, PSL's are back at Starbucks, leaves change color, weather starts to cool down (at least here in SC), and the world is wonderful.

So, although I am so excited about having an October (or possibly  beginning of November) baby, my current maternity wardrobe options are all wrong.  I have a couple pairs of work pants that I can wear, and I have a few light sweaters or long sleeve tees that I will be able to wear at the very end, but I have nothing for warm weather months.

I was very excited when I came across these sales a couple weeks ago...

I have a feeling maxi dresses will be my go-to all summer long.  I picked up these three Pinkblush Maternity dresses from a Zulily deal where they were 50% off.  Still pricer than I paid for any maternity clothes last time, but I guess I'm giving myself a little bit of wiggle room this pregnancy because we will be saving money with all of the baby gear we can reuse.  And if this child is a girl, she will have QUITE the wardrobe already! You never realize how much clothing your little one has until you pack it away in storage tubs that are now filling the entire closet of Baby#2's room.  

The items I picked up from target were all $7.99 or less on a clearance sale and they are some good summer staples. 

I'm sure sometime in the next month or two I will make a trip to Destination Maternity to pick up some additional pieces. I'm thinking a few pairs of capris will be good for work this summer and a few cute tops. 

  

Fun news

The morning of February 21st, the dogs woke me up around 3am per the usual to go outside to potty and check on the neighborhood--I wish I was kidding but this happens almost daily. Sometimes all they do is walk the perimeter of the fence, staring out at the lots and new construction, then come back inside.  #protectors  While they did their business I decided to take a test--mostly expecting a negative result because I thought it was too soon to take the test.  I let the dogs back inside, set the alarm, and glanced down at the stick in my hand. Surprise!--two pink lines :)


It was hard to fall back asleep with being so excited, and all I did was lay in bed and think of when and how I should tell Jake.  Last time when I found out I was pregnant with Ryleigh, it was on our 2nd anniversary so I played it off as a gift for him.  But this time? It would be so random.  I decided to wait until that night.  I wanted Ryleigh to be sleeping because she's so vocal that I didn't want her learning the news and telling people too early on....(Spoiler alert: she's since spilled the beans to one set of grandparents and all of the people sitting around us at church!)


We went to a different church that morning because the pastor that Jake grew up with was back visiting and preaching at 1st Presbyterian Church in York.  It's a beautiful church and I love getting to visit it--it is where Jake and I attended church almost every weekend when we first started dating and this pastor was still there.  It was a great sermon, and Ryleigh had so much fun in their huge nursery playing on slides and cars and anything she could find.   [Fun background story--when Jake and I had recently started dating we were at a Winthrop soccer game and we ran into him, casually spoke for a few minutes, and when Jake spoke to him that weekend he told Jake "That's the girl you're going to marry".  He predicted well!!]  So, after the service we stood in line to catch up with him and he asked us "So is Ryleigh the one and only?" to which we laughed and replied, "for now, she is. Eventually we want another."  Fast forward to after church while we were going through a drive-thru to get Ryleigh a quick lunch because she needed a nap, and Jake said "haha too bad you aren't pregnant yet otherwise we could have told him, 'well there's one in there'" and I laughed and raised my eyebrows.  Jake looked at me funny and said "wait, what? Are you?"  I laughed some more and said "well, I definitely wasn't planning on telling you in a McDonald's Drive Thru........but yes!"

Lots of happy laughter and kisses followed, and Ryleigh was probably thoroughly confused.  Apparently since we like to keep themes around here, we should be finding out the baby's gender around our anniversary this summer, and our little holiday baby will be due on Halloween (technically, 10/30)!

   

 

Pages of Penrose: Pre-Order for Fixer Upper fans!

Along with much of the rest of America, I'm a huge fan of Fixer Upper and Chip & Joanna Gaines. As an interior designer it can often be so frustrating watching shows on TLC or HGTV because they portray such unrealistic expectations to homeowners when it comes to timeframe, budget, and practicality of their projects.  Chip and Joanna are the real deal and it's so refreshing to see their show doing well and educating people.

They announced recently that they have a book coming out in October, and today I saw that you can pre-order Kindle or Hardcover on Amazon!

Now, I know October is a long way away, but seeing as how the book comes out the week of my birthday I'm going to go ahead and call this a little treat to myself :)

Pre-Order here on Amazon

With Amazon Prime, we should receive it on or before the release date!


What I also love about pre-ordering on Amazon is that they guarantee you the lowest price, so if this book goes on sale between now and October for pre-order, they will reimburse me!  This actually happened to a tune of about $0.26 when I pre-ordered the Adele 25 cd. So it's not huge, but it speaks to their quality of service.  We are big Amazon fans.