Thursday, 25 January 2018

My Little Sis Got Married!

My little sister got married the the first week of January. Both her and her husband are in the Navy, so their time off together is limited. It was a small, beautiful ceremony right in my parents' home, and I am so happy for them both. Amanda is now also officially a step-mom to an energetic little 9-year-old boy who played so well with Sebastian the whole week. I am grateful for him especially because now I get to be an Aunt!!

Here are a few of my favourite pictures from the wedding day:

Getting Ready












Ceremony



If you can, have kids at your small wedding. They make for the very best ceremony commentary! Here are some of the gems we heard:
- Is there a snack?!
- Why does she get to sign something! I want to sign my name!
- I want those rings back! I was just borrowing them to you!







Reception






Congratulations, guys!
xo
Jenn

Monday, 22 January 2018

3 Journals that Moms Will Love

Because I can't do just one thing, I actually have three journals on the go this year.

"OMG Jenn! How do you even have time for this?! I don't always wash my face before bed, how am I supposed write in three different journals too?! Crazy woman."

But wait! Just hear me out. I promise, even if you don't jump into all three like I did, I bet one of these journals will pull at your heart. And I also promise that no matter which one(s) you pick, you will feel good about writing in them each and every day.



First things first - Gratitude

Disclosure - I won this beautiful gratitude journal from Indigo in December. I've tried gratitude journals in the past because research proves that showing gratitude actually makes us happier people, but I've never been able to make them stick. I've been using this one for nearly a month, and while I don't get to it every single day (I'm probably at about 5 or 6 times a week), thinking of three wonderful things that happened to me or my family is a nice way to end the day.



I also have a non-journal version of this that Rob, Sebastian, and I have done for a few years now. At dinner, we almost always make a point to each share our "favourite thing" from the day. And if you have a child who's favourite thing is usually his latest iPad game, we ask for one "favourite thing" that involves a screen and one "favourite thing" that does not.


Second things second - Reflections on motherhood

Are you familiar with the Q and A a Day: A 5-Year Journal? How this journal works is that there is a question or prompt assigned to every day of the year. Then, on each page, there is space for 5 answers. The idea is that you jot down one short answer each day and then at the end of the year, you begin again. At a glance, you see how your answers change over the years (or maybe they won't!).



At a Penguin Random House event in the fall, one of the women showed me Q and A a Day for moms: A 5-Year Journal and during the holidays I ordered a copy for myself. The cover is gorgeous (because moms are gorgeous creatures, so they should have journals to match), and I am absolutely in love with the prompts inside. Sometimes they're serious. Sometimes they're not. But they're aways meaningful and relatable.




Third things third - Conversations with your child

I have been enjoying the 5-Year Journal for moms so much that a few weeks ago I reading more about these books and discovered there is a children's version! Q&A a Day for Kids is a 3-year journal designed in a similar fashion. At the top of each page there is a question or prompt you ask your child, and then there is space for you to fill in their answers for three years.

They recommend using this journal with children between the ages of 4 and 9. Sebastian is five and a half, and we have both been already having so much fun filling it out! He looks forward each day to "doing the question" together. I just know this is going to be a special book that Rob and I will treasure for years to come.




All in all, it probably takes me about 10 minutes to complete the prompts in all three journals. As I mentioned above, I'm not at 100% as far as daily writing goes, but I'm pretty close, and the Q&A a Day journals are easy to catch up with when necessary.

And while the Q & A journals are dated January - December, you can easily jump in at any point of the year. We did a bit of a "catch up blast" on the first day, and went through the first dozen questions or so to get on track (because Seb's mama is too-organized for her own good and starting a year-long journal on January 12th made her twitchy).

Which of these journals is your favourite? Do any of them sound like they'd be a good fit for you?
xo
Jenn

Monday, 8 January 2018

The Unread Shelf Project and My 2018 Reading Goals


While I did make it through a solid chunk of my 2017 reading goals, there were inevitable additions/distractions. Plus, I read the 1800 page A Court of Thorns and Roses trilogy. Twice.

I have 202 unread books in my house. 230 if you count e-books. And our house is not that big! Last year I started out with 150 unread books in the house. I read 30 of them (plus a whole host of others) and have somehow ended up with more books in the end!

To help me tackle this situation keep my husband from banning me from bookstores entirely, I've joined #theunreadshelfproject2018 on Instagram to help me meet my reading goals this year. Mainly, my hope is that there are less unread books in my house by December 31st.

The Unread Shelf Project 2018 is co-hosted by @theunreadshelf@katereadsbooks_,  and @calsreads.  There are weekly and monthly challenges to help you reacquaint yourself with your unread books and motivate you to actually read them! You can find out more about The Unread Shelf Project and the challenges by checking out the three co-hosts and by following the hashtag #theunreadshelfproject2018.

The first challenge was to count all of your unread books (see above 🙈 ). The second challenge was to feature an unread book each day for seven days over on Instagram. I've had fun with both of these challenges and look forward to seeing what comes up next.

What I love about the philosophy behind the Unread Shelf Project is that we aren't putting a full stop to buying or borrowing books for the year, but we are trying to be more mindful about our buying and borrowing right now. This way we can show our own books a little more love and probably discover some gems we didn't even know we had!

You can follow me along with my Unread Shelf Project here on Instagram @jennbairos.

In the meantime, I've put together a plan:




Books I already own by authors who have a last name that starts with F, G, H, or I

To give you another clue as to how many unread books I have hiding at home, this pile unread of F-I books is currently sitting at a ridiculous 40 titles. And then there are an additional 10 or so on my Goodreads TBR list. 🙈 🙈

This seems like kind of an obsessive way to tackle books, but I started working through the alphabet of my books a few years ago and one thing I like about reading my unread shelf in alphabetical chunks is that it is usually a manageable pile to start with. Then I can really go through which books I want to read and which ones I just need to unhaul into the free little library on our street. I always end up straying from my pile, so I keep relatively flexible about it all. I also usually alternate between reading a romance novel and then something that's not romance.

Outlander

The Outlander series has been a reading goal of mine forever. It will happen this year!

2018 releases

  • Sarah J. Maas has four books being published this year. I can't wait to devour them all. I will also probably reread the Throne of Glass series next summer in anticipation of the final book being released in September!
  • Jennifer Robson has also been dropping hints on her social media pages that she has a new book coming out later this year. She's another auto-purchase author for me. She writes beautiful historical fiction with touches of romance. I love everything she's written.
  • The Queen's Rising by Rebecca Ross (review to come)
  • The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy
  • Just Between Us by Rebecca Drake
  • The Other Mother by Carol Goodman (review to come)
  • The Cruel Prince by Holly Black


Holiday Books

I enjoy reading Christmas-themed books during the holidays. This past Christmas I was gifted a few, so I've already got these books ready to go for December!


Other books high on my TBR pile


A few friends and I just started a new book club as well. Our first official meeting is later this week, and we're discussing The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne. I just finished it, and it was so amazing! I look forward to seeing what gets picked next.

I read a lot of non-fiction last year, so this year I'm taking a bit of a non-fiction break. I have a couple shorter non-fiction books that I'll probably read, but I've really just been craving fiction to escape in lately. I'm setting my Goodreads Challenge at 100 books. We'll see what happens!!

xo
Jenn

Monday, 1 January 2018

2017 Reading Recap

In 2017 year I read all the things. All of them. It's like an addiction. I just can't stop. For the first time ever I read 100 books. I also read some novellas which was a new thing for me, and Sebastian and I started to read chapter books together.

If you track your reading on Goodreads, it puts together a cool infographic of your year in books, so this is what mine looks like for 2017! Also, if you want to follow along my reviews on Goodreads, you can check out my profile here.

A few interesting stats from my 100 books:
31 were published in 2017
26 were 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐  reads for me
4 were rereads
17 were nonfiction
88 were by female authors
3 were novellas (+ 1 book collection of novellas)
9 were by Canadian authors
2 were books Seb and I read together




January

February 

March

April

May

June




July

August


September


October


November




December

Stay tuned for my 2018 reading goals, and for more, here is my reading recap for 2016.

xo
Jenn

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