Friday Five: Fourth of July Weekend

 

We were gone this past week visiting my brother-in-law in Montana which meant a lot of reading for me, but not a lot of time online.  Middle Sister ran the Missoula marathon, and my husband and Little Sister's roommate ran the half.  Little Sister is still rehabbing from her second femoral stress fracture, so she got to spectate along with Middle Sister's boyfriend and me.

Missoula was cold and rainy (perhaps better running weather than hot and humid), and arrived back in Iowa to extremely hot and humid weather.  We don't have any big plans for the holiday weekend, but I am loving all the Americana clothing out right now.  

I was able to shop a bit on our trip and found some things I liked, although I didn't have space to pack anything I purchased, which saved me from myself.  Enjoy this week's finds!

1.  Carlie Denim Midi Dress

2.  Twirl Pleated Skirt

3.  Essex Patchwork Madras Shorts

4.  Hailee Semiprecious Layered Beaded Necklace

5.  Olivaceous Puff Sleeve Top

6.  We The Free Jude Shortalls

7. Liberty Puffed Sleeve Blue and Red Striped Top

8.  New Balance 9060

9.  Favorite Knit Short Skirt

10. Voicemails For Isabelle

That's it for me this week. What's caught your eye?

Waiting on Wednesday: Seekers of Deer of Creek

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature where I highlight a soon to be released novel I can't wait to read.

This week's pick: Seekers of Deer Creek by Thao Thai

Due out: August 4, 2026

Synopsis taken from Amazon:

From the national bestselling author of Banyan Moon, a captivating, evocative story of two estranged sisters on a quest to find a painting by a forgotten Vietnamese artist that holds the truth of their family’s fractured past. 

Aside from the fact they are sisters, Vivi and Calla Nguyễn have little in common.

Vivi, the eldest, lives an orderly and predictable life. She works as an art conservator at a museum in Chicago, carefully preserving pieces of the past, all the while refusing to examine her own dark history. 

Calla leads a much bolder, if occasionally reckless, existence. She’s an accomplished artist with a flair for the dramatic, charming and intriguing everyone she meets. She’s also a recovering addict, constantly causing Vivi to worry.

Months after the two fall out in the wake of their father’s death, Calla appears on the steps of the museum with a sketch and a letter she found in their father’s belongings. The sketch is an exact copy of Blue Mirror, a striking painting by a Vietnamese painter named K.P. Lý. In the letter, Lý writes about a mysterious lost work of art. Calla is convinced it is meant for their family, and that it was their father’s deathbed wish for her and Vivi to find it together. Intrigued yet reluctant to follow her capricious sister, Vivi must decide whether she’s willing to face or shut the door to the past.

From the ghostly Wisconsin woods to a glittering estate in the French countryside to a sprawling ancestral home teetering on the edge of a ravine in Việt Nam, The Seekers of Deer Creek is a story of sisters, art, and the irresistible gravity of the past—how it endures across time and generations, always present even when buried.

Waiting on Wednesday: The Riddle Maker

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature where I highlight a soon to be released novel I can't wait to read.

This week's pick: The Riddle Maker: A Porter Beck novel by Bruce Borgos

Due out: November 17, 2026

Synopsis taken from Amazon:

In the latest in this USA Today bestselling series, Nevada sheriff Porter Beck receives an anonymous riddle leading him to a body hidden for decades, leading Beck and his team in a chase to unravel riddles that will help them uncover and stop a long-time serial killer.

Porter Beck is the sheriff of Lincoln County, Nevada, a vast expanse of desert and mountains best known to the outside world for the top-secret installation called Area 51. Just down the highway sits a weathered mailbox where UFO believers leave messages for aliens. But this time, the message is for Beck.

It’s a riddle. And when Beck and his team decipher it, the answer leads them to the shrinking waters of Lake Mead and an oil drum chained to the bottom. Inside are the remains of someone missing for more than fifty years, someone tied to Beck by a thread of DNA stretching deep into his own past.

Enter Jett Lowell, a pint-sized but fearless FBI profiler who believes Beck’s riddle is connected to one she received seventeen years earlier, shortly before the disappearance of someone close to her.

Convinced they are hunting a serial killer, Beck and Jett follow a trail of riddles from the deserts of Nevada to the mountains of Arizona, and finally to the red rock wilderness of Utah, racing to uncover a chain of murders spanning generations before the killer unleashes a final, horrendous act decades in the making.

Friday Five

 I feel like we've hit the time of summer (that has barely started) where the summer clothes start dwindling and soon fall things will be everywhere.  This week has been pleasantly cool, but it does feel strange to wear sweatshirts and jeans at this point of the summer.  

I've still found plenty of things to share,  and I still feel like my summer wardrobe needs a little work.  Enjoy this week's finds!

1.  Campari Tank

2.  Colette European Linen Stretch High Rise Wide-Leg Pants

3.  Fieldtrip Stripe Top

4.  Pilcro Drawstring Cotton Hoodie

5.  Holly Pinstripe Drawstring Short

6.  Melanie Indigo Skirt

7.  Driftwood Tie-Front High-Rise Wide-Leg Jeans

8.  Kate Mini Dress

9.  Bermuda Short in Bi-Stretch Cotton Blend

10. Royal Ascot 2026

That's it for me this week. What's caught your eye?

Waiting on Wednesday: Miss Wolcott's Ghost

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature where I highlight a soon to be released novel I can't wait to read.

This week's pick: Miss Wolcott's Ghost by Louise Penny

Due out: October 27, 2026

Synopsis taken from Amazon:

“There’s a body in Lost Nation.”

“Where?” demands Armand as he scribbles on the pad by his bed.

But the line goes dead before Chief Inspector Gamache can question the caller.

The head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec has no idea where Lost Nation is, or who woke him in the small hours of the morning at his home in Three Pines. What he does know is that the man was terrified.

And so Armand is thrust out of a deep sleep and into the surrounding forests in search of the mythical Lost Nation. And a body.

When he and his team of Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Isabelle Lacoste find both, the situation only grows more bizarre. The unidentified dead man appears to be from an era more than a century old. He’s lying in a long-abandoned cemetery, on top of a grave with a date, but no name.

Adding to the mystery, the early morning call appears to have come from Gamache’s friend and neighbor, Clara Morrow. While she denies any knowledge of it, it becomes clear there is some connection between her, the Morrow family, and Lost Nation.

Soon, Gamache and his team are faced with tracking down not just the legend of Lost Nation, but a lost ship, lost documents belong to an eccentric Victorian botanist, , and a mysterious plant not seen in a century, that might save, or take, countless lives.

As the murder investigation deepens, nightmarish spectres from the past begin to haunt the Sûreté officers, only heightened by the appearance of one of Gamache’s former and now disgraced proteges, with whom he must form an uneasy alliance.

As the ghosts begin to gather, Gamache, Beauvoir, and Lacoste, with the help of Reine-Marie, Clara, and the other villagers of Three Pines, realize that the body on the grave is far from the only death. To solve the crime and avert catastrophe they must look to rancid secrets and old lies no longer dead and buried.

Friday Five

It was a busy first week of summer break - filled mostly with working at school.  I will take some time off eventually, but I also want to leave things in order.  

We had some big storms on Thursday that brought lots of rain very quickly, but cooler temps are ahead for our seven day forecast.  

I do love hot weather, but I can also appreciate weather that is mild enough that sitting outside and reading is something I can do without sweat dripping off me.  

Here are some things that caught my eye this week:  

1.  Willow Top 

2.  Women's VL Court 3.0 Sneaker

3.  New Balance 327 Sneakers- this item continues to be one I notice since NB keeps producing new colors.  I love the metallic addition to this one.

4.  Coastal Camo Wide Leg Pants

5.  Striped Crochet Mini Dress

6.  Opal Knit Tank

7.  Transit Quilted Carryall Tote

8.  Z Supply Kylo Polo Sweater

9.  Estelle Mesh Top in Lavender

Documentary with Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova

That's it for me this week.  What's caught your eye?

Waiting on Wednesday: Peck and Peck

 

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature where I highlight a soon to be released novel I can't wait to read.

This week's pick: Peck and Peck by Bonnie Garmus

Due out October 27, 2026

Synopsis taken from Amazon:

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry returns with an irresistible, delightful, and tender story about a young man whose life turns upside down when he is hired by the most prestigious, secretive, and dysfunctional poetry journal in the world: the renowned Peck & Peck of New York City.

Batter Gray is worried about his future. Even when he was eleven, his classmates seemed to have settled on a goal: doctor, lawyer, broker, engineer. Good jobs that automatically command respect, security, 401Ks. Now Batter is in his early twenties, living in New York City, and he wants something different; something that alienates some readers and bores most. Poetry. And yet—to him and exactly thirty-nine editors at a company called Peck & Peck—poetry not only represents the power of humanity but holds the key to its survival.

Batter is named after his mother’s heroic dog. An identical twin who lost his brother at birth, he finds himself confronted by the everyday dualities that make up life: right vs. wrong, truth vs. lies, rejection vs. acceptance. It’s almost as if his dead brother is a reminder: there are always two sides to every story.

No, wait. Make that three.

Mini-Reviews: Rom-Com To Kick Off Summer

The end of the school year brings about such busyness that a rom-com is about all I want to read.  These typically keep my attention and are fast and enjoyable.  These four are my latest reads.

 

Phoebe Berman's Losing It by Brooke Averick is an enjoyable story about Phoebe who is approaching her 30th birthday and is still a virgin.  She would love to be in a relationship but anxiety (and an unfortunate experience that included vomiting on a guy) has prevented her from ever getting close to anyone.  There was a development in this one I didn't see coming, but this is a solid rom-com.

Road Trip by Mary Kay Andrews isn't a true rom-com, but when I think of summer reading, MKA books are a staple.  Generally set in the South, this time MKA has placed her story in Ireland as sisters are forced to take a week-long trip together to find the origin of a painting their mother had in her possession.  As they clean out their recently deceased mom's house and realize that both have no money and there is no inheritance, the possibility that this painting could be worth something is one the sisters can't ignore.

Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune is one I haven't quite finished up yet.  It's Frankie's wedding weekend and she's not sure if George, her childhood best friend will even show up to be her best man. But he does, and when the wedding is called off, George suggests that the two of them go on the honeymoon for the week.  I feel like I already know how this will end, but I'm also OK with that.  Carley Fortune is hit or miss for me, so we'll see how this one ends.

Dolly All The Time by Annabel Monaghan is Monaghan at her best.  Dolly has always been the one to take care of things having assumed many responsibilities after her mom left when she was a teenager.  She and her son are coming to stay with her dad for the summer to help out, and runs into Stewart Whitfield a wealthy bachelor who is getting over a bad breakup.  Dolly is in need of a new roof and Stewart is needing a girlfriend for the sake of publicity, so the two strike up an arrangement that benefits them both.  I could see where this was going, but it didn't bother me a bit.  I've read everything Monaghan's written and this is her at her finest.

I am sure I'll find a few more rom-coms this summer to enjoy, and I'm looking forward to more leisure reading.

Friday Five

Friday was the official last day of the school year - but with the changes coming next year and the fact that I had four buildings to clean up, I am not really done.  I will probably go in for shorter times and I won't go in nearly as early, but I want to leave everything cleaned up for the fall.  

For the first summer in quite a few years, there is no summer school being offered, so I am truly off for the summer.  I'm not sure I will like that, but I do have a house that I'd like to go through and purge of clutter.  

And meanwhile, while I'm purging things, I am also finding a lot of clothing that I'd like to purchase.  It never ends.

Enjoy this week's finds!

 

1.  Textured Knit Button-Front Shell Top

2.  Oversized Cotton Twill Popover Shirt

3.  Arizona Big Buckle Raffia

4.  Fiorella Graphic Shorts

5.  Gabby Top

6.  Adidas Originals Taekwondo Mei Ballet

7.  100% Suede Driver Loafer

8.  Pilcro Swing Sweater Tank

9.  Women's Mackie Mary Jane Espadrille Flats

10.  The Royal Wedding of Peter Philips and Harriet Sperling

 That's it for me this week. What's caught your eye?