Hi, hi!
I may be late posting, but I’m back and sharing two posts at once! The December post was published simultaneously (woohoo!), so check it out if you have time to kill on this lovely Monday.
I’ve had this drafted since mid-December, and I don’t know why I haven’t shared it yet.
This post won’t be as detailed as the other ones (*exhale* sigh of relief; you don’t have that much to read in this post). It was a busy, busy month. I’m working with a new client and my main work queue has been full, so I haven’t given myself time to breathe!
November 2: I tried and absolutely loved the Cookie Butter Cold Foam for my Cold Brew with Brown Sugar Cookie at Dunkin’. I always place a mobile order so I don’t have to say that mouthful. It is so good! I’m bummed that they haven’t put the cookie crumble on the past few times I’ve ordered it. It doesn’t need any sugar; it’s plenty sweet enough!
November 6: We took Darby on a small walk! He didn’t get to say hi to every dog, but he liked this little loop!
After tiring Darby out, we went to 70 South Antiques, Vintage Finds, & More! I bought the cutest cardigan and purse that I need to take a photo of. You can see the cardigan a little in the photo. It’s super soft. The material looks like it’d be scratchy, but it’s not! Santa wanted to take a photo with us, so we obliged. Stephen said this might be his first photo with Santa! Say whaaa?!
November 7 & 10: Our friends Kylie and Zach had a hectic work week, and they asked me to drop by and let Spud out for these two dates. We had such a fun time! I was super tired from walking around with him after I took Darby on his normal walks, but I wanted to tire Spud out a little.
Also on the 7th, we ordered food from Sakura. I got the pork katsu and Stephen ordered filet mignon. I’ve never had katsu before, and it was delicious!
On the 9th, I went to do work at Boots & Good Coffee Co. They rearranged their dining area, so I chose a new spot. I ordered an iced Snickerdoodle latte again. I didn’t notice it, but my laptop was not charging, so it died within an hour of me being there.
Once Stephen got off work, we went to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings, then went to Best Buy to pick up a PS5 he ordered.
I stuck with eating my Thai Curry wings and Stephen gets Lemon Pepper wings. I was craving onion rings, and they hit the spot. Not pictured: the fries Stephen ordered.
I tried the Iced Sugar Almondmilk Latte. It was good, but nothing special to me.
November 12: There was a corgi meetup at Fair Park Dog Park! Birdy wasn’t there, but Darby was fast friends with Biscuit.
November 13: I visited Alexis in Clarksville! She had to work for a couple of hours but I wanted to get there before the sun started setting. I did work at her place for a bit. Since she has a Dutch Bros. near her, I ordered an iced Golden Eagle.
What’s rad is that I ordered a medium, but a barista messed up someone else’s order and just made this one, so I got a large! What’s a bummer is that it didn’t have a strong coffee flavor. The coffee tasted a little off from the last one I got, not as bold, but it was still good.
For dinner, we ate at Kohana Sushi & Ramen. I can’t believe we didn’t stop by here once while in college! We were seriously missing out. This was Alexis’ first time trying ramen. She wants to try the Japanese curry next time, so I look forward to going there again! The food was amazing.
November 16: Stephen went to Kroger to pick up a few items and surprised me with some sushi and chocolate covered strawberries! I attempted to decorate the strawberries. The chocolate was fluffy and didn’t want to stick to the berries, but it was fun and a sweet gesture!
The next day, the 17th, was our 4th wedding anniversary. I had been wanting to try Fat Tiger for a while, and so we went for our anniversary dinner! The food was delicious. We ordered Loaded Bulgogi Fries, Bibimbap, and Grilled Pork Belly.
The next time we go, I’ll bring my own silverware because mostly everything that was served was in throwaway dishes, and they had plastic silverware to use. Not exactly environmentally friendly, but I did keep the little sauce containers. We had lots of leftovers! Unfortunately, the bibimbap leftover was too spicy for Stephen and he was unable to finish it.
When we got back home, I bought Stephen the bonsai tree Lego set, and Darby tried to help.
November 19: This was a big food week, haha. Stephen and I went out to eat with Kylie and Zach at Ninki. I didn’t take a photo of everyone’s food, just my own.
I will never pass up a salmon skin roll. This one was so good! I really liked the noodles as well. Safe to say, I didn’t have any leftovers. Stephen ordered a bento box.
November 22: The Well Coffeehouse announced new seasonal drinks, and I hurried to try one! My first winter drink was an iced Santa’s Pub. Definitely a good choice. It’s not too sweet, and I’ll definitely be ordering as long as it’s available. I ended up going the next day before we left to order it again!
Another seasonal drink I tried at a later time was an iced Can’t Be Beet. Now, beets and coffee, what an interesting combination!
What a festive color! It was pretty good. I’ll be getting it, but probably not as often as the Santa’s Pub.
November 23: Off to Kingsport for Thanksgiving! I was really bummed and guilty about not visiting last year. Thankfully, the traffic wasn’t bad! Dad was doing well. He was able to be around everyone, and his brother showed up, who we haven’t seen in years. I didn’t get any photos of the food—very disappointed in myself—but it was all delicious!
I played with my nephew, Levi, for a bit. He’s talking more and my name is now “Fi/Phee.”
Here are some photos of my boys in front of the tree, pre-decorated. Aren’t they so adorable and photogenic!?
November 25: Haley and I met my mom and sister at La Carreta. I think I mostly worked this day but managed to squeeze in a lunch outing. Mom and Callie were doing a little shopping. We went to Hibbert-Davis for coffee. She was disappointed in hers, unfortunately. I think it had honey in it. I stuck with my usual from here: iced Caramel Macchiato.
We visited my mamaw and papaw later that night. Stephen started to feel unwell, so he didn’t get to see his parents during this weekend.
November 26: My parents, Callie, Aunt Brenda, and I went downtown to eat at Stir Fry Cafe. I couldn’t resist and ordered the same meal that I ordered the last time I visited: Tofu Curry Basil Noodles and Bakersfield roll. It was even better this time!
Evidently I didn’t take a photo of my sushi roll, but it was the same as last month’s post. Dad and I headed toward Hibbert-Davis for some coffee. There was a man at a stand selling hot sauces and spicy peanuts.
The spicy peanuts were amazing! I add the hot sauce to my noodles and it added the best kick to the flavor! It’s amazing. The guy grows his own peppers and he had so many different sauces! He let me try several of them. I really liked one with pineapple juice.
I ordered us iced Caramel Macchiatos, then Dad and I met up with Mom and Callie in a boutique store. This mural was pretty inside the shop.
Mom, Callie, and I went to Sam’s Club later that day. I finally got some rain boots and some super comfortable leggings that I’ve been wearing underneath my jeans as an extra layer.
November 27: We headed back to Nashville! The drive was pretty good, and thankfully we didn’t have to stop a lot. Darby was an angel and slept in his crate. We went to Scooter’s to get some coffee for the road.
I got an iced Caramelicious. It was good as usual!
November 29: I did some work at Boots and Good Co. for a couple of hours. I ordered an iced Vermont with egg bites. It’s so peaceful here that I could stay for hours!
Books
Well, I didn’t read many books, and the ones I did read were disappointing. I had a lot of work this month, so I tried to focus on that.
- The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon
- themes: enemies to lovers, chick lit
- rating: 2.5
- Originally this was 3 stars, but I’m really feeling meh about it. I think I have realized that I am not a fan of the enemies-to-lovers trope. The MC always just comes off as immature to me because we’re in the midst of her hating the male MC without justification. We’re just taking our word that the guy is arrogant when there isn’t really proof.
- I thought the premise of Dominic and Shay hosting a podcast as exes would be cool, but it left a bad taste while reading it because of the dishonesty. I found it hard to believe that they were acting like true exes.
- Also, Shay was super insecure about Dom being so much younger than her, which didn’t really come up or add to anything. I also couldn’t imagine her voice being as grating and annoying as she claimed it to be. I didn’t really picture her voice as being anything.
- Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang
- themes: Asian literature, identity, racism, coming of age
- rating: DNF
- I really wanted to like this book. This book is written in a prose form. I was incredibly bored by it, and I’m not sure I liked the MC. She seemed cold and closed off.
- I could relate to the racism that the MC experienced, and I liked the questions and realizations she had of wanting to dive deeper into a subject. I read a lot of this book, but I wasn’t enjoying it so I stopped.
- The Most Likely Club by Elyssa Friedland
- themes: chick lit, romance, realistic fiction
- trigger warning: eating disorder, sexual assault
- rating: 2.5
- I expected this book to be something different. The premise sounded nice, but I found it to be problematic. The characters felt super real and relatable, but I didn’t particularly like them or want to root for them as hard. They’re incredibly flawed, but I couldn’t help but dislike them.
- Melissa: She an eating disorder, and I really disliked how the situation was handled. I feel bad for her average weight daughter, Cameron, who thankfully is not caught up in what her mother says or does.
- Suki: If they’re really your best friends, am I crazy to think that you’d at least help them reach their goals?! If I were a billionaire (which is yuck considering they typically reach this status by paying workers poor wages and they are in terrible working conditions), I’d be buying them houses, helping them reach their dreams and goals.
- Also, if her company’s products are from made by sweatshop workers, I hope her company crashes and burns. I was feeling bad for her company getting dragged through the mud, but that’s not okay if that was true.
- Priya: I know she has three kids, but it seemed way too over the top with them all having something going on every single minute. Obviously I’m not a parent, but I felt like her situation was exaggerated with her children. Also, spoiler: the underage relationship between her and the teacher shouldn’t have been covered up.
- Tara: I dislike her situation. I felt bad for her partner Rachel. She seemed sweet, but Tara strung her along for too long.
- Another thing I really disliked is that the feminism elements didn’t work in this. Like, Suki claimed that she was a female boss and entrepreneur and that’s why people were attacking her and employees complained about her. No, she’s treating people like dirt and disregarding their feelings. No wonder she went through assistants. She sounded like a nightmare.
- Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey
- themes: suspense, horror, thriller, paranormal
- rating: 3
- Oh my goodness, the pace is s l o w. Also, it’s incredibly repetitive. I didn’t get into it until chapter 17. I was more interested in Vera’s childhood timeline with her father than the present timeline. It makes sense once you finish this book on why every little detail of the house is mentioned, but I would somewhat skim and disregard some of it because I was wanting to get to the real stuff. It felt like too much fluff. I guess it works once the big reveal has been made and you see why it’s written how it is, but I had to really trudge through a good chunk of the book.
- I’m nosy and wanted to know what the letters to Vera that were written by Francis said. He seemed like a really good dad to her. Bad husband, but loving dad, in a twisted way.
- Oh my goodness, the pace is s l o w. Also, it’s incredibly repetitive. I didn’t get into it until chapter 17. I was more interested in Vera’s childhood timeline with her father than the present timeline. It makes sense once you finish this book on why every little detail of the house is mentioned, but I would somewhat skim and disregard some of it because I was wanting to get to the real stuff. It felt like too much fluff. I guess it works once the big reveal has been made and you see why it’s written how it is, but I had to really trudge through a good chunk of the book.
Orders
November 30: I connected with a succulent seller on Instagram, and the best part is she lives near me, so the plants get here the next day after she ships them! What’s even more awesome is her succulents are a fraction of what other sellers are selling their rare succulents for! How could I pass up the opportunity!?
She shared on her story about a Var. Echeveria Cubic Frost, which is a rare and expensive succie, and I immediately replied to the story! It’s a tiny baby, but it’s perfect. Like I say, the smaller the better! My table is running out of room, but I’m making space for them.
Then, the lady asked if I was interested in a Var. Echeveria Lola. This little baby was too gorgeous to pass up as well! The variegation is perfect, and one that has a lesser chance of reverting.
She added an Echeveria Winter Flower as a gift! So pretty.
This was an exciting way to end the month! I never thought I’d be able to get either of these variegated succies since other sellers sell them for high hundreds. They’re my dreams coming true!
That’s All for November!
This post was super late, but I’m all caught up now. I hope you’re enjoying this lovely holiday season, and stay warm! Here’s the December post if you’re wanting to catch up!
