Currently

Working on - Editing some pictures. I got caught up on my pictures and then we went to a botanical garden last Friday so I need to go through those and get them edited and ready to post.

Watching - Since it's summer there isn't a lot on right now, but we have been watching America's Got Talent and, as always, Dateline. I've also been watching through Stranger Things again in anticipation for season 3 coming out next month!

Eating - Lots of berries lately! I've been getting quite a few strawberries and some blueberries at the store lately and they've been so good! Blueberries have been a bit hit and miss unfortunately, but the strawberries sure have been good!

Making - I made some of my soft maple & brown sugar granola and some cookies yesterday. Gluten free peanut butter cookies with M&M's for my sister and a few chocolate chip cookies for myself. 

Needing - To get caught up on my June Photo A Day challenge. I'm a few days behind and need to figure out what to do about several prompts.

Buying - Summer clothes. I've purchased this dress and this skirt from H&M. H&M has had so many great clothes lately! I'd been eyeing both the dress and the skirt for a while now, and they kept selling out online and neither of the stores in my area had them in my size, so I was happy to be able to snag them both!

Reading - I finished Second Chance Summer a little while back and it was actually pretty good. I don't typically read many YA books anymore, but I had seen it recommended and decided to give it a try. The ending is really sad (you know it's coming but it still gets you!) so be warned that it's not a light summer fun read. It has moments of that, but there is a sad ending! 

But besides that I haven't really read anything too interesting.

What have you been up to lately?

Five for Friday

Hello and welcome to my Five for Friday! I am Linking up with Bright on a Budget, Della Devoted, BYBMG and Andrea!

1. Last Friday my mom, sister, and I drove down to Raleigh to spend the weekend. We had never been to Raleigh itself (just Chapel Hill earlier this year for my dad's surgeries.) so we thought it would be fun! 

On Saturday we went downtown and since it wasn't raining yet, we walked over to the capitol building before checking out the Natural Sciences Museum.

2. Next on our agenda was the NC Museum of Art. We generally aren't really into art museums (too much weird stuff haha!), but this one had a lot of different things so it sounded interesting. We did enjoy it because they had a wide variety of art so there was something for everyone to enjoy.

One interesting piece the museum had was this infinity room. It was actually a large box you look inside of, but it looks much bigger when looking inside! I've seen pictures of these rooms on Instagram and Pinterest (and the lady working at the museum said they are one of the most Instagramed art pieces in the world.) I have a video under my highlights on my Instagram if you are interested in seeing it in action!

3. My sister is one of those people who is always joking about something or thinking of something funny. She's always looking at memes, so of course, if we were at an art museum she was going to be finding the weirdest/funniest pictures she could and adding captions to them; so here a few she came up with!

4. A couple other good places to mention was we ate at Chubby's Tacos for lunch which was really good! My sister found it online (and honestly I think she wanted to go there just because she thought the name was funny) and  it is very much a hole-in-the-wall type of place but has really good food. 

We did a bit of shopping at Crabtree Mall (they had a Lindt chocolate store as well as a Lego store.) and on Sunday we were surprised with good weather so we went to the JC Raulston Arboretum!

It was supposed to be rainy all weekend so I didn't think we would have a chance to do any outdoor stuff, so I was glad we were able to go to the arboretum! I took a ton of pictures there and will be sharing them next week!

5. In case you missed it, on Monday I shared a review of the book Living Lies by Natalie Walters, and on Wednesday I shared some pictures of when we toured the US Capitol building!

Hope you have a great weekend!

US Capitol Tour

A couple of weeks ago we were in DC and decided to go on a tour of the US Capitol. The tour is free and we were able to just walk right in and get tickets. It is recommended that you reserve tickets in advance, but you can just walk in and get them too; although you will probably have to wait if you are visiting during the summer.

We enjoyed the tour and thought it was interesting to see the inside of the Capitol since we've seen the outside of it so many times! 

The tour lasted around 45 minutes, which, according to our tour guide, is longer than it typically lasts.

I didn't have my camera with me, so all of the pictures below were taken with my phone. So while the quality isn't quite as good as it would have been with my camera, you still can see what it was like!

If you are interested in going on a tour of the US Capitol yourself, you can find more information here.

Have you ever toured somewhere interesting?

Living Lies by Natalie Walters Book Review

Living Lies by Natalie Walters
From back cover:
In the little town of Walton, Georgia, everybody knows your name - but no one knows your secret.

At least that's what Lane Kent is counting on when she returns to her hometown with her five-year-old son. Dangerously depressed after the death of her husband, Lane is looking for hope. What she finds instead is a dead body.

Lane must work with Walton's newest deputy, Charlie Lynch, to uncover the truth behind the murder. But when that truth hits too close to home, she'll have to decide if saving the life of another is worth the cost of revealing her darkest secret.


I thought the beginning of the book started out strong but then about a third of the way in the plot got a bit confusing. And not really in a good, mysterious kind of way. I don't think complex would be the right word, but it was a bit difficult to follow along with and didn't seem to make sense at times. I guess it seemed more like the story pieces were being forced together instead of naturally falling into place.

I appreciated the fact the author took the time to write a character with depression since it's not commonly talked about in Christian circles. And while I wanted to connect with Lane because of that (and at times I did, I'm not downplaying it totally.) she was just hard to like or connect with.

Lane's depression just came across as her only trait. It's all we really know about her. She has a son, but it's almost an afterthought to her as a person. Noah is just there but doesn't really add anything to her or the story. Depression isn't all-consuming. You have good days and bad ones but people with depression still have a personality. There is more to a person than just a label or a stigma. And I just didn't get that from Lane.

Yes, I know that her situation is not going to make her come across as a super outgoing type of person. Trust me. I get that as I am an introvert myself and I know I don't come across as bubbly and outgoing. But I could have done with some internal dialogue or something from her.

I did like Charlie though. He was a better character and I found him to be much more likable than Lane. He was just a very smart, kind, and compassionate person. I thought him, as well as Sheriff Huggins, kind of carried the story. Charlie and the Sheriff were definitely my favorite characters of this book.

I guess I just felt like the author was trying to tackle so many different topics and issues that it ended up being hard to keep up with. I got to the end of the book and was kind of like, Huh. Okay then. Instead of that sense of satisfaction you get at the end of a great book. Maybe like when you finish a TV series that ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, but then you find out the series was cancelled so then it's just weird. (I'm looking at you Whiskey Cavalier. You can't just have a main character kidnapped and then end the series. But I digress.)

I hope this review doesn't come across like I didn't like the book or hated the characters or anything because that's not the case. I thought the book was very well written. I could picture the town and the setting, and with a few tweaks the plot would have been a lot easier to follow. But the characters were just lacking for me. 
I will say that I think the author has a lot of promise and I will look forward to her next book!

I received a complementary copy of this book from Revell. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.