Currently

Hi! It's been a little while! I thought I would pick back up with a post about what I've been up to lately. Which hasn't been much to be honest. The blogging break was definitely unintentional, I just haven't been doing very much lately!

Working On - Editing some pictures. My mom and I took a quick trip to Asheville, NC, last month to do some hiking and I have some pictures I need to finish sorting and editing. 

I'm also working on figuring out my Thanksgiving grocery list. Since Thanksgiving food is not something I make on the regular, it always takes a bit of time to go through recipes and see what I have and what I need. We bought a couple of turkey breasts to cook this year instead of a whole turkey. They're easier and no one in my family likes dark meat anyways, so it just made more sense to cook those.

Needing - To finish figuring out my Christmas presents for my family. I've purchased a couple of things and have a few ideas for other family members, but now I need to come up with something different for my sister because she purchased the item I had already bought for her. 

Reading - I just finished reading When We Were Young and Brave by Hazel Gaynor. I really enjoyed it. It was very well written so I could easily imagine what was going on and how things looked. It had great characters, and the plot was really interesting. It did have some sad moments in it, but I enjoyed how they always tried to find the light in such a dark and tragic situation. 

Buying - Joggers. I've needed some new ones for a while and I got these ones from Target and then I just bought these ones from American Eagle. It has finally just gotten slightly cool enough to wear them so I'm happy about that!

Watching - We've been watching The Amazing Race, Shark Tank, Dateline, The Voice and some random ID Channel shows. On Netflix we've been watching The Great British Baking Show each week. And we finished Volume 2 of Unsolved Mysteries which was really good! Also, my sister and I are watching the second season of The Mandalorian on Disney+.

Trying - To find some new t-shirts! Why is it so hard to find a basic t-shirt? I like something with a curved hem and either a crew neck or scoop neck. I hate that they're either tight and clingy or large and boxy! I want something that is soft, loose, but fitted (if that makes sense. Not tight but not boxy either.), comes in lots of colors (most are just either black or white.) and aren't over $20 a piece. That doesn't seem like asking for much but apparently it is. I shouldn't have to spend over $20 for just a simple t-shirt. Anyways. Sorry for the t-shirt rant! ;)

What have you been up to lately?

Lavender Farm Visit

Back in June my mom and I visited a local lavender farm. To prevent overcrowding, you had to reserve a time slot online. We weren't quite sure what to expect from this farm as we had never visited before, but since my mom loves lavender, we thought it would be a fun thing to do considering how long we've been stuck in the house!

After arriving and checking in, we were a little put off by how expensive it was to pick lavender. It was $8 for a single 1-inch key ring size bunch. (Compared to the lavender farm we went to in Idaho where it was $5 for huge bundles.)

The field seemed pretty picked over, but my mom was able to pick 2 bunches while I managed to take quite a few pictures. There were so many bumble bees as well as butterflies and moths flying around it made for some nice pictures.

Have you ever visited a lavender farm?

Five for Friday

Hello and welcome to my Five for Friday! Today I am linking up with Andrea!

1. I always enjoy flowers from Trader Joe's and this was my latest bouquet. There is just something so nice about having a bouquet of flowers around!

2. Hurricane Isaias came through last week and we lost power for about 30 hours which was frustrating! There were a lot of trees down and I believe there were 300,000 people in Virginia without power.

Obviously losing power isn't such a big deal, it's just the not having A/C that's hard! And also the thought of losing everything in the fridge and freezer. We ended up being fine, but we were really pushing it with the freezer. If we'd gone any longer without power we probably would have lost everything.

3. I made macarons a couple of weeks ago and they turned out really good! I used a different recipe and they were much better than the ones I had made in the past. I did a cookie dough filling in some of them and funfetti for the others!

4. If you're using Blogger, what do you think of the new design? I hate it when sites suddenly change things, so it's going to take me a very long time to get used to it. For the most part it's not too different, but there are quite a few things that are really annoying me. 

5. In case you missed it, on Monday I shared my July Photo A Day Pictures, and then on Wednesday I shared a review of the book Everywhere to Hide by Siri Mitchell!

Hope you have a great weekend!