not necessarily in this order

  The “recent” is probably not accurate in this case; it’s been a bit since my last reading roundup. But, here’s some thoughts from the last few months’ worth of books! Marple: 12 New Mysteries  3.5 ⭐️ When they worked, they worked. I really wanted to like these more than I did. Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple books were formative in my lifelong love of mysteries. I love the idea of 12 women authors putting their spin on Miss Marple as she ages, but it made me miss Christie’s specificity in places. These were written for the twist and I think that’s what let some of them down.  The year of living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country  by Helen Russell  3⭐️ I liked the first half better than the second half… The conceit was so compelling (burnt out writer goes freelance in Denmark and explores what makes Danes so happy), but the execution got bogged down in balancing the memoir aspects with reporting on the reality of Danish life. I’m gla...

One  Lil Momma is having a  better   time   at   school . She finally got a locker last week! It is nice to hear her talk about having lunch with new friends and not coming home wrecked by aggressive kids in her class like last year. She isn’t as excited about this, but I’m happy to see homework and quizzes and all the things that give her the structure she needs get moving.   Two  We were also able to come to a compromise on  her  bedtime   nutties . See, they started because she watched all 3  Annabelle  horror movies with a friend Labor Day weekend (after never having seen anything scary in her whole life – like, she just watched  Jaws  this summer) (I have so many feeling about this but this isn’t the moment for them) and her solution to her very valid nighttime fears were to A. get herself so riled up at night so she wouldn’t fall asleep and B. to then try to sleep with her door open literally every light in her ...

  Thanks to everyone for their kind words about Little Mama’s school start bumps. I kept waiting to write this week thinking things would get resolved, but they just kept going on (and on). They even threatened to randomly select kids from her team to move if they didn’t get enough volunteers (oof). She left her   Elf the musical Jr.   audition convinced she’d never get in because she isn’t one of the competition team kids. All of her dance and musical theater and voice classes started. My work drama is about to come to a head next week. Things just keep happening     Then, this afternoon, my phone blew up with texts because there was a shelter in place at the high school across the street from LM’s middle school. There was a threat of a fight with a weapon; luckily no one was hurt. I’d say nothing happened, but those kids went through that experience and so did their parents and they’ll carry that weight of knowing what could have been , especially after what h...

I expected this week to be frantic, but I didn’t expect it to be so messy. Oof. A quick roundup of what’s been up over here via  middle school  edition of the  Friday   Five .   One: Team / Class Assignment Day In preparation for the school year to begin, we usually receive homeroom/team assignments the middle Friday in August followed by class schedules in the parent app the following week. This is quite the stressful day for Lil Momma; she has never ended up on a team with a friend and it’s always a lot of feelings, made more feelingsful this year because of the move to middle school. The assignments were supposed to  come out at 5pm . My plan was to pick LM up from YMCA camp at 3:45, go get dessert first, and then to navigate the feelings together as the Mr. and I checked each team’s post on social media for friends in her classes (or, as is the way with tweens, frenemies and nemeses, too).   BUT,  PLOT   TWIST : the email came out  a...