{ Around here - a look at this past weekend }

There's nothing I enjoy more, than having my husband home with me all day, so when we are graced with a long weekend, we enjoy it to the fullest.  For some people that will mean going out to eat, finding something fun to do outside the house, and so on.   We have done that but mostly, for us, it means staying in, snacking all day long, watching movies, catching up on favorite shows, doing woodwork, pottering around the house, gardening or working on house projects.

I snapped a few photos as I went about my day, or rather days, and I'll share those below, so if you're interested in seeing what we got up to, grab a cup of coffee or tea and check out the photos below.



Waking up to foggy mornings, dark, dreary and cold weather. 





On days like these, I stay in comfy clothes and slippers, all day long.  Truth be told, if I am home I am in my slippers, just love them, maybe I have a slight obsession with slippers of all kind and colors.  I think at the moment I have 4 or 5 pairs, all gifted by my family for Christmas and birthdays etc.  They know I'm a pajamas and slippers kinda gal.  Can never have enough.



Stormy days are spent snuggled in bed, under the warmest and softest of blankets.  Marley has very easily fallen into that routine and we often go looking for him, only to find him on the bed, often times, he has burrowed himself under the blanket until it covers him and then just slips his head out the other side.  Hahaha 

He makes me laugh.



Most of the days, while hubby played computer games with Nicholas, or watched his tv shows or movies, and while the kids did their own thing, I surrounded myself with books of all kinds.  I would absolutely love to have a full library in my house, I think it would make me super happy.

Above you can see my favorite books, and I've mentioned them before.  I first read These is My Words, back in 2011.  I knew from that moment that this was it, this was my favorite book and as much as I may love some others, they would not come near this one for me.

AND I just found out that Nancy E. Turner's new novel is out, and it follows the story of Sarah Prine's niece.  It is called Light Change Everything, I've already added it to my cart and will grab it on Friday.  Can.not.wait.  I swear anytime Nancy E. Turner brings out a book, it's like Christmas to me.





Spent a good deal of time reorganizing my bookshelves.  I couldn't decided whether I wanted to do it by color {like I have before and thought looked really cute}, or alphabetically or by author etc.

I decided to go by alphabetical order and as I did so, I got rid of books I no longer wanted to keep.  I had quite a big pile going on.

Much as it seems that a job like this is quick, it turned out that it was actually quite time consuming, which meant a lot of breaks for normal household chores, meal cooking and dish washing.





I'm still washing dishes by hand, and funny enough I've gotten down to a rhythm, where I don't even take notice any longer.  I get in the kitchen, wash all the dishes, and move on to the next task at hand.





There were also breaks for hot cups of tea while the wind blew outside and screamed through the fireplace.  It's such a weird sound isn't it?  It's like waves of screams coming through the fireplace while the wind howls outdoors, but weird as it sounds there is something calming about it too.



Back to washing some dishes that were used for bread making, and then I step away and let nature help me out by drying them for me.



The pile of books that I no longer want and would like to pass on.   I wasn't quite sure what to do with them all, and then I remembered Paperbackswap.  If you've never heard of it, it is a website I first started using many and I mean many, years ago, like 2006.  You can read some of my posts talking about the website, here:

Grrrrrr
A day of books
Crocheting the Day away

I'm not going to link all the posts, or we will be here all day long, but if you just search paperbackswap here on my blog, you will no doubt find a lot of posts. 

If you're just curious, it is a website where you post the books you have available to give away.  If someone requests one of your books, you mail it off and once the person receives it, you get a credit.  Each credit is worth another book, so then you use those credits to get yourself a book you want, and trust me they have a huge selection of books available.

I think it's a great way to get rid of your books by essentially trading them for new ones you have been wanting.  You can also add certain conditions to the books you order from other people, such as no smoking house, or a house with no pets, or no marks or no this or that etc. 




These are all my books posted on Paperbackswap at the moment, well these WERE the books posted, because as I was in the middle of posting these, requests started coming in, and I've already mailed off 5 books that were requested.  That means, when the people that I've sent them to, receive them, they mark them as received on the website and I get 5 credits {which means 5 books}. 

I already have a wish list and a reminder list on the website that will make it easier for me to get my new books in.

How exciting is that?



As always, there is always and I mean, always, laundry to be done.  Many weekend and weekday afternoons, are spent with a pile of clean laundry on the bed, folding and putting away while I watch something on the tv.



The weather also permitted us to have our first barbecue of the year.  Nothing major, nothing big, not even a side dish to go with it, but we had some burgers from the butcher shop that we wanted to try, so popped those on the grill.  Oh my word, does anyone else get extremely happy with the smell of a barbecue grill on a Saturday afternoon?

I can hardly wait for Summer.



And from summer vibes and barbecue burgers, to a foggy, cold and 30 degree weather the next day.  Insane. 

I would say it's a Texas thing, but who am I kidding, most of my friends, family and readers are in other states and everyone is complaining of the same thing.  Actually, my family in South Africa have been complaining of the same uncertain crazy weather.  I shudder to think what this all means globally, but it's best not to even go there.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed a look into my weekend and what we got up to.  A whole bunch of nothing in particular, but a whole lot of plain ol' living, and that is fine with me, it is what I enjoy the most.

Lazy weekend in with my loved ones, no rush, no commitments, no needing to be up at a certain time or in bed by another.  Just going with the flow.

How did you spend your long weekend?

Oh and before I leave, I wanted to ask you all if you had anything you wanted me to do a post on, anything specific you would like to see around here.  Leave your suggestions down below.  I do have my usual posts and ideas but I also like hearing from you, after all, you're the ones reading the blog and if there's something you would like to know more about from me, feel free to ask.

On that note, I am signing off, going to toss some laundry around and then try and get some more reading done on my next review book.