FAVORITE THINGS: JANUARY

 

Oh, January. You start out so darn hopeful. Ideas of clean closets, organized workspaces, new healthy recipes, running on a regular basis again: all glitter before me, with a will and hope and starry eyes. But in the end, you always just have me pining away for summer days and wanting to eat carbs.

 

(And I don't even want to talk about the snow. Someone hold my earrings, because I hate snow and am about to beat it down. Everywhere I go, my refrain is, "I'm from CALIFORNIA." Which translates to "I am grouchy and I don't understand how to function in a bulky coat and for the love of God can someone explain to me why it is SO HARD to put mittens on a preschooler!? I'm sorry/not sorry.")

 

Anyway.

 

These are my favorite things from January:

1. We've eaten the Pioneer Woman's Pot Roast a bunch of times this month, and it is hand's down the husband's most favorite meal ever. It is so perfect for a cold night!//2. On my birthday, we went to MOMA (amazing, wonderful) and I picked up a Moleskin Classic Lined Notebook in the gift shop, something I've treated myself to the last couple years. I do list journaling, and this is the perfect notebook for it.//3. Dylan started taking guitar lessons. I feel that his practice book is really adding to the décor of my home. I LOVE the graphic on this book.//4. I read Kate Morton's The Secret Keeper. I've managed to read a lot of not so great fiction lately, and this book made up for it. Great story! //

5. Downton Abbey is back and that mean's reading Tom and Lorenzo's take on it every Monday. Highlight of the week. If you watch Downton (if you don't, I'm not sure we can be friends), you need to read these recaps.//6. Meghan Trainor's Title Album is fabulous.//7. Neal bought me Burberry Brit (the eau de toilette, which I love because it's a bit lighter then the perfume) and the smell is incredible.  

 

Favorites Around the Net:

Instagram: @womenirl HILARIOUS.

Pinterest: New York and Paris Board 

Blog: Teaching Sam & Scout

 

 

READING LIST: CALL THE MIDWIFE

 

 

Have you heard of Call the Midwife? It's a television show on PBS about midwives in postwar London in the East End. It's a fascinating show with a great cast. It is inspired by the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, which are even more fascinating then the television show.

 

Jennifer Worth (formally Lee) was a nurse and midwife in the 1950's who went to work in London's East End after the war with a small Anglican nunnery. She herself was not part of the religious order, but worked and lived at the convent with both the nuns and other young nurse/midwives like herself. There she recorded not just the work she was doing on a day to day basis, but the history of midwifery, medical care, and the people of the East End in England.

 

This trilogy is honest and beautifully written, and shows not only the great work these women were doing but the hardships that the people were facing. It is detailed and unsentimental (the television show can get a bit sentimental), and shows the deep honor these women took in providing the medical care that people so desperately needed.

 

From the dark alleys of prostitution, to the notorious work houses, to the family that gladly anticipates their 25th child, these books are simply wonderful.