What I Read in 2025

I made a point of keeping track of the books I read this year and I was pretty happy with my progress.  I've gotten lots of recommendations from you guys as well as some from my sister, book club picks and some from BookTok...so keep 'em coming!

The New Couple in 5B

A Merry Little Meet Cute 

The Women

The Anxious Generation

Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice

The Mirror

The Wedding People

Just For Summer 3 of 3 

Guncle

Nettle & Bone

Sunrise On The Reaping

Lady Tan’s Circle of Women

Goddess of Warsaw

Margot Has Money Problems 

Part of your world 1 of 3

First Lie Wins

Frozen River 

All fours 

The Lost Bookshop

City of Ghosts

Actress of a Certain Age

Shopgirls

In The Likely Event (did not like this one)

Book Lovers

Yours Truly  2 of 3

The Correspondent 

Atmosphere 

That’s Not My Name

What are you reading now?

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{Travel} Christmas In Philly & Historic Smithville, NJ

 We took our annual trip into Philly to enjoy the Christmas festivities. 

I had layers under my clothes because it was going to be a cold one!

We decided to stay overnight and had this view from our room.  (City Hall)

Our first stop was the Comcast Center where we met up with my sister and brother in law for a ride in the Universal Sphere.  It's a cute Shrek holiday themed ride (kind of like Soarin' in Disney).  We even saw Santa walking by and Mr. Click got a high five.

Looking down in the Comcast Center.

We were early for our next reservation and did some walking around the Christmas markets where some of the vendors were opening.

After that we headed over to the Wanamaker Building for their annual light show. It could be the last year for it so I'm glad we got to see it.

We had reservations for the Dickens Village too. This was new, though!

The Dickens Village is a walk through exhibit and story of A Christmas Carol. It's a bit creepy but we love it!

Here's a video I found of it to give you a better idea.

The building has been sold and is vacant, it's so weird seeing it like this.

We did more sightseeing and snapped this pic in front of a very festive bar.

I got some hot chocolate on the way back to the hotel.

Later that night we met up at The Four Seasons. The lobby looked so stunning. I loved these huge inflatable ornaments. 

We had a drink up in the Sky Bar. My espresso martini had gold flakes on it. Fancy!  We had dinner in town and went back to our hotel.

The view was so magical at night!

I love a hotel room coffee with a view.

We weren't ready to go home so we bundled up again and checked out of our hotel.

We took a slight detour to Historic Smithville

It's a cute little village with shops, kiddie rides and restaurants.  It was also decorated very festively. 

I did some damage in the stores before we headed home.  My favorite was Feather Your Nest.

It was a fun weekend!

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{Thrifting} December Thrifts

 I had a fun month of thrifting in December and found quite a few treasures!

At my favorite consignment shop I scored this haul of goodies. The Madewell bag is my favorite find. I had been looking for a sling bag and couldn't believe my luck!  I also got a brand new pair of cozy gloves, a cute sweater and a Maeve floral turtleneck.

I immediately swapped out my purse for the new bag.

The sweater has some cute shoulder stitching and details.

This is definitely an elevated turtleneck.

Turtleneck and bag combo!

I was heading off to walk to the post office when I snapped this shot of the gloves. They don't have tech touch so I had to take one off to get the photo. They are nice and thick and perfect for my walks.

I planned to have dirty martinis for Christmas Eve but I didn't have any martini glasses so I set out to find some and looked at a few different stores.   These pretty etched glasses came home with me and we used them for martinis and whiskey sours on Christmas Eve and mimosas on Christmas morning. 

I also found this little silver spoon and fork. I like using them for our charcuterie boards and dips. After a little elbow grease and polish, they looked so good.

I think I found this last month but forgot to add it in that post. This painting was so sweet and I love that the lantern and window candles light up. It has a battery pack on the back.  It surprises everyone who notices it.

I realized recently that I didn't have any dressy pants (now called trousers) so I was on the lookout for a pair.  I found this black pair of Halogen trousers which were exactly what I was looking for.  (Spot The Willow)

I had to try on quite a few pairs and brands in a few different sizes to find the right ones.

I also found this pair of Christian Soriano navy trousers. So I'm set!

This was a total shocker to find a few days before Christmas (and all 50%off too!).  The pillow covers have such charming winter scenes on them and the book was a great find.  I plan on using the book as a decor item but I also love the photographs from the movie.

After I washed the pillow covers, I put them right out on my sofa to enjoy for the rest of the season.

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