My word…April flew by! I can’t believe it’s May already and the end of the school year is just weeks away. Crazy. I’m not sure if I’m ready for summer just yet! Anyway, before we get ahead of ourselves, let me share some of my favorite things from April…
Les Misérables on Masterpiece
I’m pretty eager to like just about any period miniseries, but I have been eagerly anticipating Les Misérables on PBS for a while! I was introduced to the story through the musical when I was 11. It was actually the first CD I ever listened to! Anyway, the story is so beautiful and I have enjoyed the miniseries so far. It’s still playing on PBS and you can also watch it on the Masterpiece channel on Amazon Prime.
New Notebook
I think I have finally found the perfect notebook (and, believe me, I have certainly bought and tried enough of them!) It’s a beautiful leather notebook with elastic holders for notebook inserts. I love that I can customize it to use the paper that suits my notetaking and sketching and that I can refill it with new paper as needed.
I ended up ordering the large size, which perfect to have sitting on my desk, but it’s still small enough to carry with me if I want to. (I have a pocket Moleskine that I carry in my purse, so I don’t really need to carry this larger one.)
It has an elastic band with a little leather detail that keeps the notebook closed…
I filled it with one bulleted pad and one pad of sketch paper. I can keep all of my notes and ideas on the bulleted side and my sketches on the other. (It came with three sketch pads and I ordered the bulleted pads HERE.)
Junk Bonanza
There are times when I miss being an antique dealer and especially selling at the Lucketts Spring Market. Attending Junk Bonanza in April gave me a little taste of it and satisfied that longing (with a lot less work!)
You can read my posts about Junk Bonanza HERE.
Morning Walks
We did have a few snowstorms, but other than that, we’ve had glorious weather for morning walks. The air is still cool and refreshing and it’s been quality time for Sebastian and I (of course, he enjoys them as well!)
I’ve been listening to podcasts to turn my walks into learning time or sometimes I just listen to music with a good beat and think. And sometimes Jeff joins me and we talk about life and the kids and work and the future. I look forward to my walks every day.
Creative Business Chats with Shaunna
My dear friend, Shaunna of Perfectly Imperfectly, and I have been meeting up on Instagram for live chats on Fridays at 11 cst / 12 est to talk about creative business with our followers. It’s been such an energizing and awesome time and we’re looking forward to doing more.
Keep Going
I’m about 3/4 of the way through this book and it’s excellent. It’s a quick and easy read and a great bit of encouragement for creatives.
New Shoes
I’m not a “shoe girl”, but I was bought THESE mustard shoes from Anthropologie with a gift card I had been hoarding and I just love them! I wear a lot of black, navy, and gray, so mustard is the perfect accent color. And, they are pretty comfortable for what they are.
Guest Room Makeover
I’ve already covered this makeover in detail, but I finished it up in April and I love how it turned out. Sometimes, when I’m in the basement, I’ll just stand in the doorway and take it all in. Usually, I feel like photos capture a room pretty well, but I don’t think pictures do it justice.
If you missed it, you can see the reveal HERE.
An American Victory
I love listening to new-to-me musicals and I listened to An American Victory on the way to Junk Bonanza. It’s just a studio album at this point, but I hope it makes it to the stage. The music is beautiful. You can get it on iTunes.
My favorite song is Hold Me Once Again and you can listen to it on the video below…
Your links to anything on Amazon have stopped working for me. All the other links work fine. I realize it’s likely just a setting on my browser, but I thought I would post in case it’s happening to someone besides just me! Love your blog!
Love the music. Just great
Podcasts such as ….??? I’m always up for new ones!
Hi, Marian! We’ve been watching the Game of Thrones final episodes with great pleasure so we’ll have to take in Les Miserables on another service later. Discovered Sam Fender, a young British singer/songwriter through the CBS Saturday morning news program and have been playing his music continually–he’s so good. Highly recommend!
Love the mustard shoes; perfect for Miss Mustardseed! Your blog is my favorite of all.Thank you for sharing your time and talents so willingly!
The mustard shoes are beautiful. This definitely your year for yellow.
Great update! Your new shoes go great in your guest room. And love love love the tall white cabinet!!! And I wish I build it into my kitchen. Have a great week and keep up all the great creativity!
I, too, love that guest room. You certainly know how to pull together a room, with your mom’s help, always wonderful.
I have made a decision to cut down on social media so deleted the instagram application yesterday. I love all the photos, but am tired of focusing on a flashlight size picture. I’m also deleting a lot of random facebook posts, ads, whatever as well as youtube and am unsubscribing some blogs down to just the precious few dozen, like yours.
I prefer quality, not quantity and find so much time sucked out of my life on nonsense. I feel better already. I do understand that you are at a different space and time so instagram is obviously working well for you. I prefer you on the blog. To each her own, right?
“…unsubscribing some blogs down to just the precious few dozen, like yours.” You make me feel positively minimalist Eileen – I only subscribe to 3 lifestyle blogs & this is one of them. 🙂
I didn’t know Prime had a PBS channel, so thanks for that. I love that Sebastian is still being walked/paid attention to. Some people get pets and then…
I adored this compilation! Going to get book
PLease compile at the end of every month. So delish ghtful!
and, you even have a pretty handwriting!
I love the pbs miniseries Les Muserables too!
Good Morning Marian,
Just wanted to tell you about another journal maker ~ IONA Handcrafted Books/Journals.
Here’s their site:
http://www.ionahandcraftedbooks.com
Beautiful journals!
I really enjoy getting your posts and inspiration, keep up the good work!
Susan Moll
Oh my, that song was so beautiful! Reminds me of the musical version of Les Mis. Will have to listen to the whole album now on ITunes. This is a new to me musical as well. Thank you. Cute shoes by the way.