Currently: May 2024
How is May over? Graduations wrapped up this past weekend. The end of this school year is drawing to a close. The FAFSA is still broken. I can’t even believe it. We spent the holiday weekend in London, which is a throwback to the Memorial Days before I met Tom. We returned home to a broken AC, no internet, some terrible family news, and some pretty awful weather. The weather, however, in London was glorious.
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Reading:
The Seamstress of Auschwitz
The Seamstress of Auschwitz is hauntingly sad and beautifully written. McAdam traces one family’s journey from their home, through numerous concentration camps, and life after liberation. The family arc starts as a funnel and you connect with all of them, making the story that much more powerful. As time goes on and things change, you feel the emotions that Sara wrestles with that much deeper. I found the vivid imagery difficult to digest at times, and it is used as illustrative versus shock factor. It’s easy to place yourself in the transport cars, in the workshops, in the latrines, and in the characters’ shoes. The writing is masterful; the story is slow, just as slow as the days must have passed for Sara. The author does an incredible job of capturing the the fear, the angst, the desperation, the sadness, and the resolve of the characters of the book.
Note: I received an advanced reader copy of The Seamstress of Auschwitz through Net Galley. All opinions are my own.
Wearing:
Trish McEvoy Make-Up Planner
Okay, I know I’ve talked about the Trish McEvoy makeup planners a lot… but they really are that good. I recently bought the Mother’s Day makeup planner from Amazon, and I was a bit skeptical but it was a GREAT buy. The first time I ordered it, it was not well packed and several items were broken. I sent it back, waited a week, and decided to order a replacement. It’s the perfect pink look for spring and summer.
Most of my Trish planners have been the medium size, but this one is large, so I likely will be taking it on our travels this summer because it will fit everything I need. I love the medium planner for shorter trips though.
Hill House Summer Dress Season
The heat and the humidity have been sweltering this month. Cue the Hill House Nap Dress Summer. I got super into the Ellie nap dresses in 2020 and 2021. I wanted to find a light cotton dress or two for summer in France, and the Daphne dress seemed to fit the bill. They seem to be better made with more structure. It looks elevated and super comfortable. I’m looking forwarding to mixing these with my Three Graces London Ada dress and the Lilly Pulitzer Jenette dress I bought last summer.
Travel Planning:
Our summer in France is on the horizon. I made a lot of progress on it a couple weeks ago, and I still have about 10 days left to plan. We will arrive and depart from Paris, but given the Olympics, we won’t be spending much time there. We’ve spent some time in some of the places we are going, but my goal is to ensure we do new things in each destination. That includes new tours, new restaurants, and new experiences.
I am presently most excited about visiting Carcassonne and spending a few nights in Annecy. Tom is most excited about spending a few nights in Burgundy and Beaune.
Photo Editing:
I feel like I did well on a bit of blogging this month. I finished up my post on 3 days in London. I finally put together my guide for Montefalco, one of my favorite hill towns in Umbria. In late April, I also finished a post on where to stay in Umbria and why.
I published our entire Normandy itinerary from last summer… just in time for us to head to Mont St Michel again in a couple of weeks. We are staying in the same vacation rental in Mont St Michel as last summer and are hoping to do some additional tours.
I wrote about my second summer at the Ritz Paris Ecole and all the things I learned to make at pastry school. And, true to form, I felt slightly nostalgic for the fact that I won’t be doing that again this summer.
We stayed in the Bottega Veneta suite at the St. Regis Florence on our last trip, so I updated that post as well.
I updated my post on the Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco with details from our most recent stay. Why is that hotel so amazing and why can’t I just live there? Forget Eloise at the Plaza. It’s Sara at the Rosewood.
