✥ I like to tuck bars of bougie chocolate into various places in the pantry so that we can be surprised by it when we need it most. I recently replenished our stash of secret chocolate with some offerings from Bar & Cocoa: Wild Gorse Flower, Pho Spice, Dates & Fennel!
✥ Sometimes we have meals with lots of little sides and toppings and pickles and such. I have tons of little bowls, but I needed a few more plates. I thought these rabbit and cat plates were perfect.
✥ Recently, I unearthed a fancy incense I treated myself to a few years back and totally forgot I had. Coupled with this lovely new incense burner dish, it's become part of my workspace ritual, a small atmospheric upgrade that makes sitting down to write feel like ceremony.
✥ I had no idea you could buy regular old lids for mason jars! I have lots of these jars, but do exactly zero amount of canning, so this is really great.
✥ I am still experiencing redness issues from time to time, and this Erborian CC Red Correct cream is really fantastic. It goes on so smooth and nice and melts right onto the skin and most of the time I can't tell if these color correctors even work, but I am like 85%(?) certain this one is actually doing something.
✥ I read a lot. A LOT. I think I could be reading a little less, to tell you the truth. I am beginning some other crafty endeavors and I wanted to do them on the sofa in the evening, while Yvan is out there too, doing whatever he is doing (usually watching woodworking or someone painting Warhammer figurines, hehehe.) Anyway, this little lap desk is really cool for these endeavors! (Thanks for the heads up, Tesha!)
✥ This may well be the most frivolous thing I have ever admitted. But I have become obsessed withthese claw clips.
✥ I'd love to say I am listening to something exceptionally hip and cool right now, but for the last three weeks it has literally been 24/7 Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas.But I mean…who is cooler than Vince Guaraldi, really? ✥ Two books with similar themes that I unwittingly read back-to-back.
Nothing Tastes As Good by Luke Dumas A clinical trial for a very experimental weight loss product promises miraculous results, and retail worker Emmett Truesdale, over 300 pounds and desperate for change, enrolls only to discover the side effects include lost time, overwhelming (and alarming) cravings…and a possible connection to people who were cruel to him now disappearing. You could tell this was written by an actual fat person who has experienced actual fat person struggles, from the way society treats Emmett to the constant bullying to the self-loathing, all of it felt authentic in ways that made parts of this horribly relatable, even when other parts were gross and cringe. Emmett’s childhood trauma around his weight happened in his own home, where he should have been safe and protected, which adds another layer of devastating realism to his character. The social commentary on fatphobia and diet culture isn’t subtle, but I appreciated the inclusion and found myself caring about Emmett despite knowing things weren’t going to end well for him. The ending went a bit over the top, but this worked for me more than it didn’t. Publishing March 31, 2026
The Lamb by Lucy Rose A mother and daughter live isolated in a cottage by the forest, their quiet life interrupted only by strangers who knock at their door seeking shelter, strangers they consume after feeding and caring for them. When Eden arrives during a snowstorm, everything rapidly shifts in ways both tender and terrible. Mama becomes utterly besotted with Eden in a way she never was with Margot, desperately in love, while what she’d given her daughter had always been something fraught with resentment and possession rather than genuine affection. Eden seems to care for Margot while also returning Mama’s passion, leaving Margot nowhere to belong, and whether Eden’s arrival was accident or design is never quite resolved (though in a story this dreamlike and fairytale-esque, do we even question where new entities come from?). This was weirdly beautiful and terribly, monstrously sad, told entirely through Margot’s childlike perspective.
✥ A perfume I loved this month: Aysha Hansen Ghost Lover. The sleazy, dangerous-divine charm of an Anne Rice mummy. Bandages steeped in sullen honey, infused with bitter, bracing cardamom and burnished amber incense, the aromatic pique of peppercorns tucked in various orifices and cavities for an afterlife eternity. Smoky, intimate burial, earthly fortune pressed to pulse points, swaddling of intimate opulence for eventual resurrection, rapture, and ruin. The transcendent high of choosing violence, (inviting carnage / welcoming chaos / accepting inevitable devastation / choose your own adventure here) and yet… you would not kick it out of bed for eating crackers. Which is a phrase I thought of because this smells a little biscuity, too.
Some things I have been writing about on my Unquiet Things blog…
