5 Favorite Things (Right Now)

Hey all! Hope you had a lovely holiday weekend! Mine was social every day except the 4th - Daisy the dog got sick again on the 4th, and we didn't want to leave her all alone. She got better, though - we think she ate something she wasn't supposed to when we weren't looking or something.

ANYWAY.

I've been doing the 5 Random Things, and it's fun; if I can come up with a decent theme, it's a fun writing-based "blog filler", plus I usually get to talk about myself! (Super fun for me!)

I've also been enjoying blogs I follow and their own variations on "Friday Favorites" or a weekly links compilation. These are some of my favorite posts, to be honest, because I find even more stuff on the internets to waste time explore!

So I'm thinking I'd like to combine the two, and post my 5 Favorite Things, either random melange of objects, or themed items. Could be books, link, food, etc. WHATEVA, it's my 5 favorite things (right now)!

• Relish: My Life in the Kitchen* (physical copy) or Relish: My Life in the Kitchen* (Kindle!) - This is a graphic novel/memoir/recipe collection/foodie fangirling book by the wonderful Lucy Knisley. It's a food-based autobiography - Knisley shares poignant memories that revolve around food, and her drawings and love of food makes it so you can practically taste the food. Bonus: In the case of some food, you can! Once you make it yourself based on her included illustrated recipes, that is. ;D If you'd like a feel for her writing/drawing style, you can read the first chapter here.
  

  

  It's a book best read with food ;D

  
  

  
  

• A Beautiful Mess App - I adore the lifestyle blog A Beautiful Mess; they've created their own unique look that makes the blog enjoyable from a visual standpoint as well as content standpoint. What they achieved on their photos with Photoshop, they've now made available to anyone with an iPhone! (Android app is coming ASAP) I've been playing with it on my phone, and I loooooove it so far. Totally worth the whole $0.99 I paid - they have even more packages available for purchase (filters, "doodles", font styles, etc.), but the basics that come with so far have proven to be PA-LENTY. (You can see an example of the app's abilities above - the title image for this post was made with the app!)
•  Gone Girl: A Novel* (physical copy) by Gillian Flynn - GURL. This novel is BONKERS, in like the BEST WAY EVER. In part 2, and the twist was a TUH-WIST. I'd heard previously that there's a major twist, and I totally thought I'd figured it out; turns out I had really early in the book, dismissed it as illogical, then assumed I'd guessed the "real" twist - and go fig, my initial instinct was right! My ego didn't care, though, because OMG THIS BOOK, Y'ALL. OH. MUH. GAWD! I stayed up until 2am finishing it Thursday night because it just got so good and I had to find out how it ended! WORTH THE LOST SLEEP. I can't believe the ending, man oh man oh MAN. Such a good book!
• Raw white cheddar from Spring Hill Jersey Cheese. This has been my snacking cheese - I just cut a chunk and NOM NOM NOM NOM, along with some cheddar-onion pistachios and some fruit, all bought at my local farmer's market. That's right, I'm spoiled enough to buy this cheese right down the street at my local market. But hey, apparently they sell it online! We've also had the pesto jack, garlic jack, and sage cheddar - they're all so creamy and flavorful! YUM. They also made a smoked jack that we used in mac & cheese that was the perfect amount of smokiness. 
• "This Is the End" - I saw three different movies last week: A free preview of "The Lone Ranger", "Monsters University", and "This Is the End". "Lone Ranger" was meh (If you need an excuse to get out of the heat, you could do worse - it was definitely worth the price ;D); "Monsters University" was cute but not as great as its predecessor. I wasn't expecting "This Is the End" to be that great, but it had great reviews and I do generally enjoy the cast. I'm actually glad I went in with low expectations, because I enjoyed the movie that much more! It's very funny, and also a leetle bit scary in parts! (It DOES take place during Armageddon, after all.) I literally jumped and clung to The Hubs at one part, it scared me so bad! (I'm also a big fraidy cat, though.) I can't describe my favorite scene, unfortunately, because it's so much better to be seen without knowing. It's towards the end. I laughed a lot!

I hope you find something you will also love amongst my favorite things (right now)!



*Links marked with the asterisk will lead you to Amazon.com - it is an affiliate link, and I will make a very small commission if you end up purchasing something through my link. Just an FYI!