Amanda Cade

Binge Reading

Amanda Cade

December 30, 2019

books

The best thing about the holidays is spending time with family and friends. The second best thing is having more free time. I chose to spend a lot of mine reading. With a whole week off work, I binge read like nobody’s business, and put ten more books in the “finished” column. That brings me up to 267 for the year.

Back in September, I wrote two posts about increasing reading, including whys and hows. If you missed those, here they are:

Being able to spend several hours each day lost in a story has been one of the highlights of the past week.

reading on book

What’s your favorite way to spend extra leisure time?

Talk to a Friend Today

Amanda Cade

9 comments

December 28, 2019

Today is National Call a Friend Day, intended to motivate everyone to take the time to have a conversation. A lot of our communication these days happens digitally, through emails, social media posts, texts, and so on. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it isn’t quite the same as a real time, back and forth conversation. I’m a big fan of conversation (I prefer face to face, but on the phone is still pretty good), and make an effort to have regular talks with the important people in my life. Even so, when I took some time to reflect and take stock this morning, I easily thought of several friends I haven’t actually talked to in weeks.

I’m going to be making some calls and catching up with them over the next few days, starting today.

Let Me Know

Are there people you need to catch up with? How important do you think it is to have phone or face to face conversations?

Worth Watching: Knives Out

Amanda Cade

19 comments

December 27, 2019

Screenshot 2019-12-27 at 6.47.12 AM

My parents and I had been planning to see Knives Out since we saw the first trailer, and after all the great reviews we were even more excited. So last night we went out to dinner and then settled in for just over two hours of whodunit fun. Did it live up to our expectations? Well, let’s see:

Appropriate Setting? Check. The central location is the Thrombey estate, which at one point is very accurately compared to a Clue board. It sets (and maintains) the perfect tone for the film.
Interesting Victim? Check. Christopher Plummer plays Harlan Thrombey, a mystery writer who is found dead on the day after his eighty-fifth birthday. In flashbacks, we get to know Harlan, a very successful mystery author dealing with a family that hits all the standard wealthy family tropes. We soon learn that he was extremely intelligent, clever, and sympathetic.
Quality Suspect Pool? Check. Harlan’s entire family had gathered to celebrate his birthday, so there’s a collection of children, grandchildren, and in laws to suspect, as well as his housekeeper and nurse. They all have secrets, and most of them are eager to get their hands on Harlan’s money and property, as well as the rights to his novels.
Charismatic Detective? Check. Daniel Craig gives a great performance as Benoit Blanc, a famous private investigator who is hired anonymously to look into the death, which the police are about to rule as a suicide. Watching his investigation is a delight, especially when he discusses a few extended metaphors that are absolute writing gold.
Twists and Turns? Check, Check, Check. It’s hard to say too much about this without spoilers, which I always avoid (and in the case of a whodunit, that’s even more important), so let me just say that the movie definitely leaves you guessing.

A few other notes:

The movie has a lot more talk than action, which contributed to an old school feel that I really enjoyed.
The entire cast was excellent, with Chris Evans’s performance as the family’s black sheep a definitely highlight. He has some of the best lines, and it’s especially fun to see the man best known as Captain America taking a turn at sarcasm, insults, and callousness.

Highly, highly recommended.

Popcorn

Seen any good movies lately? What’s on your watch list?

Cookie Decorating

Amanda Cade

18 comments

December 26, 2019

So I’ve technically finished Blogmas (and I’m so proud of myself for completing the challenge), but I still have a few things I didn’t get to, so I’m going to keep daily posting up for at least a few more days.

My niece Catalina (age 8) chose cookie decorating for her holiday experience, so we went to a bakery called Sweetology that allows drop in decorating. You choose what you want to decorate, and they provide you with icing, pastry bags, unlimited sprinkles, and advice. You can also upgrade with candy and other extras. We decided to decorate six sugar cookies with buttercream frosting, and added a few bonus items as we went. Because I’m the aunt, I basically let Cat get whatever she wanted. (I also let her eat too much frosting.)

I wasn’t expecting that we would be coloring and flavoring our own frosting, but when they explained that step to us it made perfect sense, and was a lot of fun. We divided it into five bowls, and used a different color and flavor for each.