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Category: Books & Movies

Monthly reviews and recommendations about books I am reading plus movies guides on various topics.

The Best Gift I Ever Received

Gift

You probably thought this post was going to be sentimental and that I was going to have an answer such as my children or my husband (which are both true) but that’s not the response I’m going to give.

The best material gift I have ever received is my Kindle – hands down!

Guilty Pleasure Movies

Popcorn

While on “maternity leave” (aka I’m a stay-at-home mom and my husband has 3 weeks off) I needed to watch some guilty pleasure movies.  Guilty pleasure movies are movies that are embarrassing for you to admit how much you like them.  But they serve a purpose and if they bring you joy who cares!  First of all, these movies don’t require any thinking or remembering.  The films are not complicated so you can drift off to sleep, wake up, and still not really have missed anything. Also, guilty pleasure movies have happy endings and will leave you feeling good after watching them. Here is a list of a few of my guilty pleasure movies;

Best Reads of 2025

"Best Reads of 2025" amongst some of the book covers

Every year, I try to narrow down all the books I read to a top 12 list. I select the books based on feeling. I chose the books that I am still thinking about and made an impact on me, not necessarily all the books I gave a 5-star rating to. Now you’ll notice below that I have way more books than 12, but I count books in a series that I read in the same year as one book (that makes sense to me). Of the 127 books I read this past year, here are my top 12 reads of 2025 (in no particular order);

The Best Christmas Movies to Watch During the Holiday Season

woman sitting on couch with Christmas socks on

This year the holidays seem to be sneaking up on me quicker than ever before.  I blame the foot of snow we currently have and the freezing temperatures we’ve had all week.  Usually, I like to take one holiday at a time.  I am not a fan of Christmas decorations being out before Thanksgiving.  But Holiday Inn was recently playing on television and it got this Grinch in the holiday mood. I decided to compile a list of my favorite Christmas movies to refer to instead of just watching whichever film happens to be playing that evening. 

You’ll notice a few titles missing from my list that everyone else would include.  I also didn’t rank the movies but instead divided them into categories because I like a lot of variety in my viewing pleasure.  If I watch a classic one night, I like to pick from another category the next night.

I hope you enjoy my list of best Christmas movies:

November 2025 Book Reviews and Ratings

book covers of all the books reviewed

It was a somewhat lackluster month of reading. I liked a lot of the books but besides Emma, nothing stood out as incredible. Now that November is over, I am ready to dive into more holiday romances and add some fantasy back into the mix.