Cozy Holiday Linkup / Favorite Things Friday

Earlier this week, one of my favorite bloggers Nicholl shared that she and Neely were hosting a link up for today.  Considering that Wisconsin get completely dumped on with the winter weather this week, Nicholl and Neely's "Cozy Holiday Linkup" was just the thing I needed!

(Also, since these photos pretty much also represent everything awesome that happened to me this week, I'm linking up with Lauren like always as well.  Even if it's not my top 5... because let's be real, narrowing down 5 favorite cozy things is impossible... it's pretty true to my original Favorite Things Friday posts I was doing way back when and since I used to link up then, I'm stretching the rules and doing so again.)

Ok, without further ado... Rikki's Favorite Cozy Things that Happen to be Posted on a Friday.  Or something like that...

I wrote this post as the wind whistled outside, a pie was in the oven, the girls were sleeping in a little ball on a stool in the kitchen, I was wearing a fuzzy sweater with fuzzy socks and leggings, and I was singing along to Christmas music... if that doesn't spell cozy, I don't know what does.

Happy holidays, friends!  I doubt I'll get around to writing this weekend but you never know.  If not, have a wonderful weekend!

Nostalgic Storytelling

I just realized that I'm still sitting at work. I've been here alone for almost an hour. I very rarely work late. Yes, I'm being productive but I could be productive at home.  

I'm sitting here to avoid going home to an empty apartment, so that I don't have to sit there and listen to my cat cry constantly like she's lost something (I know exactly what you're feeling, baby), and because the thought of going home and eating "our" leftovers is enough to make me want to cry into my microwaved steak.

Just call me that girl.

Instead of working some more, I thought I'd put off the inevitable by writing for a bit.

Even before this (incredible, awesome, and amazing) weekend, I've been feeling homesick. I was getting used to going home every few weeks this summer. Yes, it was exhausting and expensive, but it was so wonderful to see my family and friends on a regular basis. Things are so incredibly good here in Kentucky right now but I, of course (and not unexpectedly), miss home.

Whenever I get nostalgic, I reach for old favorites from the bookshelf. It hit my exceptionally hard while traveling a few weeks ago, however, and I didn't have my trusty books to turn to. Thankfully, a few months ago while organizing the ridiculous backlog of Kindle stories I had downloaded to read, I added in a few classics - it started with a few of the Anne of Green Gables books. I then downloaded a few shorter books by L.M. Montgomery that I had yet to get to in all my years of reading. I am so glad that I did. 

I know fall is coming when I'm feeling down, lonely for home, and just want to curl up with something enchanting. My old friend Lucy Maud did not disappoint.

I started with The Story Girl, the story of a young girl who takes everyone to another world with her story-telling ability. I've marked it as a new favorite. If I had children, I would want to read it out loud to them, one chapter at a time, like my mom and dad did for us with so many of the classics. The children in the story get into the most delightful antics and scrapes and this book is meant to be read to others, with a piece of pie balanced on one knee and a childish giggle just waiting to be  let loose on the other. (I tried reading it to the cats - you wish I were kidding - and it just didn't do the trick.)

After finishing The Story Girl, I moved on to Kilmeny of the Orchard. Like so many of Montgomery's books, it dwells in a simple time where an innocent, albeit admiring, friendship blossoms into love - love that is without caring about the challenges that stand in their way. Can anyone say "bawl like a baby when the plot finally comes together?" Because I did that. Not ashamed to admit it.

If you haven't read these two stories by a classic favorite, go out and do so immediately. Did I mention they're both free for Kindle? Perhaps the best thing about classics. Pour yourself a glass of wine or make some cocoa on the stove (or both), put on your sweatpants, pop some popcorn and settle in for a night. Just ignore the fact that it may still be 90 degrees where you are (like it is here) and pretend that it's actually fall. 

While reading these new favorites, your mind slows down and you're able to just breathe for a while. A refreshing change for someone whose brain always moves to fast, who has too much on their plate, and who wants to be transported.

100 Books...

This thing is going around Facebook, and while I don't usually do things like this, I had to laugh at how many of these books I've read. I already added the rest of them to my reading list. Anything bolded below are books that I’ve read… The italicized are those that I started but didn’t finish. Wow.

The BBC believes that most people will have read only 6 of these 100 books.  I read 68 of them.  That either means I'm really well read or have no life.  Either way, for your viewing pleasure, here's my 100 books list.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee


6 The Bible (I read the whole thing in middle school and high school.)

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens


11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott


12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy


13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Close, but not the whole thing… I own it though so maybe that’s a good project for Thanksgiving break. Ha ha)

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger


19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell


22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald


23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens


24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams


27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky


28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck


29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll


30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame


31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy


32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens


33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis


34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis


37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden


40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne (Yes Dad, I read them without you!)

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell


42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood


49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding


50 Atonement - Ian McEwan


51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel


52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Just finished it! Review coming soon!)

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens


58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck


62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold


65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas


66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville


71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens


72 Dracula - Bram Stoker


73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce


76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White


88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom


89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad


92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas


98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare


99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl


100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo