Good Things List No.81: First Seeds To Start, Replacing Large Plastic Bowls, Book Reviews and More

A monthly list of good things to see, buy, read and watch. This month’s list includes prepping for starting seeds indoors, great bowl options to replace plastic, six book reviews and more.

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I’m so glad it’s February! First, it’s no longer January (lol). Also there are some seeds we can start this month indoors, so yay for gardening. And then, our daughter is getting married, so we’ll have a wedding this month!

Even though it’s still firmly winter, February just seems to be the prelude to spring – or at least that’s what I tell myself.

However you view it, we ARE on the upswing from winter and the days are getting longer so that is something to celebrate. Is this list of good things celebratory enough for you? I’ll let you be the judge (but grabbing a good book can make the dreariest of days seem warm and cozy!).

Good Things

Starting Seeds In February

Like I mentioned, there are a few seeds those of us in zone 8 can start this month indoors if you haven’t already started seeds in milk jugs outdoors (or do both – that’s what I often do).

I made my main order of seeds at the beginning of January when Pinetree was having a sale – or free shipping, I can’t remember (if you’re on my newsletter list, you heard about this, so hopefully you got your seeds then, too). So now I’m organizing and drawing out my garden plans so I know how many seeds to start.

The seeds I’ll start this month are:

• onions
• peppers – hot and sweet
• lettuce
• kale
• spinach
• tomatoes (at the end of the month)

Onions, peppers, and tomatoes need a long time to grow and lettuce, kale, and spinach like it cooler, so starting them now will allow me to plant them outdoors the end of March to get a harvest before warmer weather comes.

I have a whole series on how to start seeds indoors and then care for them (all the way to planting) linked in this seed starting guide.

Reducing Plastic In Kitchen: Bowls

It seems like every day I read another finding about microplastics in our bodies. The latest includes this alarming study from Italy that found that people with microplastics in their artery plaque were 4.5 times more likely to have heart attacks or strokes – or die. And this University of New Mexico study that showed many of us have high levels of microplastics in our brains. Yikes.

So I’m on a mission to get rid of as much plastic as I can in my kitchen. This month it was finding substitutes for my largest tupperware bowls (which were my mom’s, so probably from the 80s…) as well as medium size plastic bowls with lids that are great for leftovers and transporting foods.

Most of the things I found were glass bowls with those thin plastic lids which aren’t spill proof and tend to tear fairly quickly. Also, few were in the larger size I needed.

This Glasslock set of four glass bowls with locking lids was really the only set I found that included the large size I needed (I’m not sure the size – it holds about 6 quarts).

They weren’t the cheapest, but I’m so glad I finally got them as they have been perfect for my needs. The lids are very sturdy and lock in place and the silicone gaskets keep it as spill proof as possible.

The biggest con of course is the weight – they are heavier than the plastic I replaced them with.

The largest so far as gotten the most use – it’s held leftover soups, bread dough, and a large salad that I took to a family gathering.

As for the biggest bowl I needed to replace, the best option was stainless steel for the light weight, even though they don’t come with lids. I already have a mid-size steel bowl that’s great for popping corn and mixing up batches of homemade granola.

But I need a really large bowl for mixing up sauerkraut and caramel corn, as well as other things and this set of two large stainless steel bowls was inexpensive and turned out better quality than I thought they would be. They are a thicker metal than some I’ve had, with a nice lip, and a shiny, smooth surface.

Not only are they big enough for mixing large amounts, I would be happy to use them as serving bowls for big groups, too.

• Stainless Steel Bowl Set here.
• Glass 4-Bowl Set with lids here.

January Books Read

Briar Club, Kate Quinn. I had waited for this book from the library for months after seeing many online praise it. It’s historical fiction which I like, and while there were some things about this book I enjoyed, mostly I just wanted to get to the end so I could find out what the mystery was. I get the conceit: the author wanted to give all the residents of a rooming house in the early 50s their own story and background. What this did for me, though, was that I didn’t really connect with any character, or even understand why they made certain choices. I also wasn’t expecting it to be so crude and I was turned off by the casual sleeping around with no consequences in a time where birth control was not available (was this “girl power?” – none of the women seemed to think like 50s women did, morally. Like none, which I found hard to believe for that time). And then the ending just confused me.

Summer Romance, Annabelle Monaghan. Does it seem funny to read this in January? That’s what happens when you put a popular book on hold in August! I really enjoyed this author’s last book, Nora Goes Off Script, and I liked this one, too, but not quite as much. While I liked the premise of the heroine falling for the younger brother of her best friend, I never really bought the idea that she didn’t recognize him. They lived in a small community where locals seemed to know everyone and this was her best friend and she’d never seen him? That was too much of a stretch for me. I did enjoy the (closed door) romance, fun banter, and growth of the characters, though.

The Tainted Cup, Robert Jackson Bennett. This book hooked me immediately. Don’t you love when a book just grabs you like that? This is a sci-fi/fantasy and the world building is done so naturally and visually (no lengthy expositions…) that it just gradually came to life in my head. Plus, there’s a Holmes-Watson duo and a murder mystery to solve with other hinted-at mysteries that made me excited to get back to it when I was reading it. Like many that start well, it did drag a bit in the middle and the bigger mystery (it’s going to be a series) was a bit hard for me to wrap my head around, but I will read the next one when it’s published for sure.

Death at Wentwater Court, Carola Dunn. This was recommended to me because I’ve enjoyed Maisie Dobbs, Poppy Denby, and other historical cozy mysteries. It was a great comfort read and I enjoyed trying to figure out the death of a thoroughly dislikable character. This was set in the 1920s and I do think that the perceived “flapper language” was a bit overdone by the younger set, but other than that I enjoyed it.

The Muse of Maiden Lane, Mimi Matthews. This is the last of The Belles of London series set in the Victorian era and focuses on Stella who’s always been self conscious of her hair that turned gray in her teens (this was a new one for me…). She meets an artist who sees her as beautiful and wants to paint her which is the start of their relationship. The artist is the younger brother of the heroine of one of Matthews Parish Orphans series books, so characters of those books make appearances, which was fun since I’d read them as well. This was an unusual love story in that the hero artist is wheelchair bound from scarlet fever. It added a whole other level to their love story and I thought it was done well. Of course, happy endings all around – yay. (This author writes realistic, yet closed door romances.)

Astor, Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe. I read and enjoyed the author’s previous book, Vanderbilt, which mentioned some of the Astors, so I grabbed the audiobook when I saw it on Hoopla. I did like it, but would’ve preferred a more chronological storyline. At times the chapters were all over the place and it was hard for me to keep straight which Astor they were talking about. I also didn’t really like the couple times they spent whole, long chapters on other people of the time who had similar names. I think it was to show the juxtaposition of the differences between the haves and have-nots, but it took from the narrative (which just by it’s history showed the differences). I did learn some things – I had no idea that the Astor wealth was built mostly on slums and the backs of immigrants after making money in the fur trade. The conditions the people in the slums lived in were appalling and it wasn’t until the last Astor in the 1950s that some of the terrible conditions were righted (after almost two centuries!).

Watching

Jim Gaffigan: The Skinny, Hulu. We always enjoy Jim and even though this wasn’t as funny as some of his past things (some jokes were tasteless and fell really short), we still had a good time laughing with him.

We also watched The Union on Netflix (ho-hum) and Watson on CBS which we kind of liked even though the critic reviews haven’t been that good.

That’s it for another addition of the Good Things List!

If you’d like to see more of what I’m enjoying, you can check out all the Good Things Lists here. I’d love to know what you think – if you’ve tried any of these or what you’d recommend. Leave a comment below with your thoughts!

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