Good Things List No.82: A Wedding, An Ode to Powdered Dishwashing Detergent, Enamel Bowls, Books and More

A monthly list of good things to see, buy, read and watch. This month’s list includes a wedding that family made happen, an ode to powdered dishwashing detergent, enamel bowls to replace plastic, book reviews and more.

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While I am so happy for March and the promise of spring, February was a pretty wonderful month for us! First, we made it through without any loss of power that made last year so terrible (I swear I have trauma still from that experience…). In fact the last week of the month saw sunny skies and a high of 63 degrees!

Secondly, we had a wedding and all the wonderful (and slightly stressful) things that go along with that (see more below) that will make us view February in a new light from now on!

However – bring on spring, right? The seeds I started last month are looking good and I just planted pepper and tomato seeds. I was able to start cutting back the flowering herbs and perennials and Brian pruned the grapevine. The daffodils are budding and I can’t wait to see the first blooms!

Okay- on to more good things!

Good Things

Surrounding yourself with family and friends = happiness

Our daughter got married in February (!) and beyond all the joy at the occasion itself, Brian and were left with the delicious afterglow of the simple happiness that comes from people gathering to support and love each other.

This wedding wouldn’t have come off without all our family and friends helping out from everything to the rehearsal, to the table decor, to the actual wedding day coordinator and clean up.

Talk about feeling the love!

Watching everyone visit, laugh, and catch up – as well as everyone from the bride’s grandma to her 3-year-old nephew having a blast dancing – was such an unexpected highlight for us.

I wish we could have more occasions like this – not to the extent (or expense!) but the idea of coming together for fun times. Can there be family and friend reunions?

The Rehearsal Table Decor

I did want to highlight the beautiful table Brian’s sister created for the rehearsal dinner she hosted in her home. Keeping to the cream and white color scheme created such an elegant table that wasn’t overdone or stuffy.

With simple stemless glasses, gold-rimmed plates, white tablecloths, and taper candles, the flowers could hold center place. Keeping to three types of flowers – roses, hydrangeas, and baby’s breath – with a few eucalyptus sprigs for filler, makes a beautiful statement while makinging it easy to create.

I really loved the height variations provided by the tall vases and the low, rectangle arrangements. My sister-in-law used acrylic rectangular flower vases similar to these which made it so easy to put these stunning centerpieces together. (She has quite a few and none have leaked as I read in some reviews.)

I like them with the flowers spilling over like these are versus what is shown in the vase promo shots of rows of roses – they would be great for all kinds of flowers at any time of year, I think!

Ode to Powdered Dishwasher Detergent

Why would I share about powdered dishwashing detergent (which I get at Grove here or Target here)? Because I know that most people prefer pods because they’re so easy to use.

But I’d like to throw something out there about pods: the plastic packaging and the pre-measured amounts you can’t adjust.

Powdered detergent comes in a cardboard box you can recycle. And I use a 1 tablespoon measuring spoon in a full load, which means I save a lot of money over the more expensive pods. (Yes, you can determine the amount of detergent to use.)

And while you can also adjust liquid detergent, it comes in plastic packaging and isn’t as easy to measure (you have to rinse the tablespoon…) which leads to extra soap in the container in my experience.

Just a little food for thought.

Cute, Inexpensive Steel Enamel Bowl Set

I shared in the last Good Things that I was replacing old Tupperware bowls with non-plastic options like large stainless steel bowls and glass nesting bowls with lids (which are great – I love them!). There are times when I’d prefer not to use glass – they are heavier and could break for potlucks, etc. – and the steel bowls don’t have lids.

So I was so happy to find this cute, colorful set of lightweight enamel steel bowls with lids – and for a amazing price! They are the perfect size for so many things – I’ve used them for holding salads, pasta, and prepped vegetables. Sadly, they are hand-wash only, but I’m okay with that as it’s pretty simple to wash them out. (They also come in a slightly more expensive set of red-white-blue bowls.)

February Books Read

West With Giraffes, Lynda Rutledge. Brian and I listened to this book that I have seen on many people’s lists and it was…okay. I liked that it followed the true story of a pair of giraffes that survived a major hurricane on their way to the eastern US in the 1930s and then the road trip to their home as the first giraffs at the San Deigo Zoo. Their trip was highlighted in many newspapers and magazines of the time as a feel-good story during the Depression. The fictional part is the young man who ends up driving them across country with their handler (a real person), his story, and the story of the trip. We get to see how the country looked during that sad time and the desperation of many, including our hero who did whatever he could to get what he wanted. We enjoyed that part, but the story starts when the driver is an old man thinking back and for some reason he sees the giraffe out his window and when they come to these current parts of the story, it just lost us and all the momentum. Nothing ever really happened in these interludes other than to remind us how old he was and we would’ve preferred it as a prologue/epiloge type of format instead of constantly going back and forth. (This is 4.6 star rating with over 100k reviews on Amazon, so we’re in the minority, ha!)

Miss Austen, Gill Hornsby. Oh, I did love this book (I will probably be on my year end list…). I grabbed it from the library in preparation for the upcoming PBS Masterpiece production (which I think will be in early May). I didn’t really know anything about the book before hearing about the PBS series and I enjoyed how the author took things we know about the Austen family and filled in with a fictionalied account of what may have prompted Jane’s sister, Cassie, to destroy some of her letters. It starts in the present when Cassie is trying to find the old letters and then flips back in time to give us an idea of what was behind the letters and why Cassie, out of love, wouldn’t want them to be published. I enjoyed the behing-the-scenes feel of the flash backs as well as the older Cassie who knew by then the popularity that Jane would have. It’s not a story where a lot happens, but things do happen and the telling of it was lovely.

One Star Romance, Laura Hankin. This was recommended by someone online as a fun romantic comedy that was basically closed door and it was…okay. The heroine, a struggling writer, and hero are best friends of a couple which brings them together over and over through the years for parties, a wedding, etc. They sort of click first but then clash over the first book the heroine published which made fun of her friend’s fiancé (the hero’s friend) so he gives it a public one-star rating. The thing that made this not as fun for me, even though the enemies-to-lovers trope is a tried-and-true one, is that for most of the book they hated each other and said terrible things. Like most of the book. There wasn’t much relationship building. So when they get together it didn’t really mesh as well for me as I had hoped.

The Rom-Commers, Katherine Center. Now this is a romantic comedy I can get behind. I have enjoyed other Katherine Center books, so I had a feeling I would like this one. Like many of her works, there’s a serious heart-rending story at the heart of it which helps ground the romance in reality. The heroine has put her writing life on hold while she cares for her dad, but knows everything there is to know about romantic comedies and has written enough that her high-school-friend-turned-agent recommends her for a ghost-writing stint to help a popular author who’s in a writing slump. The initial meeting is disastrous (of course!) but they get past it and then get to know each other in a way that shows how a relationship might naturally build. I loved seeing how they brought out the best in each other. And since it was set mostly in LA while writing a movie, there was a fun fish-out-of-water aspect for the heroine who had led a much smaller life previously. This fun book may also make it to my best of list!

Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? Crystal Smith Paul. I remember seeing a lot about this book when it was a Reese Witherspoon book club pick and thinking it would be an interesting look at the concept of “passing” – when light skinned blacks passed for white – in Hollywood. And the part of the book that shared Kitty Carr’s upbringing in the south and how she came to Hollywood and became a big star was interesting. The problem was that was only half of the book and the current time part was discordant with a lot of characters we were supposed to follow who we didn’t care about. It seemed flippant with none of the seriousness of the eariler scenes. I actually found myself skipping through these sections.

The Answer Is No, Fredrick Backman. And the answer is no to this short story, too. The author of Beartown, etc. just tried way to hard to make this super silly story meaningful and it simply went on too long and became too stupid for words. The story starts out with the main character sharing how he’s happiest alone and how people bother him. But of course he wasn’t actually happy alone…wha-wha. Also the narrator was a woman and the lead character a man, so it was hard as an audiobook to differentiate – everyone sounded like a woman or a woman with a low voice.

Also:

The Familiar, Leigh Bardugo. So weird – did finish, but wish I hadn’t. Set in Madrid this historical fantasy takes place during the 1600s Spanish inquisition. A scullery maid has magic – her employer finds out and uses her to rise in society but then bad things happen. The “familiar” of the story is a cursed man who can’t die and has to protect a corrupt family – they cross paths and have a love story of sorts (a Goodreads review described him as “creepy ancient man we are supposed to find unbelievably hot about halfway through” – kind of spot on). For all that happens I found it kind of boring, mainly because the two leads were kind of nondescript and I couldn’t really care about them.

Sandwich, Catherine Newman. (Did Not Finish…) I’ve seen this book everywhere and waited a couple months for it from the library. The title refers to the main character’s generation in between parenting 20-somethings and caring for an elderly parent. It must be just me, but I found it really boring and slow – just a messy family life kind of book that isn’t really my thing. Plus, I couldn’t bring myself to care about any of the characters enough to finish it. (Again, lots seem to like this – 3.9 from 18k ratings – it’s just not my thing obviously.)

Watching

2015 Wolf Hall, PBS Masterpiece. The next season of this is coming this spring (yep, 10 years later!) and I had missed it originally so when PBS offered it free (until March 23rd) we started streaming it on the app. It is SO GOOD – it’s really held up well. The story is from the vantage point of Thomas Cromwell, who rises to prominence as the right-hand man of Henry during his Anne Boleyn days. The first season ends with Anne’s beheading, and season 2 will pick up with the rest of Cromwell’s story (which doesn’t end well, either). I really like how it shows how people lived, too, and not just the workings of the court, and the interiors, exteriors, and costumes are just wonderful.

All Creatures Great and Small: season 5, PBS. I still love this sweet and simple show – I’m not tired of the people, the scenery, or the animals. Plus, its fun to see how they’ve grown and changed through the years.

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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