Inspiration for a Monday

Monday already?! Blerg! To be honest, that sentiment is little uttered around here, since I’ve mentioned before that Doug’s “weekend” is Weds-Thurs and I work retail with a few days on, a few days off, and no true weekend at all. Anyway, I’m sure that those of you who have President’s day off are enjoying the extra day of relaxation, and those of us who are at work (or going to work in about an hour, like me) will shake our fists but put our heads down and do the best we can at our jobs.

I have a few cool posts in the works but nothing ready to share just yet. So, I decided to corral some things that were inspiring to me this weekend!

A Tale of Two Cities— The first Dickens book I’ve ever managed to make my way through, and despite his meandering sentences paragraphs chapters, I really liked it! In full disclosure, however, I did listen to it on audiobook. My second audiobook experience! If you liked the themes of redemption in Les Misérables, I highly recommend this (shorter) classic.

As long as we are talking about books, I read Island Beneath the Sea, a historical fiction novel about the Haitian slave Revolution months ago and it is still haunting me! I can’t wait to give it a re-read and I picked up another work by author Isabel Allende, this one grabbed my interest as it begins in Chile–in the town of Angela’s birth!

Encinitas, CA– It had been far too long since I visited this laid-back beach town. I surprised Doug with a quick trip up the coast to shop at Lou’s Records. After that, we walked up and down the shops on Pacific Highway even though it was cold and windy! Can’t wait to get back up there on a nicer day, camera in hand.

The album we picked up at Lou’s was Local Natives’ Hummingbird, which you can listen to here if you have Spotify:

PS- Check out this awesome BBC article about Sherry & John from Young House Love! They never cease to be an inspiration to me!