7ToT: I'm on mini-vacation. *waves*

1. I read the first Flavia de Luce novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, years ago. Now there is a whole series of of them, told in first person from the point of view of Flavia, a wildly precocious 11-year-old who solves mysteries using her wits, her trusty bicycle Gladys, and her great uncle's chemistry lab. I liked that first one OK, but I couldn't really connect with the voice of Flavia, so I never read any of the others. But recently I tried the audiobook, and the narrator is terrific. Finally understand why people think these are such great books.

2. Flavia does not get along with her sisters. They torment her unmercifully. Sometimes it amounts to outright torture. My first reaction was to be horrified at how awful her siblings were, but then I started remembering some of my own worst moments with my sisters. I have the best sisters on the planet, and as adults, we get along great. But we definitely had our moments growing up. I used to "cook" my younger sister in the oven as a game. The oven was totally imaginary, but I suspect a therapist would be only to happy to unpack that tangle of sibling rivalry issues. We spent hours playing that game. Did you play awful games with your siblings? How normal is this?

3. PellMel will not be home for Christmas for the first time ever. I've known that for quite awhile, but for some reason the implications just sank in this week. This is a heart wrencher. We are big on Christmas around here--not necessarily gifts, but we have a boatload of traditions, including specific movies to watch, the trip to get the tree, decorations to put up, special meals, music, and so on. *Ouch* We're trying to figure out a way we can get down there to celebrate some earlier weekend in December but everyone's schedule is complicated.

4. It's funny, we quit going back to Texas for Christmas more than 30 years ago, and I don't think I ever once thought that might be hard on my mother. So heartless.

5. I am still trying to keep a revolving door on the books, so that at least as many go out as come in. (spoiler alert: it's not working all that well. My most recent method for freeing up space for new books involved packing away old pre-digital photo albums rather than actually getting rid of books. Don't tell Marie Kondo.) I decided the easiest way to cull books right now would be to go through my cookbooks. I have a bunch, more than 40, which is a bit odd, because as we all know, I'm not much of a cook, and when I do cook, I don't usually follow a recipe. But for some strange reason, I looove to read cookbooks.

Some of my cookbooks. This is the stairwell down to our basement.

6. Also, I have several ancient cookbooks that I keep because of exactly one recipe. Those are actually hard to give up-- they are recipes I've used for years, and I know exactly where they are, because it's the wrinkly page in that cookbook. But really, it's ridiculous to keep an entire big fat cookbook for one recipe. So I made copies of those pages and off they went to our church bazaar. I did not cry.

7. But true confessions: then I bought a new one. I read a review of the new Better Homes & Gardens cookbook (titled, appropriately enough, New Cook Book, 17th edition) that intrigued me, so I ordered it. I'm surprised how much I like it. I tend to use cookbooks for ideas more than for actual instructions, and I've already seen a bunch of innovative ideas, in addition to all the old stand-bys. And also it has loads of beautiful photos. Thumbs up.

Hope you are having a good week.