March Amazon Purchases

The Amazon truck dropped off some real treasures at our house in March!  That's what I'm thinking out loud about today.  Let me share a few of them with you ~

Bacon Flavored Salt Sampler 3 Pack

Remember how we helped our son celebrate his 30th birthday with 30 gifts for him?  Well, bacon and salt are two of his favorite things so this 3-pack bacon-flavored salt sampler was a perfect gift for him!  The flavors are cheddar, peppered, and hickory.  Perfect for veggies, meat, and popcorn.

2 Piece Makeup Brush Cleaning Mats

My makeup brushes are a whole lot cleaner thanks to these silicone makeup brush cleaner mats.  The suction cups on the bottom help hold the mat in place while you clean any of your makeup brushes.  

Bamboo Cocktail Picks

I used these cocktail picks for cute little kabobs with a single blueberry and a few grapes.  Immediately I started dreaming of all the things I can "kabob".  The package comes with 250 picks.  I have a feeling I'll be blowing through all 250 of this pack quickly!

157 Printed Pantry Labels

Our pantry is looking much more put together with our containers proudly displaying these labels stating just what the contents of the containers are.  There are 157 labels in the pack and so far I haven't found a single thing I don't have a label for.  

Wooden Toy for Toddlers

This toy was given to a little one on Easter and it was a huge success.  The toddler recipient loved holding the carrots in his cute little hands and fitting them into the proper-sized hole.  I love developmental toys that are fun to play with!

In March, I purchased three books.  Two were Kindle versions and one on Audible.  

I finished reading When No One is Watching:  A Thriller.  It was definitely a different type of book from the ones I typically read.  It was a book club selection.  Here's the summary ~

Rear Window meets Get Out in this gripping thriller from a critically acclaimed and New York Times Notable author, in which the gentrification of a Brooklyn neighborhood takes on a sinister new meaning…

Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block—her neighbor Theo.

But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. Their neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs after all, and the push to revitalize the community may be more deadly than advertised.

When does coincidence become conspiracy? Where do people go when gentrification pushes them out? Can Sydney and Theo trust each other—or themselves—long enough to find out before they too disappear?

Dirt is beautifully written and I'm almost finished listening to it.  The author, Mary Marantz, is the narrator and her voice shares her story.  

Dirt is a story about the places where we start. From a single-wide trailer in the mountains of rural West Virginia to the halls of Yale Law School, Mary Marantz's story is one of remembering our roots while turning our faces to the sky. From growing up in that trailer, where it rained just as hard inside as out and the smell of mildew hung thick in the air, Mary has known what it is to feel broken and disqualified because of the muddy scars leaving smudged fingerprints across our lives. Generations of her family lived and logged in those hauntingly treacherous woods, risking life and limb just to barely scrape by. And yet that very struggle became the redemption song God used to write a life she never dreamed of.

Mixed with warmth, wit, and the bittersweet, sometimes achingly heartbreaking places we go when we dig in instead of give up, Dirt is a story of healing. With gut-wrenching honesty and hard-won wisdom, Mary shares her story for anyone who has ever walked into the world and felt like their scars were still on display, showing that you are braver, better, and more empathetic for what you have survived. Because God does his best work in the muddy, messy, and broken--if we'll only learn to dig in.

Sunflower Sisters:  A Novel (Woolsey-Ferriday) was a book I had been waiting for since I'd gone to an author event where Martha Hall Kelly talked about her books Lilac Girls and Lost Roses.  She teased that a third book would be coming and it's finally here!

Georgeanna “Georgey” Woolsey isn’t meant for the world of lavish parties and the demure attitudes of women of her stature. So when war ignites the nation, Georgey follows her passion for nursing during a time when doctors considered women on the battlefront a bother. In proving them wrong, she and her sister Eliza venture from New York to Washington, D.C., to Gettysburg and witness the unparalleled horrors of slavery as they become involved in the war effort.

In the South, Jemma is enslaved on the Peeler Plantation in Maryland, where she lives with her mother and father. Her sister, Patience, is enslaved on the plantation next door, and both live in fear of LeBaron, an abusive overseer who tracks their every move. When Jemma is sold by the cruel plantation mistress Anne-May at the same time the Union army comes through, she sees a chance to finally escape—but only by abandoning the family she loves.

Anne-May is left behind to run Peeler Plantation when her husband joins the Union army and her cherished brother enlists with the Confederates. In charge of the household, she uses the opportunity to follow her own ambitions and is drawn into a secret Southern network of spies, finally exposing herself to the fate she deserves.

Inspired by true accounts, Sunflower Sisters provides a vivid, detailed look at the Civil War experience, from the barbaric and inhumane plantations, to a war-torn New York City, to the horrors of the battlefield. It’s a sweeping story of women caught in a country on the brink of collapse, in a society grappling with nationalism and unthinkable racial cruelty, a story still so relevant today.

Now it's your turn - what are you thinking out loud about today?  Link up and share!  I'd love to hear from you.

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