I haven’t done a “things that made me smile” post in so long! For a brief time, I was good at posting every month the pretty, happy, funny, real and smart things that happened in the previous month. January was the last time I did it. I’m so woefully behind, it aches that I haven’t shared all my good, beautiful, true things since then. So many pretty photos are waiting in my camera roll waiting to be shared. I don’t know if I can ever catch up, but in the meantime, I’m sharing what was pretty, happy, funny, and real for me the last week of October, just last week.

Last week involved my second marvelous trip to Maine to visit my artist baby sister Emily. She’s almost 4 years younger than I am. We share a love for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, family life, extended family, mothering, homemaking, picture books, nature, art, other books, word games, and good home cooking. Not to mention our childhood memories of family and friends. Those give us tons of laugh-out-loud moments as we relive them. So we always have lots to talk about! My other sister got to visit her in July. Now if we could only all be there at the same time, with my mom and sisters-in-law, my other daughter, and other nieces to boot!

It was fun to hear my sister share stories of our older brothers I had never heard before. Em said that one of our brothers was a totally mean babysitter. She said that he put her in the bathroom, threw a blanket in, and turned off the light. I guess this was his way of putting her to bed? I told her I have no memory of that. She said it was probably because I was off reading the dictionary, LOL. Which may be true. I was an odd child who liked to read the dictionary, the phone book (remember those, if you are older than 40?), and the encyclopedia (remember those too?). I guess I knew I wanted to prepare for Jeopardy! at a young age, haha. Then she said that she remembers adoring our other older brother so much that when she was about 5 or 6 she told him that she wanted to marry him. That just makes me laugh because I was close enough in age to both brothers to see all their faults and would never say such a thing. As the baby of the family, though, she was enamored by one of them. If you know my brothers I bet you can figure out which brother fits each story :-).

Back in August, my 19 year old daughter, who is great friends with her two girl cousins who are her age and close to her age, 21, announced she wanted to go see her cousins in Maine. These cousins are the two older daughters of sister Emily. At the time she thought one of them would be leaving for her mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before Christmas. Since then, Cousin M. has received her mission call and found out that it doesn’t start until March. Anyway, I was thrilled that my daughter wanted to go to Maine. We had attempted to get her to come with us a year ago when my older daughter orchestrated a trip to Maine. She offered to pay for all of our plane tickets, food, and lodging if we helped babysit.

My younger daughter didn’t want to go a year ago as she had an important event coming up that she didn’t want to miss. So, much to our sadness, she stayed home. So when she announced at the end of summer that she was going to buy a plane ticket to go see her cousins in Maine, I said I wanted to come with her, and we went last week. I’ve always wanted to see Maine in October, and I got my wish! These photos are from our lovely trip. We were not disappointed! We had a spectacular time.

So, what follows, are the things that made me smile on the trip!

-food. Emily is such a great cook! So a week after letting go of my keto diet to eat the gourmet food at the WAPF Wise Traditions Conference, I let myself indulge in Emily’s yummy food involving carbs. Hey, if Dr. Boz can eat bread when she goes to Italy, I can eat bread and grains when I go to Maine.

Oh my, so delicious! Sushi rolls, egg muffins, quiche with a millet and quinoa crust, arugula pizza, roasted squash, berries on my perennial favorite Greek yogurt, and more!

-getting book recommendations from Em. We could chat about books all day! As a professional book illustrator and former employee of Books of Wonder, the NYC store that the Meg Ryan movie You’ve Got Mail is based on, she knows a lot about children’s books. Above and below are some books from her shelf, public library discards that are gems for her.

The above book totally reminds me of my childhood. The drawings just give off those 50s, 60s, 70s vibes, reminiscent of illustrator Syd Hoff. His book Danny the Dinosaur was the first book I ever read all by myself in first grade.

-“book recommendations” leads me to the next item of happiness which involved checking out Emily’s bookshelf. I wondered if she might have one of my L.M Montgomery books on her shelf that I loaned to her decades ago that she never returned, as she told me back in July she might have one, as I blogged over here. Sure enough, I found one!

It wasn’t one of the Anne books, however, as I discovered when I checked for my name written inside all of her L.M. books. It was another Lucy Maud one. But I have some of her books that she has loaned to me so I told myself I’d ask for Magic for Marigold back when I return her Thimble Summer and whatever other books of hers I have, LOL. We have been sharing books and book recommendations for decades. You can go here to get her recommendations on her blog.

-visiting the Little Free Library across the street from her home. Above is one of the books I got, thanks to Em donating books for me to use to trade.

-leaves. Em said that the peak of Maine’s gorgeous fall foliage is mid-October. So we missed the peak but there were still a ton of autumn leaves on the trees to give us a visual feast, if not the peak mid-October visual orgy. We also found wild raspberries still hanging from some bushes in her neighborhood! She hadn’t had a frost yet.

-a lighthouse. We went to the Portland Head Lighthouse on Cape Elizabeth in Portland Maine. It was commissioned by George Washington to be built, in 1787. Amazing! It’s the oldest lighthouse in Maine.

-walks by and through the woods. Em lives in a beautiful forest!

-Teddy, the dog of my sister’s family. Named after Lawrie (Theodore Lawrence of Little Women fame), he is so smart and cute! Just like his namesake. He loves to chase squirrels and watches religiously for them through the windows. They let him out to chase them occasionally but he has never caught one yet. He has picked up the habit that whenever Em calls the family for photos, which she did for the Harvest Festival, he comes running to be part of the photo, shown below. It was fun to hear my niece, Miss M., who is the primary caregiver of Teddy, say how proud she is whenever she takes him to the vet and he gets a clean bill of health. She gets compliments about how smart and handsome he is with his glossy coat of fur. She is a proud dog mama! Look at those eyes! Don’t you just want to throw him a bone and play with him? Oh, what a good doggie!

-word games. Em and I got to play two games that I brought, plus a brainy favorite of the two of us, Huggermugger. I only took one suitcase and one carry-on so I was very limited with luggage space, therefore board game space. So I brought two tiny games: Ito and Fiction. I got to play Ito with Em, her husband, and my niece, Miss H. It was a hit!

We all laughed out loud while playing Ito. I highly recommend that game! As a cooperative game for people who don’t want to think too hard, it’s great for parties or evenings when you are too tired to think hard, but you are still up for some slightly thinky fun before going to bed. It’s also perfect for parties because you can explain it in less than five minutes or just use a YouTube video explaining it. I’m so excited to play it with my family for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then Em and I played Fiction which is a mash-up between Wordle and Two Truths and a Lie.

-the Harvest Festival for the church congregation (ward) of my sister. It was a Halloween party with a trunk or treat, but my brother-in-law told me the official name is the Harvest Festival. Maybe because it wasn’t on the day of Halloween. It was fun to see the costumes and the food. One of my nieces dressed up as Rumi from the movie about the K-Pop Demon Hunters. Check out the braid my sister put in her hair. Then it was fun to see a photo my married daughter sent of the her family’s costumes and her cousin’s family. One of my grand-nieces also dressed up as Rumi. Of course my ancestral foods/WAPF heart winced at the amount of refined sugar I saw collected that night which damage heatlh. Once again I thought about all my ideals regarding Halloween, to focus it more on foods that we’ve actually harvested, and wholesome sweets, and dressing like heroes, to turn it into a true harvest festival and Heroween. I’ve attempted various iterations of those ideals over the years, but never have I fulfilled my vision. Someday…

-hearing my daughter talk and laugh with her cousins. She and her only sister are ten years apart so they have never had much in common. Big sis moved out to college when my younger daughter was 7 so she hasn’t grown up with her sister in the home much. It was so delightful to hear my daughter connecting with her cousins. I’m so grateful that each of my daughters have girl cousins their age and close to their age, who can fill in the gap for a lack of sisters. So thanks to my siblings who provided us with girl cousins! It was so healing to see my daughter come alive around her cousins, because I rarely get to see the fun and playful side of her.

-seeing my nieces and nephew navigate daily life in the school year, as with our last visit, they were on summer break. It was fun to see where both of my older nieces work, as they are on break from college at BYU-I, then seeing where are all my nieces and nephews have attended or are attending school, and seeing my nephew and two younger nieces cached away in their rooms, doing (or not doing, LOL) their homework after school.

-seeing the toys of my two younger nieces in their play space in the basement. They have created a whole world out of Calico Critters, Play Mobil figures, a dollhouse, blocks, Legos, and other tiny toys. The older one, 14, has pretty much left this world of pretend, but the younger one, 11, still loves to immerse herself in this imaginative world. Ahh, so sweet! It makes me look forward to having granddaughters. With five sons and two daughters, not much estrogen flowed in our home to attract dollhouses, woodland creatures, and tiny people. We did have some Polly Pockets, Lego mini-figs, Duplo sets, and Fisher Price Little People sets. That was the extent of our miniature worlds. We never had play that looked like this.

It just makes my heart happy to see the above playscape!

-seeing my sister’s art studio and art materials. She has an MFA from BYU and has illustrated a few books and done a lot of commissioned art. She’s doing art almost full-time after delaying her career to devote to her six children. With her youngest being 12 she has a lot more time for art, than when she first moved to Maine 10 years ago. Check out her artwork for sale here.

-now for something totally REAL and raw: I slept in the basement TV room on a comfy air mattress, so that meant that to go to the bathroom I had to go out of the room, around the corner, through the rec room, up the stairs, pass the kitchen, then pass the laundry room. I’m pleased to say that I made what seems like such an arduous trek when one is awakened from a comatose state by a middle-aged postpartum-7-times bladder begging, indeed, crying out to be emptied. I’m pleased to say that I made it to the target, in the near dark. Whew! I’m grateful Em provided a night light in the bathroom. At home, I am used to rolling out of bed and practically being in the bathroom off the side of my bedroom to do my business in the middle of the night, as the bathroom is two steps away from my bedside. So I’m feeling downright spry and very accomplished because of this mundane success LOL. One morning I didn’t even have to use the facilities until 7 AM.

-sleeping in. On the just mentioned morning when I got out of bed at 7 AM, I was able to go back to sleep. I’m sooooo grateful! I then slept unitl 10 AM! I haven’t had such luxury in years! The fact that the room had no windows helped with that definitely. My body sorely needed it as I was running on severe sleep deprivation and jet lag, having missed a lot of sleep with getting up at 3 AM to catch our 6:30 AM flight to Maine. I didn’t sleep at all on the plane what with a crying child a few rows ahead and a bumpy plane ride.

-thrifting in Maine. Yay!!! I didn’t go last time so I was super intent on going this time with my sister. Emily said her daughters love to go thrifting too. We got to take one of them with us and with my daughter the morning of our outbound flight back to SLC. The other one had to work. But then she got to go with us to the airport. We went to a Goodwill in Scarborough, Maine. I was surprised by the high price of books there. $4 for a Little Golden Book that had torn pages! No thank you! I left Em looking in the books while I headed to the clothes, looking for the white skirt that has eluded me the past summer and so far, all of autumn. Alas, I had no luck.

I passed up a black Frozen sweatshirt that looked just like the one above. It was cute but I’m just not a sweatshirt person. You can get it if you go to ebay.

I bought a Christmas-y top with poinsettias and a gray cardigan sweater. See above! Every year I like to get one new top for Christmas. I’m also always on the look-out for cardigans to brighten up winters with hygge. Ever since my older daughter said I’m a Carol Tuttle Dressing Your Truth Type 4/1, I haven’t worn gray. But this gray sweater was such a light delicate gray, so cute with scalloped edges, and new, still with the tag, I just felt so drawn to it! So I bought it. It was $10. It’s Grecerelle brand, so that was a deal since those sweaters are over $20 retail. I might end up giving it to my mom, who is Type 2. Gray is the neutral color that looks best on Type 2s. Black is the best neutral color for Type 4, and white is the best for Type 1. So maybe I should have bought the Frozen shirt since it’s black and white, LOL.

Em stayed in the books section the whole time, not put off by the high prices like I was. Our girls asked me where she was and I told them she was in the books, the last time I saw her. They went to find her and couldn’t, because she had bent over and was looking on the lower part of the shelves. It was just funny that they missed her. She was searching thoroughly! Her hard work paid off. Here are the great books she found above. She got the War of Art (get it? a play on the classic Art of War) for her BYU-attending son who is following in her footsteps and studying art there. (Although she studied illustration and he’s doing animation.) She got the pocket dictionary for her daughter, Miss M. who will be serving in a French-speaking mission in Africa.

-Em also introduced me to Marshalls and Home Goods, which we do have here in Utah but I had never been to either one. They are like fraternal twin stores, connected but with with separate entrances. I didn’t buy anything at either place but got ideas about what to get when I got back home. She was so excited to find some green candles for her Christmas Advent tradition. She said she has been looking for two years for these and finally found some, that don’t smell awful, at Home Goods. She was also excited to find tan and red striped giftwrap. Before she even picked it up I was about to say, “Em this paper totally reminds me of you!” It just gives off Emily vibes. 🙂

-on the way home, on the airplane, we flew from Portland to Charlotte NC and then Charlotte to SLC. So it was fun to think we were taking the same plane flight that my oldest child took 11 years ago when he came home from his mission to Charlotte, in November 2014. What a happy time that was! I loved walking down the hall through the exit doors to the baggage claim, the same doors two of my sons, and many, many missionaries walk through every week when they return home from a mission. I call it the Hero’s Journey Return Walk. As my daughter and I walked through there, this amazing music was playing on the loudspeakers. First it was this fun happy music below

and then there was this music that maybe was the MoTab Choir. They sounded like angels. Then we walked through that space between the exit doors and the baggage claim, where families are reunited with returning missionary sons and daughters, cousins, nieces, nephews, relatives, etc. after 18 months to two years. It is truly The Happiest Place on Earth. So many joyful tears are shed there! (I blog about mission homecomings here.)

-on the airplane ride home I got to watch something I’ve wanted to watch for a long time, which is the new adaptation of James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small stories, streaming in Netflix, and on airplanes, at least with American Airlines Wifi, apparently. I read all his books as a teen and loved them. I watched one episode and enjoyed it although it didn’t completely hold my attention, as I kept nodding off. I did enjoy the cozy family, England and pastoral vibes though.

-also on the way home I got to watch something completely new to me, which came out this year. It was the movie Nonnas. See the trailer below. It was a near-perfect movie to watch for a 4.5 hour airplane ride home, after I got tired of reading and doing my crossword puzzle. I wanted something clean, funny, romantic, that also promoted home and family. This fit the bill! It’s also based on a true story! A definitely magical movie, despite taking the Lord’s name in vain a few times. Ouch, that always hurts. I told my husband all about it on the way home after he picked us up at the airport. I’m excited to tell my foodie son-in-law about it and talk about it with him.

We got home the night before Halloween, Thursday. As much as I love traveling, as I told my daughter when we picked up our luggage in the SLC airport, the best part of taking a trip is coming home. I’m grateful I have a home that I want to come home to! Part of what makes my home so lovely is that I get to see a view like the one below every day, below, when I go walking! Go here to see more of the views and how I celebrated Heroween/Halloween/All Saints’ Day/Day of the Dead.