Once upon a time, I used to write real book reviews where I read with great care, marked passages of note, and labored on the actual review. Alas, those days are gone. With a book coming out every other year, all my energy is going into my own work. I feel bad about this as I really enjoy bringing attention to other people’s books.

So for the past few years, it’s been all or nothing for me: Because I didn’t have the time to write a proper review, I didn’t write anything. Then I had a belatedly brilliant flash—it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. When I come across books of interest, especially if they’re written by friends, blogging or otherwise, I can simply feature the book on my blog and write a few lines about it.

Therefore, here is a book I’d like to bring to your attention—Twigs in My Hair by Cynthia Reyes. Twigs in my Hair is for gardeners and would-be gardeners or for people who simply like looking at gardens. Also, for those who are interested in a memoir told through gardening stories past and present. And surely Twigs in my Hair must be one of the best titles ever. (Full disclosure: My husband did the page layout.)

Cynthia, a blogging friend, has a warm, vivid writing style that pulls a reader in. The book features gorgeous pictures taken by Cynthia’s husband, Hamlin. I am not ashamed to admit that I had an acute case of gardener’s envy as I read Twigs in My Hair.  Readers, put this book on your TBR list, and with the holidays just around the corner, it would make a lovely gift for friends or family.

From books we go to food, a subject that is ever on my mind. As I’ve written in previous posts, my husband, Clif, is on extremely low-carb diet. We are a carb-loving family, and cutting back on carbs has proven to be a great challenge. Fortunately, we have found ways to eat a low-carb diet and even enjoy it. Joseph’s flax, oat bran, and whole wheat pita bread is one reason why. This pita is a soft and tasty bread substitute. It can be folded in half, toasted, and used as a taco shell. Untoasted and folded, it makes a dandy roll for a burger. Or sausage. Or whatever.

How low carb is this pita bread? Take a look, and keep in mind that a whole wheat roll has about 20 grams of carbs. (Clif aims to keep his carb intake to around 70 grams a day.)

I do want to emphasize I’m not getting any kickbacks when I endorse a product. I am to Joseph’s as a flea is to an elephant.

Finally, what’s not to like about a finch taking a drink from a birdbath at dusk as you sit on the patio? Nothing at all. Pure happiness to watch that little beauty.

To read what small pleasures are making Thistles and Kiwis happy, click here.

This week’s happiness post is a humdinger. James Egan, the brilliant designer at Bookfly Design, has created a fabulous cover for my upcoming book, Out of Time, which will be released in November 2020.

This is Book Three in my Great Library Series, where the heroine, Maya Hammond, must find a way to defeat Cinnial, the fallen librarian, whose burning ambition is to control the Great Library, where all information in our universe flows.

The mission to defeat Cinnial has taken Maya across the universe. In Out of Time, Maya travels even farther. She goes to a dimension called Elferterre, which is ruled by Magic rather than by Time, the dominant force in our universe. With her new team—Will, Jay, and Lexie—Maya embarks on a quest to steal a lock from a powerful elf named Galli. The lock will help Maya trap Cinnial.

In Elferterre—green and mysterious with a touch of steampunk—Maya, Will, Jay, and Lexie encounter allies and foes, including a talking cat, a witch, sprites, ogres, imps, and a mechanical horse. All the while, Magic swirls around Elferterre, enhancing the good and bad in every creature that Maya and her team meet.

Maya falls in love, treks again across the universe, and encounters her biggest challenge yet.

Will Maya have the courage to face this challenge? Or will she falter?

Readers, I will be sure to let you know when Out of Time is published. My first two books—Maya and the Book of Everything and Library Lost—are available through our Hinterlands Press website.

And that’s it for this post, even though I usually include three things that are making me happy. After all, what can top a new cover?

To read what small pleasures are making Thistles and Kiwis happy, click here.

Once again, we got lucky at our home in the woods. Because the hurricane moved west, Maine got scraped rather than directly hit. But it was a hard scrape, and over 91,000 customers lost their electricity as trees came down across power lines.

Although plenty of people in Winthrop lost their power, we did not. The lights flickered several times, but that was it, and I awoke to the comforting hum of the refrigerator.  Such a relief. We have two freezers—one upstairs and one down cellar—and it would have been hard to lose all that food if the power had been knocked out for days and days, the way it often is on our rural road.

In a little while, Clif and I will head outside to put the patio back in order. The birds really depend on the bird bath for water, and yesterday they couldn’t figure out why the bowl was on the ground. They just sat on the pedestal and looked around, wondering where the water had gone. I felt bad for the birds.

Here’s a picture of our lonely patio. Soon the table and chairs will be back, and the bird bath will be put together so that there will be plenty of water for the birds.

Other parts of the United States weren’t as lucky as Maine. In particular, the hurricane hammered North Carolina, New Jersey, and other states on the Eastern Seaboard. I’ve heard from one New Jersey blogging friend, and all is well with her. I hope the same is true for other blogging friends whose homes were in the path of the storm.

And for all those who were hit by the hurricane, may the recovery  be swift.

Here we are as July tiptoes into August. The weather has rocked between hot and humid and nice summer days.  Even in my shady yard, flowers bloom. Then they go by, and more flowers bloom.

On the edge of blooming are the black-eyed Susans, that lovely flower of late summer.

As a bonus happy point, these flowers last a long time, providing a burst of yellow in gardens that might be past their best.

Regular readers of this blog know that my husband Clif has Type 2 diabetes and has gone on a low-carb diet. Not long ago we discovered these tortillas wraps that have 5 net carbs per tortilla.

The tortillas are tasty, and we use them for wraps for lunch nearly every day.

But a few weeks ago, I figured out that they can also be used to make low-fat, low-carb chips to go with salsa.

The process couldn’t be easier. Put the tortillas on a cookie sheet, and cut into a dipable size. A pizza cutter works really for this. Brush the tops with a little olive oil and sprinkle with some salt. Bake at 375°F for ten minutes.

Et voilá! Crunchy, low-carb, low-cal chips that, as my Yankee husband notes, are pretty darned good.

And last, another Tiny Desk Concert. This time Aimee Mann. Readers might remember her when she was in the group ‘Til Tuesday. Aimee Mann’s songs are rueful, sad, and beautifully written. She’s as much a poet as she is a musician.

To read what small pleasures are making Thistles and Kiwis happy, click here.

This post will be the last One Square Yard entry, as Becky B’s Square Perspective Theme ends in two days. What fun to frame my photos with a square rather than  a rectangle, and to see which shape works best with which picture. Clif has always been an advocate for squaring a photo, so I wasn’t totally unfamiliar with that perspective. Still, keeping an eye out for pictures that would look good squared has been a delightful challenge.

We have a smattering of wild blueberries in the yard. Fun to find a daddy-longlegs resting on some berries.

Another little visitor, this time in the bee balm.

And a spill of needles caught on the edge of a Frances Williams hosta leaf.

Because this is the last week of the Square Theme, here is a bonus picture, a repeat of the gorgeous daylily Flore Pleno. Plenty of flower is right! I didn’t think anyone would mind seeing these beauties twice.

Item #1: About three weeks ago, I wrote about how Clif and I had yet again changed our diets. Clif has type-2 diabetes, and he decided to go on a low-carb regimen. I am on a low-calorie diet to lose weight, and there is a lot of overlap between our diets. Because of the caloric and carb restrictions, baking is pretty much out for us, but every once in a while, we want pancakes or muffins. Unfortunately, wheat flour is high in carbs, and Clif can’t have very much of it.

Enter almond flour, low in carbs and delicious in its own right. As to be expected, almond flour doesn’t taste exactly like wheat flour, but that’s all right with Clif and me. We’re both open to different flavors, and as long as we like the taste, we are fine.

I am happy to report that almond flour passed the taste test. Clif made pancakes with the flour, and they were delicious. And because I am a pancake fiend, this made me devilishly happy.

As a bonus, they look exactly the way pancakes should look.

Item #2: You might be wondering why the picture below of the simple white flower made me happy this week. However, those who photograph flowers know how hard it is to get a good picture of white petals. White tends to blow out, and I hardly ever a get a decent shot of a white flower.

But, lo and behold, I finally succeeded. What I did was focus on the center, on the stamens and the pistil, and this really seemed to help. Yellow is another color that tends to blow out, and I will be testing my technique with yellow, too. Too bad the evening primroses are not in flower.

On to Item #3: Thanks to NPR, I recently came across Jacob Collier, yet another musician I was unfamiliar with. I was really taken with his light, funky style.

Before listening, do take a close look at the four musicians. A really close look. Pretty amazing.

Colin Marshall, from NPR, writes: “Polymath musician Jacob Collier has been championing this style of one-man-band music videos since 2012, singing every note and playing every instrument. His cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing”earned him a devout YouTube following at the age of 19, and he hasn’t slowed down since. The London wunderkind owns four Grammy Awards already, including two at the age of 22 in 2017, and his evolution as a bandleader has been evident in his live performances ( like when he came to NPR for a Tiny Desk concert last year). Now 25, and with nearly a decade of experience producing every aspect of his own music from his home, Collier is uniquely positioned to crank out his best work from quarantine. ”

Where there is a will, there is a creative way!

Recently, I was invited to participate in a month-long July photo challenge—SquarePerspectives hosted by BeckyB from her blog The Life of B. The challenge is exactly what it sounds like: Rather than post photos with the usual rectangular cropping, the challenge is to post photos cropped square. So each Wednesday in July, I will be presenting a series of square photos from my own yard, which nowadays is the farthest I usually go. Hence the title, One Square Yard.

This little butterfly is most obliging.  She poses patiently as I take picture after picture and doesn’t even mind being moved. The butterfly was a gift from my mother-in-law, who has been dead for 15 years, which means the butterfly has been gracing my gardens for at least 20 years. She’ll continue to do so as long as I’m gardening.

As a rule, daylilies do not do well in my shady front yard. Not enough sun in most spots. This one isn’t exactly loaded with blooms, but there are just enough to make a good showing every summer. Usually, I’m not a fan of double flowers, but this one has me hooked. Maybe it’s the orange. Wish I could tell you what the name is, but like the butterfly, this daylily has been here for many, many years, and the little stake that came with it is long gone.

I am absolutely smitten by the hosta below—the heart-shaped leaves and the large white border that brightens any spot in the garden. And do you notice many holes in the leaves, the munching assaults mounted by slugs and snails? No, neither do I. Slugs and snails are a fact of life when you live in the woods. I have tried various eradication methods over the years, from handpicking to beer in bowls to Sluggo. And still the slugs and snails come. Therefore I have pretty much given up. Although the slimy little blighters chew the leaves to ribbons, the plants are not destroyed, and each year the hostas return hopefully, fresh and green.

But this little beauty seems to be slug resistant. Do I know its name? I do not. I’m sure by now you’ve figured out that not knowing a plant’s name is one of my bad tricks, as my eldest daughter would put it.

But no matter. Beauty needs no name.

Here and there in the sea of green in my gardens are splashes of other colors. Ah, July!

Busy, busy finishing the story for my podcast, so there isn’t time to write much more. But the gardens speak for themselves, don’t you think?

Recently, I was invited to participate in a month-long July photo challenge—SquarePerspectives hosted by BeckyB from her blog The Life of B. The challenge is exactly what it sounds like: Rather than post photos with the usual rectangular cropping, the challenge is to post photos cropped square. So each Wednesday in July, I will be presenting a series of square photos from my own yard, which nowadays is the farthest I usually go. Hence the title, One Square Yard.

Even in my mostly green and wooded yard, there are a few flowers to brighten the gardens. While they bloom, here they are in their square glory.

As I wrote on Monday’s post, because of his type 2 diabetes, Clif is embarking on a low-carb diet. And if Clif is eating low-carb, then so am I. While I might have toast for breakfast, and Clif might make an   an omelet, I am not going to cook two different meals for our supper. Too much work. And besides, it doesn’t do me a bit of harm to eat low carb and perhaps avoid future problems.

Therefore, we are venturing into new territory, and this week I made “fried rice” with riced cauliflower. I expected it to be good. After all, in the fried rice I usually make I often use either cabbage or broccoli, and cauliflower is in the same family. But, readers, making fried rice from riced cauliflower turned out even better than I expected. So tasty!

I love it when that happens. (Not always a given, that’s for sure.) We will probably be having this meal once a week or so. In fact, I could have some right now. I’ve also found other recipes for riced cauliflower, and the one I plan to to try next is a Mexican “rice” dish. I didn’t take pictures of the fried riced cauliflower, so all I can feature is the package. Next time!

The second thing that is making me happy is my bee balm. While it was a bad year for irises, it has been a glorious year for bee balm. My patch in the backyard is fuller and more vibrant than it ever has been. In the late afternoon, when I relax on the patio, I have that glorious spark of red to draw my eye. The flowers also draw hummingbirds. I will try to get a decent picture of one, but I make no promises. Those winged Will-o’-the-wisps are fast.

The third thing, as always, is music and another NPR Tiny Desk Concert. (Thank you, thank you, NPR, for bringing so much music into my life.) This week, for blogging friends who like country and bluegrass music, I’m featuring Mandolin Orange, a duo from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Their music has also been categorized as folk and Americana. Whatever it’s called, Mandolin Orange’s music is just plain good, and their songs certainly represent a strain of American music. If you like Mandolin Orange, be sure to listen to the last song, “Wildfire.” Released on the 2016 album Blindfaller, “Wildfire” is even more relevant today than it was four years ago.