September’s Cheep Trills

Chirped by Tina and Cass

It’s that time of the month again! And we’re ready with another list of ten things that we’re happy about from the last thirty days or so. It’s a good exercise, when you’re stressed (or even when you’re not), to take time to be grateful for the good stuff!

Just as a side note: We don’t get any kickbacks from any of the links we provide in our blog, and we try to spread the love between various booksellers or retailers while still giving you an easy way to check out stuff we’re posting about. That is not to say we would mind having “affiliates” at some point if we were big fans – but we’re not there yet. We’ll let you know if we ever are! We just don’t want anyone to think our motivations are anything but pure when we chirp about a book, local restaurant, craft source or whatever! Cheers to the good stuff!  – Tina & Cass

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Favorite Books of the Month (Tina)

For September, our two book recommendations are Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng (author of Everything I Never Told You) and The Wife Between Us, by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen. Little Fires is about a nice, quiet, planned community where everyone is expected Continue reading

April, May & June’s Cheep Trills

Chirped by Cass (and Tina)

This month’s favorites are a compilation from April, May and June since “life” got away from us and we are behind on posting our monthly highlights.  So let’s begin.

Favorite Books of the Months

June-booksThe Dry by Jan Harper is a compelling murder mystery set in a fictional, drought-plagued, small Australian town that I read in a day and kept Tina busy on the flights to and from the Galapagos.  She finished it just in time for the “you may now unbuckle your seat belts” ding, and had the flight attendant grilling her about who dunnit?!

Painted Hands by Jennifer Zobair describes the friendship of some young Muslim American career women and all the different ways that cultural traditions, stereotypes, political climate and well-meaning aunties shape their decisions and Continue reading

Galapagos Getaway

Chirped by Tina

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Red-Footed Booby

The Galapagos Islands of Ecuador… site of Charles Darwin’s inspiration for his treatise On the Origin of Species. If you’ve been toying with the idea of adding them to your “World Travels Bucket List,” allow me to sing their praises and convince you that it might be worth prying a good-sized chip off your nest egg to make it happen! We decided to splurge on this amazing trip with our two boys while they still have some flexibility in their summer schedules. Soon enough they’ll be getting “real jobs” with little or no vacation time, and a wildlife-focused destination was something the whole family could get behind. We were not disappointed. Maybe you weren’t sure whether a bunch of finches with different beak shapes and Continue reading