Here's what I love about reading: There will always be good books to read out there if you just know where to find them. I've used Pinterest, Goodreads, and even Instagram to find my next read, and recently my efforts led me to a New York Times Bestselling novel published in 1978 that had otherwise completely escaped my notice.
The Passing Bells Trilogy by Philip Rock starts out feeling a little too much like Downton Abbey. It honestly felt as if Julian Fellowes had created Downton based on Abingdon Pryory! And while I enjoyed Downton Abbey (and watched every episode), The Passing Bells could never be mistaken for a soap opera, as Downton often was. While there is romance and the development of beautiful, enduring relationships, that is not what these books are about. They are about real life, real love, and the effects of time and history. As you follow each character's experiences and point of view, they become real to the reader, representing not only a bygone time, but also the lives of the people who experienced our history firsthand. The writing is artful, and the descriptions, especially of wartime, were simply powerful. 

I've loved Natasha Solomons since I read The House at Tyneford back in 2012 (a book I credit with getting me on the path of readership I am on today), but this book was something else entirely. House of Gold by Natasha Solomons follows a wealthy Jewish family (modeled after the Rothschilds) in the years leading up to and during WWI. I simply cannot imagine the amount of heart that must have gone into writing this book, especially concerning the treatment of Jews throughout Europe during the time period and the specifics of the money markets and political turbulence. It was so well researched that the characters truly came alive and their stories became real. 

I also recommend The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson and Seven Days in May by Kim Izzo if you're looking for a well-written (although perhaps lighter?) WWI read.
Do you have a favorite WWI book that you recommend? 

I keep thinking back to last summer and how sad I was to see it come to an end. It had gone by too quickly, and for the first time, it felt like the wait over the winter for new planting, growing, and harvesting was going to be tediously slow.
But this year is different. Yes, I have a due date to look forward to (so time can't go by quickly enough), but I've also taken full advantage of the seasons this time around. 
I've definitely noticed an impatience this year- with wanting the seeds to sprout, and wanting the harvest to come. I've been disappointed that things don't flower all at once and that the beauty and bounty don't last. But there is also something beautiful about being so intimately involved in the cycles of our garden. It does make you look forward and enjoy the harvest when it does come.
We noticed recently that life is a lot like June in the garden. Everything is planted and in the ground, and all that is left is to weed, water, and wait. So with that in mind, I'm especially grateful to have made it to August (nearly September!) and to be enjoying fresh vegetables that will sustain us for months to come.

First of all, it turns out that these plants are VERY prolific. We really only needed one and I'm still not sure what to with all these tomatillos!
Something else I learned this year? Tomatillos are ready to pick once the husk that grows around each one starts to split.
I haven't canned anything with the tomatillos, but I did make and freeze a double batch of sauce from the Green Chile Chicken Tamales by Rick Bayless​.
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We don't have a Cafe Rio here, so I make this dressing and put it on everything.

There are a million different varieties out there, but this year our favorites are Sheboygans (As in Sheboygan WI, so you know they love this MN summer weather), Black Cherry Tomatoes, and the traditional Italian San Marzano. 
Couple of tips and tricks:

• Grow your basil alongside your tomatoes. Supposedly basil as a neighbor improves flavor, amongst other benefits.
• ​Cut down excess growth on your tomato plants so they put their energy into making tomatoes instead of leaves and branches. We neglected our plants this year and saw significantly less produce.

And what do we do with all of our tomatoes? I'll make and freeze a few soups and lasagnas and I'll can a bunch of the tomatoes. But it's incredible how much a fresh tomato or a new variety can enhance the flavor of a recipe. Here are some of the recipes we love this time of year:

• Tomato Galette with Basil Pesto and Feta by Wood and Spoon
• Mexico: One Plate at a Time by Rick Bayless (tomatoes AND jalapenos AND onions)
  • Creamy Enchiladas with Chicken, Tomatoes, and Green Chile
  • Red Tomato Rice
  • Classic Shredded Beef

What do you do with your summer produce?
And do you need any tomatoes???

One of my favorite things about good recipes is the way that certain foods and smells can evoke powerful feelings and memories, inviting feelings of home and family, preserving a link between homes and hearths and generations of bakers. No food more perfectly conveys this relationship between food and emotion than homemade bread.
My grandma's rolls will always prompt memories of Thanksgiving, and Banana Bread makes me think of my mother. Nothing welcomes in the change of seasons from summer to autumn like Pumpkin Bread straight out of the oven, and Sourdough will always remind me of my dad.

And yet, even though I enjoy baking (and eating) homemade bread, it wasn't until this last week that I finally found the courage to attempt Sourdough. The very idea of creating a sourdough starter was simply intimidating. It ferments on the counter and you feed it periodically? And what if I put in all the time and effort and it doesn't pay off in the end?
But it turns out, like most baking, you just have to follow the instructions. The starter was not as intimidating as I thought it would be (and for minimal effort, I am felt pretty pleased with myself :), and the only tricks to making the bread were finding the right recipe and planning ahead.
​ It's the prettiest dough I've ever handled--with possibly the greatest pay-off--and the labor of love involved in preparing it will undoubtedly add to the sentiment my family will associate with its distinct flavor. 

I just finished reading Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro, a powerful story well told and artfully woven into the history of genealogy, DNA testing, and early fertility medicine, and the whole time I was reading it, I kept thinking of my own recent discoveries about my family history.

My Nana was adopted as an infant, and knew very little about where she came from. She passed away several years ago, but her story always felt like it was part of my own, and I wanted to know more. We had a last name, a place of birth, a story of two sisters both giving up their daughters for adoption. It didn't seem like a lot to go off of on its own, but then we added DNA testing.
A friend of mine was able to help me interpret the results we had on Ancestry.com, leading right to my Nana's biological mother, Margaret. I will always remember coming across a picture of Florence, Margaret's sister, and seeing a family resemblance so strong that I was moved to tears. It really was like discovering a missing piece of myself.

Not long after we made those initial discoveries, my aunt forwarded me a message she had received on Ancestry from my Nana's biological cousin.
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​We started corresponding through email and over the phone, and she sent me pictures and shared stories that I had to remind myself belonged in part to me as well. 

​There are still a lot of missing pieces to the puzzle. Nana's biological father remains a mystery as well as the motives that led to her adoption. I recently sent a letter to a woman who we suspect to be Nana's half-sister, and I am excited to see what will come of that as well. But it is still incredible how much more we know now than we did just a few short months ago.

Since I've started reaching out to potential literary agents seeking representation for Adele, ​I've added the following line to my book summary: "This is the story of Adele Astaire, a forgotten heroine whose life rivals those of Grace Kelly and Meghan Markle." All three women left successful careers as actresses to marry titled foreigners, all three women left everything behind and started a new life, choosing family, position, and love over fame and success. So why is it that Adele isn't remembered or romanticized like Grace and Meghan have been?
At the time of her wedding to Charles Cavendish, Adele was at the height of her career. Newspapers in the U.S. and U.K. lamented her early retirement, and the news made headlines in both countries.

According to Hannah Obee, the Chatsworth House curator, "It was so unusual at that time for an actress to marry into the English aristocracy. The fact that she's having this fairy tale romance with an English Lord just completely captivates everybody." -​Secrets of Chatsworth
And Charlie and Adele even had to deal with the same type of media circus we see today surrounding a royal or celebrity wedding, with reporters swarming the ship when Adele arrived in England for the wedding, following her from Plymouth to London by taxi and by train.
​And while Adele's mother in-law sought to keep the wedding an intimate family affair (not even telling the household staff when it would take place until the night before), there were still journalists stationed outside Chatsworth on the day of the wedding, hoping to get a shot of the bride and groom for Adele's loyal fans.

And yet Adele's wedding day, her romance with Charles Cavendish, and even her success on broadway have all but faded away. While I don't think the decision she made was any less significant than those of Grace of Monaco and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, a couple of factors have added to Adele's relative obscurity. 
First of all, Adele didn't marry a prince. Charlie was the second son of the Duke of Devonshire, and consequently Adele won't be found on any of the lists comparing Meghan Markel to other so-called American Princesses. 
But perhaps more importantly, consider the difference in the scope and reach of the media compared to just 25 years later when Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco. No film even exists showing Adele on the stage, whereas Grace Kelly was immortalized in her films (and even had her public wedding service recorded by MGM). And although Adele was a much sought after Broadway star, outside of the theater and the newspapers in America and England, her fame was nowhere near that of Oscar-winning Grace Kelly or Suits star, Meghan Markle. 
So I suppose not everyone would group these three women together, but I think Adele deserves a place beside them. I don't wish to compare the dresses they wore or the status of the men they married. In fact, I should clarify that Before Ginger Rogers is not even really a romance. Romance does play a part of course, because Adele truly did love Charlie, but my book is the story of how a modern, successful woman could choose to give it all up for something she thought was more important. That's what drew me in. There is fulfillment and pride and joy in the path that Adele and Grace and so many others choose for themselves (with or without the castle and links to royalty), and I think that these stories need to be told more often.

We didn't do the best job letting people know we had another little one on the way, so here is (more than) everything you need to know about our little girl, due October 24, 2019!

We did a FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer) this time around. When we did IVF in 2017 to get Annie, we were able to freeze six additional embryos, so I didn't need to do a retrieval all over again. Which is good and bad. Since my body didn't ovulate, that meant I had to take hormone treatments to mimic what my ovaries would have been doing throughout the first trimester (until the placenta can take over producing the hormones).

First of all, I'm surprised at how little I remember from Annie's pregnancy! I definitely remember getting these hormone induced migraines both times, but I seem to have blocked out a lot of the discomfort. The main difference was in the first trimester. I felt a lot more nauseous while I was taking hormones than when my body was producing them naturally. This pregnancy is also going by a lot faster since Annie helps to split my focus.

I went back and forth for a while, but right now it just feels like we're a girl family. I am so excited that Annie will have a sister, and I get so much enjoyment out of saying, "the girls"!!! And Matt? He loves being a father to daughters. They're lucky to have him as their dad!

If she had been a boy, we were pretty sure we were going to name her Benjamin. Girl names are trickier for us! I don't think I want her name to end in a "y" sound, and we prefer traditional names. There are a lot that we like (i.e. Emma and Kate), but no definite front runners yet. ​

Consider? Yes. But I'm already so uncomfortable, my resolve often wavers. My friends who have fearlessly brought their babies into the world without epidurals recommended I read Natural Hospital Birth by Cynthia Gabriel, and Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. Both have been excellent resources to help me prepare for the second time around.

Not at all. But I think she's going to make a wonderful big sister. 

I did make a baby registry, but it doesn't seem like we need anything! I would have liked to have had a bassinet for Annie, so I took care of that. And our infant car seat will need to be replaced, but other than that, I was really happy with the gear we had for Annie. Plus, the girls (!!!) will be almost exactly two years apart, so we should even be good on clothes.
​I am going to do a Promptly Journal for this baby. And I no longer have reservations about buying Annie shoes, bows, or clothes, knowing that we'll get plenty of use out of them now!

This time around I'm just excited. I even feel like I know this new baby better because I know Annie. There is something special about your first, but I can tell already that there is something wonderful about your second. 22 weeks today! Couldn't be feeling more grateful.