New Favs for October

As I said, I am hoping to start posting once a month some "New Favs" (favs is short for favorites...). This is where I share some things I have recently discovered or rediscovered and enjoyed during that month. Here we go...

1) Coconut Products - At the beginning of the month I bought a huge thing of coconut oil (very good for you!) and have been using it more, okay, a lot in my cooking. It's yummy on green beans and to cook scrambled eggs to mention a couple. Also, I bought unsweetened shredded coconut to make these awesome chicken tenders. I added it to my sister-in-law's granola recipe for the first time and it raised the bar for granola big time!

2) Joshua Bell's album Romance of the Violin. I checked it out from the library. It reminded me how much I love the violin. The album is so beautiful and relaxing. Perfect for listening to while sipping a cup of tea and reading with a candle flickering nearby.

3) Librovox - Thanks to that same sister-in-law, I now know about the amazing Librovox website. It has thousands of free audio books. Every book is in the public domain, which means they are not copyrighted. (I had no clue what that meant. I feel so educated now!) Volunteers record the book, you download and enjoy! So simple. I listened to A Little Princess on the way to and from my friends house last weekend - 8 hours worth of "reading" that would have been spent listening to music I know by heart. And Sweet Girl didn't seem to mind a bit!

4) Small Notebook blog - I already mentioned this blog, but it had to be apart of the list because it has had a big impact on me already. You will see. I have more to write about ideas I've gleaned from this site.

5) Acorns - I have never given a thought to acorns before. But as I was browsing blogs and looking for things I could put together for Mia to do, I saw acorns everywhere. I thought we just didn't have any oak trees in this area because I didn't remember seeing them as a child and I knew we didn't have any in our yard. But one afternoon we ventured out on a trail nearby (but you still have to drive to it) and found a bunch of acorns! Sweet Girl likes putting them, one by one into a jar. I like just looking at them. Whenever I see some outside, I have to restrain myself from gathering a whole handful to take home!