Summer Reading Recap + a garden update

Hello hello, welcome to Episode 65 of Life on the Brink!

Today we have a bit of a twofor, we’re wrapping up both the Summer Reading Challenge AND I’m giving a recap of the 2022 garden so far. What worked, what didn’t work, and what I hope to change in the future.
I’m also sharing a few of your favorite summer books, and ways that I celebrated reading this summer!

In this episode I'm sharing:
-reviews on all the books I read this summer
-what some of you lovely listeners have been reading
-ways I've been celebrating books and reading
-everything I've harvested from the garden so far
-what's worked and what hasn't worked in the 2022 veggie garden
-garden plans for this fall

Plus, I'm  sharing about a scavenger-hunt-project that Josh and I have been working on all summer, and a wonderfully playful album of original jazz tunes.

For the complete show notes, click here!
For full transcript, click here!


Site: lifeonthebrink.live
Social: @anna_on_the_keys

Transcript

Unknown: 0:07

Welcome to Life on the brink, a lovely little place filled with inspiration and creativity that is dedicated to enjoying life one day at a time. I'm Ana. And together, we're exploring the beautiful things in this world that fascinate us. And often discovering something new. Hello, hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 65 of life on the brink. I hope you're doing well. I know that some of you will be starting school this week, whether teaching or attending, and all the best to you. You can do this. It's going to be a great year. I think so my school year starts this week. I've been prepping for it. And I think it's I think it's gonna be good. So happy School. Today's episode is a bit of a twofer. It's sort of wrapping up of summery things, because we're still in summer, but they're two different branches. So as you can tell by the title of this episode, we're going to be wrapping up both the Summer Reading Challenge very exciting. And I'll be giving a recap of basically my garden progress for the 2022 Garden thus far. So what I've harvested what's worked, what didn't work and what I'm hoping to do in the future. So I'm also sharing a few of your favorite summer books and some very special ways that I celebrated reading and specific books throughout the summer. So go ahead and grab yourself a cup of tea, we're getting right into it. Go ahead and make yourself something I personally today have an iced tea. I'm once again drinking the Trader Joe's organic ginger, turmeric, herbal tea, but I brewed like all several cups worth a lot of it with some fresh ginger, some lemon zest, some a cinnamon stick, and peppercorns. And peppercorn helps work with turmeric to help you absorb more of the goodness. And so I brewed it and sweetened it and chilled it. So now I'm drinking it with a little squeeze of lemon, which just hooks it up. So basically, it's a big anti inflammatory, boosting, drink. But whatever you're feeling like today, make yourself a cup of tea get nice and cozy. Because it's time for a book chat. Yes, here we go. So jumping right into it. Let's backtrack to Episode 57, which was about summer reading books. Like what I was planning on reading what I think is good to read in the summer. And also I unveiled my first ever reading challenge, which was inspired by the ones that Barnes and Noble does for kids every summer. And my goal was to read five bucks by the beginning of the school year, kind of now, for me that is actually this week that school begins. But the past two weeks have been like professional development weeks. So I've been in school mode kind of for the past couple of weeks. But before that I did finish all five books, not the same five that I anticipated reading, but several of the same ones. So I'm going to go through the books that I read what I thought of them, because there's a lot of like bestsellers on this list. And then also how I celebrated the end of the challenge. So the first book of the summer was book lovers by Emily Henry. It was her new release, I give it four stars, and I really enjoyed it. It had some really nice small town vibes. I love enemies to lovers. Nothing wrong with it. It wasn't like five star like oh my gosh, best book I've ever read. But it was it was a delight. And I really wanted to keep reading it. And then after that I read Malibu rising by Taylor Jenkins read and this was like the perfect summer book because well most of it takes place in Malibu and and I really enjoyed that. And I also really loved how this book is from many different perspectives like in the second half especially so many different perspectives. And while some of the story like maybe A, you know, a third to a half of the story, at least in the first half of the book is in flashbacks, and it gives you like what year this is taking place that give you context to the current story. But that current story takes place only over a 24 hour time period. And something that I've discovered about Taylor Jenkins read is that she's really good at letting you know that everything's about to explode, like it's going to get bad quickly. But you don't know how you don't know why. And so you know that in the next 24 hours, everything's going to go crazy. And then you just get to watch it devolve. But then the ending, I don't think I could have guessed the way that it ended, which was really nice. And I felt like all of the characters or really fleshed out, I liked it. I thought it was a great book. And it was reminding me a little bit of not at all in theme, but just in a way of when I read The Secret History last year, because that book also has really developed characters, although in a very different timeline. But it also tells you this bad thing is going to happen. But you know, it's coming and you're still like getting anxious as it approaches. I feel like that's just a really skillful thing to be able to write and Taylor Jenkins read definitely does that. So four stars to Malibu rising as well. Big fan. Then in the middle of all these books I read. I read mag, number one in the series of the mag, or mag by Steve Oulton. Now, why did I read this book, because you may recall back last summer in Episode 30, where I had on both my sisters and we were discussing Summer Movie Night, if you haven't listened, I think it's, it's great fun, especially during the summertime. And our number one pick that we all decided great summer movie was the mag because it's like one of our favorite shark films, and we are big shark film kind of sewers. And last year, on our rewatch of it, we realized that it said it's based after a book, it's based on a book. And not only that, but that next year in 2023, there is supposed to be a sequel to that film coming out. That is based on another book in the series. So we said okay, time for book club. So my sister Sarah hosted a party. And we all read this book mag number one. And I had this very tiny paperback with this rather dynamic painting of a Shark Eating a Tyrannosaurus Rex on the cover. And I carried that around with me. And read that over the summer for a couple of weeks. And it was not as well executed as Emily Henry or Taylor Jenkins read their writing. Not at all. I gave it two stars because I had to remember that if I hadn't seen the movie yet. The concept of a megalodon shark would have set it apart from other shark stories. You know, that's the point of it. The Megalodon, by the way, is is like a humongous prehistoric shark that accidentally gets out of the trench. I guess more than one does, because we get a second book in a second movie. The the story like the that, like if you look at the overview of the concept like yeah, okay, I get it. Yep, cool. Um, however, there are so many characters and I could not tell them apart. And also, you get many people's perspectives, like you do in Malibu rising. Now I know I just said I liked that it gave many different people's perspectives and their thoughts. But in Meg, it was more like I didn't have enough to be invested in them. And it also gave you objective, like, just like, normal Narrator observing the shark. And also you get like the perspective and the thoughts of the shark. I know as I'm saying this, it just sounds crazy. But it was it was a crazy time. But I read the book, basically for the party and the party was great. I will leave plenty of photos in the show notes because it was adorable. There were all manner of shark decorations, a big mirror that was decorated with teeth to look like a shark's mouth. There was a shark themed drink and snackies and it was just the lighting. Everything was so cute. Very sharp. And I told Sarah, she's got to keep all of her decorations and stuff. Because next year, we need to do this again, for Book Two, so that we can watch movie two. We did watch the movie, the first mag at this party and pretty enjoyed that. I mean, for a shark movie. So you've got to you're joking along with it as it goes. But it was great fun. Not my favorite book, though. So that was the Meg and I feel like two stars is generous, I probably would have given it like one and a half, but I just rounded up to two. So there you go. Then I got right back into it. And I read beach read by Emily Henry. It really was her summer for me. And beach read. I loved the setting of this even more than book lovers. It's on a lake. It's also enemies to lovers, but in a bit of a different way. And I liked the competitive nature between the two. But I also, I think, enjoyed these characters, more than I did. In book lovers. I gotta say, my favorite of the big three, which is booklovers speech read and people we meet on vacation. I probably liked people we meet on vacation the most. But I read that in the spring. And that one, I felt like I really knew the characters. I loved their friendship, I loved the road trips, I just really liked the way it played out. And that one also I think this is a trend for me, you know that something bad has happened. But you're not. That's you know, the author is not going to tell you until like three quarters of the way through the book. So I think I like it when the book lets you know that something bad is going to happen or something bad has happened. And then they're letting you piece it together. So of the three I prefer people we meet on vacation, crazy name, I don't know why. But I really enjoyed all three of these books that I read this year, I gave that one also four stars. Basically everything got four stars this summer, except for him. And finally, the last book that I read, again, four stars, again, Taylor Jenkins read was finally of course, the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo, the whole world has blown up about this book. So I finally read it. And I have a perhaps controversial opinion, which is that I liked Malibu rising better. I just felt like I understood the characters more. And while I love a flawed character I really do. So I appreciated Evelyn and how she embraced her flaws, you know, love that. I'm not gonna give any spoilers by the way. But the good things about this book, the the reason that I gave it four stars was because I read it in like four days like and with long stretches of time, because each chapter, it's not like it left you cliffhanger re but I wanted to keep reading and it just naturally flowed so that I could read for a couple hours and not realize that that much time had passed, which I think is a sign of a great book, I loved again, the flashing back the different timelines watching history play out around these characters. And again, you knew something, there's some big secret, something's gonna blow up, but you don't know what it is. And when it finally is revealed, I was like, Oh, I never guessed that. But it was an excellent twist. Like, I would not have guessed it. However, the reason that I personally would not give it five stars. And why I didn't enjoy it more than Malibu rising was because I just felt probably what it is, is I have just different opinions or perhaps a different world view of different perception of the world, then Taylor Jenkins read does, because again, I can enjoy a character that I completely disagree with, like if they were a real person, I would be like, No, not at all. I disagree. But as a character, I get it. However, some topics, some thought patterns, the things that you're meant to walk away with as fundamentally good and bad. And, you know, sympathetic and empathetic toward, I could not always, like, identify with I didn't always understand it on the same level. So I felt like I couldn't empathize with the characters on the same level. And not any one thing, just lots of things that I felt like, okay, when it was done, I felt like okay, all right. I don't want feel like I walked away, changed. Or I felt sort of like what do I do now with that? I didn't love the ending. Um, it was it was so open ended for me that I was like, okay, I just it wasn't I didn't like it as much. I felt like Malibu rising had a better ending. But I still give it four stars because like I said, it was so captivating. And I will definitely read more of her books. I do like also how she seems to have a bit of like her own universe. For example, the character of MC Riva, that is a large, like a very important character in Malibu rising is a small character in the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and I believe that one came out first. And there's a book coming out, I think, next year called is something with Carrie Soto who is a character in Malibu rising, she's like getting her own book, I guess. And so I like that she's kind of creating her own universe. And that's pretty cool. And I'll definitely read that. And on the whole, I thought these were great books, and I loved Malibu rising a little bit more. And, yeah, those were the five books that I read over the summer. And I loved them each for different reasons. So before I tell you how I wrapped up my personal Summer Reading Challenge, allow me to share just a couple of some books that you have read, I asked over on Instagram, I gave a poll, what you all were reading over the summer, what was the best thing you read, and I just picked a few, so that you can check them out because they're all very different. These three books, one is called part of your world by Abby Jimenez. And that it seems I've looked these up. Now. It's a contemporary romance. But there's also a clear choice for the protagonist, this woman she doesn't know whether to follow in her family's footsteps, or pursue a different sort of life with this man who apparently there's a significant age gap that she's much older than him, which is an interesting concept. And it has very good reviews. So it's definitely one that I would be interested in reading to. And next I wanted to share, someone read how to be a good creature, a memoir in 13 animals, which is by SCI Montgomery and illustrated by Rebecca green. And I was drawn to this book because it really reminded me of the book world of wonders which I read last year, I talked about it in my 2021 best books of the year episode because it was also based sort of like essays that highlighted certain creatures, animals or plants, and how they were tied into someone's life. So this book seems to be in a similar style. And I'd be interested to read it and the illustrations do look gorgeous. And finally, another listener, read the fable Haven series by Brandon mull, which appears to be like a middle grade fantasy sort of series. That is, well beloved by several. So I might also take a look at that. And I love that everyone's reading very different stuff over the summer. It's not all super summery books all the time. But it's what you enjoyed. So very nice. Thank you so much for sharing. And if you would like to participate in future polls and stuff, you can just find me over on Instagram, it's at ona on the keys with underscores in between every word. It's complicated. It's also linked in the show notes and everywhere else. So now I would like to just share how I wrapped up my summer reading challenge because remember, after you complete it, part of it was to treat yourself. So again at Barnes and Noble. If you are a kid, and you complete their summer reading challenge, you get to pick from a list of available books for each age or grade range and pick it out for free, which is very cool. So instead, I set myself a budget and went to Barnes and Noble to go shopping and buy myself a book. I rarely buy a new book, especially at a store. Usually it's secondhand or used and I buy it online or something. But I went to Barnes and Noble and I ended up actually buying two books because they were both on a display that was buy one get one 50% off. And they were both books that I had been eyeing for a long time and they are 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez marquez and translated by Gregory, Rob Basa. This is I was so I hear like an epic of a book multigenerational incredibly told and the the author is Columbia And then it's been translated into several languages. And it's just praised everywhere. It won a Nobel Prize. Like it's, it's a huge book. And I finally have a copy. So I can read that hopefully soon. And the other book that I picked up is the 10,000 doors of January. So a lot of numbers here. And this book seems to be Oh, it's by Alex E. HARO, by the way. And this one seems to be sort of, sort of fantasy, but more like magical realism, which I really enjoy that historical, just a little bit like who mysterious and magical basically, I'm just looking for a book to get anywhere on the level of The Night Circus. And I read the starless sea, and it was just so gorgeous in the first third, and then the story went nowhere. So I'm hoping that this can be both atmospheric and a good story. Um, so yeah, now I have a copy of both of those. They've been on my list for probably well over a year at this point. And going to Barnes and Noble was so fun, because I looked around at like, everything. It was part of kind of like a date night with me and Josh, I looked through, you know, the new cookbooks as well. And we took a little stroll through the kids section, and we were able to show each other books that we grew up reading, and sidenote, they don't really carry the American Girl series anymore, at least not at the location that near me. Like, I only saw, like a couple of like the new the newer fiction, but like the classic American girls nowhere to be found, which I think is just like, why that's like a travesty. Anyway. It was really fun. I really loved it, I would recommend a Barnes and Noble date, or, you know, a date by yourself any day of the week. And it felt really nice. In summary, we went from there to Total Wine, I got a bottle of Rosae and we picked up some groceries at Trader Joe's went home and made summery pasta with the Rosae it was just such a nice summer evening, so you can make an event out of it for sure. So between that and the shark party, I was able to celebrate books quite a bit this summer. And as the season draws to a close, never fear. I am currently in the process of collecting my Autumn reads, I am so excited for the autumn books. It's giving mystery and magic and atmosphere above all. And I will definitely be sharing all of my Autumn book recommendations and the plans and the parties that are in my future in a future an upcoming podcast episode. So never fear. Now let's switch gears real quick. And we're going to talk about the garden. So sit down your book for a second. Let's go outside. Let's talk about this garden because before we move into the fall season, it's I just want to take stock, see where I'm at, see where you're at with the garden and just share some thoughts. Let's start off with what worked what I harvested so far from my summer garden, because it's kind of transitioning, I have harvested five really big tomatoes. And I'm hoping that more will grow I may have over pruned it. But I was super conscious of not letting it get leggy or you know not having enough ventilation. But hopefully more tomatoes will grow because I've got some flowers, but I've harvested five big ones so far. I did harvest one very tough zucchini from one of my zucchini plants. Maybe I needed to let it go longer. I think that's what the problem was. I had a spring harvest of radishes and a few carrots that I actually planted last fall. They just hung out through the winter and I harvested them early spring. I've had several jalapenos and habaneros which have been very nice. I've been cooking with the jalapenos mostly but the hub and narrows I have been mostly using them in margaritas. And it's been nice because you can always find habaneros at the store. And when you do you usually have to buy like several of them. So just having a plant where I can get just a couple of habaneros every now and then I cut them up, take the seeds out and then I'll model that in the bottom of my cocktail shaker and add you know lime juice and just sort of muddle that around. Then you add the other Margarita ingredients which for me is tequila and Triple Sec. And sometimes I'll sweeten it with juice or something and you shake all that up. I discard the habanero itself, but the essence of Left Behind is delicious and spicy. And then you just make sure you ram your glass with lime juice and tahini. Oh yes, that's been my drink this summer. And it's so good spicy Margarita. And it's a way that I can use them. But Josh doesn't have to eat the habanero, because they're a little too spicy for some people. I also harvested a lot of lavender blooms. They're drying while they're dry, but they're still hanging. And I was so pleased with it was my first year with this lavender plant. And like in the month of June, I think so many blossoms I was able to come out and harvest them. Likewise, I've had so much basil. This was my first year I had like three full basil plants, which it was barely enough. I have to like Italian basil Genovese a basil. And then I have one Thai basil. And that was a great idea. Every time I want to make a Thai dish or I'll make like the summer rolls with the rice paper, or like a Thai curry go out there, get some basil. It just takes it to the next level. I love having this plant. And sometimes I'll even you know add some to the Italian basil when I'm using it in non Thai things because it has this really sharp citrusy, scent profile, and I enjoy it all the time. But again, it's an herb that you can't always find at the store. So it's been nice to just have it when I need it. And I've also had a lot of other herbs, so much sage and thyme and oregano, green onion, rosemary, it's been there when I need it. So I'm focusing mostly on the veggies and the edibles here. But I also I just want to make a note that several of my perennials in the flower garden came back such as the day lilies, the purple queen, the crape myrtle was doing fine. The Liriope is currently flowering, and Yarrow, which is all brown and crispy. But was really beautiful. In the spring and early summer. I've actually harvested some of those leaves and flowers and are drying them for like a medicinal tea, they all came back. And that's great because those were I planted them last year, and they just sprouted right back up. That's my goal is to have a nice perennial garden that I can just add to and add annuals where I want. But the work is minimal from year to year. And it just sort of grows on top of itself and is a really nice, lush cottage garden. So those things worked. I did also harvest a couple strawberries like three or four randomly. And I did have a dill plant for a while and then it got all dried out in one day. And it did not come back like the mint and the lemon balm. So let's move into what did not work. And if you have experience with any of these issues and have solutions, please leave a comment in the show notes or DM me or something because I would love to learn most tragically is the fact that my zucchini endeavor of trying to grow them vertically kind of didn't work. They continued to grow one more than the other. I had two plants by the way up these steaks, but then as it would grow new chute and new leaves the stuff closer to the soil and then traveling up just turned brown and crispy and fell off. So the top of the chute would be green with new flowers, but the bottom would be like totally just vote. And we got one zucchini off of one plant. which like I said, Maybe I harvested it too early because it was so tough. And then nothing else. So I don't know some people have said that the vine borers, those little creatures that come in and just like eat it from the inside out. Maybe that jacked it up. Maybe I needed to water it more maybe the staking was a bad idea. I don't know I do not know. It didn't get super lush and leafy. So maybe it was in a bad spot. I don't really know. Trying to I'm gonna like hopefully learn more. Like I said, my strawberry plants were pretty dried out. I tried to sow more carrot seeds in the spring and they came out super tiny and truthfully like I don't really know why I thought I gave them enough room. The sunflowers did not happen this year. I've grown sunflowers the past two summers but this year I tried seeds in the in the same spot in the ground like three different times in the last time I had a couple little seedlings come up and then they just died. So no sunflowers this year. I had camel meal planned and a new cilantro plant that just completely died this year, they did not last long at all. And finally, and also tragically, caterpillars came and ate all of the arugula, and all of the kale. So the arugula is long gone. But this kale stock I've had for like two and a half years. And so it's still there has new leaves. But these caterpillars come like once or twice a year, and just tear it up on only those plants. So those things didn't work out so well. And a couple other things, I don't even know what they're just mysteries to me, like it's not good or bad. Somehow, in the crape myrtle pot, there is tomato, there's like a whole branch of tomato growing, I did not plant the tomatoes anywhere near it. I've never used that bucket for tomatoes, no clue, but it's got flowers on it. So we'll see what happens. And also one of the two shrubs that are allotted to us by the apartment complex. One of them has a maple tree like growing through it. So I'm like cutting back the stalks every now and then have completely different leaves. And then I realized that they're maple. So it wasn't there last year, no clue. But that's happening. So you get all sides of this garden process. I've had a lot of good things still got some good things, but also some things I'm like, I have no idea what's going on. So here's my plan, first for the fall, because fortunately, the growing season here is basically it's well through November, I would say once it cools down, I plan on planting some more carrots, maybe some broccoli, like last year, and hopefully some more kale plants and maybe some garlic. Last year I grew garlic and and just harvested the harvested the stalks didn't get to grow it into full bulbs. And I'd love to do some research on these caterpillars to figure out how to keep them off of my kale. I'll probably buy a few chrysanthemums like I do every fall, I do have two that came back from last year. I don't know what colors they are yet. But I love mom's in the fall so much. So I'll probably add a few of those and trim back some of the summer plants. And I plan to harvest as long as possible. Because like I said, we have a long growing season, many of the herbs and the hearty vegetables we'll keep through the winter. And yeah. Then next year, I think I want to shift some things around. If you've listened to Episode 56, which was my conversation with Nicole Schauder, I got a lot of cool ideas about letting plants help each other. And I think the reason that my basil is so happy this year is because it's in a pot with the tomatoes and they help each other out. So I think I want to move a lot more of the herbs into the vegetable boxes, like the time and the oregano, and maybe the rosemary to give them some more space. And I'll try and do some research to see what she'd be by what but so that more more ground is covered and the soil doesn't lose water through evaporation so quickly. And if I do decide to plant some flowers, I think I'm going to start the seeds indoors and then transfer seedlings to the garden rather than directed sowing directly into the ground. I'm going to try and do some more research on zucchini it might be time to try cucumber again, don't know all those vining plants are just confusing to me. And I've I really like I see pictures every now and then of people with hanging baskets of strawberries. So I might do that. If I decided to do berries anymore, I think I want to put them in a hanging basket and see how that goes. And that's that's my plan. So you're coming along with me this is not my third year of gardening at all. And I'm I'm pleased with it. I prioritize tomato and pepper and basil. And that's what I am reaping. So it's worked out pretty well. I know some things that I want to change and try in the future. And I love seeing other people's gardens and learning what works for them what what to do and not do. So yeah, again, if you have tips or ideas or want to share your garden, feel free to share in the show notes in the comments or reach out because this is an ongoing a lifelong hobby. And I look forward to you know, learning more next year and having things look a little bit better harvesting a little bit more. So that's been my summer really the reading and the garden. I've had a very, very nice summer and I hope you have as well. There's lots more to read and to grow in the new season. And I'm very much looking forward to it. But we have just a couple more weeks of a little bit of summertime feel. So I wish you a very prosperous and enjoyable end of summer. And I will be right back with this week's little joy. So this week's little joy is something that Josh and I have been planning for weeks, couple of months, actually. And it finally came to fruition. And it is in the form of a scavenger hunt that we put on for my brother in law, Christian's birthday. So I got this idea, actually, by watching a video of a scavenger hunt in Disney World, I'll leave a link to it in the show notes if you're interested in which someone was in the park, doing a scavenger hunt that was put on by someone who lived states away. And they had to submit questions or answers to questions by taking a picture and sending it, you know, through the phone. And I liked the concept of it because it was a scavenger hunt that involves going to different places within a specific location that to lock in your answer. But it didn't involve hiding physical clues, which is how all of my previous scavenger hunt projects have been. So also, I would want to be there to watch someone do this. So I presented this idea to Josh and we formulated a scavenger hunt over several weeks. And we thought Who can we do this for that will enjoy hours of scavenger hunt and won't mind other people watching them figure clues out. And my brother in law fits that description perfectly. So we live very close to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg. And we know that park so well. I've been going there since I could walk. But there are details that you really don't notice, unless you are looking for them. So we went around the park, taking pictures, we had a Google Drive, Josh organized everything perfectly. There was a document, we decided the route of the scavenger hunt. And then we developed our series of clues and answers and hints that could be obtained through a different challenge. And, and then I helped make the clues sound readily and rhymey. And it was great. We did have a couple snags because like a prop that had a number that we needed for the scavenger hunt was for some reason moved in between the last time we went to the park and the day of the scavenger hunt. But Christian had no idea that any such thing was waiting for him. And it took about five hours. It was great. You know, we took some breaks and stuff. But ultimately it led him to a locker that you would rent to put your stuff in. And we set a rule Josh made this very elaborate mathematical problem containing numbers that he would have collected along the way to come up with the locker code, which was it spelled out his birthday. Then inside was just like, congratulation and you did it will buy you a snack you know. But it was really the the finding that was so fun. And it was a great day great weather. We did have to you know, play some things by ear. It was a little bit stressful in the beginning of the day trying to set things up. But then Ana had to just go with the flow. And it went, it was great. And he enjoyed it. So I think mission accomplished. And it was it was a little joy. It was kind of a big, big work, but, but a big joy as well. So finally, let me leave you with some music. This is an album that I have recently discovered. Don't worry, I'm still on my journey of listening to like, you know, pop and rock albums that I completely missed. But this is an album called Rachel in Ville Ville Rae billary Ville Ray. That is also the name of the group, Rachel and Ville Ray. I hope I'm saying it right. And it's Rachael price. Who you if you're familiar with Lake Street dive, she's the singer of that group. And it's her and this other guy who does sing and plays guitar. And sometimes it's just, it's just that, but there's also some tracks with another band. And it's just really cute. jazz songs, but they're originals. I believe they're all originals. I'm not sure but she's also a composer. And I had not heard any of these tunes before. So I believe they're originals but they have a very classic sound. It was just oh my gosh, it's so cute. And I love this album. Like I will definitely follow everything that this duo does. It's their first album. It only came out in 2019 but I would really recommend giving it a listen It's very cute, very easy to listen to. And now I want to learn all these songs. So that about does it for today's episode, I hope you've enjoyed I know it was a little bit hodgepodge it. But I do want to give you a bit of an update, we are going to continue with weekly episodes, which the past couple of years come fall. I don't really have the time for it. But this year, I think I do. We've shifted around some work stuff and I I'm going to see how it goes. So for the next two weeks, there will still be weekly episodes. So that will be the first and the eighth of September. But then we're going to take a couple of weeks of break that will be the 15th and the 22nd. Or there's going to be a bit of a break off because I am going to be traveling. Yes, it's going to be really, really fun. And I'll share more about that as it approaches. But I'll be out of town for a while. And then we'll resume on the 29th. So two weeks more, and then two weeks off, and at that point we will be fully in the fall episodes. So enjoy good hype and happy reading friends. I will be back next week with a brand new episode. Thank you so much. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Life on the brink. If you're enjoying these episodes, please feel free to leave a star rating or even better leave a review on Apple podcasts to help spread the word. For podcast show notes and extra inspirational posts throughout the week. Head to the blog at life on the brink dot live. And if you'd like a little extra dose of inspiration in your life, sign up for the monthly newsletter, which lights up your inbox the first Friday of each month. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, friends you have a lovely week. Bye