Monthly Musings: February 2023

Good morning, friends! How on earth are you? Hopefully this Monthly Musings: February 2023 post finds you well! I took the most gentle possible route through January, and loved every single second! I didn’t blog, I hardly baked – much to Fiancé’s dismay – , and I spent a lot of time just taking it easy with my loved ones. Pool nights with my family, birthday parties with Fiancé’s family, wine nights with my gal-pals, a light spot of travelling, and some real progress with our wedding plans. It was honestly one of my favourite Januarys ever, and I hope that you had a similarly great one ❤️

RE the progress with our wedding plans: we’re getting! it! done! I’ve finally found a florist that I actually love, a hair stylist that doesn’t break the bank, and I’m narrowing down the contenders for make-up artists. We’ve also finalized the guest list(!) and are readying ourselves to send the Save the Date emails later this very week, gah!! A totally bizarro sense of calm has come over me in the last few weeks, and I’m hoping to ride that wave allllll the way to the finish line – ha!

Okay, moving on: our monthly musings are listed below! I hope you find something to take away with you, be it a hankering to visit a tiny country, a new recipe, or a cheesy movie. Enjoy, friends!

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monthly musings: february 2023

Covid-19 update: it finally got my family. Well, it got my dad & sister at the beginning of January, but somehow my mom managed to steer clear of it. My dad was largely asymptomatic – which is likely due to his most recent booster in August – but my sister was very flu-ey and ache-ey, not having had a booster since December ’21. It’s just such unfortunate timing, because now she’ll have to wait six whole months before she can get her second booster. Uyyyy. Apart from that: the cases are going back up, etc. etc.

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In a rather spontaneous turn of events, Fiancé & I spent five totally amazing days on the Côte d’Azur last month! Fiancé’s uncle owns an apartment in the centre of Nice, and when he gave us the green light, we booked flights for almost the next available dates! We spent most of our time in Nice, but also managed to squeeze in two easy daytrips to nearby Monaco & Villefranche-Sur-Mer. It was the most amazing trip to start the year with – we took it super easy and chill, with lots of just-soaking-it-up moments. Blog posts coming soon!

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Related: it’s so funny how life works out! In January’s Monthly Musings I was fretting about having no upcoming travel plans & will I be able to hit 30 before 30 or not etc. And then boom, the day after I published that post we literally booked our flights & started planning our trip! It’s so crazy! I feel incredibly lucky to have already been away on a trip this soon into the year, and even moreso because I got to add a new country to my belt! Monaco is the second smallest country in the world, and I feel like it has so much to offer considering its tiny size! Maybe 2023 will be the year I hit semi-obscure tiny European countries? Perhaps!

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Looking back at our January viewing, there isn’t much to report. The very best thing we watched was the Oscar nominated documentary, Fire of Love; it was so absolutely, totally fantastic & fascinating to watch – I really hope it wins! Movie-wise: I finally saw Maverick, which I loved, Everything Everywhere All At Once, which I enjoyed but nothing more, Hustle was meh-ish, and Shotgun Wedding, which I LOL-ed at like a guilty pleasure. TV-wise, we finally caved and watched Emily in Paris S3. Look, it’s not good – and it certainly isn’t as good as S1 or even S2 – but it’s just so easy to watch! We also thoroughly enjoyed The Patient, but I don’t think I’d watch a second season. Oof, and we also just started Shrinking; so far so good! What have you been watching?

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Book-wise: I finished Into the Black Nowhere and really rather enjoyed it – maybe even more than the first UNSUB book! I’m currently attempting to track down the third and final book in the series, but so far, no luck. In the meantime, I brought The Girls of Summer with me to France and liked it so much I had to pace myself to make it last the whole trip. Wonderful writing, evocative imagery, and a real page-turner of a storyline. I also just devoured the latest Ballard & Bosch novel, Desert Star, which, entirely predictably, I totally love love loved! How about you?

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I feel like we are in such a food slump lately. We’re always making the same three dishes on rotation, and I’m looking to shake it up; please enjoy these two recipes that caught my eye around the interwebs. Joy’s Nashville Hot Chicken with Pickle Rice(!!) is not new to the internet, but I’ve been meaning to make it ever since I came across it because PICKLE! RICE! Ina’s Italian Wedding Soup sounds so cozy, but I’m unsure how I feel about chicken mince?

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An oldie but a goodie: Kladdkaka – Swedish Chocolate Cake. We found ourselves with an abundance of aging eggs recently and rather than making brownies again, I whipped up a Kladdkaka! It’s one of the easiest bakes out there, and it’s so light & moreish!

And there we have it friends, our Monthly Musings: February 2023 post! Let’s catch up all over again next month, yeah? Have a good one!

Vicki xo

related posts

February 2022 / 2021 / 2020 / 2019



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