Monthly Musings: August 2024
our monthly dose of ramblings
Hello, sweet friends! Happy bank holiday weekend, and welcome to our Monthly Musings: August 2024 post! How are you keeping? I hope this post finds you happy and healthy, with hopefully some lovely plans lined up for the weekend. Husband and I have a handful of plans for today and tomorrow: a garden party reunion of sorts with Husband’s family + godfather, a Früh fueled BBQ with my fambam1, and a long overdue catchup with some cousins! What busy, fun times! I always find that we can go weeks with absolutely no plans, and then everything comes along all at the same time and we’ve suddenly never been busier! You know what I mean? It’s so funny. Anyways! Shall we get down to it?
Our musings for the month ahead are below, filled with all the usual suspects: travel, food, movies, books, and the odd personal tidbit! You read on ahead, I’ll be here, fretting about what to wear to everything this weekend. Enjoy!
monthly musings: august 2024
Last month, I relocated the blog from WordPress to Substack. This took me many, many hours and oh! my! lord! it was wildly exhausting. I’ve previously moved the blog from Tumblr to WordPress, but I’m hopeful this move will be our last. Although I loved my self-hosted WP site, I found myself loathing in equal measure the backend responsibilities: maintenance, updates, error fixing, etc. Here, I don’t have to think about any of that - it’s fantastic! This move largely won’t make any difference to you, the reader, apart from perhaps a faulty link or something similarly trivial - but have you seen the new site yet? It took me a second to get used to the layout, but I’ve since become obsessed with it! If you’d like to have a proper nosey around, here’s the: homepage / travel index / recipe index / and lifestyle index. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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Our next big adventure is only 34 days away! Due to a) the impending soon-ness of our travels and b) my lack of remaining clues, I think it’s time for the big country reveal, you ready? We’re heading to… Vietnam! We’ll be spending two weeks in the country, basing ourselves in Hanoi, Hoi An, and Hue; I can’t wait! Hotels are booked, travel jabs2 were received two days ago, and we’re applying for our visas this weekend! Eeep! Side note: it is simply mind boggling to me that we’re heading back to Asia! For the first thirty years(!) of my life I didn’t make it that far around the world, but somehow this year I’ve managed to do it twice? Insane!
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Husband and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary at the end of July! Nine whole years together! The date conveniently fell on my day-off from work, so we got to spend the whole day together and it was so lovely. Husband baked these scones - which, btdubz, are delightfully fluffy and addictive! - we gorged on homemade BATS sandwiches3 for lunch, and we treated ourselves to a meal out for dinner! It was delightful!
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In case you missed it, my final Japanese post hit the blog last month: A Food & Drink Guide to Osaka, Japan. It covers exactly what it says on the tin, and if I may be so bold, I think it’s pretty great! I also recently shared A (Rather Very) Late Summer Bucket List, in which I’ve listed my last minute summer intentions. I have yet to tick off any of the items, but there’s still time! Do you ever make a summer bucket list? Sitting down and purposely writing out my intentions makes me a) much more likely to follow through and b) more excited about getting to do them? Either way, I try to make one every year, and they bring me so much joy! Why don’t you give it a go?
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Have there been any standouts from your summer reading? I devoured Jodi Picoult’s The Book of Two Ways - it was so good! I borrowed it from the library, and essentially couldn’t put it down until I was finished; I thought it was wonderfully written and very accurately captured the essence of first loves. I enjoyed it so much that I’m even considering buying a copy for future rereading! After TBOTW, I read Expiration Dates - think easy, chick lit, beach-style reading - but I couldn’t get into it after enjoying my previous read so much, if you know what I mean? Since then, I’ve decided to traverse down a Jodi Picoult path for a while and see how we do. First up: Songs of the Humpback Whale. I shall report back!
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Movie- wise, our July viewing actually wasn’t half bad! We saw a good few new-to-us flicks, with the standouts being The Iron Claw4, One Fine Day - a new fave! - Runaway Bride, and the Bridget Jones trilogy5. Notable rewatches include: My Girl, Hope Floats, and Boyhood. If you’d like to follow along with our movie viewing in real-time, here’s a link to our Letterboxd; come prepared for a wild ride full of many a film genre switch up, we had a very varied taste in movies 🙂 TV-wise, we watched Presumed Innocent and The Last Thing He Told Me, both of which we enjoyed at the time but wouldn’t watch again or entertain a second season. What have you been watching?
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I don’t have any recipes from around the web to share with you today. However! In honour of my new move over here to Substack, I thought I’d share some fun foodie newsletters that might pique your interest! Obviously, Nicola Lamb’s Kitchen Projects is high on my list of favourites. A deep dive into all things baking, this is where I turn if I’m looking for a really solid recipe. Jordon King’s A Curious Cook is so! good! Simple & approachable recipes that make cooking seem less daunting. Alison Roman’s a newsletter is fantastic, fun, and informative. The way she writes about food makes me want to cook everything she shares6, and that is no small feat. Lastly, Deb Perelman’s the smitten kitchen digest obviously has a place on the list, because when has Deb ever let you down?
And that’s all I have for you today! I hope you have the most fantastic long weekend - enjoy it, friends! Soak it all up!
My love to you,
Vicki xo
PS, it was my grandmother’s 81st birthday last Sunday! The big 8-1! My parents threw a little impromptu birthday party to get her out of the nursing home for a couple hours and it was such a lovely time! Let’s pretend I whipped up the Thiebaud Pink Cake photographed above for the occasion, shall we?7
related posts
August 2023 // August 2022
August 2021 // August 2020 // August 2019
Mom, if you’re reading this, now is the time to pop that Früh in the fridge! 😉
Hepatitis A and Typhoid! Both of us have coincidentally had a tetanus shot within the last 10-years, so we didn’t need to get anything else. Unless a rabies infested dog/monkey/cat etc. comes at us while we’re there - we should be covered!
bacon, avocado, tomato, & spinach. There was also a homemade basil-pesto/mayo spread that sent the sandwich into near GOAT stratosphere levels, but that would’ve made our acronym far too long.
insane curse of the Von Erich brothers plotline aside - have you heard the song from the movie, Live That Way Forever? It! is! so! good! I can’t believe it wasn’t nominated for best original song at the Oscars! Such a massive snubbing tragedy!
which, bizarrely, was new-to-me but not to Husband. Obviously, the first one was the best, the second one sucked coaie, but the third one was surprisingly enjoyable considering the time between films!
case in point: her Brown Butter Potato Salad. I thought for sure I’d always favour a mayo dressed potato salad, but now I know better!
when in reality, my mom purchased a bomb-diggity black forest gateaux for the party instead. However! I did actually make the cake pictured above, in June 2021, and it lives on in my memories as one of the best cakes ever.