Lighter than Air

I headed down to Disneyland after work for one last solo trip before Carla gets back on Wednesday.

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1. I keep seeing posts from Sidecar Donuts on my instagram feed and have been meaning to try them out, so this morning I walked over there for breakfast. It's about 1.3 miles and my usual morning walk is 1.5, so even if I went straight there and back it's almost double, so not doable on a work day (which is just as well), but nice for an extra long weekend walk. I actually went a few blocks out of my way, too, to make it more like four miles total.



I was planning on just getting one donut and a drink, but couldn't resist a second one. This is a banana bread latte, Apple Pan apple pie donut, and huckleberry donut. I ate the apple one there and brought the huckleberry one home for tomorrow, but I did have a taste of it already because they had samples out. Both were super tasty. The latte was just okay. I opted for no walnut topping but it still had a stronger walnut flavor than I would prefer.

2. I am bummed to go back to work tomorrow, but I did have a very nice long weekend!

3. Ollie hopped up on this shelf before I noticed! D: Thankfully I was able to extract him before he did any damage (though of course I had to take several photos first lol).

Recently Finished
Tilly and the Bookwanderers
Tilly and the Lost Fairytales
Tilly and the Map of Stories
The Book Smugglers
First four books in a middle grade series about a world where people can travel into books when they read them. I have been enjoying these a lot as audiobooks. There are two more in the series and I've already started the second to last one.

Wayward Girls
Two women get a call that the boarding school they attended is being knocked down and they go to visit it one last time to get closure for the horrible events that happened there. Only a few chapters are set in the present with most of the book revealing what happened back when they were in school. I enjoyed it.

The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn vol. 1
Graphic novel about a supernatural investigator who has some supernatural things going on himself, the first being that he seems to be a floating skull on top of an invisible man type set of clothes. He takes care of hauntings while more about his own backstory is revealed. I enjoyed this and will keep an eye out for further volumes.

The Day the Klan Came to Town
Short graphic novel based on a true story of a Pennsylvania town that fought back when the Klan tried to invade them. This is a fictionalized version of events using original characters, but based on what actually happened. I liked the story but the art was awful. :-/

My Home Hero vol. 16

1. I had a nice morning at Disneyland today, but I am definitely glad I have two more days off to rest up! Tomorrow I am not going anywhere further than the farmers market.

2. Chloe!

1. Carla is getting snow in Wisconsin and meanwhile we had a sunny eighty-degree day here. I prefer somewhere between the two! Thankfully the weather is supposed to be cooler tomorrow and then dropping down a lot for the weekend. Hope this is the last heat spell for the fall/winter but I kind of doubt it. At least at this time of year the heat is short lived since the sun goes down early. It was nice and cool when I went for my walk this evening.

2. I decided to stop at Handel's for ice cream on my walk and they have a peppermint bark flavor for the holidays! I love peppermint ice cream so this was a must have. It was very tasty. Carla likes peppermint, too, so we'll have to get it again once she's back in town.

3. We are planning to go to Universal Studios around Christmas (well, we decided to go on Christmas actually) because that's when we're blocked out from Disneyland. Neither of us have ever been before, but we want to go to Universal Japan next year on our trip, so I'd really like to be able to compare. Plus we're not renewing our Knott's Berry Farm annual pass for next year and instead considering getting a Universal Studios one, but want to check it out first to see if we would really use it that much (the price is much cheaper than Disneyland, but not as dirt cheap as Knott's). Anyway, while I was poking around on the website to read up for our Christmas trip, I started getting more and more excited about it and decided to do a solo trip myself tomorrow! They have two day passes that get you a deal over buying the dates separately, and you can use the second ticket within 90 days of the first, so I got one to use tomorrow and then will use the other half when we go on Christmas.

4. I finished up one of the big things I was working on at work! It feels so good to have that finally done! And a lot of progress has been made on the other, to the point where we can say we have enough data to move forward by our deadline at the end of next month. There are some things on the IT side that still need to be hammered out, but I think we might not have to delay the project? Fingers crossed!

5. I didn't use a filter for this photo but the lighting made it look like a filter. Gemma loves to hide away on Carla's desk chair when it's pushed under her desk, which of course it is all the time right now since she's not home.

1. The AC in the newer of our cars (only a year old!) has crapped out for some reason, and with Carla being out of town, we've just decided to save taking it to the dealership until she gets back. It should be covered under warranty, though it's concerning that this is the second issue we've had within the past month that needed to be repaired. The seat cooling gets slightly cool, but the air from the vents doesn't seem to be much cooler than just if you had the air blowing without AC. I'm just glad it's cool enough weather that the AC isn't needed.

2. With Carla gone, Jasper and Ollie have been super snuggly. Look at this sweetie boy!