You Gave Me Flowers (& Books) For My Birthday
My bookish friends really made me feel extra special this year. Let me show you what I got for my birthday!
My birthday is always kind of a weird time for me. Of course, when I was a kid, it was a little bit more fun, a little less heavy but somewhere around age 16, I started to get sadder each year. Not because I dread aging or anything, I just have a stinker of a birthday, logistically speaking.
My birthday falls in the coldest month of the year and, right after the barrage of back to back holidays that tend take a lot out of people, emotionally, spiritually, financially, etc. I never plan too much or go too hard because I know this is the time of year people are recalibrating, hunkering down and prepping for the long year ahead. I also tend to spend my birthday with my grandparents, reminiscing and telling stories and making each other laugh so that was an extra gut punch for me this year.
However, my friends really came through. Whether I know them from the internet or real life, book club or through my artwork - people showed up for me this year in 2 really big ways.
The first was in sending flowers for my grandpa.
I made a wishlist of these solar powered garden decorations that I planned to just slowly add to his grave over time. Now, I don’t have to because people sent them to me. Samantha, Tyler, Cat and the others who didn’t attach names to their gifts… I love them so much, it was a beautiful day spent with him in his new garden. I waited until the sunset so I could take a pic of them in action.
The second way people showed up and showed out for me was through books, which is never a bad gift to give anyone in my opinion.
Click the video below to watch me show off my new books!
You can also listen to this on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Here is a list of the books mentioned in the video:
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
Whisper Down the Lane by Clay McLeod Chapman
Ghost Eaters by Clay McLeod Chapman
What Kind of Mother Clay McLeod Chapman
Small Town, Big Magic by Hazel Beck
In the Shadow Garden by Liz Parker
Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain
If We Were Villains by ML Rio
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
Lady Killers by Tori Telfer
Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon
Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare
Wreck and Order by Heather Tennant-Moore
Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison
Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe
HONORABLE MENTION (because it arrived the day after I uploaded this)
The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown
(one of my fav morbid nonfiction books of all time!)
I seriously couldn’t be more thankful if I tried, this was not necessary and just so, so kind of everyone. You made my birthday so special and a little less painful for me this year. I can’t say thank you enough.