Literary Inspiration: Small Spaces

My blogging buddy Jay of The Scented Library sent me this spooktacular young adult read just before Halloween.  And what a fitting find it was, too, neatly checking off all of the things I love in a book – whimsi-gothic cover art reminiscent of a Tim Burton movie poster, supernatural shenanigans afoot, an above-the-title pull quote from R.L. Stine!  But showing just how well she actually knows me (see, friends, you need never have met a person face-to-face for them to just get you) Jay acknowledged that while very cool, a recommendation from Stine carried ever so slightly less cachet than one from MY favourite young adult author of choice, Christopher Pike (difficult, as I’ve heard he’s a grumpy old sod who resolutely refuses to play the publicity game.)  Also, this last-last minute entry towards Jay and Julie’s 2018 reading challenge satisfies the theme of a book with purple cover art, which I was then inspired to turn into what I think is a rather lovely, evocative manicure.  So really just the most perfect gift – with thanks again, friend. 🙂

Yes, yes, but what of the novel itself?  Geez, patient puss, I was just about to get to that. 😉  Without giving away too much of the plot, Small Spaces, by author Katherine Arden, is a fog-shrouded, atmospheric little supernatural thriller, more taut novella than novel, which I think is to its great advantage.  Small Spaces clips along at a nice pace; I had it finished up within three or four sessions, and I was loathe to put it down once the action really began.

Creepy, unsettling and shiveringly, delightfully scary, Small Spaces tells the story of 11-year-old Olivia “Ollie” Adler, an outcast by choice following the death of her mother the year prior.  On a field trip to a local farm, Ollie wanders away from her classmates and has an unsettling run-in with an employee – he intones that there is great danger coming, but suggests that if she hides, and confines herself to small spaces, she just might survive the threat.

And that’s pretty much all I can tell you without giving all of the rest of the story away, because the book plays it so straight, truly what you read is what you get.  There are some surprisingly delightful moments in Small Spaces, but it’s a simple book, with a straightforward narrative that it wears on its earnest, young adult sleeve.  I really, really enjoyed it; it was a nice little diversion from the usual, and proper spooky, too.  A fine read for a cold and gloomy day.

Scarecrows – this nail art is supposed to depict scarecrows standing in a mist-laden field.  And I can’t say anything more about it than that, except I think this manicure turned out really rather well; holographic polishes, especially when they are sponged on like they have been for this gradient manicure, always have a bit of a heathered grey tinge to them, perfect for fog-shrouded books AND nails.

Fall Fun Fridays: The Finale

Goodest of mornings, friends, and welcome to the final prompt of the Fall Fun Fridays series I have been embarking on with my blogging buddies Jay and Julie.  Today we’re discussing the great autumn out-of-doors.

Well, they probably are.  Julie takes some of the most beautiful photographs of nature I’ve ever seen and Jay just loves getting out and exploring the world, so I’m sure they both have lots of cool adventures to share in the great wide somewhere.  Please do check out their blogs to follow along in the fun.

Jay at The Scented Library

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

As for me?  Well, you know it all pretty well begins and ends with Disney.  I commented earlier during this series that the last two years, I’ve had a hard time mustering up an appropriate level of enthusiasm for the Fall.  As in I’ve had hardly any – very unusual, as I just adore the autumn.  Is there a better season for gloomily beautiful weather, scrumptious food, delightful decorations and just cozying up with someone you love?  I certainly don’t think so.

But the last two years there’s been a weird block in place where it has literally taken leaving my gorgeously be-leaf’d province for Disney World in Orlando, Florida to jump start my Fall fever.  I suppose that’s because like most things Disney embarks upon, they do the autumn – and especially Halloween – very, very well.  And being the Halloween nuts we kind of are, there’s nothing that gets our happiness meters revving like our favourite time of year at the most magicalest place on earth.

And so we’re heading back again in just a couple days’ time to immerse ourselves in the season – one last Halloween hurrah for these two old marrieds celebrating their 14th Halloween wedding anniversary.  And when we return, I’ll no doubt have tons of photos to share of our end-of-autumn adventures, but that doesn’t do any of us any good right now, does it?  And so I’m sharing this little video I made for our YouTube channel, Park or Perish!, of the Fall fun we had at Disney World just this past Labour Day long weekend.  It was our first time attending Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, a spooktacular after-hours event at the Magic Kingdom, but our second time hitting up the World for the autumn season, and I think we really did it up right.  I hope you enjoy it, and thank you again for following along with this little blogging series – it’s been so nice to have you by every Friday. 🙂

Fall Fun Fridays: Something’s Smelling Good

My favourite scene in Ghostbusters is an early one in the library in which Dan Aykroyd’s Dr. Raymond Stantz furiously shushes his partners-in-busting, and then cries out, “Listen!” before excitedly asking, “Do you smell that?!”  It’s a weird (and very funny) sensory disconnect, and one I always think of when I’m trying to describe in words how something smells.  It’s a writing skill – make no mistake, it is a skill – I do not possess.

But my blogging friends Jay of The Scented Library and Julie of The Redolent Mermaid do possess that skill (come to me when you need 2,500 words on a cat’s toe tufts) which is why we’ve partnered up to bring you a few fun Fall posts, starting with our favourite Fall scents.  Both Jay and Julie have impeccable taste in home and personal fragrance, and a real flair for describing scents in rich, evocative terms without ever once invoking the word “cupcakey.”  So I would direct you over to their wonderful blogs to see what sort of festive Fall scents are sweetly perfuming their lives as we kick off what I hope will be a lovely autumn.

Jay at The Scented Library

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

As for me, I’m down to the utter dregs of my once-grand wax collection (balsam, hot chocolate and kiwi are totally compatible scent notes, right?!) with virtually nothing remaining but for this small handful of scents I held back in the event of just such an autumnal blogging eventuality.  This tiny bounty actually represents a solid third of my remaining wax collection – I have been nothing this year but utterly dedicated to reining in my discretionary spending, and this is where my efforts have really come home to roost.  It’s kind of one of those good-for-life, bad-for-blogging sort of situations!

Ah, but all is not completely lost; I still have a few Fall favourites, and here they are:

Moving from left to right, we have a rather shabby looking Demented Duck from The Melting Duck in Heads Will Roll, a pumpkin cupcake and candy corn blend.  You would not know that this dingy little duck started out life in lush, vibrant shades of jungle green, tomato red and marigold yellow, would you?  Well, he did!  But thankfully, colourfastness (or a lack thereof) does not typically impact a wax melt’s scent, and this one still smells great – very much like carnival snacks, all unidentifiably yummy glazes and crunchy, sugary sweets.

Beside my sole remaining Demented Duck we have a Rosegirls Scoopable in Paul Bunyan’s French Toast.  At three years old, this half-finished jar of wax is the oldest in my collection and smells not one bit different than it did the very first day I cracked it open – like brown-sugar dusted sweets and wood shavings.  I swear it’s a nicer scent than I’m implying; it just doesn’t see a lot of action because no matter the scent, the Scoopable formulations give my husband terrible headaches and a frantic case of the sneezes.

To the right of the Scoopable we have my one remaining chunk of a custom Sniff My Tarts blend I like to call Miss Apple Fritter after Cars 3’s derby-racing school bus, Miss Fritter.  Also because I think this blend of Apple Cider Latte, Ice Cream Scoop Bread and Vanilla Waffle Cone – perhaps the best blend I have ever created – smells just like a warm, cakey apple fritter.  Sometimes the naming thing is really just that simple, folks. 😉

Finally, dotted along the bottom we have the final five pieces of The Melting Duck’s All Hallow’s Eve, another sugar smackery blend of candy corn, pumpkin cupcakes, buttercream crunch cake and caramel corn.  These shapes are so stinkin’ cute, and I just adore The Melting Duck’s heavy-handed approach to mica – it always creates the most amazingly beautiful, shimmery pools of wax.  I’ll freely admit that that’s a weird thing to derive enjoyment from, but whatever floats your boat on the first Friday of the Fall, right?!  To an excellent autumn, and more fun blogging adventures. 🙂