What I Loved This Week (55)

I'm all about introducing a new initiative, pedometers replacing smart watches, and a terrifying sleeper train story this week.

Things that Make me Happy! is a weekly newsletter with recommendations of things that bring me joy. If you liked this issue, click on the heart button.

💡 Before we begin, Introducing Hyperfixations!

I want to share reader recommendations from time to time. I first started this stack as I desperately needed a creative outlet. I’m a normal person with a 9-5 job and a full-time gig as a mom who needed a fun project. 55 issues later, I can’t imagine not doing this each week.

I don’t want to charge for my content , ever. Hell, I should be paying you to read me each week, typos, questionable design, and all! But what I do want is to create a community of normal women on the internet who don’t have an agenda other than to share hyperfixations and recommendations.

If you want to be highlighted, I’d love to have you. Just fill in this, and we’ll make it happen.

On to the weekly recommendations:

📚What I Read and Loved

This week, I picked up this gothic thriller from Riley Sager. I had enjoyed 'The House Across the Lake' some years ago, so I went in without looking at the synopsis of the book. The verdict: I was pleasantly surprised!

I loved the gothic vibes throughout and the unsettling, creepy setting in an old, crumbling house in coastal Maine. Super easy read if you want something light but with substance.

Bonus comment: I was today years old when I figured out that the author of this book is a man. Of course, I made it a rabbit hole and found out about this trend in male thriller authors who disguise their gender to sell more books.

The Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. She has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.

It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything.
 
As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.

📺 What I Watched and Loved

Apples Never Fall: This past weekend, my house was swept with a stomach bug, and the whole family spent a total of 48 hours in bed, my daughter watching an unhealthy amount of cartoons, and my husband and I watching stuff on our own devices.

I Binged the whole season of this domestic thriller in one sitting, and while it might not win any awards, it was captivating enough to keep me pushing play. I have not read the book, so I’m not sure how it compares. (Peacock) - For fans of: 'The Last Thing He Told Me,' 'Big Little Lies,' 'Gone Girl.'

Girls5Eva: The show follows four women who were part of a girl band named Girls5Eva, which was briefly popular. Now unfulfilled in their various lives, they reunite to try to find musical success again. This is a top-tier comedy for me. I’m hoping that now that the show has moved to Netflix, it will gain the recognition and accolades it deserves. (Netflix) - For fans of: 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,' 'Hacks,' 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.'

Quiet on Set: Unsettling and sad, it shows the terrible conditions and people that failed so many child actors on Nickelodeon, especially at the hand of Dan Schneider. I hope he gets a permanent cancellation, because he and all the enablers are vile. (Max)

🛍️ What I Bought and Loved

I broke up with my Apple Watch and my Fitbit last year. I think we get so many data points that sometimes they control our lives and lead to unnecessary anxiety or obsessions with closing loops and overdoing it. I’m going old school as I still want to track my steps for well-being reasons. This pedometer from Amazon, does what it’s supposed to. I’m not even linking it. I’m sure any pedometer will work.

💕 Micro-Joy

Close your eyes and picture this. A big insulated cup, filled with nugget ice and fountain soda diet coke. This, my friends, is heaven.

✅ To do List

• A round-up of funny novels to add to your TBR

• But, if you want something more serious, this is a round-up of the great American novels

🐰 Rabbit Holes I Went Into

• Flying is so weird right now, and on the same note, sinister.

• Manifesting this for summer - Europe’s unmissable nature parks

• Oh how a love a compilation of productivity hacks

• How to style a bookshelf by a Fav 5 - Which also led me to this unfortunate story

• This piece about using your phone as a telephone hacks is everything

🧜🏼‍♀️  Articles and Bits I loved

• Dating sounds BRUTAL right now. Apps are not cutting it. What is?

• What happens to the stay at home GF after a break up

• This is beating a dead horse, but I found this Royal Family article fascinating

• Via

  Youngna Park
  and just in time for Easter, NO, KIDS DON’T NEED GIFTS FOR EVERY MINOR HOLIDAY.

• Train travel is back, baby! - Sidenote. When I lived in Europe in the early 2010’s I used to ride sleeper trains all the time, until I woke up one morning with bedbug bites ALL OVER my body. The bites started to get supersized, purple and sore to the touch. Little did I know that I was allergic, and I had to spend a couple of nights in a german hospital. Now, I’m terrified of sleeper trains, bedbugs and German doctors.

😄 Funny or Cute

• Unfit plant mom

• Simple as that

• Dad joke

• Girlfriend towels

👋🏼 Classifieds

• Each morning, The Sample sends you one article from a random blog or newsletter that matches up with your interests. When you get one you like, you can subscribe to the writer with one click. Sign up here

• Don’t clutter your inbox with newsletters, be like me and use Meco and read all your favorite newsletters in the same place. It’s life changing.