Happy Friday, friends, and a happy Mother’s Day to each of you! I always look forward to sharing my happy list with you and I can’t wait to see your lists too! Today’s happiness list involves advanced readers, gluten-free deals, and fancy dresses. I also have a pretty cute bonus happy for you!
Advanced Readers from NetGalley
When I started reviewing books for our site, I had no idea that NetGalley existed and everyone kept telling me I should sign up, especially when I first launched our book club. NetGalley is a site that if you are a reviewer, blogger, journalist, librarian, bookseller, educator, or in the media, you can use NetGalley for FREE to request, read and provide feedback about forthcoming titles. If you are any of these people, I can’t tell you how fun it is to get to preview books before their release date. I have them sent directly to my iPad, using my Kindle app, and get to sneak peek books from some really amazing authors.
That is how I got to sneak peek, “One Plus One,” by Jojo Moyes. If you haven’t read The Girl You Left Behind or Me Before You, you must reserve them at your library because they are amazing. I don’t know how she does it, but this book made me laugh, cry, and connect with every character in this book. She weaves an endearing story of a mother who is down on her luck and can barely make ends meet when her daughter is offered the chance of a lifetime to receive a scholarship for her excellence in mathematics that will cover 90% of her daughter’s education. Coming up with the other ten percent seems impossible, but she is determined to make this happen for her daughter. When she hears of a math contest happening in Scotland that offers a cash prize, she must do everything she can to get her there… including hitching a ride with the most unlikely man who could ultimately change their entire world.
Anyone who has ever struggled financially or who would sacrifice it all to give their kids everything they need will appreciate this extraordinary book that, I hope, will be adapted to movie one day. It is that good!
Spending my evenings with this book made me oh-so-happy! It truly was a treat from start to finish. If you can sign up for NetGalley, it’s a lot of fun to sneak peek these books before they hit the shelves.
Gluten-Free Deals
I was so excited to see that ALDI is offering this week their own line of gluten-free products called Live G Free. I hit my store this week and stocked up on brownie mixes, gluten-free sandwich wraps, frozen pizzas (to take with me when I have the dreaded pizza parties), crackers, pizza dough mixes, and brown rice pastas. I chatted with our cashier and she said they had some trouble keeping the shelves stocked which she said is always a good sign if ALDI decides to carry these items regularly in their store.
I was getting a little sweaty when they started ringing everything up though because I definitely stocked up on items and I brought cash. Luckily, I had just enough cash for everything so you could say that made me extra happy to not be outed for enthusiasm for gluten-free foods.
If any of these items are a big hit or if I hear anything about them keeping these on their store shelves, I will let you guys know. In the meantime, I left them feedback on their FB page begging for them to keep this stuff. It never hurts.
Fancy Dresses With Pockets
It is no secret that I have become addicted to Twice. If you missed my past posts about it, it is a site that has extremely discounted mint condition brand name stuff and it is marked to half or less than its retail price. I always keep my eyes glued to the dresses page because… can a person have too many dresses? I think not. I saw this dress pop up and I had to have it so I used my referral credit (thank you, friends!) and treated myself to this Anthropologie shirt-dress and HOLY HEAVENS, it is perfect in every way. The sleeves are just right, the print is even prettier in person, it has a built in petticoat that makes it full and pretty on the bottom, but (as if it couldn’t get better) it has pockets. So I sashayed around in this and graciously accepted the compliments on it. I mean…wouldn’t you?
I don’t know if anything else they sell will ever top this beauty.
And here is one last bonus happy for you. This amazing photographer, Dave Engledow, has his first book out, “Confessions of the World’s Best Father,” with some of the most hilarious pictures with his daughter that you just have to see and belly laugh over how cute they are. There is a great round-up of some of the images over here and you can also get a little hilarity on your Facebook feed by liking his page.
Happiest of Mother’s Day, friends! We are planning to spend the day visiting our local botanical garden and walking all the nature trails together in honor of the the holiday! I hope you have lots of fun in store too!
*this post may contain affiliate links- I only recommend what I love though. Check out past editions of It’s the 3 Little Things!
Now it’s your turn, what makes you happy this week? Feel free to share in our link up below and link back to this post to participate!
Share 3 things that are making you happy today!