Notes on a Road Trip

Plus, a furniture refurbishing project

Notes from a Kindred Spirit is a bi-weekly newsletter about embracing curiosity, exploring hobbies, living with chronic illness, and finding contentment in the everyday.

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Hi friends,

My husband and I (and Chewie 🐾) just got home from a great road trip!

We saw beautiful parts of the Rocky Mountains in Canada and had a great stay with my brother and his fiancée.

Some highlights and recommendations

🎧 Podcast for the drive: Bone Valley

📖 Road trip read: One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune

🎲 Boardgames: Clue, The Quest for El Dorado, Ticket to Ride

🍕 Meal: my brother’s homemade pizza 🙌

🥐 Treats: fresh croissants from the local farmer’s market

🛍️ Shopping: we bought a beautiful reclaimed wood piece by this artist

The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb | Mystery | Published in 2022

Our protagonist, Ray McMillian, is a gifted Black musician with a passion for playing classical music on the violin. When Grandma Nora, one of the few who support Ray’s dreams, gives him his great-great-grandfather’s beat-up violin he is so grateful to have his own instrument to practice on.

A few years later, as a young man, Ray discovers that his family heirloom violin is actually a rare Stradivarius, and worth a fortune! But just weeks before the most elite musical competition in the world, the violin is stolen while Ray’s own family and the descendants of the man who had enslaved Ray’s great-great-grandfather are locked in a battle with both claiming ownership of it.

My Thoughts

I loved this book! The author’s knowledge of classical music and soloists' lives just oozed off the page and I was immersed even though I know almost nothing about that world.

I fell in love with Ray and his Grandma Nora and rooted for him as he progressed to each level of his career. The consistent racism Ray faced was such a stark and important reminder that these are not one-off incidents; people of colour live with this every day.

Highly recommend you add this to your TBR!

Trigger warnings: racism, racial slurs, slavery, physical abuse, torture

Okay friends, I have taken on a pro👏ject👏 and I could use your help!

Some backstory

I have a lot of Scottish ancestry on both sides of my family, so I love it when I find items with thistles on them.

Well, yesterday, I was perusing Facebook Marketplace, and I happened upon a new listing for a solid wood cabinet with thistle carvings on the doors.

I couldn’t believe it! I was so excited that I immediately formulated a plan for where I could put this cabinet in our home and grabbed the measuring tape to make sure it would fit.

Long story short, my husband and I went and looked at the cabinet and I decided to buy it and bring it home.

Isn’t it beautiful?!

Here’s where you come in

Now, I haven’t done a lot of furniture refurbishing projects, so I know this will be a bit of a challenge.

There are definitely some rough spots and the cabinet isn’t really our style—we lean more toward mid-century modern with maybe some Scandinavian or boho mixed in.

I would love to modernize this piece a little, while still maintaining the thistles.

If you have any tips or resources to share, I’m all ears! You can leave a comment or hit reply and email me directly.

The number one decision to make will be to choose between staining or painting it.

That’s all for this edition!

Don’t forget to send me all your furniture refurbishing ideas/thoughts/resources.

I’d love to hear about any furniture projects you’ve tackled, too!

P.S. I have 3 digital products available in the Notion Marketplace!

📚 BOOK CLUB HUB for the book club host who wants to organize their club with ease so they can focus on the fun part—reading good books and chatting about them with friends! It’s perfect for small to medium virtual or in-person clubs.

📖 CURATED BOOK LISTS for the book club host or bookworm who doesn’t know what to read next.

🎁 GIFT PLANNER & TRACKER to help you organize birthday and holiday shopping and stay on budget.