Way Out Yonder Where the Crawdads Sing

The sky was beautiful again this morning! All pastel colors, light orange and faded blue, it looked so soft and dreamy.

My sweet baby girl was a big helper this morning, carrying some grocery bags into school. (They collect them from parents, to put dirty diapers in, and my Grandmother is the Queen of collecting them for me to take! Not pictured – I was holding four more bags full of bags, just like what she’s carrying.)

More ravioli for lunch today, and I finally finished this particular library book. It feels like it’s taken more close to forever for this one! It was kind of lackluster, and boring, but I’m glad I made it through. (I will eventually continue on with the next one in the series, but I’ll take a break for a bit to read other stuff instead. (Also, since I finished it about 20 minutes into my lunch break, I spent the rest of the time reading/listening to the next installment in the Forward series I shared about yesterday.)

Tonight’s schedule after work was wayyy out of the box of our usual routine. Nana picked up Emerson from school, they had dinner, and then went to our house, so Nana could do Emmie’s bedtime routine. Thank goodness for family in town, on a super rare occasion where Jeff and I both have our own separate plans! Because Jeff went to a Men’s Ministry dinner at church tonight. They did a low country boil for dinner, and then did archery out in the back of the church!

While Jeff was at church (doesn’t his food below look delish?!), I went to Thomasville, Georgia, for an author “Read & Greet” with Delia Owens, author of the New York Times Best-selling novel, “Where the Crawdads Sing.” First though, I swung through Chick-fil-A before heading out of town (got my fave spicy sandwich), and I ate my dinner before hitting the road to Thomasville.

The doors opened at 6pm, so I tried to get in line as quickly as possible, since it was just general admission with no assigned seats. (I’ve been writing some of this post while sitting in my seat, waiting for the event to start, but by the time I publish it, it will be really late, and most of you probably won’t read it until Friday.)

Every summer, the Thomas County Library (in partnership with The Bookshelf) hosts “One Book,” where they encourage all community members to read the same book together, and then they host “a week-long celebration to literacy and to one book in particular.” (Quote from their website.) I had originally bought myself just one single ticket, in hopes someone I knew would also be going, and we could carpool. But that didn’t quite happen, and so I was brave and went by myself! (Haha, I know that sounds silly, but really, it’s a big deal for this introvert to go to an event like this by myself, to an unfamiliar place, full of tons of people!) I actually did end up finding some friends to sit with once I get there, so thanks to Kim & Allison for letting me join y’all! I also ran into a few other Tally friends that I got to say hi to as well. (Hi, Lauren!)

Anyways, the author, Delia Owens, is originally from Thomasville! So not only was this book the perfect pick for the One Book events, but it has also been wildly popular all over the place lately. Owens is a zoologist, and was a wildlife scientist in Africa for many, many years. She wrote several non-fiction books about nature and ecology, but this was her first novel. And if I haven’t said it a few times already, I really, really loved the book. (Five stars!) I first read it last October, and then re-read it just last month. And I enjoyed it just as much the second time around. I actually decided I wanted to own a copy for my shelves (yes, Meg, you can borrow it 😉), so I splurged and bought an autographed copy of the book tonight.

She was really cute and sweet on stage, and less serious than I though she would be. Like when she got up to the podium, and couldn’t see over the top of it (short girl probs I can identify with!), she just joked and laughed and rearranged things herself, so she could reposition it sideways! And she’s 70 years old, just up there moving around plants & podiums ad joking about it!

She told us about growing up here in South Georgia, her mother always loved nature, and would encourage her and her friends to go out and play as much as possible, and to go explore, and to go “way out yonder where the crawdads sing.” And that’s what she did! And eventually it led her all the way to Africa, where her and her one colleague were the only humans in like, 100 square miles or something. (Didn’t write it down and can’t quite remember.) But isn’t that so neat??

It was a really cool event, but I wish she would have been able to speak even longer, and do more questions for the Q&A portion. She was actually being careful not to give away any spoilers, for people who hadn’t read it yet, but I was like, “Hey, that’s their fault of they came here tonight unprepared! I wanna hear more!” But I still really enjoyed it, and I’m so glad I was able to go!

Thank you again to Nana for picking up Emerson, and taking care of her for us tonight!