It's a Schmahl World

7 Non-Fiction Books to Read for Women’s History Month

March is Women’s History Month, so what better time to pick up a book about women in history! So often women’s stories were pushed to the side or left out while the history textbooks have traditionally focused on men. I’ve pulled together a list of non-fiction books that share lesser-known women’s stories that I have…

My 5-Star Reads of 2024

In 2024, I read 75 books – tied for the most books I’ve ever read in one year! And looking back over what I’ve read, I’ve read some pretty great books this year so I’d like to share my favorites with you. I’ve been keeping track of my reading for over 10 years (the old-fashioned…

7 Historical Fiction Books Set in France

I love reading books set in different times and places! Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres and I’ve had France on my mind lately, because we are going there at the end of the month. One of my favorite ways to prepare for a trip is to read some books that are set…

Harry Potter Party: Headless Hunt Balloon Games

For one of our annual Harry Potter parties, we had a blast hosting a “Headless Hunt” tournament inspired by Nearly Headless Nick’s ambition to join the exclusive group of beheaded ghosts in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets! But rather than using severed heads, we used balloons to play several quick carnival style games!…

Harry Potter Party: Mandrake Dirt Pudding Sorting Ceremony

Every year for our annual Harry Potter party, we come up with a new way to randomly sort our guests into houses! One year we made Mandrake Dirt Pudding Pots for our guests and when they pulled their baby mandrakes out, the color of the “dirt” revealed their house! Here’s how we did it… (This…

How to start a Snail Mail Book Club

Who doesn’t love getting book mail? A few years ago, Kathryn and I were talking about how fun it is to get books in the mail. We love the idea of monthly book subscriptions like Book of the Month, but it can get expensive and lead to running out of space on your bookshelves. So,…

Harry Potter Party Game: Boggart Pictionary

At our very first Harry Potter party (more about the party in this post!), we played a game we created called Boggart Pictionary! We briefly described it in our first post, but people have asked for more details, so here they are… The way we have set up our annual Harry Potter party is by…

Harry Potter Sorting Hat Left-Right Game

When we posted about our first Harry Potter party, we shared how we randomly sorted all of our guests into houses and we’ve gotten several comments asking for more details! So here it is… We played our own version of the “left-right” game we remembered from elementary school! In this game, each participant holds something…

How We Threw an Epic Harry Potter Party

This past Labor Day weekend we held our very first Schmollivander’s Septwizard Tournament! As the name is probably not self-explanatory, our Harry Potter themed event consisted of guests being sorted into the four Hogwarts houses and competing in seven different tasks relating to the books to win the coveted House Cup. We even got lucky…

7 Things to Do in Brno, Czech Republic

When we visited the Czech Republic we wanted to see more of the country than just Prague so we decided to start our visit in the second largest city of Brno. Here are seven things to do that are walkable from the city center! 1 – Visit the 10 Z bunker One of my favorite…