Crazy Socks & Writer's Block

Just in case you weren't aware, Halloween isn't just one day. It's a month long, and all month I've been trying to work Halloween into everything. First off I decorated the apartment in bats and skulls and frogs.  Sammy and I had to compromise on some of our decorations. I like cute scary, he likes bloody scary. That ghoul found itself in the shopping cart without my seeing. Then I've tried to sneak Halloween into all of my outfits. Lots of orange and purples. I used a skeleton necklace to hold my ID badge. Bats leggings that are hard to see Bat socks  And this isn't Halloweeny, but this was another cute outfit.  We also went to a corn maze with some friends. It wasn't as fun as it used to be as a teen. The boys turned it into a video game and wanted to hit all of the stations and were actually reading the map so we were never lost. Plus, with four of us it was hard to compromise on where to go. I loved running in the dark, gripping ...

It's truly the little things. At work one day we were gifted a bunch of gourds, and Amanda and I got to work decorating them.  It all started with this little guy, who looks like the octopus from Finding Nemo. From there, Amanda decided she was going to make a pumpkin of her hero, Dita Von Teese.  I was really impressed with her gourd because she gave it curly hair with just ribbon and a glue stick! Her gourd inspired me and I wanted to make the matchmaker from Mulan. Here's all of the gourds we made. Our co-worker who has never seen Mulan said that Amanda's gourd was better than mine. I understand. without the context it looks horrible. Plus Amanda's is fantastic! It was just funny how blunt she was.    One day when I am no longer at this library, I want to be remembered for my matchmaker gourd. I'm pretty proud of it. 

My memories recently showed me this status.  They'd just changed the rules saying that women could go at nineteen years old. I had turned nineteen a week and a half earlier. Before that announcement I hadn't even thought about going on a mission. I figured that I'd be married before 21 and wouldn't have to even think about it. Now, not only could I go, but everyone was asking me if I was. It was overwhelming!  I thought about it a lot. It sounded like a nice escape. I could stop school for a bit and serve the Lord. I could get away from all of the drama going on at the time with in-laws. I could just go. Everyone was saying I should go.  I just didn't have a desire to go though. I didn't want to go to serve people. I didn't want to go because I thought it was what I should do. I just wanted to take a vacation for a bit. That's the exact opposite of what a mission is.  All of my former leaders told me to pray about it, and that I would be...

As a writer, everyone talks about NaNoWriMo. Basically, writing fifty thousands words within a month. The nation undertakes this endeavor in November. Every November, I've tried to do this, and it just hasn't happened. Through high school and college, I've never been able to accomplish this. Partly because of the way I was approaching writing, the stories that I was writing, and just trying to get through school.  This last month has been rough, as I've shared on other media platforms. Knowing that this was going to be hard, I decided I wanted to make myself a goal to shoot for. I was waiting to get some feedback on a different story but my fingers were itching to write something. It was the middle of September, and I've been looking forward to NaNoWriMo. So I decided that, hey, no one said it has to officially be in November, so I was going to do this.  In order to get through this, I figured out what my daily word count had to be. I took out Sunday's ...

I was sick the majority of last week. And while being sick sucks, it was a little bit enjoyable because I got a break. On Sunday Sammy held me all morning until he went to church, and then after church as well. While he was at church, I watched a few movies which I haven't done in weeks. I watched Twitches and only had a few problems with the plot. One, they got a job right on the spot. No HR no paperwork, nowhere to even put her purse. What is that?! Two, it's their 21st birthday and there is not one mention of alcohol. I find that highly unrealistic. That's all anyone talked about on my 21st and I don't even drink. Otherwise they were both fun movies to watch while I was sick. Then I watched Breaking Dawn parts one and two. They're my guilty pleasure. I was texting my girlfriends at work the whole time and it's theirs as well! In order to get through both parts before bed I watched the boring parts at 1.5 speed. I could still understand everything becaus...

Back in May, I posted about our summer bucket list. Here's how we did on completing all of those items. The original list included: *Go to the aquarium *Go to the museum *Visit Garden of the Gods  *Go on a hike *Go swimming *Get tan *Go to the drive in movie theater *Read a book (Hopefully by the pool ;))  I'm happy to say that we completed everything except for going to the drive in movies. We checked their movies every week and they were just never any that we were interested in seeing.  We went to Garden of the Gods and more over Memorial Day weekend.  We went swimming multiple times, and definitely got tan. I still have my funny swim suit lines on my shoulders. All of that swimming is what inspired us to take a trip to Mexico this coming Spring Break. We're saving saving saving, and it's going to happen!  We went hiking for the first time Labor day weekend, and a few times following that.  We just went to the museu...

Since I work for a library, I am technically an educator. Which means that I got to attend the latest educator's night at the Museum of Nature and Science. Not only did Sammy and I get to attend the museum for free, but we were given delicious food, and got to see an IMAX movie for FREE!  All of my coworkers went and we ate together with our significant others. Then we separated and Sammy and I went to see the IMAX movie about mummies. While we were in line to see the movie, I saw a few people who used to work at the bookstore. I'm going to be honest, I was a little upset because I have no idea how they got in. They're still college students, and aren't studying anything related to education. So how did they get in for educator's night? It was very interesting, but unsettled me at times. One can only stare at so many dead preserved bodies.  After the mummies, Sammy and I went up to a new exhibit about Extreme Mammals. It was super cool. There are so many od...

One of my favorite things at work to do is create displays. It's so much fun creating a theme, researching books that fit it, and then going on a hunt for them. I've made some pretty cool displays that I'm proud of.  When school was starting, I did a boarding school themed display.  Then I made one completely of covers with pretty dresses.  I did a serial killer display with this as the sign. We did one with the most popular books the year you were born.  I did one with books that had the word 'You' in title.  And one with books that may be made into movies.  I also had a moment where a kid came up to me and asked me if I knew about The Giver Quartet. I had literally just read the final book that weekend and was obsessed with it. I loved going with him and finding the next book in the series, and explaining what to expect because the second book can be very misleading. We discussed the books, then I found him a few other bo...

I went out for a girl's night with some of my church friends. We all have our birthdays within three days of each other, and it was time to celebrate. After talking it out, we decided to go to a Paint and Sip. I've been wanting to do this forever, so I was so excited. Originally we wanted to go on a Friday night, but I hated the painting we'd be making that night. So I suggested we go on Thursday which had a much prettier painting.  The fact that I was going to see these ladies and get to pain was one of the only things that got me through the week. I love these ladies so much and haven't seen some of them in months. We giggled all night and complimented each other on our works in progress. I was surprised at how easy the painting was as well! It looked so complicated online, but was so much fun to do. Here's how mine ended up. All of our paintings were drastically different by the end of the night which was so cool to see. I decided to paint a reindeer ins...

I've read sooooo many books since the last time I did a post. So here goes!  Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo  First off, this is one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen. Ever. Look at that crow and the way there is a castle in his feathers. Look at the red stained pages that you have to peel apart. SO BEAUTIFUL. If you haven't read anything by Leigh Bardugo, you're missing out. She is honestly one of the best writers of our time. Crooked Kingdom is the sequel to Six of Crows, so you have to read that first. It's  like Ocean's Eleven in Russia with magic. Leigh Bardugo seriously creates some of my favorite characters. This series takes place in the same world as her Shadow and Bone series, so you have to check those out as well. I seriously can't describe this series, it's just so good. My copy hadn't come in the mail by the time I left for work, so I snuck into the new books rack and started reading it as soon as I got to work, ...