Because my Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups got out of hand, I wanted to break up my monthly wrap-ups into two posts: one personal and one bookish/bloggy. I created Lauren Lately here to highlight all of the personal happenings in my life: events, activities, shows I’m addicted to, things I’m obsessing over, recipes I’ve loved, and goals for the next month. I decided to space them out so this wrap-up happens around the mid-point of the month and the bookish one happens at the end of the month.
✨ Check out my most recent bookish and bloggy wrap-up HERE ✨
Portland, ME | We went up to Portland to visit Chris’s sister with his cousin and had SO much fun! I have more pictures but didn’t want to spam you. We’re so in love with that city now. Above you can see the Bug Light park/lighthouse area, our seafood lunch, and walk near Back Cove. Everything was awesome. We went to a really fun Mexican restaurant at night with so many pepper-shaped lights on the ceiling and walls – literally like a blanket. We also went to a nice indoor-outdoor bar that will be super fun later on in the summer. I can’t wait to be back up there very soon! ?
Reading outside | Tis the season, when the weather gets a little nicer and I get to spend my lunch breaks reading in the grass. I also try to utilize our back porch as much as humanly possible. I love being able to enjoy the sunshine and not get too hot during the spring temperatures. You can also see all the dandelions and cool clouds near our apartment.
Hiking | Again, the warmer weather = outdoors time! We went hiking at one of our favorite places a couple weekends ago and really enjoyed it. The weather was beautiful that day. We stopped for a DELICIOUS lunch at my favorite bakery that opened up down the street. I got this huge, amazing salad and Chris got a turkey wrap. It was gorgeous day to enjoy the weather and each other’s company.
Brick Fair New England | You can see lots more pictures here in my Flickr album! Our LUG had a table display at Brick Fair New England the first weekend of May. You can see Chris’s tan apartment building (left) and my pink Princess apartment (middle) in our city layout. We also made a Rick and Morty mosaic that we displayed in a different section (right). We’re SUPER happy with how it came out! It was a really fun weekend to get to know our club members even better, plus spend money on Lego things.
TV Shows
Still working on Shameless, Schitt’s Creek, and Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce!
Wrestling | I’ve really hopped aboard the WWE train. I’m a huge fan of Finn Balor and would absolutely love to touch his abs and kiss his face. Too much? No. He’s perfection and his intro song makes me way too happy. We try to watch both RAW and Smackdown each week, since the storylines continue with each episode. We’ve also started watching other videos about some of the issues with the industry, old wrestlers that left, etc. It’s nice to be well-versed! WWE can definitely be a problematic fave at times.
Movies
We tried to watch Sausage Party but turned it off after about 20 minutes. It was so, so not funny. I’m a huge fan of crass or inappropriate humor, but this movie was trying WAY too hard. They just inserted swear words in for no apparent reason. It was all very forced and just blatantly terrible, stereotypical, and racist. I’m vaguely curious to know how the movie ends (maybe I’ll just read spoilers).
Podcasts & Music
My Favorite Murder | I kind of haven’t stopped listening to this podcast since I last posted this?! I’m a big fan of how Georgia and Karen mix my favorite topic (true crime, murders, etc.) with humor. They’re both actual comedians/writers/etc. so they have a way of lightening certain things. It’s like two best friends getting together and talking about their favorite “true crime” stories. I’m trying to intermix
listening to these episodes with my audiobooks.
Last Podcast on the Left | So I’m admittedly not a huge fan of this one. I wanted to listen to the two-part focus on JonBenet Ramsey and their humor is a little more annoying than entertaining? I like how the girls from MFM try to lighten the mood and make jokes as they’re appropriate, but the guys on LPOTL are a little more crass than I like (even thought I’m usually a big fan of crude/inappropriate humor). I will listen to a few key episodes with topics that interest me but definitely won’t slog through their back episodes.
Food & Drink
Again, I’ve been way too lazy this month to cook things. We’ve eaten out a lot more than we should, but part of it is because were away from home for two full weekends. I think we’re doing pretty well with eating salads though! I’ll just cook up a bunch of chicken and we’ll make a different kind of salad each day.
Purchases & Addictions
New Summer I Turned Pretty paperbacks | Okay so I don’t usually talk about purchasing books in this wrap-up, but I can’t resist looking at these covers again. Seriously, how perfect are they?! I ordered all three paperbacks for a TOTAL of less than $15! Each book was like $4. I have no idea why, but I am not complaining at all. I can’t wait to see the pretties in person this week when they arrive!
Elephant tapestry | I’m not sure why but I suddenly became obsessed with the idea of getting an elephant tapestry. I love elephants and the blues will go well with our bedroom theme, so I just went for it. This thing was less than $15.
Ear bud holders | I was always so annoyed with my ear buds during ski season because my ears are apparently weird-shaped. They can’t hold normal ear buds. SO! I started browsing Amazon for a solution and found these cute pink clip-on things that make earbuds more secure. The pink parts go around your ear and keep everything in place. Lifesaver for me.
Other purchases | I bought an easy-install bike rack for my car’s trunk. It seems really easy but we haven’t opened the package yet. We still need to work on getting bikes. I have one at my dad’s house I’ll probably snag but we need to get Chris one. Hopefully we can get that pinned down ASAP. I’m having a lot of luck on Amazon lately!
Around the Blogosphere
Do You Ever Read Too Many Books at Once? | Pink Polka Dot Books | Michelle’s post about reading lots of books at once hit home for me. I usually have no more than three books happening at once and usually I’m only working on two (one of which is an audiobook). I have to keep the genres separate or else I get confused, regardless of the format!
Top 10 Things That Make Me Want to Read a Book | Various Bloggers | I loved this TTT topic because I found so many people who love the same things as me! I’m linking to Novel Ink, Rebel Mommy Book Blog, and Pure Imagination because I just loved their lists.
The Writing’s On the Wall: My Favorite Murder | Pop! Goes the Reader | I’m soooooo obsessed with Jen’s wallpapers in general, but these took the cake. I immediately made “fuck politeness” my iPhone background. You know I’ve become obsessed with this podcast, so this was a no-brainer.
Fast Five Friday: Historical Fiction with a Twist | Book Addict’s Guide | I loved Brittany’s recommendation post for historical fiction books with a “twist” … mostly because that’s the only type of historical fiction I read! I love when there’s magic or fantasy elements involved, but usually don’t read straight historical fiction. I can’t wait to read some of these!
Since Last Time…
1. Work up a new budget worksheet or something | PASS | I didn’t make a new budget system or anything but I did use a calculator to determine how much our bills are. I want to be better organized about paying everything AND saving money. This helped me get an idea about what our upcoming expenses will be.
2. Finished Owned Book April strong and start packing up books | HALF PASS | I’ve continued to read some owned books throughout April and May, so I feel okay about that. I also plan on doing some kind of owned summery contemporary book challenge thing in June. (Also, I’m writing this on Friday, so I’m going to say here that I BETTER have done some book-related packing on Saturday. That’s my plan, at least. So for now, this one gets a half-pass I guess.)
3. Start working on one of the shows from my Netfix & Books To-Be-Watched List | IRRELEVANT | So, before I make an official update, I’ll just say this – the Netflix and Books Challenge is essentially no more. I hope people may still link up on an old post (or maybe I’ll make a blog page?) but I won’t be bothering anymore. Erica has stepped away from blogging and it’s not a challenge I plan on keeping up alone.
4. Use my planner more (and better!) | PASS | Soooo I suppose it doesn’t count that I bought ANOTHER planner, right? UGH I can’t stop! I just have always wanted one similar to the Kikik without spending a lot of money. Michael’s is having a great sale so I put together a new planner because to-do lists are my THING now. We’ll see how this keeps up, but I’m letting myself pass/slide on this.
5. Enjoy 1-2 meals on the patios at restaurants | PASS | As you saw above, we had a nice meal outside at my favorite bakery a couple weekends ago. I don’t think we’ve done it again since but maybe we will sometime in the next few weeks. I’m glad I said 1-2 here instead of 2-3 because I technically passed 😉
The ceiling at Taco Escobarr | Noodle bowl from Noodles & Co. | Finishing Rick & Morty | Our layout at Brick Fair
Goals Until Next Time
1. Clean out and organize garage | I’ve had this one on here a lot but I’m hoping it’ll be done by the next Lauren Lately post. We have way too much shit to do to let things sit around until then.
2. Start moving things and organizing in the apartment | More to come on this later, but yeah. We have to get moving on packing things up and organizing what we have left. Long story!
3. Read more owned books | I hope to spend the end of this month and next month reading my physical copies and finishing library books I have. I don’t want to read any ebooks because I want to keep hoarding them for other reasons! I have maaaany books on my contemporary romance TBR that I haven’t read yet and they’re nice summer contemporaries.
4. Pay down credit card and other bills | I have some nice placements coming to fruition and commission as a result. I want to use a good amount of it to pay allll of my bills and credit card down a bit! I’m very ~on top of things~ since getting my tax return though.
5. Enjoy 1-2 more meals outside at restaurants | I’ll toss this one on here again because I really want to spend more time eating outside! There are plenty of nice places to do this at locally.
Our Lego group (I’m cut out here but also photoshopped in hahaha) | Margs with my best friend | Excitement! | Sunset
Coming Up in My Life
End of May | Packing, organizing, reading, hiking, and relaxing. I hope to spend the rest of this month doing all of those things while I can! We also have Chris’s sister’s graduation in Portland this coming weekend, so hopefully we’ll continue to explore the city a little more.
Early June | Hmmm, more of the same. Packing, organizing, etc… All the usual things! And of course, I’m hoping for warmer weather so we can start swimming at Chris’s parent’s pool, the love of my life. (Not Chris. The pool. Is that weird? NO.)
Hey Lauren! Great post.
Gotta ask…what new planner did you get? The sales at Michaels kill me every week. I need to stop opening them all together because I can’t save money if I give it all to Michaels because of those awesome sales.
Looks like you had a great month. I hope May is good to you as well!
Thank you! It was one of the Recollections planners – I think Creative Year?
I’m reading Hello, Sunshine now<3! I loved seeing your LEGO and Portland photos! I ordered the new Summer series covers too! I hope yours get replaced with the new covers ASAP!!!
Yes! They sent the correct ones ASAP 😀