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 ✨
June marks the super busy time for me! We’re moving at the end of the month and had soooo much to do in the interim. There’s more to come after this posts, where things get even busier. Here’s my life from mid-May to mid-June!
Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor | I know I already did a full recap of this trip, but I wanted to include a few pictures here. Definitely read the whole thing if you want more details! It was so much fun. It’s genuinely the most beautiful place I’ve been. If you have a chance to go, please do.
Victoria Mansion and food spots | We went to a Portland attraction, the Victoria Mansion, this month. It’s really cool because they kept most of it authentic to the time people lived there. We went to Highroller Lobster Company after, which was amazing. We split fries, a “lobby pop” (piece of lobster tail on stick), a fried lobby pop, and a lobster taco in a cheese shell. It was all amazing. We also tried Duckfat, another Portland staple, which was okay. The fries and milkshake were good but we didn’t love the sandwiches. We’ve been trying to get out of the house more during the day, so I’ll go work at Scarborough Grounds on their patio.
Alaina’s wedding | One of my best friends got married this month and it was gorgeous. The bad weather held off but it was SO humid. I can’t believe our faces weren’t melting off! I’m so happy for her and her husband, who we love. It was a really long, fun, exhausting day.
Morgan Matson signing | So I was excited to learn that Morgan Matson was going to be in California during my trip at the end of the month, but I was thinking the time crunch would be too much. I was looking at her tour dates afterwards and slowly saw them getting closer and closer to me, until I noticed she’d be at Print in Portland! It was awesome. She’s so great to see and listen to; I loved everything she discussed and she is the most genuine author ever.
Old Orchard Beach | We live 20 minutes from OOB right now so we decided to take another quick day trip there. We got some fried seafood that was… not good… and then sat on the beach with our books! There’s not much to report on this one; it was just a nice, chill day, walking around and sitting on the sand.
Freeport dinner | We were planning on going downtown to the Old Port Festival on Sunday but were not in the mood to deal with crowds. We hung out, watched NJPW Dominion, and were pretty lazy until dinnertime. I suddenly had the idea to go up to Freeport and have dinner, because I knew they had some good outdoor seating restaurants. We got there kind of late for a Sunday so the popcorn and whoopie pie stores were closed. We ended up eating some dinner and WARM BLUEBERRY PIE for dessert. It was all amazing.
TV Shows
YouTube | I’ll be real, I haven’t been watching much TV because I’ve been watching so many things on YouTube. I don’t want to get into all of it right now because I’m lazy but yeeeep that’s my life currently.
Arrested Development | Chris is still finishing his first watch of the show, so we’re in season 4 right now. I can’t believe I haven’t watched the new episodes without him yet! I’m peeved at the main actors for that horrible interview so honestly I haven’t been rushing there anyways.
Movies
The Covenant | Ah just as horrible and HOT as I remembered it! I loved this bad movie when it came out in high school (on my 16th birthday, oddly enough!). I NEEDED Chris to see it once it made its way onto Netflix. We love bad movies, obviously, so this was a must.
Coco | For some reason I didn’t really rush out to see this movie, and I’m super regretting it! This was SO GOOD and SO CUTE. I loved pretty much everything about it. Even though music was the literal point of the story, there weren’t a lot of song breaks like other Disney movies… which I loved. Overall, so great.
Podcasts & Music
Nothing new to report here!
Food & Drink
Exploring restaurants | This is still here from last month because we’re definitely continuing this trend. I feel like I have been super basic with my meals lately because I’m honestly trying to use up the rest of our food before we move! I’m using up random cans and rice packets and freezer food as much as possible. Sooo when I’m not doing that, we’re eating out! Highlights of that are above.
Purchases & Addictions
Makeup and skincare things | I’ve been pretty good in the last month with buying less makeup; it’s primarily because I need to get my storage system ready to go for when we move home! I don’t want to get anything else for the time being until I figure out what I’m keeping and how I’m organizing it. Here are just a couple new things I’m trying out:
- Tako Pore Blackhead Scrub Stick: I’m still on the fence about this cute guy. You have to clear off the first smooth layer on there to get underneath. There are little white scrubbies that hopefully exfoliate and clear out your pores. I’m probably going to use it all up but I’m not sure if it makes a difference yet…
- Trilogy Rosehip Oil: I’ve been trying out oils a little bit, which made me nervous for my oily skin, but my fave YouTuber, Nikkia, talked about it in her video… I was sold. I’ve started using it as the last step of my skincare routine. Yes, both morning and night! I use a little bit after my moisturizer before applying makeup and honestly – it makes me less oily throughout the day.
- Tao Clean Aura Orbital Facial Brush System: I bought cheap travel-oriented face brush a while ago to see if I would keep up with it, but knew I’d want to upgrade at some point. When Nikkia posted a video using this (the same one as above for the oil), I decided to go for it. There are two brushes: an exfoliating one and a regular cleansing one. I use the regular one for two days, then use the exfoliating one on the third, and keep going from there. It’s really awesome with how it uses UV light to kill the germs and dries the brush in there.
Around the Blogosphere
Me, My Dad, and Books @ Hello, Chelly | I credit my love of reading for both of my parents, so this sweet post was really nice to read! Rachel is going to try to read more of her dad’s favorite books (classics). If I were to read MY dad’s favorite books, they’d be all Stephen King, James Patterson, and really long fantasy series! haha.
Cafe Chat: Seasonal Genre Reading @ Book Scents | I’ve talked about this oodles of times on the blog, but I love seeing others who feel similarly! Wendy’s post is about reading certain genres depending on the season. Yep!
Good Beach Reads for Summer 2018 @ The Perpetual Page-Turner | I’m always looking for summer recommendations, especially if they’re beachy reads. This goes along with the previous post and one of my fave blog topics yet again.
A Guide on How to Determine the Audience of a Book @ Xpresso Reads | After all the drama with THE POPPY WAR, this was a good read! It’s important to consider the intended audience as well as the age of the main character in the book. I don’t want to get into it because there are points on all sides, but this was a great post.
Real Talk: A Case for Kindness @ Girl in the Pages | Totally agree here. I commented on her post about people who tend to think the author owes them something based on their personal preferences. Authors are allowed to keep writing series if they’re confident that there’s still a story to tell. They can introduce love triangles if they want because they’re THEIR characters. etc. etc.
Last Month’s Goals & Progress
1. Save money and pay everything that needs to be paid | PASS-ISH | I’ve been good about this for the most part. Luckily, aside from eating out, a lot of our Portland area things are cheap or free. We’ve been saving money and being careful about our spending overall. Still a few more big bills to come but we’ve got it!
2. Check off 8-10 items on the Bucket List | FAIL | I didn’t specifically reference this over the past month, which could be my issue. I don’t think we’ll actually do everything on the list so I’m going to try to ease up on it. There are some more things to do downtown and in nearby areas though, so it’s still a goal.
3. Plan out the most seamless moving-out process ever | PASS | We haven’t moved out yet, obviously, but we do have a pretty great plan to make it stress-free. I’ve got a few vacation days for packing, moving in, and soaking in the city. I think we’ll be in really good shape that day, and will stretch out some of the other moving to a bit later in the month.
Goals Until Next Time
1. Enjoy California and soak it all in | I’ve never been to the West Coast or even taken a flight that involved a layover! So this will be fun. I’m sooooo excited to meet Morgan and Cristina, see Disneyland, go to my friend’s wedding, and have a nice vacation. I wish the timing was different based on our moving date being the following week, but it is what it is!
2. Cross as many items of the list as possible | Piggybacking off of the #2 above, I do want to focus on crossing some items off the list. We really don’t get downtown enough so I hope to make it down there a few times when the weather is nice. Even hitting a few of the “famous” coffee shops is a must!
3. Get the new house set up and organize old shit | This is an easy one because we’re moving on the 30th and be forced to get set up 😉 We have a lot of stuff at my dad’s house and Chris’s parents’ house that we need to move too, so I’m hoping that by July 15th we will have picked all that up and moved it in too.
What’s Next
I’ll say it again – holy shit, what isn’t up next!? We’re going to explore more of Portland this weekend, in one way or another, and hopefully see a Sea Dogs game. We’re off to California on Wednesday (!!!!) to go to Disneyland, the beach, meet my bloggy friends, and attend my friend’s wedding. After that, we’ll spend the last week enjoying Portland, packing up, and moving home. The first half of July will involve moving in, seeing friends, getting settled back into my office… just a lot of adjustments!
You’ve been up to so much! I still love that purple dress on you! I just recently finished the third season of Arrested Development and it was pretty boring sadly. I don’t know which interview you’re talking about but I’m definitely going to look it up. And I’m so curious to hear about what you’ve been watching on YouTube! I spend so much time on there as well!
Thank you re: the dress <333
Ahh that's a bummer about Arrested. I think the newer episodes aren't as good as the originals, for sure.
Maybe I should do a YouTube round-up post!! I don't subscribe to THAT many people, so I'm sure it'll be easy to do 😉
SO EXCITED TO SEE YOU! Also thank you for the shout out! 🙂
And oh my goodness, The Covenant! I’ve never seen it, but I want to because I think it has Chace Crawford AND Steven Strait in it (ugh such major crushes on both of them back during high school LOL)
OH YES soooo worth watching just for the hot guys alone.
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