Category: Personal / Information / Etc.

Summer TBR and Bucket List – 2023

Summer TBR and Bucket List – 2023

I used to write these all the time and got back into it last year, so here we are again with a somewhat similar post! I really am hoping to read some good seasonal stories this year because I failed with last summer’s TBR. Bring on the beach reads! Summer TBR Summery Review Copies & Upcoming Releases Backlist Summer Stories Summer Plans & Bucket List 1. Go to the beach more than once I’m not huge on the beach usually but I had a great time last summer going with some of my aunts, cousins, and sister. I hope Chris and I manage to go a few times (especially in Maine – we’re hoping to get back up there during the Fourth of July holiday weekend). I love reading under an umbrella and now I have some decent bathing suits too! 2. Read on the porch/outside every nice day I know this is a big-sounding goal (“every day”) but it’s pretty reasonable as long as I’m home! I can take my lunch outside with the pup and read or sit on the porch after work to read a chapter or two. If it’s not raining and not a million degrees, I need to enjoy my porch while I can! 3. Use my roller skates I bought skates a year ago and have been generally too afraid to use them after I fell in the house lol. I need a helmet and then I’ll be good to go! 4. Eat 2 […]

Updated Cookbook Collection

Updated Cookbook Collection

I’m a big fan of food and ever since I tossed aside the idea of dieting, I’ve been in a much happier place with eating it and enjoying it! I’ve posted before about diets and food that I won’t link here because I’m not interested in perpetuating some of those things, but I will link my initial cookbook collection along with their rankings. Today’s post is a bit of an update on that because my cookbook collection has grown exponentially, and factors heavily into how I plan meals (post on that coming soon!). Without further ado, here’s a close-up on my entire cookbook collection as of right now. Skinnytaste Collection These are partially a holdover from my dieting days and I really hate the “Skinnytaste” name, but they’re good cookbooks. I don’t pay attention whatsoever to the calories or information she includes. I preordered the new one coming out later this year because it’s a “Simple” book with five-ingredients or less I think. I have all of the Skinnytaste cookbooks: Air Fryer Dinners Air Fryer Cookbook Original Skinnytaste  One and Done Meal Prep Fast and Slow Four of them are larger full-size cookbooks and there are two smaller ones about the air fryer. Generally speaking I’ve made the most recipes from the last three that I listed above. Celebrity Chefs and Other Go-To Books These are some of my favorites and go-to cookbooks! Some of them are brand new and I haven’t read them yet so we’ll see if they […]

Currently 1/19

Currently 1/19

I haven’t done one of these since 2021 (these latest prompts stolen from Hannah at So Obsessed With) and wanted to share a little more about my life and what’s been going on lately. Lauren Lately kind of fell by the wayside thanks to Covid (literally my last one was March 2020…) and we’ll see if I plan to ever bring it back. I thought this would be a nice way to capture how I’m feeling right now! Bookish I’m thrilled that my love for reading is back. I’m feeling so much less slumpy than the past two years. I think it took a lot out of me always being behind on my Goodreads goal (such a stupid thing to care about that much but I can’t help it!) and I just never wanted to sit and read, thinking it was fruitless or putting too much pressure on myself to get back on track. 2023 feels like a fresh slate for reading and I’m feeling so good! Currently reading: At the time of writing this, I’m reading LUNAR LOVE. I told Chris about it when I was debating which books to read in order this month and he told me I better get going on the Lunar New Year-ish book so it’ll be done by our celebration with his family on the 21st! This is super cute and I’ve been blazing through it. I’m assuming I’ll be done with it by the time this post goes up. Currently audiobook-ing: Soooo thrilled […]

Guide to Holiday Movies Releasing in 2022

Posted November 4, 2022 / Media, Personal / Information / Etc. / 1 Comment
Guide to Holiday Movies Releasing in 2022

Everyone knows that this season begins for me basically on Halloween or the day after. I just want to enjoy my Christmassy stuff for two full months instead of one, and it costs you $0 to mind ya business and let me be happy. I normally refrain from making blog posts until we’re nearing the end of November, but I thought it would be fun to do a holiday movie round-up post BEFORE posting any of my holiday movie reviews, which always come throughout December. This means I’m sharing ALL of the holiday movies on my radar that are releasing this year. I wanted to get this post out early enough for people to make plans, set their DVRs, and order Disney+ in preparation. Without further ado, here are all the movies you could see this year and where to find them! There are too many channels now (thanks for adding yourself in, Great American Family) for me to do any extra work on this so for now I’ll just include the big graphics that the networks themselves provide. You can find a pretty extensive list here that combines the networks chronologically as well. Network/Streaming Services A Christmas Open House (Discovery+ – 11/11): I wasn’t sure what to expect from this streaming service this year, but they appear to have some fun Christmas movies coming! This one involves a romance between a real estate agent and property stager. Designing Christmas (Discovery+ – 11/11): I thought this was a reality show episode […]

Summer Plans including TBR and Bucket List

Summer Plans including TBR and Bucket List

I used to make seasonal TBRs and bucket lists (aka the different trips I wanted to take or plans to make during that season) when I was blogging more regularly. I was working on my TTT the other day for my summer TBR and was thinking it would be fun to bring back this “feature” to share what I hope to do and read this summer. It has also been a bit less fun to write posts like this because I’m reading like half as much as I used to, but here’s a “wishful thinking” TBR for this season at least! Summery TBR Review Copies I have a number of review copies that are publishing this season but these three will likely have the most summer vibes! I’m excited to get to all of them within the next couple of months. New Releases I have a TTT post coming up next week that lists some new or upcoming releases on my summer TBR but decided to pick a few summer-specific books to include here. These three books are coming out this summer and will likely be fun and light reads. Summery Stories I reread the first book in Han’s Summer series a couple of years ago and have plans to finish off my reread via audio this summer, since the TV show is now out. They were renewed for season two so I’d like to get books 2-3 done before they catch up to the show! I also hope to […]

2021 Year in Review

2021 Year in Review

I used to post a lot of life-related updates here when I was blogging more frequently (aka 2019) and the past two years have been kind of a blur. Aside from Covid ruining a ton of things for a long time, we managed to squeeze in our wedding when it was mostly safe to do so. (We didn’t have much of a choice from a contract perspective, but that’s a whole other issue…) I thought I would do a “year in review” kind of wrap-up here since my monthly Bookmark Lit Bulletins literally only discuss reading updates and my Lauren Lately posts fell by the wayside a long time ago. I hope when life is normal again… someday… they’ll resume. For now, here’s a month-by-month recap of my year and the few things I managed to squeeze in when I was able to! January We had a low-key NYE with our friends that we essentially quarantined with (they were the only people we saw when safe to, aside from immediate family members) – just us and our pups. I got really into cooking, finding recipes, and acquiring cookbooks. We had a lot of fun food in 2021! I also continued my obsession with nail wraps from Etsy – I’ve done them on and off and it’s been nice. Unfortunately Chris’s grandfather passed away in January and we had a small family-only Buddhist sendoff for him. I went wedding dress shopping twice in January – once at the beginning of the […]

Guide to Holiday Movies Releasing in 2021

Posted November 1, 2021 / Media, Personal / Information / Etc. / 0 Comments
Guide to Holiday Movies Releasing in 2021

Usually this is my first post of the holiday season, but I ended up doing a Christmas in July post that highlighted upcoming 2021 holiday releases I was looking forward to. I also usually like to get this post up in October, right before the first Hallmark movie premieres before Halloween. Due to my October blog break, I decided to hold off and draft some early November posts as I was not actively posting on the blog. Here’s my usual spiel, without further ado! Everyone knows that this season begins for me basically on Halloween or the day after. I just want to enjoy my Christmassy stuff for two full months instead of one, and it costs you $0 to mind ya business and let me be happy. I normally refrain from making blog posts until we’re nearing the end of November, but I thought it would be fun to do a holiday movie round-up post BEFORE posting any of my holiday movie reviews, which always come throughout December. This means I’m sharing ALL of the holiday movies on my radar that are releasing this year. I wanted to get this post out early enough for people to make plans, set their DVRs, and order Disney+ in preparation. Without further ado, here are all the movies you could see this year and where to find them! Again, these are broken down by where you can find them. I thought I would get the smaller lists done first, so if Hallmark […]

Currently

Currently

I’ve been doing some kind of Currently post on and off for many years. Ironically, Hannah at So Obsessed With credits me for inspiring her to finally make a Currently post… and now here *I* am, stealing *her* Currently prompts. I just like the way she lays them out and it’s a nicer format than some I’ve done in the past. So here’s credit-ception for you. Bookish Currently reading: I’ve been attempting to read RULE OF WOLVES since it came out basically. I just haven’t been motivated to read fantasy lately. I had a similar issue with taking forever to read ACOSF. I finished a bunch of romance novels in a row on my Kindle and this one has been sitting around. I also just started WAIT FOR IT last night because I got approved on Netgalley and started reading it right away because I actually thought it was something different lol. Currently audiobook-ing: Even more embarrassing? I have RULE OF WOLVES on audio too. I’ve been mostly listening to podcasts though. Currently recommending: Seriously, the last 4 romance books I read received 4-4.5 stars, with the majority receiving 4.5 stars. If you want mostly fun rom-coms, try out: ROSALINE PALMER TAKES THE CAKE by Alexis Hall TO SIR, WITH LOVE by Lauren Layne SATISFACTION GUARANTEED by Karelia Stetz-Walters THE SOULMATE EQUATION by Christina Lauren Currently on hold at the library: I actually have run out of library holds, for the most part. The only one remaining is THE HEART […]

Eating Lately via My iPhone

Eating Lately via My iPhone

Like everyone during quarantine, we’ve been doing a lot of cooking and baking! It’s been so fun to find new meals, work with what we have, and bake tasty (well-deserved) treats. I was inspired by Communikait and her “what I’m eating lately via my iPhone” posts. They’re simple photos of meals she’s had and a little description about the recipe. I’ve been on a Skinnytaste recipe kick lately. I purchased two of her books within the last month or so. This is a blackened salmon with an avocado cucumber salsa and wild rice. So good! We made carrot cake for Easter for the first time, even though we didn’t go anywhere or have any plans that day. Another Skinnytaste recipe and made with pineapple – so good. I love a cream cheese frosting. Half Baked Harvest has been another favorite recently, website and books included. She’s been making some copycat restaurant recipes lately. This is a Taco Bell crunchwrap supreme dupe, so it’s a regular crunchy taco with a soft taco baked on the outside with cheese in between. We’ve been wanting to use our blender more so I made some smoothie bowls with frozen fruit, avocado, blueberries, coconut, nuts, and granola. So good. I don’t even remember what recipe this was – it’s a riff on a Half Baked Harvest one with some kind of meat and Asian flavors lol – but we added an egg. I think it was a Korean bowl with steak? So good regardless haha. […]

Listening Lately

Listening Lately

I’ve always done podcast roundups on here but I thought it would be fun to share alllll of the things I’ve been listening to lately in 2021. I’ve done a decent mix of podcasts and audiobooks, compared to my usual all-or-nothing philosophy. Music is generally on the back burner but there are some key playlists or radio stations I pop on when cleaning and cooking on weekend mornings. Podcasts Someone Knows Something (S2, S5, S6) // I’ve had this podcast on my radar forever because it’s known as one of the OGs in the true crime community. I slept on it for a long time and randomly decided to listen to the most recent season. Each season is about a new case and S6 had just wrapped up posting. It was really good and addicting, so I went backwards to Season 5 and then Season 2 based on my interest in the case they covered. I’ll probably listen to Seasons 1, 3, and 4 at some point too. Tom Brown’s Body // I was alone with the pup one day when Chris went snowboarding and I listened to this podcast from start to finish all day. I absolutely was addicted and highly recommend it to anyone looking for a single story/case throughout the season. I still cannot figure out what the hell happened to Tom Brown. This is Important // I’m a huge fan of these four guys from Workaholics, stand-up, and literally anything else they’ve been in over the years. This […]