Search Results for: planner

Currently 1/19

Posted January 19, 2023 / Currently, Personal / Information / Etc. / 2 Comments

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 […]

ARC Review: How Sweet It Is

Posted July 30, 2021 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

It’s no secret that my reading has been weird, terrible, inconsistent – you name it – this year. When I saw Forever post about the pub date arriving for HOW SWEET IT IS, I was immediately motivated to get reading. How could it already be mid-August?! Honestly, I was taken with this book right away. I immediately loved the characters and read a lot of it in one sitting. Then… it sat around while I tried to finish up other reading obligations. But the minute I dove back in, I was ready to finish it up! The story had a unique premise based heavily around the jobs of the two main characters. Kate is an event planner who specializes in romance and weddings. Drake is a horror writer, who happens to be the client of Kate’s best friend, and her services are needed for his book launch. Could this finally be the event that wins the coveted EVPLEX award? She signs on, hoping it’ll work in her favor, and spends time in Drake’s cute town planning the event. The two had a lot of chemistry right from the start but don’t really act on much of anything until 50-60% through the book. I appreciated that they had to keep it PG and appropriate while working together; it made it all the more sweet and exciting when they finally moved forward. I loved Drake’s family and how prevalent they were in the novel. His mom was so sweet. It was like everyone […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #322: Resolutions

Posted January 12, 2021 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 2 Comments

Resolutions for 2021 Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. This is sometimes a TTT and other years I’ve made it into my own post. I just remembered the other day that I hadn’t done one yet so I was happy to see it come up as a TTT for this week. As always, my resolutions are split into reading, blogging, and personal. Continue to not feel pressured to read and enjoy other hobbies As usual, this stays on my list for the next year! I’ve been trying for years now to not make reading a job or a chore. I try to enjoy other hobbies, like Lego, watching wrestling, seeing friends (ugh Covid), and watching things with Chris. Now that we have Miller and a ton of my time each week is spent playing with him and caring for him, my reading is even worse than usual. I want to keep up with this attitude though. Enjoying what I’m doing is my priority. Read 100 books, but be okay with settling for 75-80 I had this big crisis when trying to figure out my Goodreads goal. I’ve made it 120 books for a number of years now because 10 books a […]

Meal Planning and Recipes Lately

Posted November 30, 2020 / Food & Drink, Personal / Information / Etc. / 4 Comments

I talk a lot on my blog about recipes, Weight Watchers/calorie counting, and meal planning/prepping. It’s something that makes me really happy – I have an addiction to grocery shopping and planning my meals according to new recipes or cookbooks. I will tell you that in 2020 excessive grocery buying is both a privilege and unfortunately necessary at times. People have been stockpiling toilet paper since March. I’m not that bad, but I find myself buying a new can of something every time I use it even if I have four more in the pantry. Anyways, I wanted to put all that on the table and give you a glimpse into some of my tips, planning, and recipes lately. Meal Planning Cookbooks I love buying cookbooks and flipping through them multiple times, planning meals and jotting down ideas. When I first got the Cravings cookbooks, I made A TON of meals in a row from them. I tried to do something similar when I got the Skinnytaste One and Done book (and I just got Skinnytaste Fast and Slow). In my opinion, you can never have too many of them. There’s a ton of variety out there. If I’m in the mood for a Crockpot recipe during busy weeks, I can pull multiple books and check what recipes are easy for dump and go. It’s nice to not rely on Pinterest all the time too. Meal Planner Book and Fridge Pad I’ve been using the Skinnytaste Meal Planner notebook for […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #312: Non-Bookish Hobbies

Posted November 3, 2020 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 1 Comment

Non-Bookish Hobbies Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I always had trouble doing icebreakers in school because I never really felt like I had hobbies. I’d always say “reading” or “hanging out with friends” because honestly, that summed it up! I never stuck with sports or other activities through school or on my free time. This has totally changed in adulthood. It helps to have Chris around to do things with. We’ve started a ton of hobbies together and try to fill up our non-working hours with activities. Wrestling Chris and I used to spend the majority of our days watching wrestling! We’d watch RAW on Monday, Smackdown on Tuesday (we didn’t really watch anymore once it moved to Friday), NXT and eventually AEW on Wednesday, any New Japan shows, plus the PPVs for each company on weekends each month. We’ve cut back and watch virtually zero WWE these days because things are terrible, but we still keep up with New Japan and watch AEW each week religiously. We’ve attended a lot of wrestling shows over the last few years too (here’s our first year journey in wrestling fandom). Hanging out with Miller and bringing him everywhere We said if we […]

Five on Fridays [9]

Posted September 25, 2020 / Five on Fridays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

Five on Friday displays the the top five things that have been on my mind this week! It could be book-related, but it may be music, movies, TV, personal life, food, etc. I’ll generally be posting these biweekly and linking up with Friday Favorites (hosted by A Little Bit of Everything, Grace and Love, and Momfessionals). Previous posts can be found here! Birthday Week and Cape Cod Camping My birthday was on a Wednesday this year so I, as usual, took the day off to relax alone haha. I got my nails done and hung out with the dog all day before getting an early dinner with my mom on the patio. My friends all met up at our favorite brewery in the evening. It was a nice day overall! The next day, we headed out to go camping. I used to go to Dennis in Cape Cod every summer of my childhood, but hadn’t been back in over 15 years! It was my favorite place on earth. We decided this summer to go camping at a campground in Dennis, a few minutes from the cottage and beach I frequented as a kid. It was so fun to relax, play disc golf, get our pups together, and check out the area again as an adult. We hope to go back next year if things are normal and stay in a cottage or something. WW and Meal Prep/Planning I was attempting to calorie count again but really lost steam for some […]

Five on Fridays [8]

Posted August 21, 2020 / Five on Fridays, Weekly Memes / 1 Comment

Five on Friday displays the the top five things that have been on my mind this week! It could be book-related, but it may be music, movies, TV, personal life, food, etc. I’ll generally be posting these biweekly and linking up with Friday Favorites (hosted by A Little Bit of Everything, Grace and Love, and Momfessionals). Previous posts can be found here! Aldi Finds I’ve been using Instacart still for grocery delivery and pickup. I’m not into being in enclosed places with a lot of people for an extended period of time, so most of my in-person shopping is to Petco or Home Depot – quick spots where the pup can come too. There’s an Aldi in the next town over that I still haven’t been inside, but I’m loving their delivery or pickup. I’m genuinely addicted to their Mexicali dip with tortilla chips. Chris and I usually eat the whole container in one snacking session. I’m also loving the Street Corn dip but it was sold out last time. There are lots of other great inexpensive food items and dupes from Aldi. Spin Bike I went ahead and followed the at-home workout trend… a million months into quarantine lol. I have no interest in going back to my gym for a few reasons. First, there are too many people for me to feel good about going in there. Second, it’s near my office (aka 30 minutes from my house) and not worth the trip. I’m hoping to get more […]

The Bright Side (6/12)

Posted June 12, 2020 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 0 Comments

It didn’t feel right to post a “bright side” kind of post last Friday, so I skipped it. While there is still a LONG way to go and I don’t think we need to “get back to normalcy” like others seem to want, I am going to begin posting more on the blog again and continuing to share relevant information to the Black Lives Matter movement wherever applicable, whenever needed. I’ve been sharing information frequently on my still if you’d like to check things out there. As we’re all going through the same global pandemic with various levels of “stay the F home,” I thought it would be fun to highlight the good things in each week, instead of dwelling on the negatives, the unknowns, and the uncertain future. I tend to do some kind of wrap-up or rundown of my week/month/etc. on Fridays each week (often linking up with Friday Favorites/Currently) so this isn’t too much of a diversion from that. ✨ Black Lives Matter It’s clear that the protesting is working – so many pieces of legislation are getting started (finally) and some cities are defunding police (want to see more of that). I can keep hoping, supporting, donating, signing, and maybe even protesting (like I said the other day, I’m extremely anxious in crowds so I’m not sure on this yet but I really hope I can soon). I’m donating $5 for every protest I could attend but choose not to for that reason. Keep checking HERE […]

Review Round Up | The Guest List, A Castle in the Clouds, and Incomparable

Posted May 28, 2020 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 1 Comment

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I was trying to get back into reading so I decided to follow my mood. I joined Book of the Month specifically so I could get an early copy of THE GUEST LIST and read it ASAP. In the end, totally glad I did! It didn’t fully grab me right from the beginning like I was hoping, but I sat and read the majority of the book in one sitting on a beautiful Saturday afternoon on my porch. The story follows a wedding on a remote island off the coast of Ireland. There are a few points of view: Jules (the bride), Olivia (the sister of the bride/maid of honor), Johnno (the best man and childhood friend of the groom), Hannah (the plus one – her husband Charlie is Jules’s best friend), and Aiofe (the wedding planner who owns the island venue with her husband). The final 40% of the book was a whirlwind of twists and secrets. I love when mystery/thrillers have shorter chapters at the end that rapidly go back and forth between points of view as things come together. I’ve had this issue lately where I figure out at least part of the “mystery” or whodunnit, so the endings of suspense stories have been […]

May Currently

Posted May 6, 2020 / Currently, Personal / Information / Etc. / 8 Comments

I’m linking up with Anne In Residence for this month’s Currently post! I usually include these in a Friday post but I’m trying to spread the wealth with content when needed (and I’m working on my The Bright Side posts on Fridays)! What I’m… Making Ummm, everything?! Like everyone else in the world, it seems, we’re doing way more homey cooking and baking. This past weekend I spent Sunday making three meals from the Cravings by Chrissy Teigan cookbook, and we have a handful more to make right away too! I finally put the boxed cake mix I’ve had forever to good use by making snickerdoodle cake mix cookies too. Lots of home-cooked meals around here! Missing Oh man… aren’t we all missing juuust about everything right now? We don’t feel like much is different on weeknights since we generally stay home 3-4 nights after work, but we find ourselves more sad on the weekends. If we go out to run errands on a Saturday, we always wish we could spend time out at a brewery or restaurant. We picked up hard cider from a favorite place last weekend and were dying to stay in and do a tasting the whole time. Learning How to make pickled things! We’ve been obsessed with everything cooking-related online, like The Chef Show on Netflix and anything Bon Appetit/Epicurious have to offer on YouTube. We learned how to pickle the other day and put it to the test with pickles and onions. Both yielded very […]