Um...so apparently my calendar's telling me April has come to an end. *cue screams and gasps of disbelief* Seriously though, how is one third of the year gone already???
Well, without further delay, here's what's been happening during the month of April. (Just a heads-up: it's really long.)
Life
Hmmm...okay, so April was rather interesting. It was insanely busy at times, but also sort of relaxing? I don't know. It was very indecisive. Sometimes it was a cuddly little kitten but other times it turned into a tiger and bared its fangs at me. And wow, that's a weak metaphor.
Early on this month, I met up with my bestie at Panera, our go-to place for chilling. We hung out, devoured bakery items, laughed like hyenas, and just generally
The next day was the much-anticipated release of The Force Awakens on DVD. *cheers* We actually bought it the day it came out, and I got decked out in my Star Wars shirt and triple bun hairstyle. Unfortunately, everyone was too busy to watch it that night...or the rest of the month. :P But hey, at least we got it!
Then we enter the middle of the month. Ahem. It was a bit...unpleasant. And why was it so unpleasant?
I'll tell you anyway. Because my email was hacked.
That's right, y'all. Hacked.
I spent almost the entirety of my Wednesday freaking out about someone deleting all my stuff and installing weird things on my computer. I was also trying to reach out to all my contacts and warn them that they may receive an email from the person who hacked my account. You see, what happened was that I received this email that said it was from my mom and asked me to review this document. So, being the immensely intelligent person I was, I clicked on the document. And lo and behold, my email was hacked.
Add on top of that neck pain and a very strong attack of doubts (which I posted about HERE), and you get a pretty miserable Wednesday. I'm telling you guys, it was rough.
Luckily, the weekend brought with it another get-together with my friend. This time, it was a sleepover. Which meant there was lots of good food and movies. (I just noticed that we always eat lots of food when we get together. I guess I chose the right friend. XD)
As the end of the month approached, I found out that I had won not one but two giveaways! Yup, just like last month. XD Oddly enough, they were within 24 hours of each other--again, like last time. I won the birthday giveaway on Victoria's blog, and the prizes are fantastic! I got a free song of my choice ("Strawberry Avalanche" was my pick, for obvious reasons), free ebook (I chose Moonblood by Ms. Stengl because I'm seriously gonna need it soon), a magazine containing Victoria's short story, and some tea which is apparently not going to be available again until 2020. The second giveaway was held by none other than my dear friend Morgan. And let me tell you, I really wanted to win her giveaway. She hand-made all her prizes, and they are GORGEOUS. I can't wait until I hold them in my hands! ^_^
April concluded with French finals (HALLELUJAH, I AM DONE), journaling (which I hadn't done in a month :P), and writing my WIP. I haven't worked on my poor neglected novel in forever so I was thrilled to get in 4,181 words this month. Not anywhere near my 10K goal, but at least I got back into it.
Books
Definitely not as fruitful of a reading month as March. I've been so exhausted lately that I sometimes can't make myself pick up a book and read late at night. So I only got through three books and two short stories. :/
- I rung in the new month with The Last Battle. Obviously, I loved it. Though I will say that The Magician's Nephew will forever remain my favorite. (And I'm still not happy about what happened with Susan in this book. JUST NO.)
- I picked up my beautiful hardback copy of Sherlock Holmes mysteries and delved into it one Saturday evening. The two I ended up reading were "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Adventure of the Dancing Men." I enjoyed them both, although my favorite Sherlock Holmes mystery I've read so far is "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." But I'd be happy with basically any of them.
This picture doesn't do it justice. It's so pwetty. *pets* |
- Then Lady Moon happened. And oh. my. goodness. I LOVED IT. It was definitely my favorite book this month. Just unbelievably good. I won't say a lot about it here because I kinda already fangirled about it a ton this week. If you've read my review, you already know how much I adore this tale.
- The Dark Unwinding finished off my April reads. I checked it out of my library solely based on Tracey's recommendation. I fell in love with the cover (#shallowbookdragon) and the plot sounded intriguing and the quote Tracey mentioned was hilarious and it was also at my library and wow, my grammar has completely abandoned me today. And you want to know the result? INSTANT ADORATION. It was pretty slow for much of the time, but I honestly didn't mind at all. 'Cause, guys, the characterssss. They were the most precious, eccentric, hilarious group of charries imaginable. (Lane, Katharine, Uncle Tully...gah, I loved them all.) And the author's writing style was wonderful! And there was roller skating! And there was sarcasm! And I basically loved it more than words can express.
Movies
I guess I watched a little bit more than usual. To be fair, two of the movies I watched were only about an hour each, and the other two were at a sleepover. And the other one was...interesting.
~ The Woman in Green (1945): I'm apparently on a Sherlock Holmes kick because I've essentially been reading and watching everything related to said detective these past few months. This movie was a little strange, what with all the hypnotizing stuff happening. But overall, it was still a good watch.
~ Terror by Night (1946): That's right--another Sherlock Holmes movie. I liked this one a lot better than the previous one. It occurred on a train (which automatically makes it ten times more awesome) and had a generous dose of humor which I found refreshing. Probably one of my favorite of the old detective flicks.
~ Moms' Night Out (2014): If I could sum this movie up in word, it would be this: hysterical. I'm trying to think of a funnier movie that I've seen, but I honestly can't think of one. This movie is just the most hilarious thing I've laid eyes on. My friend and I watched it at our sleepover for the third time together, and it was just as funny as ever. Seriously, if you haven't seen this yet, you must posthaste.
~ God's Not Dead (2014): Not my favorite movie ever, but it was still good. I definitely wouldn't describe it as a lighthearted film. It had some heavier, slightly depressing themes. Oddly enough, my parents just saw the sequel to it this month, which I have yet to watch.
~ Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008): HAHAHAHA! *chokes on sarcastic laughter* Okay, so this movie was a bit of a...fail? It could have been good, but for some unknown reason, the directors thought, "Hey, let's put some aliens in it! That will make it way more awesome and not weird at all." Well I've got news for you, directors: it was not awesome. I just don't get why this movie was made. And now I discover that they're making another movie? Gosh, I sure hope it's better than this one. (Though to be fair, it wasn't horrible. It was just really strange.)
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Precisely my feelings. |
Music
~ I'm still addicted to Owl City, and it doesn't look like that's going to change anytime soon. This month, I've been listening a lot to his album "The Midsummer Station."
~ Evynne and Peter Hollens's cover of "The Prayer." I get chills just thinking about this gorgeous piece.
~ "Like a Lion" by Bryan Lanning. It makes me happy. ^_^
~ So there's this more obscure Christian band called Rend Collective. They're Irish (!!!), and their music is unbelievable. I saw them in concert back in the fall and recently was digging up some of their songs and binge-listening to them. I love the fun, upbeat, catchy tunes they create. And the best part? THERE ARE CELTIC INSTRUMENTS. Not in all of their songs, but this one does have some.
Blogging
Aaaand here are all the ingenious posts I've published in April. You're welcome.
- The Infinity Dreams Award 2016. Wherein I told you that I was terrified of spiders, don't like bananas, and have been compared to a vampire. You know, all the important stuff.
- "You doubt your value; don't run from who you are." The most personal post I've probably written. Because let's face it: we all need a reminder of where our value truly lies.
- Book Review: Lady Moon {Rachel Starr Thomson}. My first book review! This was just me exploding with feels and incoherent noises. BECAUSE I LOVED THIS BOOK WAY TOO MUCH.
Randomosities
I've been obsessing over this thing called a Lokai bracelet. It has a bunch of rubbery, gel-like beads on it, and two of them contain something special. One has water from Mount Everest and the other has mud from the Dead Sea. Isn't that the coolest? I actually got it for free at my orthodontist, and I've been wearing it almost non-stop since. (I'm actually wearing it as I type this. XD)
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Mine looks like this, only the beads are blue instead of clear. |
I got new strings for my violin, which is always exciting. My recital is coming up next week (*panics aggressively*) so I figured it was about time I got them.
And of course, I ate cookie donuts. COOKIE DONUTS. I kid you not. They were delicious. (And we still have some left for me to decimate. *smiles*)
That concludes my weird and wild April. I actually made an effort to implement your guys' wonderful suggestions for blog posts and wrote both a devotional post AND a book review. Yay me! *pats self on the back* Unfortunately, this is only my fourth post this month (which I started writing at like 8:30 tonight *whistles innocently*) so I haven't been quite as active as usual. But life happened and that shall be my completely valid excuse.