April Playlist

Howdy!

The end of April marks the start of May, most importantly another year of Tune Tuesday worldwide! I released the lineup on Tuesday, so there you can keep track of the country each week! Hope you really enjoy the posts I publish as they are very fun and can be interesting especially if you’re unfamiliar with your favorite artist and band’s native homeland, because not everybody is what they seem or in this case, sound if they mostly speak English!

By the 8th of April, I had a total of 58 songs in this monthly playlist! Whenever I start these playlists sometimes I have a bunch of songs that I hear on the radio on repeat basically, so if they’re not annoying by the middle of the month I usually try to add them onto the list, like Papa Roach’s “Help” and The Chainsmokers’ “Paris” the one song that I’m about sick of is “Starving” by Hailee Steinfeld featuring Grey and Zedd! What really gets me is the fact that I love the track but since I hear it ALL the time, it’s no longer a favorite anymore! That’s the one downfall about listening to a Top 40 radio station!

I think that’s the big theme in this playlist and I have to say, I try not to build on a theme for these lists, but sometimes they just happen! I put quite a bit of music into this that I used to listen to and unfortunately, don’t hear all that much anymore! If I could figure out how to download music back onto my iPod again, I’m pretty sure I’d cure that right up, but I’m broke a lot faster than I have been lately!

The song of the month was actually a last minute addition! I’ve been hearing Idina Menzel’s song “Queen Of Swords” a lot lately, before this I think I had only heard of it twice. I do remember she performed it on Dancing With The Stars when she was a guest judge! I keep forgetting how good the beat is, so that’s my main reason for listing here.

What have you been listening to lately? Any oldies, but goodies you want to share?

Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Bloglovin

4 Years Of Tune Tuesday Worldwide!

Howdy!

So it is almost summer and you know the deal! It’s time for my worldwide Tune Tuesday posts to come back!

Can you believe I’ve been doing these for FOUR years?! The reason why I started writing these types of posts is because back then, I desperately wanted to write about music but I didn’t have any ideas on where to start, I was even doing my reviews at the time but they weren’t very good. So I kept thinking about all of the music and how international my tastes had become.

I liked freaking out my family and friends of where some of their favorite artists and bands weren’t from the US like Seether! They were featured in the first year and they’re originally from South Africa!

Every year, the lineup changes, if I add more than two or three artists/bands in their native country I tend to lose that country for the next year! Last year I had a lot of new countries I included like Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Romania! Unfortunately, they’re not going to be on this year’s rooster and neither is Africa as a whole! I do have a couple of newbies coming this summer like Iceland and Switzerland!

Here is what we’re talking about for 2017!

Australia | Canada | Denmark | England | France | Iceland | Ireland | Netherlands | Norway | Poland | Sweden | Switzerland | United States of America

It is much shorter than the previous years, but I did remove a bunch of countries that I normally about like Germany! I actually ran out of music from there and I am really bum about that! Hopefully I can find some new music for it next year, as I’d like to bring it back. I already have Finland coming back in 2018!

As a way to get you interested until next Tuesday, I have created a whole playlist of musicians I have already talked about in my posts in the past four years! I tried to go by country (alphabetical order) but I didn’t last very long so I’m sorry for that! I’m bound to do that, as long as I don’t do it on here we’re good! It’s bad enough I’ve messed it up on my calendar! I will continue to do my monthly playlists and I try to include the artists in those playlists too! Plus any reviews that I do, especially the music reviews of any kind will be posted on Thursday until August! Hope you all enjoy!

If you have any suggestions for what I should include in Summer 2018’s list, please let me know and whatever country they’re from too! I will give you credit and be appreciated too!

Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Bloglovin

Book Review: Elizabeth Of York by Alison Weir

Back in November, I celebrated my birthday with a trip to one of my favorite places: Barnes & Noble. I hadn’t been there since 2012, so it had been a long time coming and even though I had a list of books that weren’t necessarily for pleasure, I still managed to find two books that I found interesting, one was The Kings and Queens of England by Ian Crofton and the other was Elizabeth Of York by Alison Weir.

If you remember, 2016 was the year where I watched a lot of documentaries and discovered the On-Demand button apparently! I watched The Tudors in the month of February and made a review and that June I watched The White Queen which is the story of Edward IV and his commoner wife Elizabeth Woodville and the lives of George, Duke Of Clarence, King Richard III, (brothers of Edward) Margaret Beaufort, Margaret Of Anjou, Henry V, Thomas Neville, “The Kingmaker” (cousin to Edward, George, and Richard) and his wife and daughters Isabella (later wife to George) and Anne (later wife and queen consort to King Richard III). I also reviewed the show on here after finishing the series.

I bought this book before I ever found out that they were continuing the TV series of Philippa Gregory’s books, what both shows were based off of, not Alison’s effort. I will say once I found out there was to be a show telling the reign of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, it did fuel my inspiration to finally read it. I started on it either before or on February 28, sometimes I read a lot in one sitting, but I am not sure when I actually started on it. On Goodreads, it states that the book is over 500+ pages long but the real last part of her story ends on 457! The rest of it explains references mentioned inside and Alison also gives you a list of some of her ladies-in-waiting, maid-of-honours, and gentlewomen.

If you were to read some of the reviews of this book on Goodreads, they might discourage you from ever purchasing it. Elizabeth of York wasn’t the type of queen who ruled the country through her husband, she wasn’t that type of person so most people think she was weak and maintained this goody-too-shoes attitude to her husband and the rest of the court, but I don’t think this is a bad thing! She was taught from a very young age what was expected of her as Queen of England and mother to her children. Despite the fact that she was a well-liked queen, some thought deserved to rule the kingdom than anybody else, but at the time no female had done that until her granddaughters Mary I, Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots.

So here are some sections you will learn inside the book!

Elizabeth Of York is the oldest daughter of King Edward IV and his Queen, Elizabeth Woodville. Her mother was originally a widow of soldier who fought with the House of Lancaster, her husband Sir Thomas Grey died on the battlefield. She already had two young boys, Thomas and Richard Grey. When the young King Edward met with them it was only to ask for her husband’s land back after they were confiscated when Sir Thomas died. They met under an oak tree and Edward was obviously very taken with her that he fought against his “Kingmaker” Thomas Neville and family’s wishes to not marry into royal blood.

Elizabeth was born in 1466, at that time they, of course, didn’t have ways to know whether or not the baby was going to be a male and heir to the throne. So when she was born, instead of her father being furious with her and his wife, he accepted her and hoped for heirs in the future. King Edward and Queen Elizabeth ended up having 10 children in all, but two of them died. There were three places that she and the royal family and court lived during her early childhood: Sheen, Greenwich and Westminster Castle. Her father had betrothed Elizabeth about five times, the first being to the Dauphin of France after he and his brothers were to go to war to fight back their lands against King Louis XI.

After the death of her father in 1483, her uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester was named guardian of her younger brother Edward V and he was taken by force to The Tower; later he would be joined by their younger brother Richard where the rumors would fly for many decades about what really happened to them as “The Princess In The Tower”. Also at this time, Richard got Parliament to accept that Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth’s mother was invalid and that the children were bastards thus the Duke of Gloucester became King Richard III.

I’ve chosen to leave quite a bit out of this review for a reason–it would ruin the entire thing if I told you more! The book itself is a little intimidating because of the amount of pages it has, but there’s always a thrill of learning about a person’s life, especially if they’ve been dead for centuries! I am generally a fan of biographies, so I knew I’d enjoy it!

I will say I did have some favorite chapters! Chapter 5: “Her Only Joy and Maker” which talks about what would be expected of not only Elizabeth of York when she’s married but her sisters, what their roles of both wife and mother if their husband was of royal blood, Chapter 9: “Offspring Of The Race Of Kings” you will see the birth of King Henry VII and Elizabeth’s first child Prince Arthur! Chapter 11: “Bright Elizabeth” tells you about her coronation as Queen of England in great detail and Chapter 15: “The Spanish Infanta” is about when the Princess Katherine of Aragon finally married Prince Arthur of Wales and some unfortunate events happen afterwards!

I gave the book on Goodreads four stars I think! It would have been five stars, if I hadn’t ruined a bit for myself between watching The White Queen last year and scooping out little pieces of information on the internet… That’s how I knew what year she had died and how many kids she and her husband had together! Also, if you are wondering whether or not to read the book, do not look through the reviews! Keep yourself away from the spoilers and let yourself be open to the story of the forgotten Plantagenet-Tudor queen!

Have you read Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World yet? Are you watching The White Princess on STARZ? 

Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Bloglovin

REVIEW | Disgraced

Last time I reviewed a basketball themed documentary because it was still March Madness, well on the 31st, I watched another one that was similar, but instead of a happy ending this one wasn’t…

Showtime premiered Disgraced and it was about an incident that happened at Baylor University in 2003 involving the entire basketball team. A college student and basketball player Patrick Dennehy, was shot and killed by another team member who was supposedly was his best friend. Patrick and the one who shot him, Carlton Dotson were again supposedly paranoid about another teammate Harvey Thomas and his friend and cousin, Larry Johnson after having them over. The story goes that both Harvey and Larry had guns on them and were using them to scare the boys from accusing them for any wrong doing.

Later, after feeling extra paranoid of their situation, they in turn buy their own set of guns and told their other roommates that if Harvey or anybody else came looking for them to not let them in. So clearly, this raises some flags I would say! I guess though, they went to their coaches and asked if they should go to the police, their main coach Dave Bliss, said to keep things “in house” meaning don’t tell anyone as I imagined. This is where things began to get very strange because within a few days later Patrick Dennehy ends up missing and it’s within these days that people are now looking into the team and the coaches of Baylor University.

I was very much amazed by the amount of things discussed or in some cases, not talked about it within the mystery of how Patrick is dead and how Carlton, who was like a brother to him, would kill him. I mean, if they were as paranoid as they said to be, the mental statuses of Carlton kind of makes sense. You’ll learn more about what I mean when you watch the film. My thing was what the coaches did though, assistant coach Abar Rouse recorded the head coach, Dave Bliss as they began to create a cover up for the rest of their team on how much they knew about the situation of their players. Now a lot of people would think this was wrong and that he should have went to the coach and told him about his feelings about it, but like everybody said he was literally backed into a corner and Bliss even told him “I can hire and fire assistant coaches at will” now would you want to tell him after hearing that? I wouldn’t, I’d probably record him too honestly!

The film was very interesting and like my dad told me too, they’re not the first ones to have this type of scandal and sadly, I don’t think they’ll be the last either.

So did you watch Disgraced yet? What were your thoughts on the documentary?

Still Coloring Easter Eggs!

Hello!

When I wrote this post, for some odd reason I got confused and thought Easter was this coming Sunday. Thankfully, I caught my mistake early enough that I could change it beforehand!

Easter is no longer like a celebrated holiday in my household, mostly because my sister and I are grown up, she lives in her own apartment with her own fur babies and yeah, I’m just here. However, I do love being surprised with different candies, or like that one year, my mom just went and bought me a whole Easter basket that the three of us devoured in like a week and a half later! So the moral of the story is, we don’t usually do the normal things you do for the actual day like some families.

Every once in a while though, my mom and I get a hankering for hard boiled eggs (only a week after I publish my “veganism” post I write about this – sorry!) Easter is the one day of the year that having two cartons of fairly large decorated eggs is essential. She asked me two Sunday’s ago if nana and I would be interested in painting some eggs and since we’ve both had other projects going on, I just had her ask nana if she wanted to do it too. She agreed to do them as long as mom bought us some new dyes and hard boiled the eggs for us because she can’t, of course!

This isn’t going to be my regular DIY post either considering we didn’t make our own dyes!

I believe we had fun though! It was definitely easier putting them into each bowl of colors – which were pink, blue, yellow, orange and green. Towards the end though, my nana wanted to experiment and poured about half of the blue and yellow into an extra bowl we had in a drawer and so we had another darker shade of green to use, unfortunately at the time we had created this color we were running out of eggs! So we only got to decorate one egg in that color. It was a pretty though! My mom also forgot to only use water in the pink dye as that’s what the directions she had read only five seconds before pouring the vinegar into the bowl. The hue was a nice light color though, almost looks like maid-of-honor dress!

Getting the eggs out of the bowls that my mom filled up basically to the top was difficult. I was the one putting them in until we realized that my feet were turning blue and green very quickly! So I gave the reins to nana, who could use both of her hands to lift them out safely! We were putting them into a small pan with a paper towel on top so they would be dry before laying them back into the cartons, but towards the end I just didn’t care that my toes were changing colors, despite having a shower the night before, I just started pulling them out and back into the carton.

I don’t think there is a real age where you should stop coloring Easter eggs! I find it cute when nursing homes have their residents do it. They could relive their memories of doing it with their families too! I think my nana got a real thrill for it even though we were both hoping (and praying) to God that nobody fell on the floor and cracked! Speaking about the two of us and the eggs!

Do you still color Easter eggs? Why or why don’t you?

Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Bloglovin