Blogmas: Why I Decided on 8 Days

Hello everyone and welcome back to Blogmas!

I absolutely adore this theme and it’s one I continue to do every year, even if I’m not feeling very festive. I was first introduced to Blogmas back in 2014 when I found the blogging community on Twitter. I still look back on that memory quite a bit and wish we were all doing the fun chats and checking out everybody’s newest posts without any drama going on behind the scenes.

For those of you who do not know what blogmas is, it’s a concept based around Christmas, you create a series of different posts talking about the festive holiday. Some people will do every day leading up until the 25th, or sometimes they will shrink it down and release 8 or 12 days instead. I’ve always done whatever I could get done and it’s been a hit and miss throughout the years, so that was one of the reasons I decided to only publish for eight days for 2021.

Before I go, one thing I try to do is give people, especially new bloggers a collection of previous blogmas posts, I’ve included what I wrote in 2020. So, I really hope you enjoy what I have in store for you in the next couple of weeks on Got Meghan’s Blog!

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How Do I Read?

This post is all about how I read my books. Last year, I had the chance to work with an awesome company called Tilisma. They create a variety of bookish products. I saw them while watching one of my favorite YouTubers and she showed her viewers these really cool things; it is in the shape of an eye made out of wood with a nice hole carved out in the middle, this is where your thumb (or in my case big toe!) and it is supposed to allow you to hold any type of book and of course make reading easier!

I was given four different products and the nice people of the company, customized every item to my size! The little one is definitely my favorite because it is just perfect for my toes and it has made reading outside or just in the house a whole lot easier for me! Click here if you want to read the whole post on Tilisma. I definitely recommend anyone checking out their stuff on Amazon and/or their Instagram as they share photos of various people using the holders a lot so you could see what you could use for yourself.

Things That Make Me Feel Christmas-y!

In this one, I basically talk about the things that make me feel very festive, and I share quite a bit of photos of putting up our family Christmas tree and baking and decorating the sugar cookies. 2020 was the year we could finally do things with Nolan. My mom and I decorated cookies the year before but we all agreed that Nolan was just a little too young to be around that many cookies and frosting–this was a very good call considering how many he did eat last year! I think it was three and a half cookies and I don’t remember how many times he licked icing off his fingers…

The 12 Days of Christmas Book Tag

Here’s the thing, I had a sticky note with array of blogmas topics saved on my laptop, and when I was getting ready to figure out my schedule for this year, I guess I forgot to strike both “Things That Make Me Feel Christmas-y” and this tag. I’m not going to lie; I am pretty proud of myself for looking back just in case or else I would repeat these posts again and I would be really upset with myself.

This post is a survey discussing two loves of mine: books and Christmas. I always enjoy doing these types of posts at the start of blogmas because it is easy, fun and I’m not stressing myself out too much to make it look so perfect. However, now I’m wondering what I will be doing for Friday…

DIY: Christmas Tree Projects

For the longest time, my nana and I would do a bunch of seasonal crafts and despite the fact we loved our pumpkin related projects, the largest job were Christmas things. The final project we did was making everyone their own goody bag full of cookies, lotions, socks, and chocolate bark. And yes, I did a post about it and you can click here to check it out now.

A lot has happened since then, and she lives up north and I am up to no good coming up with ideas to continue the tradition a little, although I wouldn’t say this one wasn’t for family, this was my personal job to see if I could bring back that spark again. I was fairly proud of myself on the work I did on these but now there is only one still on the back wall of the hallway, there is another hanging up in the playroom and Nolan took home the final canvas!

I am doing something similar to what nana and I did with those brown bags, but that’s all I can say about it at the moment. You might see some things on my Facebook and Instagram pages here and there. Once I finish everything, I will have a post up before the 25th.

2020 Christmas Tree

This post is exactly what the title says, it is all about my black Christmas tree for 2020. I’m not entirely sure if I will discuss what I do with my tree this year, but we’ll just have to see what happens later on in the month!

Ultimate Christmas Playlist

As for the final post of the day, you get to know about my favorite Christmas songs. There are a lot of beloved jazz artists like Frank Sinatra, Stan Kenton, Ray Charles, and Michael Bublé, but there is a bunch of different people and songs that inspire that feeling of the holidays as well like, Home Alone soundtrack, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Frozen soundtracks, Lindsey Stirling, and even Celtic Woman.

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Well, that’s it for this post. These are all of the topics I talked about one year ago to hopefully spark the joy of the beautiful season. As I’ve mentioned above, I’ve done this for a pretty long time, so I have a huge selection of Christmas-y posts you can search in the box on the top right corner of the home page.

What is your favorite thing about Christmas?

Blogmas | Christmas Tree Ornaments

Howdy!

Before I start on this, I am leaving my previous Blogmas post about my Christmas tree because if you haven’t read it yet or this is your first time on here, you can get caught up on why I have adopted a very interesting way to do my tree this year.

For today though, I am discussing my process of both the ornaments and the way I took the pictures, because that in itself was a big production that some people might find enjoyable! Fun fact: I am one of those people! 

  The Ornaments  

I feel the need to mention that the day I finished writing my previous post about my tree, my whole original theme of white lights, purple bulbs, and a star on top, kind of went out the window since my mom could not find anything to match that scheme. However, my dad did say something about going to Dollar General and getting things there. So, one morning I went on the DG website and looked over their very limited holiday decorations and found two that I actually loved, and they were: a pair of angel wings that came in two colors on the site, gold and red. I really fell in love with the red ones. The other one I just couldn’t get over was the crown. If you know me well, you know I need anything royalty and I thought for this reason would be no different!

Later that day, my mom went to the store and came home with an interesting sort of things for me. She got me a box of array silver ornaments. There are the normal shiny ones but my favorites are really the glittery and matte bulbs the most. Unfortunately, they didn’t have their hooks on them already so that was a bummer, but I managed to put two of them on the tree myself before letting mom take over! Now, you’re probably wondering about the two I found online. Did we have any luck in that department? Well, I’m happy to say, she found both of them! There was a setback though, she found the wings only in silver.

This wasn’t what freaked us out though. When I saw them online, they looked pretty smell, almost the same size of the other ones she got me. No… The wings and crown are huge! We couldn’t believe it! Honestly the crown is the perfect size but the wings just look obnoxious! This wasn’t the funny thing though, because both of my parents thought it would look great as the topper, but every time I look at it, I think it looks like a vagina! I literally thought of the episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, when Marie takes an art class and the sculpture she presents to her family, looks just like a vagina. The wings are basically in the same shape but with a bigger opening in the middle, so when my mom placed it at the top of my tree, it just looked very wrong. I mean, I’m all for my Christmas tree being non-traditional, but I have to draw the line somewhere!

I managed to talk my mom into putting the wings lower on the tree, but as much as I had my heart on a star on the top, I kind of thought the crown would look better there instead. It took some convincing on my part because my mom was very adamant about the vagina–I mean, the wings on top–but it does fit on there nicely. As far as decorations on my tree, this is about it. My mom did find me some lights too, but the cord was white and since the tree isn’t as full like others, it looked a bit chaotic but all is not lost, because my mom came up with another idea for them. I don’t even know what prompt this, but she just started wrapping them around my curtain rod on both sides and it actually looks amazing with my sunflower curtain! Thankfully, the lights don’t generate too much heat that I can actually leave them on all day and night. They make my room look really cozy!

  The Process Of The Pictures  

Now that we have that part out of the way, I can talk to you about how I managed to take the photos for this blog post. I will say, it was not easy, but honestly any post that requires a lot of pictures is usually pretty difficult anyways! Between the fact that I am always adjusting myself to get the ‘perfect’ shot and basically trying not to pop out of my wheelchair and land butt (or worse, back) first on the hardwood floor, isn’t the best thing in the world. Thankfully, I can say I did not hurt myself too awful that day – I did sleep like a baby that night so I took that as a good sign!

For the first round of photos, I used my Kodak digital camera I got last Christmas. I thought the pictures turned out really good the last time so I tried it out for this part, but since I was working with higher angles, I was having a lot of difficulty keeping the camera steady enough. I was able to get a few of the ornaments in their places, so that was nice, but for the rest I switched to my tablet.

Now, I will say that I would only use this as a last resort, because they weren’t in the best quality. I think the culprit for this was because it was too dark in my room. I have become dependent on the flash and since I didn’t have enough lighting, they might not look the greatest but I honestly loved how they turned out for some odd reason. Besides this, I used something else to help make everything easier for me. My nana and papaw had this foot stool that they inherited from the aunts, and I use this to prop up my tablet to color and read. However, I hadn’t thought about using it as a tripod until that day. It took me a good hour and a half to arrange it in certain ways to get the shots I wanted, because when it comes to blog photography, I am incredibly picky! We were successful though, or at least I’ll found out if any of you send me comments about them after reading this post.

The last thing I would like to do, is find this large bag of classic Christmas heirlooms my nana gave me a couple of years ago. I think they would look awesome surrounding the tree. It would complete the whole thing I think. If we find them, I’ll update you about it on Instagram and Facebook!

What was the meaning for your Christmas tree theme? Do you have any funny ornament stories you would like to share with me? For anybody with a disability, does it normally take you a while to get everything just right? What do you use to make things easier?

Blogmas | Christmas Decor Ideas

Howdy!

Merry Christmas Eve!

For this post, I wanted to discuss some of my early Christmas decor ideas for 2019! Yeah, I know I’m going backwards for this, but there’s a reason for it. We recently got a new house, and I’ve been trying to figure out how I want everything arranged in my new bedroom. We have an idea of where the bed and TV will be placed, but everything else is a bit up in the air right now. So, I only have a blurry video imprint in my mind of what it looks like and how I’d like for everything to go!

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Whenever we’d move to a different house, my room has always had white walls. After so many years, it can get very boring looking and you just feel like you need a change and what I do is add as many posters as I possibly can! I even have some of my old artwork hanging up in my current room as well, and despite the fact that it makes the room more lively, it can still look pretty plain.

Over the years, I’ve wanted to decorate the crap out of my room for various holidays–mostly for Halloween and Christmas! A recent dream of mine is that I’ve been wanting to get a Christmas tree for my bedroom. I think I might be watching Zoe Sugg’s vlogmases a little too much because she makes me want to do stuff that I wouldn’t normally do! A part of me is torn between if this is a good or bad thing!

This month I’ve been inspired to create a Pinterest board of what I like about Christmas, the pines of the trees, bright glitter-y snow, and apparently the color red in all its glory! Later on in the year I’ll be posting some of my favorite ornaments and that’ll just add to my personality, because as most of you know, I’m a very eclectic person with many, many interests. Anyways, if you’d like to check it out, click here!

I’d like a semi-tall tree, I’m thinking maybe a 4′ tree so that I can put it up and take it down by myself. I can already picture explaining that to my parents! I originally wanted a normal looking tree, but after scrolling through my Facebook last week, a friend shared an article about the newest trend of black Christmas trees! After seeing this, I suddenly wanted one and thought that big royal purple ornaments with white snowflakes would be so pretty! I think I’d feel happy about not only myself but my new surroundings of being able to have that freedom that comes with decorating, you know?

So what about you? Do you wish you had an extra room where you could decorate it to the way you want it to, without having any judgement from others? 

Blogmas | Holiday Dorm Tour!

Howdy!

So this might seem a bit strange since I’m not clearly in college and living in a dorm, and neither is my sister these days, but our nana is in a way. Well, we don’t know what to actually call it, a “dorm” or an “apartment” because even though it does come with her own little microwave and refrigerator, she doesn’t have a stove or anything, so the term “dorm” seems to fit better I think. I had mentioned in my last minute blogmas ideas that I might do a similar post of the holiday house tour I did last year. So there will be things you’ve definitely seen before, but she has some newer stuff too. Everything has basically been compact into a small area just for her.

My nana’s room is located at the far side of the long hallway (of course!) and the first thing you are greeted with when you get up to her door is this very sparkly green, with red baubles wreath. It is perfect for her personality let me tell you!

She has a few things in her bathroom, but I felt it’s not enough to show you everything, even though she took multiple pictures in case I wanted to share more of the beach theme she is going for in there. She has a green “Merry” rags over by the wall, while she found an interesting place for her giant multicolored jingle bells. I don’t know who put them there, but it is a clever place. They are located right by her shower. It adds a nice festive look to her bathroom!

Now when you come out of there, the first thing you will see is her little “kitchen” area. Her entire mini fridge is covered with different Christmas festive magnets and her counter top has little figurines, like the infamous Christmas tree that she keeps on day and night. She has a random red ornament and IU doll that kind of goes with the theme too. She even has a lone Santa Claus that is just sitting in the corner by her radio and sink.

Next we have is her table. It’s smaller than the kitchen table she had at the house, but at any given time she has over a hundred different things on it. When we were there a couple of weeks ago, she had a nice round red and white blanket placed on the actual table, and on top of that is this large nativity scene. She went out with my aunt and uncle for Thanksgiving weekend and picked it out at the flea market. However, she took the pictures below before she got it I think.

In this picture, she has two large objects, one is glass purple Christmas tree and I don’t know what in the world this other thing, on the left side is. All I know is that it has little people on the different levels. She has a basket full of fake greens and cherries, plus random ornaments that she must like but can’t find a good place to put them. She has angels and crosses on here too. What is really cute though is the subtle sonogram picture of the little “nugget” on the right side on the table. It’s okay if you didn’t notice it the first time, because neither did I!

Keep going straight and you see her entertainment center. She doesn’t have much on it, but the two large angels sitting on top of it. If they were any bigger, I doubt that they would’ve fit up there. She must have found those when things were coming down from being upstairs in September, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen them before.

On the right, is her window display and I’m not joking! When I was there in October, it had all of the angels and crosses standing on the ledge of the windowsill. Now she has a lot of Christmas things, like her Noel sign she got last year, snowmen and Santa Clauses everywhere. If you were wondering what happened to those beautiful ornaments that reminded me of India, she has them hanging on by string or something like that along the blinds. She also has the bigger stuffed Christmas critters on the floor, like the fairly large and jolly Santa Claus and a pillow made out of one of papaw’s shirts.

Alex is standing on the opposite side of the Santa Claus, she either has a red blanket around her or a shirt. I don’t think she could find the normal dressing gown she normally puts her in for Christmas so she had to improvise. Nana recently got this beautiful picture of a white cat with a violin, which I happen to love! I don’t know where she got it, but she now has it hanging up by the second nightstand.

Now she doesn’t really use her bed, because she can’t get in and out of it on her own, plus it is really uncomfortable for her back and bottom. So she actually sleeps in her lounge chair that she has decorated with her family (with Adam Lambert) blanket that she got a few Christmases ago, but she does like to keep the bed looking pretty. So she got a new blanket, and it fits the red and white theme she has going on, but it has a nice photo of a Cardinal on it. Our family looks for Cardinals as a sign that papaw is around us, so there are a few of them throughout the room itself. She also put out all of the classic creatures by the pillow too!

And that’s it!

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For an added bonus, I had her take more pictures around the nursing home so you guys could see what they’ve done to the place!

They have like seven or eight Christmas trees, I think that’s what my nana told me! They have a really nice one over by their outside area. When I was there, I used to spend some free time before going down for lunch over by the green sofa on her hall. Now there’s a fairly large tree there, with some very nice wrapped packages underneath it. Nana said, she helped wrap some of them in activities and decorate several of the trees too!  They have their own nativity scene in the larger dinning room, plus an interesting blown-up elf in a corner by the nurses station. We didn’t see that when we went to visit her a couple of weeks ago for some odd reason!

What do you think of the holiday dorm tour? What is your favorite decorations to use?

The Wedding | Part One!

Howdy!

In my last post, I thought that I wouldn’t do the full four posts like I had wanted because of the fact we didn’t take very many pictures on Friday, but then two days later I realized Blondie did in fact take pictures of the layout of the reception area and decorations. Unfortunately, I had asked too late because she had just deleted them! I was bummed because they were literally my last resort, but she was in the process of trying to put up the decorations for sale on the barter pages. So she started sending me those pictures instead that way you all would get an idea at least!

Thursday was the day where Brandon, dad and the other groomsmen were to get their tuxes and I thought I heard a lot of complaints of women thinking their garments weren’t going to fit them correctly–myself included–until I heard my dad worry about the fact that his pants would be up to his ears! I had to exchange the word because that’s not all of what he said! Blondie went with these two and took pictures. According to her, poor dad was yelling across the stalls where they were changing to Brandon because he didn’t have a clue how to put it on! I thought it was cute and sad all at the same time! This was seriously the first time we’ve ever seen him in a tux so when mom got the pictures, I was in shock but also a bit impressed on how much he was willing to do for his youngest daughter!

Friday was the day of the rehearsal! This was the day that dad was the least looking forward to and he complained majority of the time!

We started the afternoon going to the reception room and putting up some of the decorations! The tables and chairs were already put out when we got there and there was a massive gap between the bridal party, dance floor and the guests tables. Blondie was told they were like that for in case of fire, but it was a huge amount of space! Anyways, when we first got there I was allowed to roam in my chair which I relished in I’m not going to lie. I needed to see how much movement I would be able to do if this was where we were going to party. I also had a secret agenda too, we weren’t exactly sure how tall these tables were going to be so I could feed myself  and we needed to know if I was going to need the thick book I use whenever I go into the living room! Apparently our loveseat is higher than my bed! I rolled myself over to my seat and it was a perfect fit! Blondie placed my straw inside my glass before we left too!

Jace and Dyllanne were there to help out. Sam came later once we were finishing putting the lights on the tables. Brandon’s mom bought the table decorations, they were just simple things which is what Blondie wanted so it wouldn’t be so complicated to take down after everything was over. Once I inspected my seat I began to roll myself back over to the stew of boxes and I told Jace to place the bigger candles inside an empty box so I could place them on the bridal party’s table. The bottles were at the edge of the tables and I figured I was able to put them up there or somewhere close. I was thankful that we were the ones that did this because I decided to wear the same dress I wore for the bridal shower so I had my legs up in the air a lot more than I realized but hey, I wanted to be of good use.

Every table got one candle and mason jar with a bouquet of flowers on top! We had to do some rearranging at the last because we had twice as many flowers and jars than tables so we switched out some of the original flowers in the bottles and exchanged them with the brighter pink ones.

After we were finished and we had added our fourth bridesmaid Jayde to the fun, we went to the church where we were sat and waited for at least five of the groomsmen! There were only two of them there at the church and roughly half of Brandon’s family sitting in the chairs. When we got there, we met up with Alli and her younger sister whom I haven’t seen in a really long time because she’s now in her teens! Thank you Shelby for making me feel extremely old! Ten minutes passed and the last bridesmaid Skyela had arrived but we still only had two groomsmen. Within 20 minutes later, not only did my dad fall asleep in the chair and slightly bonded with Patty and Will, I saw two gentlemen. One was really tall and that was Jordan and the other was Isek about five minutes later I saw a familiar face! Allen (best man), his brother Alex and Lance came walking through the doors. We were all there now!

We started with getting lined up by Blondie and at this point she had turned into a royal bridezilla. Since Allen and I had the good spots, we were the last ones before the flower girls and ring bearers. While we were practicing going down the aisle, Allen and I decided to have some fun and we did some pop-a-wheelies. I’m still surprised we didn’t get scolded by dad or Blondie by the second time around! It was hot as hell in that church so if we didn’t have any fun, somebody was going to pass out! And yes, that’s my excuse!

My mom and I were originally going to spend the night at Blondie’s while Brandon stayed at the frat house with the groomsmen, but once we were finished with the rehearsal it was super hot and both of my folks stomach’s were sour so we ended up going home while the stuff we had brought with us stayed at the apartment. I had to sleep with my childhood pillow which is flat as paper and two fleece blankets that weren’t long enough to reach my feet! I wasn’t exactly thrilled but it ended up being a good thing in the end! Everybody else went to the rehearsal dinner at Wings & Rings and Blondie had fun with her girls from her ISU days!

Next week you’ll finally get the details of the actual wedding day! 

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