Monthly Favorites | Lovely Words

Hello!

In January, I talked about the fact that I’m keeping a reading journal for 2022, so I have a better way to keep up with what I’m getting into on a daily basis. I keep a note of everything from the number of books I read each month, how many pages I finish, and the days in every month as well. These things are perfectly normal of a regular bookworm, but I took a step further with adding my favorite words, affectionately titled “Lovely Words” as it was an innocent thing to include in my journal at the time. And then, it definitely grew into something I tend to focus a lot of my time because I really enjoy finding new words and looking up what they mean, especially if they are from other languages.

In my ‘Goodreads Reading Challenge’ post, I had shared a collage banner of all of the words that captured my attention during that first month, and it was interesting to see everyone’s comments about this section, but I felt bad for only discussing those 31 words, so when I came up with this series, I thought it would a great idea to include every word from the previous three months. So, I hope you enjoy this batch just as much as I do!

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I am arranging each month based on the colors they were given at the start of the year. I know I don’t mention it a lot but I technically have two journals, and for my habit tracker of how many days I actually read, is in a different color. For the most part, I’ve stuck to that color but unfortunately I don’t have an orange and can’t see the yellow very good so I have had to switch those colors around. I know it doesn’t really matter for you, but in case anyone was curious by the color changes with every month.

February:

One thing I do need to explain is, I may have finished three books in February, but I attempted to read about three others, which were The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Curse of Beauty by Lauren Lee Merriweather, and Disease and History by Frederick Cartwright. I include ALL of the words, even if I don’t complete the book itself, because honestly that would be too much work to remove them anyways.

daffiance, ensconce, malcontent, recalcitrance, thence, imbue, guardroom, simemet, disir, cuirass, jelling, lamentations, pastureland, petulant, portent, rebuttal, miscarriage, litany, lexicon, trellis, cornucopias, jessamine, compulation, verve, primrose, karanasi, epistle, spiles, consecration, abhors, paraffin, tesserae, sodden, dwarven, loquacious, precipice, hangerook, processional, and gothar.

March:

March as a whole was on another level when it came to reading in general. I managed to complete five books, but I also tried one other book and it was Waylon: Angel and Ruthless Reaper by Theodora Taylor. I did not make it very far with it and I’m pretty sure I did not include any words mentioned in this story. I collected 56 words in all with the others, so a part of me was happy as a clown at this accomplishment!

crug, lain, clowder, centurions, greaves, eldritch, aesir, dour, covart, plait, malcontents, rabble, affright, sheen, pittance, perpendicular, eaves, pommel, dephlane, stalwart, opalsent aloof, salk, seidhr, mirthful, entreat, pennents, somble, vista, thersals, herbcraft, batlements, abate, viste, nettled, sullen, magpielike, spattergroit, transpired, pactiturn, pallor, abussal, skiff, cumbersome, sneer, filligreed, font, spever, pourbiere, grouse, cloudberries, alms, subterfuge, verbena, knattleitir, cloven

PS: Can you tell I read two Viking fiction books or is it just me?

April:

This month I really wanted to finish every book I put in front of myself, but sometimes when I think I’m ready for something else, I end up changing my whole lineup, so with that being said, I attempted to read three romances These Three Words by Alexis Winter, Sexy Filthy Boss by Piper Rayne and Hitching the Cowboy by Kennedy Fox. I’d like to get back with the ones by Alexis and Kennedy because I love how these authors write their characters and couples, but we’ll have to see where in the log they will end up and I’ll definitely write a book review of the Kennedy Fox book as it goes with the bonus post I released over the weekend!

permance, trotting, impertinant, castanets, perambulater, repulsion, roil, Doha, skety, asronyeh, jebnah, ghadoh, adhen, nunu, queer, rapture, gaylingly, heliocentric, counterance, periphery, proviso, rhinophyma, sobriquet, bint, feign, a’arf, ma’amoul, tay’ebeh, khalo, accosts, bedragged, pantomime, caricature, dastardly, smarm, tutelage, chaste, Blomma, trove, frock, minuscule, jester, fawning, hap, debacle, evangelism, entrapped, entendre, omnipresent, sortileges, pedantic, cordinal, gore, woe, croup, prow, lament, sanguinary, revently, morrow, capitally, providence, menagerie, machinations, traipsing, leaflets, liaise, grobing, scantimonious, Veritaserum, simpered, leaves, berks, vying, niffler, lintel,

PS: I read about 18th Century ladies, a Syrian refugee, and Vikings jarls. I traveled a lot in April, thus the many unique words above.

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I think I will do like a mid-year review of my progress sometime this summer, because I’d like to compare it with whatever happens in the next six months. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get that one out for you, but I’ll figure out some way though!

How are your reading goals for 2022 going so far? Do you keep a book journal every year to keep track of everything like I am? If you are or have in the past, tell us something about your overall design or what you thought was most important to keep notice of during a single year!

Blogmas | Christmas Tree Projects

Hello!

This season I was inspired to do something a little bit different.

In September, when I was able to decorate my bedroom for autumn, I went on YouTube to find tutorials on how to make my moon phase garland together easier on my mom and I. As you now know, this still didn’t really help, all it really did was my parents wish we had done it all homemade like in the video. Anyways, as I continued to look for other helpful ways, I came across four DIYers that just seemed fun and genuine with their personalities. I watched all of them for basically a least a week and afterwards, I became inspired to do a little project myself.

I’m still shocked that I came up with this so quickly, because usually it happens within two days (or nights) to finally figure out how I want everything, but not for this one. I instantly knew what I wanted to do but asking for it proved to me a little scary, because I haven’t done anything as grand as this since I was a senior in high school! I still don’t think what I did was at the same scale considering the fact back then, I made six similar portraits on larger canvases within a week apart from each other. For these projects, there were only three items on slightly smaller surfaces, but the biggest difference is that instead of drawing with pencil, pen, and pastels. I only used pencil to start and eventually acrylic paint.

I am not a painter. I’ve never thought of myself as a painter but since the videos I was watching online were in that media, and that’s how my vision was coming to me, I thought I would take a crack at it.

There was something that my mom told me on the second day that stayed with me throughout the process and made me feel at ease once I started on it again. I wanted to share it here in case anyone reading this is like me, and needs some type of encouragement.

You’re not Picasso, and we don’t expect you to be.

If you want to copy what I did or make something similar, here are the materials you will need:

• Canvas – ours are 12×6
• Acrylic paint – we purchased the prime colors: red, blue & yellow
• Assortment of paintbrushes – I used both thin brushes, one a little bigger than the other
• Paper plates or handy palette
• Ruler
• Water

When I officially started on them, I forgot that I never told my dad about what everything was for, and after I asked where the ruler was, he showed me how to actually use one. Honestly, I’m thankful he did it because I’ve never really used them, I usually just estimate and go from there. And after he showed me where the middle was on the first canvas, you could still see my remints on the first time I made my lines and I was off by a couple of inches! My dad was pretty impressed by it and so was I!

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So, we measured the border first, and with all of my patience, I did miss the mark a couple of times, but in order to make it more about fun, I had to tell my ego to shut up to make myself keep going, especially when I got to doing the measurements for the big item that all three will have and that was a large triangle or Christmas tree in the center of the canvas. Once I figured out everybody’s shapes, I took pictures for both proof and to show you the process as I continued on this artistic journey.

The next day, I went back to it and was utterly excited to get my toes dirty!

Despite knowing I’m not a painter, I still freaking love it! It’s like glitter but more liquid-y…

Anyways, I thought the best decision would be painting all three trees first and then move on. My mom poured out my blue and yellow onto my plate and I started mixing it with the end of the brush I was going to use first and I wasn’t necessarily happy with the color that appeared first, it was more blue-green and as pretty as it was, it obviously wasn’t the shade I was going for, so I grabbed the yellow again and undid the cap and put the container on its side and squeezed with all of the strength in my feet to get a small amount of paint. Once I got what I wanted, I mixed it all again and I ended up with a very green color and it still had a little blue but it wasn’t as noticeable as the first color, so that was good for me!

I got to painting the sides of the first, I used my homemade desk that my dad made for me back in October. However, everytime I went to turn it around I would end up with more paint on my toes than I liked because that meant, it wasn’t sticking and I would have to go back over it with a second coat. Well, as I let that one dry, I looked around my room to see if I had anything to help fix this problem. So, I have another, older foam box that I have used in previous DIYs and I really needed an easel and my thought was I could prop each one up so I could see everything and allow it to dry a little bit before turning it over. The only issue was, I didn’t have anything to put underneath the canvases to make sure I don’t make a bigger mess than I was, and I grabbed my sunflower rug and flipped it upside down so that I wasn’t ruining the pretty side and this turned out to the second best idea I had that day.

Once I got everybody arranged, I was moving pretty quickly but I have found my absolute weakness with painting: borders. It wasn’t the paint this time; since I made “proper” measurements with a pencil, staying within that area was a bit difficult, but I refused to let it get to me in the end. After all of the borders were a royal blue, I got to work on giving each tree a decoration of some sort with using ideas I found on both YouTube and Instagram.

The main objective to these projects was to make them as different as possible. So, the first one looked absolutely gorgeous! There were no mistakes at all, but the other two: well, the second has one side bigger than the other and the third actually looks like a tree with branches as I was running out of green paint and it turned out better than I expected it to be. This one is actually my mom’s favorite, so go figure! I left everybody to dry for the day before I moved on to the decorations!

For the most part, I used the pencil to create the star on the first project in the way I know how and even though the yellow we had was light, after splashing two coats in that small space, it covered up the guide. I pushed it to the side to dry before doing the trucks, and I did the next with ornaments. Now in my original idea, I was only going to put three in different sizes but once I grabbed the pencil, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. The first trick I found was using the back of a pencil (I got really creative and used the back of my red colored pencil!) or small lid and just coat the flat surface in whatever paint you’re using and pressing it like a stamp on your designated area. Well, if you know me, once I get going, there’s really no stopping me. I meant to do the tree but was having so much with this trick that I kept going all around the tree. Technically, everytime I look at it, it makes me think of an apple tree because of how many dots I laid on the tree.

For the second, I had my mom grab two Q-Tips from the bathroom and I took both in between my toes and held on tightly to both and just did the same motion with the pencil, expect for having individual dots, I took the gold color paint and dotted in a line from one side to the other to the paint where it looks like you wrapped tinsel all around the tree. After I was done, I told my mom that it was my favorite because it looked like what I was initially wanted and I think the lopsided part helped a lot because it meant I could make the tinsel look long and thicker like regular garland.

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The final addition that was put on all three projects was some sort of truck; in my head, I just wanted something minimalist and for the most part I stuck to that idea and two of them ended up with a L shape at the bottom of each decorated tree. I used the last bit of brown that we had for it too. As for the third, I was going to put two little vertical lines showing you the outline of a trunk but never connecting the two, but I didn’t like what I had painted on the canvas so I just gave it a full trunk and leave it to me, to place it on the tree that has an odd shape already, so the trunk isn’t necessarily in the middle as the other two but by the time we figured it out, the paint had dried up and I just waved it off.

After they were all dried, I told my mom where I wanted to hang them. There is a mini hallway in between the spare bathroom, my room and Nolan’s playroom. There is a medium sized of wall space that has always looked dull and I thought these would be perfect to hang them and make the house a little more Christmassy! My parents are not the type to decorate every space in the house like I would, especially being that this house is still “brand new” to us and I feel like it needs that sort of vibe going on. So, my mom hung all three in the order I had already picked out and since they are all unique, I thought my last wish for them are three have the same meaning but it is translated in three different languages: the top is the star and this one is called, “Merry Christmas”. the middle is the gold tinsel and full trunk and it’s name is, “Feliz Navidad” for Spanish and the third with the pretty red ornaments is German’s way “Fröhliche Weihnachten”.

Overall, the projects were a success and I am very proud of myself for not only being strong throughout the whole process, but for being committed to doing something different and definitely out of my comfortable zone. Here are the rest of the photos I took of the whole thing.

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When was the last time you did something that was out of your comfort zone, but that was bigger than you would normally do? If you create your own Christmas décor, what is your absolute favorite you have made for 2020?

August Playlist

Howdy!

I told myself that if I didn’t get anything done this week that I would at least this post ready instead, but I have been feeling great in my legs that I actually left this one for last!

This past month has had a lot of music, both new and old favorites. I even dedicated a full week to just reggaeton music. I actually figured out something pretty interesting (well I thought it was interesting!) while in the mist of this mini adventure.

If you.don’t know by now, I love a large amount of different music, but what I’ve found in the last six years or so, is that I don’t really categorize it by genres, more like where the artist is based out of, they’re nationality. I slowly started to remember why I went that way and it happened when I wasn’t listening to as much rap music I always thought I was, but something kind of drastic occurred at the end of 2008 that I just decided to separate myself from the genre entirely. However, a part of me didn’t want to leave completely because I grew up listening to the genre as a child.

In the meantime, I found reggaeton and I used the fact that none of the artists I listened spoke in English to fall deeper into the genre and began to appreciate the beat thus would help me later in life for creating a bigger love of all genres whether or not I can understand the languages or not. This summer I have been even more interested into the music I’ve been hearing coming out of Mexico, Puerto Rico and Colombia. Maybe I’ll even highlight some of my favorites in the annual Summer Playlist coming in a couple of weeks.

For now, you get a mixture of the Top 20 songs I listened this August. Hope you enjoy them!

My Turn Now by Hidden Citizens
Bad Bitch by Bebe Rexha featuring Ty Dolla $ign
Mother’s Daughter by Miley Cyrus
Heavy Is The Weight by Memphis May Fire featuring Andy Mineo
The Fall by Banks
Say My Name by David Guetta featuring Bebe Rexha & J Balvin
Banana by Anitta featuring Becky G
If U Seek Amy by Britney Spears
The Violence by Asking Alexandria
True Friends by Bring Me The Horizon
Loco Contigo by DJ Snake featuring J Balvin & Tyga
Queen Of Mean by Sarah Jeffrey
China by Anuel AA feat. Ozuna, Daddy Yankee, J Balvin & Karol G
What A Girl Wants by Christina Aguilera
What’s My Name by China Anne McClain
Don’t Call Me Up by Mabel
Move Shake Hide by Marmozets
Crawl Back In by Dead By Sunrise
Runaway by Sebastien Yatra featuring Jonas Brothers, Natti Natasha & Daddy Yankee
Kill This Love by Blackpink

I am really missing my Spotify mostly because I miss doing my music reviews on here. I used to have good size amount of stuff to talk about in a month and now I feel like I am scraping the bottom of the barrel. I have thought about opening my blog back up to artists and bands again, because at least that would keep me active on here but I don’t know if it would help me out as much either.

If you’re an artist or band with new music out on YouTube and would like some free promotion, please let me know and maybe you can be featured on my blog! You can contact me at: gotmeghan.blog@gmail.com with your information. Let’s work something out that helps both of us out a little. 🙂

What were you listening in the month of August? Any favorites?

Album Review: “Destiny” by Celtic Woman

So this is going to be a little different from my normal pop, rock, and EDM reviews that you’re used to seeing on here.

I love Celtic music! There’s something beautiful about it. I tend to want to hear it in the afternoons, mostly when I’m feeling a little down. It gives me a different vibe then my usual stuff I hear on my iPod at night. I love my heavy stuff, but I like to hear calming music too and this does the trick for me all the time.

Celtic Woman was the first traditional Irish music group that I had ever heard and I first started listening to their music like three or four years ago! Wow! That seems so long ago! I fell in love with the sound, but I had been hearing the traditional Irish folk music for years off and on. I just didn’t bother saying anything because I already have a complicated list of musicians on my iPod as it is! I fell in love with Mairead Nesbitt who is their fiddler/violinist and this woman is the bomb! The more I listened to the songs and finally learning the one swing choir song I had always loved hearing throughout my years in both middle and high school! I got interested into the singers of the group. Chloe Agnew, even though she’s not part of the esmable anymore.

In early December, I recorded the PBS airing of their Emerald concert. I just kind of fell in love with it. If it weren’t for those long breaks throughout the showing, I would have finished it! To know they have released a new album called “Destiny” with their newest members: Mairead Carlin and Eabha McMahon makes me really happy! The album was released later in the US as to the October release date in the UK and native Ireland. So for us in the states, it came out in January! I know, I’m a bit late as to reviewing it.

Let’s start us off with “My Land” and which honestly drew me in first was the length of it. Four minutes and four seconds! That’s my kind of song! One of the things that I love this song is that you can hear everything! The orchestra, the choir, the different dymantics of the singer’s voices. It gives it so much more emotion then you would normally get in a regular pop song! The second is “Siúil A Rúin” and if you’re not too familiar with Celtic Woman or any other traditional Irish group, they usually have a mixture of songs in both English and Irish/Gaelic. Over the years, I’ve found the Irish language one of the most beautiful languages! The English translation seems to be “Walk My Love” and the song as a whole is gorgeous! If I knew how to pronounce more Irish words I would love to sing this song over and over again!

The third is definitely one of my favorites. It’s called “Ride On” and I love the acoustic feel you get in the beginning; it’s gentle and sweet. I actually approve of the new singers, because they add a different sound with their voices! I think Mairead Carlin has a very soft, quiet voice that blends so beautiful with not only this song but with some the group’s other songs! However, I much prefer Eabha’s voice! She has a very deep, more feminine voice that somewhat resembles Sarah McLachlan in a way! These two have alleviated this track and made it stunning. The next is called “The Whole Of The Moon” and it’s very upbeat, which at first I didn’t think I would like! I’m still trying to find the love for these types of tracks. They’re good, don’t get me wrong! I’m sure I’ll come to my senses sooner or later, but right now, not so much! The next one doesn’t necessarily involve any singing, it’s more of an instrumental! It’s the “Skyrim Theme” you mainly hear the band, male and female vocalizations, and the lovely Mairead Nesbitt playing out this track!

The sixth track is called “How Can I Keep Me From Singing” and I had to look a couple of times to make sure I wrote that out right! It’s a bit of a toe twister (get it?) for me! Anyways, I love the ominous beginning and like I said about Eabha’s voice being deep and alluring, it’s just her performing the whole song! I absolutely love it! I feel at peace whenever I hear this one playing! It would be the perfect song to use to mediate or to get your baby down for a nap! The next is “I See Fire” and you might be familiar with this track as it was performed by Ed Sheeran for the film The Hobbit: The Desolution Of Smaug back in 2013. I was really curious to see how this would be, because I’ve heard Ed’s version quite a few times since it was released and I’m not going to lie, the lady did it better! Sorry Ed! If there was a chance, I would like to see Mairead Carlin and Ed did a duet of this song! I think it would be pretty cool!

The next two songs are in the native Irish titles, starting with “Tir Na Nog” featuring Oonagh. This is another upbeat, peppy song so I found better than the other song. It has an interesting point of the track where you can hear rhythmic clapping and stomping. I loved that! The English translation for this one is “Land Of Ever Young”. The next one is “Óró Sé Do Bheatha ‘Bhaile” and this one is fully in Gaelic and it’s has an upbeat sound to it, but it’s more mellow! The English translation for this title is “Oh-ro, You Are Welcome Here” The next one is called “Sometimes A Prayer Will Do” and I don’t normally like gospel/church songs as much as I used to as a kid, but I find myself liking them whenever Celtic Woman remakes them! This is very beautiful! This is performed by Susan McFadden and she did a fantastic job on this!

This next one is very cute! It might be the intro, sometimes Irish music does this to me! I get a little giddy about a sound or a line of the verse and it instantly becomes a favorite of mine! In this case, it’s the scatting–I guess that’s what they’re doing!–that I actually got drawn to! This is called “Bean Phadlin” and the ladies are singing in both English and Irish. Next is called “Westering Home” and I’m on the fence about this one, even though it’s a slow one. It even has a little soul to it and I’m unsure if I like it, seriously? It even goes from slow and builds up into the complex sound with orchestra and pipes! Of course, the next one is more uplifting and I actually like it. It reminds me of a big party! The title is “When You Go” and it seems like a lovey dovey type of song! The next one has a gorgeous intro, just piano! Ugh! I am in love already! It’s called “Like An Angel Passing Through My Room” and Mairead Carin is performing it. I love songs like these; they’re soft but inviting for everyone to enjoy! This is the longest song on the album with five minutes and thirteen seconds!

We’re almost done I promise! Number fifteen is “Walk Beside Me” and Eabha performs this one, I’ve found another way to describe her voice. She makes the songs seem a little country, but I don’t say that in a bad way! It’s just a feeling I get the more I hear her sing! I really like this! The next one is very unique, just the introduction alone starts off slow and mysterious with the classic flute, then you hear little sounds in the background that give it this playful vibe to it and Mairead Nesbitt starts playing and it just gets better and better. This is of course called “The Hills Of Ireland” which if Ireland ever had a song in general to describe it in movies, books, or anybody saying the word out loud this is how I would picture it in my head! Perfect sounds of Ireland!

I’m not going to lie, I listened to this album for an hour and a half and I definitely don’t regret a thing! I even went and looked up a couple of live clips on YouTube because this album also comes with a DVD of the concert version of the songs, including Meav Ni Mhaolchatha performing with all four ladies! I’ve already told my mom that I might actually include this album on my list to buy when we go back to the Record Cellar because it’s so damn good! A few days later, my mom found the concert they held in Dublin and performed the songs on the album and a couple of others throughout, but she was stunned that she found it at all because she literally doesn’t watch anything on the local channels on her own, she records everything! I’m a little addicted to it I’m not going to lie!

Have you listened to “Destiny” yet? What were your favorite songs from it?

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Tune Tuesday | South Korea

When I was just starting writing out the countries I wanted to “visit” for this year’s Tune Tuesday worldwide series, I thought it would be cool to add new countries to the list but sadly take out others if I couldn’t anything for them. I’ve got to say, South Korea was only a thought, when I wrote out dates for each country and musical act to write about, it wasn’t on my list. After I got through Denmark I started figuring out that I listen to a lot more Kpop music than I originally thought I did. So I ended up adding it in last minute so I hope you enjoy!

I think one of the things that draws me into music from all these different countries is that almost everything sounds different from what we, as Americans hear on the radio. Technology has its good parts about it, finding good and interesting music can be easier to find through social media sites. I think it’s fair to say I’ve found more UK music through my Twitter than any other country, but I do get lucky sometimes. As far as talking about music from Asia, it’s a bit more difficult. Since about 80% of Asian musical acts do not sing in English, it is pretty difficult to get English or any other foreign listeners to go outside of their comfortable zone as far as listening to something in another language, but if everybody likes Pitbull and Enrique Iglesias (who sometimes sing in Spanish!) I’m pretty sure hearing Japanese or Korean wouldn’t be that big of a deal!

I’ve noticed lately that some radio stations are getting comfortable with sharing music in other countries from all over the world, some don’t even sing in English and yet I’ve still heard them on these big radio stations like the Sirius XM channels. It’s great to finally see some variety but I’m worried if playing their music will influence them to change up things, like their sound and/or will they start releasing tracks in English or other languages they may not be familiar with? When I heard an all girl group called 4MINUTE on a countdown of music discovered on YouTube being played on a radio station, I’ll be honest it caught me off guard but it wasn’t that bad! I listen to a lot of music in different languages so this wasn’t anything too new for me! However, the group would be my first Korean act I’ve ever listened to and liked afterwards. One day I remember going on Spotify and having myself a little fun. I didn’t want to talk about one KPop group in this post so I went out of my way to find some more. I ended up finding Girls Generation too. This group is a large group, definitely not 5-6 girls, there’s like 8-10 of them. Of course, after years of being a group they’ve switched singers in and out, so the number decreases at times too! They’re not bad! They have tracks that have parts in Korean/Japanese and maybe a chorus in English like 4MINUTE but it’s all pretty great!