2020 RECAP | Trial & Error

Hello!

2020 has been a very complexed year. For a lot of people, it’s been one of the worst ones whereas I think it’s been a very successful year. I have had bad days and unsavory moments happen within the year but overall it’s been pretty good. It isn’t what anyone expected but I think how you look at it as a whole can make or break your perspective. I will say it wasn’t perfect all throughout these 12 months, something has happened to possibly crush everything you love and worked on, but you’re still here, so that should count for something, right?

In this post, I will be discussing three different sections that I thought were important to highlight that defined 2020 for me and this blog as a whole.

Three Good Things

At the start of the year, I decided I needed to share a ritual I have been doing off and on since 2014 and that is choosing three things (or more if you had a great day!) and talking about them to my followers on my social medias. Unfortunately, it never took off on Twitter but I’m hoping I can do better in 2021 so more people who want to look past any unsettling mishaps and focus all of their attention on the good instead. I feel this was the reason why I think back on the year with a smile on my face.

I just want to point out that despite the fact I want to spread positivity to everyone, I need to say you will have bad days here and there. You’re never going to have perfect days or moments endlessly, but that’s not being realistic. I wish I had said something about this in the beginning because I think it would have helped me get over the really bad days after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. I tried to keep a brave face but honestly I wasn’t feeling as confident as I usually am, so that’s why I took that long break over the summer to think about things that were going on around me. After some time I came back, although I wasn’t 100%, I still thought I needed to do something so I asked my followers to share their good things and reading their responses did give me a boost to join them again the next evening.

Once 2021 begins, I will be posting them every other day, because it was just easier to get things done because I found out through posting them every single day, that I am vert much a perfectionist! I was wondering when it was going to rear its ugly head back to me. I’m just thankful it didn’t stay around when I was working on my Christmas Tree projects like I thought. Anyways, I am already doing this schedule and have been for a while now, but I really enjoy it again so I think I will keep it going for as long as I want to, until I feel ready to switch back to the regular format.

I wrote this post three days before it was scheduled published and I knew the background I used for the first day was yellow, but I guess it didn’t register well enough when I made last night’s list. I was only going base off of what I used the day before–which was black, because I wanted a little black and gold theme for the final few days but again, I just forgot all about this until I went to update it (and man, wasn’t that an adventure!) anyways, do you remember what your first top three good things for 2020 was? What did you list for the last day of the year too?

Trial and Error

The reason why I am calling this post “Trial & Error” is because of what I put on my “Three Good Things” on the first of January 2020. The first one says “I chopped and peeled a potato without hurting myself.” Although I wish I could forget the events before this happened, I remember saying to my mom afterwards, “oh, it’s okay. Trial and error I guess.” And yes, I can recall what I said word-for-word because this would become the year’s motto. It was also a stab at my perfectionist side always attempting to break through on a daily basis! At the time, I didn’t think it would mean much but then I would catch myself saying it to anything that I did on my own that I normally wouldn’t do, so over time it started to mean something important to me.

I did a lot of things that I figured would never happen again, like completing my Goodreads Reading Challenge for the year and bring back painting pumpkins. Everything that happened that I haven’t done for a long time kind of scared me at first because I didn’t know if I should enjoy it and fear it would disappear for an even longer time, so I had to battle it out my emotions a bit, but now that I’ve done them, I fee like I can do them again and be better at them the second time around and I am overjoyed at it in the future!

Two Week Blogging Schedule

After 11 years of trying to work out a schedule that would not only work as far as publishing new content during the week, but inspiring myself to keep writing during a full month was really my biggest issue. I could work great for three months and lose all my love for blogging for like four months at a time and I would just feel absolutely defeated, so I knew I had to do something big or else I would have to stop blogging altogether and I don’t have any other backups or outlets that can compete to blogging so I was very determined to fix this problem once and for all.

When I decided that I was going to attempt reading ’20 books for 2020′ I knew I was going to make room to read, but what I didn’t exact was how comfortable I would be taking two weeks off a new month to devote myself to reading and then if I had time during my monthly vacation to do some work for the first full week back that was awesome too!

I really didn’t think I could last no more than a month using this new method but I did it for the entire year without feeling like I was going to experience a burnout like I would normally feel after a couple months so I knew I was doing something right here! There were times I would need an extra week because I was asked to review an artist’s music and I had established that Monday were the days I would talk about music, Wednesday would be about books; especially the reviews of the newly finished novels I was able to read in the weeks before, and Friday would be for anything else I wanted to talk about, but if I didn’t have anything special going on, I would post another review on that day. Everything seemed to work out perfectly and even this week, I kept the same layout I adapted towards the beginning of 2020 and was still exercising that format to the final week and was still enjoying it, seems incredible to me.

Well, I think I have officially run out of what I wanted to say in this post. I hope you have enjoyed all three posts in their rightful days. As of now, I should be back on the 18th of January, with all new content for you to consume and if you’re lucky, you might even get a book review on the 20th too, since I am right in the middle of A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St Clair. I am whizzing on through it as we speak so I hope you had a lovely and better 2021.

Bye.

snowflake

January Playlist

83281395_2769256113161286_6064045672179433472_nHowdy!

I know I always say “January is a dull month for music” and for the last five years, it’s been very true in that sense. I’ve always thought it should have the opposite effect since it is the beginning of a new year, people need some fresh tunes to boost themselves to get going on their resolutions. It’s still a slow month for newer music but I did have better luck listening to the older stuff than anything else.

For January, I created two very different playlists. I made my standard monthly playlist usually a day or two before the previous month ends. The other is my “sexy” playlist, which proved to be a smart idea, considering the amount of songs included! In a challenge I started at the beginning of the year, and the day I came up with this idea, I quickly realized how many Drake and The Weeknd songs were in it, not to mention how many that were featured on the Fifty Shades films too!

As I was busy working on that, I started thinking of songs that I hadn’t heard in a while, and it happened while I was busy trying to go to sleep at night. It was awful! Anyways, I thought I’d give you my Top 10 songs from both of those playlists for you today!

Say You Love Me by Jessie Ware
Vengeance On My Mind by G-Eazy
Bom Bidi Bom by Nick Jonas featuring Nicki Minaj
The Hills by The Weeknd
One Time by Marian Hill
Zipper by Jason Derulo
Candy Shop by 50 Cent featuring Olivia
One Track Mind by 30 Seconds To Mars featuring A$AP Rocky
Suffer by Charlie Puth
Billie Jean by The Civil Wars

Finisher by Vo Williams
Can You Hear Me by UNSECRET featuring Young Summer
Damn by Livvia
Rainbow by Kacey Musgraves
Not Alone by Linkin Park
Obedear by Purity Ring
Up All Night by Rachel Crow
This Is Me by Kaela Settle
Shoulda Let You Go by Keyshia Cole featuring Amina
Yummy by Justin Bieber

There is another playlist that I have been loving lately, especially when I am reading my books. I always tend to want something light whenever I am sitting up against the wall of my bed and something that is kind of interesting, I don’t want to learn the words because that’s when I tend to lose where I’m at in my book and it just becomes a big mess. The playlist is called “Lush + Atmospheric” on Spotify. I also love to listen to another one “Creamy” too, but the first is usually my go-to, especially in those early morning reads!

If you would like to check out the rest in the playlists I’ve listed above, click here for the January playlist and/or Sexy now! Hope you have enjoyed this post!

What have you been listening to lately?

snowflake

November Moodboard

Howdy!

It is time for another monthly moodboard!

By the time it turns into November, the leaves on the trees are turning various colors and falling to the ground. One of my favorite colors the leaves change into is actually red. To me, this symbolizes autumn. There is so much orange to embrace in October that I feel like any shade of red is a welcoming surprise. So, I knew what kind of theme I wanted to go for this time, and since I would look around the house for the previous ideas, I have stopped several items for this board.

The items used in this moodboard

Something that was a little shocking to me, was the fact that I had so many things at my disposable! If I had more room, I probably would have added them all!

The biggest difference with this one was the fact that I didn’t have a big enough bandanna to use for my backdrop. I asked my dad if he had any and even though he has tons of them, they’re all cut in half in order to fit around his head the right way. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use it in the way I have been, which sucked in a way, but all was not lost because my mom was helping me too, and while she was doing laundry, she let me use her Christmas kitty shirt she’s had for years! One thing you’ll notice with the pictures is that I didn’t use the front of it, because I thought it would overshadow the rest of the stuff on top of it.

The three largest next to the shirt were the Ritz cracker box, that was so unbelievably heavy for my toes, that as it was nearing the edge of my bookshelf that I just let it fall to ground. Since it was also brand new, I know not to be surprised for the many broken pieces in the packages! The second thing was actually a little present from my nephew the last time he came over. He walked into my room with the Hoosier back scratcher. When I finally got around to doing this, it had been on my floor for about three to four days.

As for the smaller items, I also had a package of UNO cards on top of my mini bookshelf that I grabbed, thankfully these were a lot easier for me to get ahold of with my toes and move to the space on the floor. The final piece that I used that came from my room was my little Spider-Man figurine.

At the same time, I was searching for stuff to use for this board, I was also rearranging my nephew Nolan’s bookshelf with several of my books. I literally had two projects going on at the same time! So, you can easily imagine by the time I got around to doing the photos for the moodboard that I couldn’t grip much of anything after the hell I went through with my books! Anyways, while I was already in Nolan’s playroom, I went and grabbed a couple of Hot Wheels cars, knob that belongs on his work bench and a single red ball (that you swear was orange in the pictures!) and placed them in my trusty bucket so I could just drag it back and forth between rooms!

And like that, I am done with this post! I feel like I should mention before I get asked whether or not I got any sleep the night after, I did! My mom and I worked so hard that we actually slept like babies. It was crazy! We hardly ever do this, but it was a big day for us that literally the next day, we both vowed not to work on anything. You ever get like this?

How do you like the color theme for this November? What should we do for next month? Blue? Festive colors of green and red? Let me know!

June Playlist

Howdy!

I am posting this a week earlier than I originally planned on because I am going to be writing about Nolan’s birthday party. It is going to be a fairly large post with lots of things, and I didn’t want to force myself to write it up in three days so this is your gift for the end of the blogging week instead!

Honestly I wanted to work on this like four days after the May playlist published but I told myself to chill and wait until I actually create a fairly good size list for this month. Unfortunately, I don’t think I will be giving you a 20 song playlist this time around but I think you’ll still appericate it anyways, right?

Dancing With A Stranger by Sam Smith featuring Normani
The World We Made by Ruelle
Flexible by Jordan McGraw
Wait For Me by Jake Miller
Brand New by Ben Rector
The Outside by Taylor Swift
Here With Me by Marshmello featuring CHVCHES
Out Of Love by Alessia Cara
Playwitme by Kyle featuring Kehlani
Tip Toe by Jason Durelo featuring French Montana
Thinking Bout You by Ciara
365 by Zedd featuring Katy Perry
Wish Wish by dJ Khale featuring Cari B & 21 Savage
Sound Of War by Tommee Profitt x Fleurie
Back It Up by Prince Royce featuring Jennifer Lopez & Pitbull
So Am I by Ava Max
Chances by Backstreet Boys
Started by Iggy Azalea
Unforgettable by French Montana
My Prerogative by Britney Spears

Okay, so maybe I was wrong and I have listened to over 20 songs already this month! It took me about an hour just to get that list together, because I kept coming up with songs and trying to add on to the previous list was a pain in the ass, but I got it done so I’m a happy camper now!

Two songs that I have been loving like crazy are “Flexible” and “Wait For You,” they are so good! I was hooked the moment they each started playing. They both have very catchy lyrics and melodies, I am really bad at keeping still whenever they come on so I know that’s a good sign! I am still shocked that Jordan McGraw is actually the youngest son of Dr. Phil! I thought he was a rocker? Oh well, the song’s great.

The one female track that I want to talk about is Alessia’s song “Out Of Love.” Like the other two above, I only had to hear it once and I was gone. It’s such a bittersweet type of song, but it’s also very beautiful too! What gets me though, is that it reminds me of a song that was on the film, Look Who’s Talking with Kirstie Alley, John Travolta, and Bruce Willis. The song that I’m talking about is called “You Need Hands” by Dan Lennon. The reason why Alessia Cara’s song makes me think of this song is when she gets to the chorus and how slow she says each word, the music too helps bring back that similar sound of this track specifically at the chorus. I can’t to find out how many of you actually attempt to listen to the songs and see if I have actually lost my mind or not.

I think the Ben Rector song will always be on my June playlist, mainly because it was literally the first song that I heard on the radio when we got home from Nolan’s birth. I actually didn’t go to sleep right away like my parents, so that is how I managed to hear it. And what was really interesting, is that I heard it on the day of the party! So, it has a very special place in my heart and deserves to be on here every year!

What were you listening to this month? How are you about hearing songs play on days that hold special meanings, whether it’s good or bad?

May Playlist

Howdy!

Well May is over and we move on to the summer months, where music really comes alive. It’s the time of the year that I actually look forward to, because of this exact reason. I think the combination of new and old summer anthems can put anyone in a good mood, so that’s why I tend to enjoy the summertime. May to mid-September are the best months out of the year.

This month I’ve been listening to a lot of great music. I was really craving, maybe not a word you’d expect to see in sentence about music but, something different from my normal mix that I tend to listen to on YouTube. So, I remembered some of the various playlists on here and there are some posts that have both Spotify and typed out lists of songs; I knew these blog posts would be the best thing to do! It’s funny how I really do these posts for you guys, but they help me out a lot!

I have decided to keep the amount the same as I did last month at 20 songs. The reason for this is because whenever I write out only 10 songs, I am usually keeping a ton of other songs back and hoping I continue to listen to them in the next month so I can put them on the next post but that doesn’t always happen so this is just easier on my brain!

Rescue Me by OneRepublic
Sunshine by River Matthews
Welcome Home by Hellyeah
Empire by Nick Fradiani
Nightmare by Halsey
Cross Me by Ed Sheeran featuring Chance The Rapper & PnB Rock
Don’t Leave Me Alone by David Guetta featuring Anne-Marie
Don’t Kill My Vibe (Griffyn Remix) by Sigrid
Battlefront by Rage Of Light
Freaky Carnival by Infected Rain
Masters Of Destiny by Delain
How Can I Forget by MKTO
Holy Water by Laurel
Light It Up by Marshmello featuring Tyga & Chris Brown
The Words by Christina Perri
I Never Told You by Colbie Calliet
You Don’t It For Me Anymore by Demi Lavoto
A Thousand Years (Lullaby) by Christina Perri
Bad Guy by Billie Eilish
Seasons Of Love by RENT

If you’re a Spotify user, and want to check out what else I was listening to this month, click here to be redirected to the actual May playlist.

Another thing that I like about summer is that it means that music festivals are in full swing again! Now I’ve never attended one before, but I do have a couple that I look forward looking up after it’s all over on YouTube, and they are Aftershock and Lollaplooza. The reason why I love Aftershock is because it’s generally all rock and heavy metal bands that perform in California. The lineups are usually really good but when it comes to Lolla, I like it for its variety. Even though, it started out as a rock festival too, overtime the direction has changed so they have a lot of pop and EDM acts, but that’s what I love about it, is because it’s all genres and the audience itself have diverse music tastes too or they wouldn’t be there in the first place.

So, what makes you look forward to summer? Do you have a music festival that you would to go to in the future? And finally, what was your favorite song in the month of May?