I actually wondered if I would publish this or not; I’m not in my normal element at the moment. October in general hasn’t been a regular month, I have been staying at my mom’s work, she is a nurse at a nursing home and this is my second time here, I came roughly around the same time in 2017, when my mom had surgery, I only stayed for eight or nine days whereas I’m going on my fourth (and hopefully final) week, and I’d like to get back to some of my old routine again.
Anyways, I’ve had some issues with being able to type between trying to find the perfect level and lessen the amount of swelling on my feet, it’s been somewhat difficult. I did, however, write up my posts from last week in advance so I was smart in that regard but since I figured I’d been home by now, I didn’t exactly bother to do this one.
I would like to write up a full post of my experience here so I will not be discussing much about this month, just going ahead with the October playlist for you instead. If you would like to check out the rest on Spotify, click here.
Unholy by Sam Smith featuring Kim Petras This Is Why by Paramore Beep by M.I.A. Diseased by Icon For Hire Wolves by Marshmello x Selena Gomez Kick Me by Sleeping With Sirens Feeling Good by Michael Buble Red by Taylor Swift Shenandoah by Celtic Woman World’s Smallest Violin by AJR 5 Foot 9 by Tyler Hubbard Down Home by Jimmie Allen Teardrops On My Guitar by Taylor Swift Truth About You by Mitchell Tempenny Fancy Like by Walker Hayes Hell On Heels by Pistol Annies
I was able to listen to one album before I left, and it was Icon For Hire’s sixth called “The Reckoning” and it has become my new favorite lately and perfect for Halloween too! Speaking of holiday tunes, I think I will be doing a couple of album reviews for Christmas, because you know how much I love doing blogmas every year. So, down in the comments I want to see your guesses on what recent release is on my list for this year.
This past month has been pretty crazy and I’m happy to be done with it honestly.
The beginning of it was interesting though, my sister has expected contractions throughout her pregnancies, but she went to the hospital more frequent with this one, and the most recent weren’t necessarily had anything to do with my niece. She had some issues with her breathing and her feet were very swollen, and she was told to rest more and put up her feet, and she tried to do everything the doctor requested but she still had complications, so she went to the hospital to be checked out and when she came home over two weeks later, we had welcomed our newest member into the family!
💗 MEET KIMBER MAE 💗
In my baby announcement back in May, I mentioned that I wasn’t going to share her name until she was born, mainly for the suspense but I also didn’t know whether or not her parents would change it last minute.
Kimber is a preemie, like moi, but at least she didn’t weight like two pounds and have to spend roughly 70 days in the NICU! Despite this though, she actually weights one pound less than her brother Nolan. We are all in agreement that we definitely don’t remember Nolan ever being this small! Nolan was a chunky baby but she’s very petite. A big difference between she and Nolan is that Kimber loves to be swaddled whereas Nolan has never enjoyed being wrapped up. He’s even four years old and he does not sleep with a blanket on him!
Since she came so early, as she was supposed to be born in early October, we had to make some adjustments to our plans of having my nephew come to our house while Blondie was in the hospital, we assumed it would be like two days, but it turned out to be two weeks. He went to his dad’s house on certain days but for the most part he stayed at our house, and he was a very good boy. He was very helpful to us, especially my dad and I, with our issues lately. I watched a LOT of toddler based educational shows like Paw Patrol, Blippi, and Cocomelon. By the end though, I was growing to be a fan of Blippi’s videos at Children’s Museums and Zoos. And at night we switched between Bluey (another favorite of mine!) and Muffet Babies. He seemed to enjoy having a sleepover in Aunt Meg’s room.
When Blondie was officially allowed to go home, she came to our house, and I finally got to meet her after almost a week after she was born. I was thrilled as this meant that I could have her on my bed like I did when Nolan was a baby. My mom got her a bouncy seat thingy in the beginning of her pregnancy, and we got to test it out and we found out that even though she enjoyed sitting in it, she seemed even smaller! I swore she gave me a little smile that next morning too!
Now let’s move on to the sad part of this post. I was hoping to write a separate one, but I thought it would look strange since I included Kimber’s announcement in this one.
I am very sad that Her Majesty the Queen has died. She was the reason why I became obsessed with the British royals and other monarchs in Eastern Europe, as I was curious about why she had the Roman Numeral “II” behind her name and that’s when I discovered my love of the Plantagenet and Tudor dynasties.
I have watched many documentaries on the Queen’s 70 reign in the last few years. I’ve enjoyed seeing her all dressed up, doing engagements out in public in various colors and her signature smile, hat and bags. She always seemed so interested in everything! I will forever enjoy the opening of the opening ceremony of the Olympics in 2012, where she walks the walls of Buckingham Palace with James Bond and her corgies, and acts like she drops out of the helicopter into that arena, I knew it was fake but it still shocked me they would do something like that. She must’ve had her say in the way of the segment too, after all she is the Queen, she wasn’t going to do something that showed her in a negative way, and joining Daniel Craig, allows us as the audience and fans to see her playfulness and overall sense of humor!
After 70 years of her reign, we now have a King and will probably have one for quite a while as after King Charles is William, The Prince of Wales, and his son Prince George of Wales. This part is a part weird, but I’m sure I am not alone in my thinking, but I am curious on how the British royals will evolve into this new order, and still be able to be caring human beings to themselves and others around the world.
As you can imagine, having to experience all of these new changes in a matter of two weeks, I haven’t been able to listen to music nor read my books as much as I normally do, I am finally trying to keep up with my stuff but I’m trying to take it easy as well.
This month saw a lot of good and bad things, but I still had my music to get me through it. So, I hope you enjoy my Top 20 below. If you’d like to play the entire monthly playlist on Spotify, click here
Little Lies by Fleetwood Mac Fallin’ For You by Colbie Calliat Sometimes A Prayer Will Do by Celtic Woman All She Wanna Do by John Legend Late Night Talking by Harry Styles Brand New by Ben Rector Love Me Anyway by P!nk featuring Chris Stapleton Vegas by Doja Cat Choke by The Warning featuring grandson and Zero 9:36 Shivering by Illenium featuring Spiritbox Kickstart My Heart by Halocene featuring Shershen&Zaritskaya Bow Down by Rain Paris Toxic by Charlotte Wessels Try Again by Aaliyah Come, Little Children by Clovet Mae Godless by BANKS Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost by Eklipse featuring Melissa Bonny Bom Bidi Bom by Nick Jonas featuring Nicki Minaj Black Widow by Fame On Fire featuring Twiggy
What were listening to this month? Name your top three favorites in the comments!
Every summer for the past six years, I’ve done an actual summer playlist on here. I’ve loved putting them together for not only you, but for myself because then I can keep track of these amazing songs year after year. I suppose if you wanted to go back even further on what I liked to listen to prior to these individual posts, you can look through at June through September and you might find some more jams that way, it’s just going to be time-consuming on you though. My only regret is I just wish my Spotify worked in 2016-18 so that I could have collected even more and shared them with you but can’t quite fix it now.
In the beginning, I was obsessed with EDM (electronic dance music) and I would go crazy for anything that would come out in mid-March in that genre and see how it would become the summer jam of the year. However, this summer I was really drawn to rock music, and I mean, the majority of the playlist below is made up of rock and heavy metal tracks, I don’t mind the switch one bit honestly. Some of the songs were released at the start of the year and depending on my love for it and how much its played on the various Sirius XM stations I listen to, will make its way to the summer playlist, so I hope everyone loves on what I’ve been enjoying lately and maybe you’ll find your anthem for the year, that is if you haven’t already!
Here is my Top 12 songs of the summer. Want to check out the entire playlist? Click here.
Rest in Peace by Dorothy About Damn Time by Lizzo ABCDEFU by GAYLE Eye of The Storm by Pop Evil Cleopatra by Train featuring Sofia Reyes Pink Rover by Scene Queen Trap God by Hollywood Undead Voices In My Head by Falling In Reserve Meteorite by BANKS Pink Venom by BLACKPINK Happy Ending by Demi Lovato Boyfriend by Dove Cameron
Now have I found my anthem for the year? I don’t think so. Every time I think I’ve found it though, it changes on me, so that definitely doesn’t help me out at all, but any of these songs on the list above can be a great reminder of summer 2022. I would really love to hear your favorites on your own list in the comments.
August hasn’t been one of the friendliest months; lots have happened, but as long as my niece decides to keep inside her cave just a tad bit longer, we’ll deal with it.
Speaking of her though, we had a nice baby shower for her, and we all had an excuse to dress up, Blondie wore a rose-pink dress, kind of fitting considering she wore a bright ocean blue for Nolan’s shower! Originally, I wasn’t going to want to wear a dress, I tried to talk my mom into getting a jumpsuit or romper, but she talked me out of it, and I found a nice olive-green Maxi dress instead. I’ve been really obsessed with my clothes in the color green these past two years and I have yet to figure out the reason for it! I was going to leave the leggings at home but even I saw right through that idea! Whenever I wear dresses, I tend to wear shorts underneath so I can talk verbally and physically with my legs without flashing the poor people in front of me. I have done this on accident in the past, so it is just better to wear leggings or something.
Anyways, we had a great time, celebrating my sister and my little niece. Nolan had a blast too! He absolutely adores baby socks and the “bow ties” (which are the hair bands!), hearing him “ohh” and “awe” over the gifts was so sweet! He is thoroughly excited about his baby sister, and I am thinking of placing bets amongst family members to see how long it lasts because he does not have the patience for things, so a lot of us know it’ll be an interesting adventure for him.
A week later, my little dude decided to grow up and start preschool!
The first day was a bit odd, he didn’t want Blondie to leave him, but it seems after she left, he had a great time! He came home with first crafts he had made in class, and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing bits and pieces of his morning activities because he was playing with his toys in the living room. We’re all still trying to wrap our brains around the fact that he’s even old enough to attend “big kid” school, but nothing really prepared us for it like the second day, he pretty much told his mommy to go away as he walked up to his teachers and new friends. The other day they came over and brought his Spidey backpack inside to show us some of his assignments and a fairly large magazine full of book fair goodies! I definitely don’t remember this in my preschool days, but since with COVID, they just send home these catalogs for each student and my dad and I went through that whole thing on our own because that was our favorite thing about school, although I never bought books home, so to see Nolan point out certain books or magazines was very touching to me! He loves his books like his mimi and mommy!
And then all hell broke loose, my mom came home from work a week later not really feeling well, and as she tried to start her second shift on Sunday, she was sent home with COVID within half an hour later.
As much as we tried to quarantine in our house, it didn’t really shield us well enough, especially when one of us is like me and needs assistance on a daily basis. I had some sickly symptoms the same day she was tested but I didn’t voice it until that Monday because I was utterly terrified to say anything to my folks, they are both vaccinated but I chose to not get it. I am not one for needles/shots, but I also didn’t know what kind of side effects would present itself later on in life, so I just chose to forgo it entirely and my parents were very aware of my feelings toward it on both reasons, and they haven’t said anything about it. I know it contradicts my thoughts I wrote about in the post I wrote back when this mess started but even then, I still knew I wasn’t getting the vaccine.
My symptoms were mild in comparison to my folks, the one thing we all had was the disgusting taste in our mouths, and we found out it was caused by our medicine, and what seemed to make it disappear were fruity candies, especially Life Savers. I would keep them on my bookshelf so I can chew/suck on it for a bit of time and it would help so much for us! My dad was the last in the household to get it and he used those cinnamon candies and I remember thinking, “why torture yourself like that?!” and my mom would actually eat butter scotches and they worked, but I liked the fruity flavors to keep me occupied for probably 15-20 minutes. We were all thrilled to be done with everything and Blondie and Nolan were allowed to come over again. It was pure torture to be separated from him for basically two weeks, and as he started school too.
All right, so everything aside, this month’s music has been somewhat interesting. In the beginning, I was trying to keep up with the newest releases and the first Monday afterwards, I went through my Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify, and I proceeded to put every song onto the main playlist. I ended up listening to three albums, the first was Hollywood Undead’s “Hotel Kalifornia” which came out a couple of weeks ago. I loved it! I have like eight or nine favorites on it, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, you need to! The second was found by accident and it is called, “Aventine” by Agnes Obel. This was also great but very different compared to HU though! And the final was Demi Lovato’s “HOLY FVCK” and I surprised myself with this because I did not think I would enjoy it, but I was wrong and it’s probably one of her best releases in a while.
Here is my Top 20 songs for August! If you would like to check out the entire playlist, click here.
Meteorite by BANKS Hands of Gold by Delain Weight of Everything by Ill Factor featuring Katie Garfield Blow by Eva Under Fire featuring Spencer Charnas Every Man Is A Warrior by Lena Fayre The Promise by In This Moment Valiant by Nightcity. Thunder by Imagine Dragons Cake By The Ocean by DNCE How Soon Is Now by AG featuring Dresage Dorian by Agnes Obel This Is What I Live For by Graffiti Ghosts Kings & Queens by Ava Max The Champion by Carrie Underwood featuring Ludacris Let You Down by Sleeping With Sirens featuring Charlotte Sunds Crazy Train by Joseph William Morgan 100 Little Deaths by Lilith Czar Pink Venom by BLACKPINK Happy When I Die by Hollywood Undead Sound of War by Tommee Profitt x Fluerie
May was actually a pretty good month; my parents have started growing the garden in the back yard. They have selected a number of flowers and vegetables–we’ve actually been eating our way through the early blooms of lettuce since the middle of April! They started out fixing the landscape around the front end of Rumer’s gate and now that they have “finished” that area, they’ve turned their attention to the back. If you would like a garden tour or something like that soon, let me know!
The other weird thing that happened was that I decided to start watching Star Wars. I’m still not exactly sure what I was thinking but I will say, it’s been fun! I published a post about the prequels: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith on the 20th, so if you’re curious about what I initially thought about the characters and story, you can check that out here. I have finished all 9 films and currently making my way through The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett and eventually Obi-Wan Kenobi. I am still going to do another post about the original trilogy sometime next month.
Unfortunately, I developed a small cold around two weeks ago. I hope I really learn my lesson this time around because I felt stupid these last few days. I was so excited to go all out for May and introduce the brand-new music series too, and everything just went to shit after completing Revenge of the Sith. I always kick myself later because it usually comes about when I’m not ready, blog wise, and since my monthly playlists are one of the easiest posts to put together, I wasn’t able to come back to it until last Tuesday. Thankfully, I have become a habit of creating my banners early in the month so I can set up my color scheme before officially writing this part of the post.
Lastly, this blog turned 11 years old a couple of weeks ago. I always forget the actual day I created it, because WordPress says I signed up on the 12th whereas I published my first post on the 13th. It’s no wonder I am confused for the two weeks leading up to it, right?
I didn’t intend to make this more than music, but I thought you guys needed a little life update. So, finally, here are my Top 25 songs for May. Click here to check out the full playlist on Spotify!
First Class by Jack Harlow Broken Pieces Shine by Evanescence Walking With Strangers by The Birthday Massacre Casuality by Mothica Mad At God by Sarah Saint James My Gun by Tove Lo My Garden by Kat Dahlia 24 by Jem Symphony of the Night by Leaves’ Eyes Fuck U Love U by Alison Wonderland Wicked Ways by Halestorm Family by Badflower If Tomorrow Never Comes by Bad Wolves featuring Ice Nine Kills Foxglove by Boston Manor Despactio by Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee Miss Me More by Kelsea Ballerini Work Song by Hozier The Foundations of Decay by My Chemical Romance Cleopatra by Train featuring Sofia Reyes How You Like That by BLACKPINK Where Did It Go? by Asking Alexandria American Woman by Muddy Magnolias I Can’t Get You Off My Mind by Miss Li Allfather by Foresaga Eye of the Storm by Pop Evil
Now it’s time to share what you were listening to in May!
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