Hello everyone! I’m bringing back my Lively posts!

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I’d previously had condensed my three “end of the month” posts it into one Life post, but due to the Q, it was just too long! So I’m splitting it up a bit. This post used to be a complete recap of my hobbies, and the Life post will continue to be my favorites as well as my life recap for that month.

I think that this one will still be very long, and the Life post will likely be pretty short in comparison but I think I’ll be able to make it work!

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Lively

Creative Fun

DIYS

I haven’t exactly finished any crafts/projects this month but I have picked up new jewelry supplies as well as some fabric to start new ones! My plans are to make my mom either a necklace or bracelets from the jewelry stuff and myself a new shirt out of some beautiful fabric I found. I’m excited!

BUJO

I’ve really got the creative bug with my Bullet Journal this month! I did so many fun new pages and I can’t wait to show them off. My plan is that my next bujo video will be up next month, so fingers crossed I do get it filmed, edited, and uploaded for July. It’ll cover April through June (and a bit of the end of March) and I did some really creative pages during that time, so I’m excited to hear what you guys think! My “fun” pages this month include pages for baking, the garden, and my new plant Frida! I’ve also started July’s pages but I think I accidentally had too much coffee and it’s really messing with me because I started rushing through it and so some of the pages were looking a bit messier than usual. So I took a break from that and will pick it up again when I’ve had less coffee!

Entertainment

Books

This month I finished five books! I’ll list them below and their star ratings but my thoughts on a bunch of them were published on my Ten Mini Book Reviews Pt. 3 last week, along with some thoughts on a few books that I didn’t finish.

• The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger – 3/5 stars
• Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lowery, Elspeth Leacock, and Susan Buckley – 5/5 stars
• American Royals by Katharine McGee – 4/5 stars
• Lady Smoke by Laura Sebastian – 4/5 stars
• The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins – 5/5 stars
• Magnolia Table, Volume 2 by Joanna Gaines – 3/5 stars
• Five Dark Fates by Kendare Blake – 4/5 stars
• Get in Trouble by Kelly Link – 2/5 stars
• On the Come Up by Angie Thomas – 3/5 stars
• An American Summer by Alex Kotiowitz – 3/5 stars
• Artes de Mexico #62 Dia de Muertos by Artes de Mexico – 5/5 stars

TV Shows

I flew through Community on Netflix! I was midway through season 3 at the end of last month but this month I finished the series. Starting at season 5, we saw the departure of the characters of Pierce and Troy, so it felt super different and occasionally weird as different characters (both new and already existing) join the study group but the plots for the episodes were still so good that I quickly forget. Mostly, it was only weird when they’re sitting at the table in the library and therefore other people are sitting where I wasn’t fully expecting them to be, but it quickly became more familiar. I’d completely forgotten some of the episodes that I love, such as MeowMeowBeenz! It was a really fun journey to watch this series again and I miss it so much already.

I recently remembered the show Liv & Maddie that I’d been watching on Netflix too. I had a night were I was just feeling like I needed something lighthearted and easy to watch, so I pulled up this series. It’s a very lighthearted Disney show, so it was just what I wanted!

Lastly, I have watched a few episodes of Madam Secretary. I’m in season 2 and it took awhile to get back into the story and figure out who’s who as I hadn’t watched it in awhile. Once I got back into it though, I did enjoy it again! I found the episode where Secretary McCord and her husband had to do “mandatory volunteer hours” to be absolutely hilarious as their daughter’s school kept making it sound, well, voluntary when it clearly was not. I do have to say though, some of the characters annoy me to the point where I wonder “why are you like this?” quite often. But overall I like the series!

Musicals & Concerts

For this month, I saw The Wiz on the YouTube channel, The Shows Must Go On. I think I missed one of the shows and then there was a week that was skipped to make way for BLM content but I did see The Wiz on the 12th. This was a really fun musical based on The Wizard of Oz story and featured actors of color, specifically black actors for all the major roles. It was super cool and the story was slightly changed to make it more contemporary too. I loved this recording!

I also saw Peter Pan Live on the same channel on the 19th. It was pretty fun! I do think it was pretty cringy at times, but I really liked that it was still performed as a stage version. The music and dancing were really entertaining although I think some of the acting wasn’t really on par with the level of other shows the channel has featured. Even so, it was still a really enjoyable show and a great time!

Music

I watched NPR’s Tiny Desk video with Alicia Keys and it was phenomenal. I would totally recommend it! I also started listening to Keys’ music on shuffle as I realized that I really didn’t know her music at all. Love it!

YouTube

I’ve been really into homesteading vlogs lately! It started with watching gardening videos, which evolved into watching videos on what to look into before buying a plot of land. Then that turned into watching homesteading videos. I’m mostly watching homesteading videos that focus on gardening, but it’s a really cool section of the internet to research. One of my favorite channels now is “Roots and Refuge Farm” which features a little family farm in central Arkansas. The farm is means just to feed their one family but they have so many amazing plants and have the most delicious harvests that it makes me jealous of their growing season! My growing season is so short by comparison!

Podcasts

This month saw the return of the podcast At Home With… but now it’s At Home With Lily & Anna. Two of my favorite YouTubers, Lily Pebbles and Anna Newton (The Anna Edit) have restarted their podcast but now it features the two of them instead of guests. When they last did their podcast two years ago, their format was that the two of them would go to their guests’ home and walk around each room, commenting on the home while interviewing them at the same time. It was a really cool concept but they were open at how hard it was to coordinate schedules for travel and recording, especially once Lily became a mother. Now, the two will have a conversation about a certain topic they pick as well as talk about their lives, especially now that they’re at home due to quarantine in the UK where they live. It’s super fun and they’re great to listen to because they’re very down to earth and relatable for me. In their first episode back they chatted about their blogging journey as well as any jealousy they felt towards each other or other bloggers. They also added in their thoughts on the BLM movement which was really great too. It’s a really enjoyable podcast and I recommend you try it out!

Video Games

I’ll start, as usual, with Hogwarts Mystery. I’m still playing it but at a much more casual rate. I feel like the game has started trying to get people to play more by giving away stuff more often like notebooks, gems, or energy so it does feel like I’m able to make the same amount of progress with less time, which is amazing. Ava Samwise Quagmire has kept up with the story so she’s met up with her brother again and done new astronomy classes. She also met the Malfoys, won the first house match of her season as a Beater, and also adopted a bunch of new animals recently as she’s getting closer to max trust with the Common Welsh Green Dragon. Oh! She’s also started to befriend Dobby, which is pretty nice.

At the start of the month I had been playing Skyrim for my PS3 console. I’m so close to fully furnishing all three homesteads as I’d put off building a lot of little things like mounted animals. In fact, the only things left are mounted sabre cat or snowy sabre cat heads as well as elk heads/antlers. I’m just searching a lot of stores around Skyrim in order to buy the supplies I need to finish. I’ve also hired stewards for the two homesteads that didn’t have one yet and got them to hire the rest of the staff. I like to think that the housecarls are happy about this because they’re not lonely anymore rather than think that they’re upset that now they have to share the homestead with multiple other people. Oh, I did cure my character of vampirism finally, because I had to in order to progress in the Dawnguard DLC. Once I did, I finished that DLC storyline! I’ve moved onto the Dragonborn DLC, and made some progress in that story line too. There are so many new quests and side quests for this DLC so I’m starting to get a little overwhelmed at how many more tasks I have. The most annoying part is that I haven’t gotten a house in the new DLC so I have to keep going back and forth all the way from Skyrim for some storage for all my new goodies. I had to look up what quests to prioritize so I can get the house for Dragonborn as I’m so sick of having to go back and forth so much, although I like to think that my character does that because she has to go visit her hubby and kiddos back in Skyrim. However, my Skyrim adventures are on hold for a bit because of a new game in my life!

I picked up The Last of Us Part II when it released and started playing immediately on my PS4. I was a huge fan of the original game in the series The Last of Us and was super excited for this game since it was announced. I will hold most of my thoughts on the game for when I eventually review it (I’m nowhere near done, I’m only at the part when Ellie is at the park in Seattle), but it’s a great game already. I thought it’d be strange playing mostly Ellie as opposed to Joel, but I was pleasantly surprised that it felt so natural to play Ellie now. The characters, new and old, grew on me immediately. The graphics are just gorgeous to look at and it’s every bit as amazing and beautiful as the first game.

Cooking/Baking

This month I baked some Lemon Shortbread Cookies. I also made some no bake Peanut Butter and Honey Oatmeal Bars as well! I’ll be sure to add those to my next baking recap (although one was “no bake” but I’m still going to count it) and share my thoughts on those.

Active Life

Yoga

I haven’t done a ton of yoga but I try to do at least one yoga practice a week. Normally I’ll do one on Sunday mornings so that I can have a nice, relaxing start to the day! I do miss doing yoga every day, or nearly every day though. I might try some nighttime yoga routines in the future!

Stretch

I haven’t been stretching as much as I’d like but I do try to do a few stretches to try to keep my flexibility. I’ve seen a lot of stretch videos lately though on YouTube so I’ve saved a ton to do proper stretching routines.

walk

Since it’s so nice now, I’ve been out on morning walk pretty much every weekday! The only day that we don’t get a walk in now is usually Sunday (assume all other days isn’t rainy) but we’ve agreed that we might have to start going for walks on Sundays too. Now that we’re used to it, we noticed that we both get quite restless if we don’t get some physical activity in. So much for a “lazy” day!

ballet

Well, I was really bummed that the summer ballet class (and previously the spring class) was cancelled due to the pandemic. It’s not the same doing ballet on carpet at all and I felt like I’m getting lazy due to that in terms of technique, so I wasn’t doing ballet often anymore. Then I get frustrated because I don’t want to go back into the studio and do everything worse than before! So my solution is to find beginner videos so I can focus on doing stuff properly even if I feel it’s going slower than I want. I did do a few beginner barre videos, and trying to find new channels I haven’t done which makes it fun as they’ll do things slightly differently than I’ve tried before!

Volleyball

Well here’s a new one! I’ve started practicing volleyball! Have I ever been interested in volleyball or played? NOPE! In fact, I hated the sport in grade school when forced to play it in gym class. But I’ve turned over a new leaf and am trying to find something new to enjoy! I bought a $5 volleyball at the store, and then played around for a few minutes for a couple days before looking up a few YouTube videos. It’s a little hard for me because I don’t have any specific goal in mind, since I’m not trying to better any specific skills or make a team, but it’s still fun! I’ve been able to bounce the ball using my arms a few times (I don’t know what that’s called yet) and practiced setting one day (I watched a YouTube video on how to do it) so I’m making progress little by little!

Garden

This one is it’s own category now! The little garden is coming along great! I did the Garden Tour recently but might have to do an end of the season tour later. Since the video/post, we’ve started to see the tomatoes growing, gotten quite a bit of lettuce, added a few more items, and in general continued to hope that we’ll get more goodies! Next year we want to get more lettuce plants, preferably adding green lettuce plants, and then moving the carrots into the enclosed area if they grow to protect from the wild bunnies. We’re not sure if we’ll continue to try brussel sprouts because they don’t look like they’re doing too well, but we’re still waiting until the end of this season to decide. This year is definitely the most ambitious we’ve gotten with the garden so we’re learning a ton. And my dad is just so excited that I’m showing so much interest in the garden that he’s super supportive of me trying stuff out!

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So that’s all my updates on my hobbies this month! Let me know what you’ve been up to. Restrictions are lightening up in Illinois where I am, and I think they are in most places now but I’m still mostly at home, so I’m still hoping to have packed Lively posts in the future!

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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