Hello everyone! So today I wanted to share all my updates on my hobbies this month.
These monthly wrap up posts are kind of tough to write because, well, when I blog daily I tend to share it all anyway! But I’m sure someone has missed some posts at least, or even all of them, so here’s the wrap up!
My Lively
Creative Fun
DIYs
I did a few DIYs from my library recently, which had been sitting there since last month. Honestly, I hope they go back to in person DIY nights again because the motivation to do them at home is not always there.
Bujo
I had a great time with my bullet journal this month! Probably because I had so much to share. I ended up adding things like a little welcome card I was sent from my new employer, my COVID vaccine sticker, and so on. I also used it as an opportunity to journal on my birthday, brainstorm a new book idea, and track my posts for BirthMay.
I did mess up a bit though. I thought I only had one blank spread left, so I jammed a few things onto one page elsewhere in my May pages. Turns out, I had two blank spreads so I am a little worried I won’t be able to fill up the pages after all! At the time of writing this, I still have no idea what to fill them with so they might end up becoming quote pages, which is always my go to when I am in desperate need of something to fill a page. Whoops!
Entertainment
Books
As always, I’m listing all the books I’ve finished since the previous Lively post below with their star ratings. All thoughts on them are saved for future (or even past!) Mini Book Review posts but those will be linked below if so. I won’t include any books that I didn’t finish although I’ll be sure to add them into the review posts.
This month I read 6 books. Ratings below are out of 5 stars.
- Ramblers in Cornwall by Arundhati Basu, 5 stars *
- As I Lay Dying by William Faulker, 2.5 stars *
- Written in Starlight by Isabel Ibanez, 4.5 stars
- Very, Very, Very Dreadful: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 by Albert Marrin, 3.5 stars
- City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare, 2.25 stars
- Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich by Norman Ohler, unrated because to be honest I’m still only halfway through it but I fully intend to finish it after writing this post because book club is this week!
* Indicates this book was reviewed in Ten Mini Book Reviews Pt. 11
Movies
The Hulu documentary, WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn. The documentary focuses on the company WeWork, which billed itself as a “tech” company that was really a weird real estate company, bordering on a cult. The idea was that the company rented office space and then in turn let remote employees or entrepreneurs rent desk space within the office. As the company grew in popularity they started to branch out into apartment rentals and even creating schools for children of WeWork employees and fans. The documentary mainly explored the leader of WeWork, Adam Neumann, and his influence over people through his company. It was very creepy to watch, especially knowing the outcome where WeWork basically falsified their financials to make it look like they were profitable when they were really spending way more money than they could ever hope to bring in. A few days after watching the documentary, the new CEO of the company did some interview about how remote work is horrible and that he knew people were itching to get back into offices. That made me laugh because I literally looked for a remote job until I found one!
TV Shows
I didn’t watch a ton of tv this month actually, but I did watch a few more episodes of 30 Rock. I’m still fairly early in season one I think, and I love how ridiculous the story lines are! Like the one where Liz thinks Tracy can’t read, Liz gets set up on a date with a woman, and Jack tries to be an actor on the show. It’s a really funny show but it is a bit older so some of the jokes are not perhaps the most “politically correct” in this day and age, so watch with caution if you’re easily offended.
YouTube
Recently I found the channel “Jen Yoga” on YouTube. I think the channel is similar to Yoga with Adriene, and I do really like it. I’ve lost a lot of motivation for yoga recently though, which is quite sad so I only did a few videos from Jen but the ones I did, I did find enjoyable. I think after a bit of a break from yoga I’ll want to try more of her videos.
I found YouTube to be an amazing resource for budgeting information. I recently blogged about my experience starting to seriously budget, and I found the most useful information here. Pinterest was a pretty good resource too but I found YouTube to be the best. I started my search by typing in phrases like “learning to budget” or “budgeting for beginners”. I also realized that some people did videos that were “budgeting at a $X salary” and that was really, really helpful too!
I recently did a massive unsubscription of YouTube channels. I realized that I was following channels mostly out of habit or “just in case” I felt like watching their videos. After a massive decluttering of physical items in my life, I felt that I needed to “declutter” my subscription feed! So I went through every channel and had a few criteria for unfollowing. One was, of course, abandoned channels. If I had followed but the channel was no longer uploading videos, I unfollowed. Two, involved me checking if I had watched any of their recent videos. For a lot of channels, I hadn’t been! Three, I would check if their content still interested me. I loved bullet journaling videos for a long time but found that I was quite bored with them after awhile. I also knew I wanted to move away from massive consumerism and high energy content so I unfollowed if the channels didn’t match the vibes I wanted to get from their content. My subscription feed is so much calmer and I am so happy I did all that.
One specific video I really enjoyed was from the Smoshcast channel called “Why Sarah is Leaving Smosh”. In my unsubscription spree, I ended up unsubscribing to all the Smosh channels because I just wasn’t enjoying them as much anymore. But I still follow some of the Smosh members on social media and saw that Sarah, one of the producers, was leaving and did a podcast about it. I thought I’d check it out and I really enjoyed it. I think it doesn’t make sense to recommend it to someone who isn’t a fan of Smosh already but I really loved the advice the Smosh team gave Sarah, Sarah’s thoughts on her work at Smosh, and the conversation they had regarding Sarah’s departure.
Podcasts
I have adored the podcast Musicalsplainin’. I think I mentioned it last time too but the idea is that there is one host who loves musicals and the other who hates them. The one who loves them introduces the plot of the musical to the other, they then watch the musical (in person prior to the pandemic and online after the pandemic started), and discuss their thoughts. It’s always so funny to hear their thoughts before and after the musical, and I really love their content! I did run out of musicals I’d seen that they’d talked about early on though, so I started listening to the ones about other shows that I want to see. It kind of sucks because then I get some spoilers but I don’t think I’ll see some of them for awhile yet so I think I’ll likely forget details by then.
Video Games
Of course I’ve been playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I think I’ve mentioned in a few posts now that I’m kind of losing interest in the game. There’s just not as much new stuff or as many special holidays to really keep my interest. The updates are also so few and far between too. Plus, the updates are so small too! I think since I’m working full time now I will play a lot less, but I’ll probably login so that I can at least see who the special visitor is daily.
Active Life
Yoga
I did do yoga at the start of the month but I’m taking a bit of a break from it! I just felt like I was getting bored, so I am taking a pause and will hopefully go back to it soon. As I mentioned, I did find Jen Yoga on YouTube so I do want to try some of her videos!
walk
It’s been so much nicer this past week, although most of May was chilly. Even so, I was able to go out and take a walk pretty often. I really miss my puppy niece though because she was the best part of daily walks!
ballet
I finished the spring session of ballet! It was a lot of fun and over the course we all got vaccinated. I wasn’t fully vaccinated by the last session, so I chose to keep my mask on but everyone else chose to forgo their mask. I already signed up for the summer session and we are excited for it already.
So that’s what I’ve been up to this month! Not as much as I thought there would be, but still enough for a good time.
Thanks for reading!
Pamela
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