Hello everyone! Today’ I’m sharing all the fun bobbies I’ve been up to this month!

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I did quite a bit this month now that I think about it, so here we go!

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My Lively

Creative Fun

Writing

This month I joined a writing group! Well, sort of. My library decided to start a writing group so I signed up. They had one before the pandemic but it was community organized, not library organized. They never started up again after the pandemic, so the library did their own. So far… I’m the only one who signed up! It’s a little sad as I do wish it was more of a group but I think it’s a mix of the pandemic and also it was super cold that day, which in the Chicagoland area, it is a big deterrent. The librarian is hoping we get more people as the weather gets better and we can maybe go outside where people are more comfortable, as well as just advertising it more!

Anyway, I started working on a short story! The prompt we picked during the writing group was “what is your character’s biggest fear?” so I decided to start writing a new short story centered around Sam, the main character who is afraid of bridges. I think the way I decided to approach the story changed at least five times during the first two paragraphs. Was Sam afraid of bridges because she’d fallen into a lake when pushed off a bridge as a child? Was Sam in a fantasy land and had been traumatized after an encounter with a troll who lived under a bridge? Was Sam walking or driving across said bridge? It was a lot of fun to rapidly decide and continue on writing.

Bujo

I started a new bullet journal this month! I still really enjoy bullet journaling, although I’ll admit it was harder than I expected to set it up. But even so, it’s going pretty well! I do think the fact that I have a lot less pages than I did last year is a bit more stressful than I originally thought it’d be, and I notice I’m hesitant to use full spreads for one thing as opposed to last year. But, I also am more mindful with what I record so I think it’ll balance out anyway.

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.

• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear, 3.25*
• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, 5*
• The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, 4.25
• Declutter Like a Mother: A Guilt-Free, No-Stress Way to Transform Your Home and Your Life by Allie Casazza, 3.5
• The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan, 3.75
• Full Out: Lessons in Life and Leadership from America’s Favorite Coach by Monica Aldama, 4.5

* Indicates this book was reviewed in Ten Mini Book Reviews Pt. 17

Movies

The first film I watched this month was Betty White: First Lady of Television on Netflix. I believe it’s been removed from Netflix since I watched it though. It was crazy since I watched the first half of the movie one night and the next morning news broke about how Betty White had passed away. I had started the film because I honestly didn’t know much about Betty White, so I wanted to learn more before her 100th birthday that had been hyped up. I did finish the film this month finally, I thought it was a lovely overview of her life.

I watched Encanto again this month! This one is on Disney+ and I’m low-key obsessed.

The next film I watched was Home Again on Netflix. At work, a few of us have a team movie club going! We pick a movie each week and then say we’ll talk about it but we hardly ever do since we’re so busy! But it’s still fun to watch a film together and chat about it for maybe 5 minutes before we have to focus again. Anyway, this was a coworker’s pick and we all really liked it! The movie is about a woman who is separated from her husband and moves to LA with her two daughters from New York. After a night out gets a bit out of control, she ends up with three young artists living in her guest house. It’s so fun and cute!

The last film for this month is my movie club pick, Falling Inn Love, also on Netflix. I’m quite happy with my pick honestly. I picked it because we work with a lot of hotels and so I figured the inn in the movie would be a fun little nod to our work. The film follows a young American woman who applies to a contest to win an inn after a terrible week culminates to her losing her job and her boyfriend. She moves from San Francisco to New Zealand only to discover the beautiful, picturesque inn she thought she won is actually run down and in need of repairs. Of course, the only town handyman who can help her is the handsome, single guy that she just happened to offend during their first encounter who is also emotionally closed off and has a very sad past! I’m sure you can predict the end from there but I thought it was still a cute little ending!

TV Shows

Per usual, my comfort shows of Gilmore Girls, Madam Secretary, and Schitt’s Creek are making an appearance here. I am in season three of all of these shows, funnily enough. Recent standout moments for Schitt’s Creek include David and Stevie getting robbed, David throwing Joceyln a baby shower, and Alexis trying out for the town musical. I would say Madam Secretary is just delightful all around. And Gilmore Girls is gearing up for Lorelei opening her own inn so that’s a very exciting time! While I’m still not a huge fan of Rory and Jess together, I’m not a huge fan of Rory and Dean together either so that’s fine.

I finished season two of Cheer on Netflix too! I did a little review for it linked there. I won’t go too in depth on it since I did that review but I was thrilled to see the new season of the show! I wish they had focused on Navarro instead of adding TVCC and it was sad how the 2020 season ended, along with the scandal that came from one of the featured cheerleaders of season one. I had also already spoiled who won/lost but it was still really interesting to see the journey that Navarro had leading up to Daytona. Plus, since I didn’t watch the routines ahead of time, I didn’t know what to expect from that portion of the show anyway, so it was still interesting.

I watched a bit more of Selling Tampa on Netflix. It was pretty cool! I still have to watch episode eight but so far the show is pretty cool. I do think that part of the reason that I’m not enjoying it as much as Selling Sunset is because this show only has one season, where Sunset had four already up and ready for me to watch. Plus, Tampa is still establishing itself, unlike Sunset, which was already a successful group when the show started up.

The last show I started this month is Netflix’s reboot of Rebelde. I watched random episodes of the previous Mexican version and so far I don’t think this one is anywhere near as good, but I’ll admit I’m biased with nostalgia! I honestly thought it was going to be like a remake though, so my expectations were way off. This show features all new characters at Elite Way School that are coming up in the shadows of the successful RBD. I’m going to give it a fair shot, but honestly I’d rather watch the past Rebelde and I would have if Netflix hadn’t taken it down!

Active Life

Yoga

As always, January is dedicated to Yoga with Adriene. This year’s theme is “move” and I’m really liking it! I’m planning a full post next month about this year’s experience so I won’t go on too much about it but I am loving the shorter practices (at least, I think they are shorter than usual) and how active they are. Right now as I write, there was a really short 12 minute practice that was hard core ab work and my abs are still sooooo sore! I’m also dealing with a sore shoulder though, and I’m not sure if that one is due to the yoga or my ballet class which started up again. More on that one in a bit!

walk

It’s been hard to walk lately because it’s full on winter here in northern Illinois! We’ve had plenty of days with negative temperatures and my little dog is so restless due to lack of walks. I have taken him a few days when it’s warm enough but those days are few and far between now so he only gets 2-3 walks a week now. I’ll have to make up for it when spring arrives!

ballet

My ballet class has started up again! We ended up with eight people (max is ten) this time, which was cool! Five of us are the regulars, two of them are returners from the last session, and one is new to our class! I think she was surprised at how rowdy we all were, immediately asking each other about what we’d been up to since the last session and being generally crazy excited to see each other but she did say she was hoping to make friends so I think she was also reassured that we were so nice and made it a fun environment. We do actively try to be welcoming when new people sign up so hopefully that came across!

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So that’s my update to my hobbies! Come back for my next post on the 30th for more about my recent presentation about my blog, how book club went, and a recap at my dog’s “graduation” from his training class!

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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