Hello everyone! Today, I wanted to share all the fun stuff I’ve been up to in March. This will be hobby-focused, with updates on the books I’ve read, movies I’ve watched, and more!
A lot of times I sit down to write this post and wonder how I’m going to provide an update when I haven’t really “done anything” lately. Then, I’ll look at my bullet journal, where I track all my activities, and I realize that there’s a lot to talk about! I really need to give myself more credit. Here’s what I’ve been up to!
My Lively
Creative Fun
Music
I have a music update! So my library started a fun new activity called “Mixtape Mondays”, where they teach us to use Garageband. If you’re familiar with Apple products, Garageband is an app that comes included with your Apple device that lets you make music. I’d never really explored it but I did have a curiosity about it so I signed up for the activity. It was so fun! Garageband is actually pretty easy so I really enjoyed it, and even played around with it afterwards again too. My “songs” are a hot mess, but it is SO FUN! My first song started as what I would describe as a whacky lofi song but ended up sounding more like a whacky space adventure cinematic masterpiece. Okay, masterpiece is a stretch but still! The second one was more of a war between every instrument I added in LOL. But it’s a really fun way to spend an evening, even if I just create a ton of garbage!
Bujo
Omg, I’m so excited to share this update because… I found friends IRL who bullet journal! So at my last tai chi class this past weekend I chatted with a few of the other regulars and it turns out they had recently done a bullet journal class through the library. I had seen it but since I already bullet journal and it didn’t really compel me to join in. Now I wish I had because one of them had her bujo and it looked like the learned a lot! So I figured I’d likely do the class if it’s offered again and we all resolved to bring our bujos to the next tai chi class so we can share how we each do it and get ideas from each other. For example, I shared that I use a different color pen for each month but someone else uses a different pen for personal stuff versus work stuff while someone else doesn’t bother to use pens for a specific purpose, she just uses whatever she has on hand. We also all tend to go for simple layouts and spreads, unlike the Pinterest stuff we see! So it’s nice to see other low-key bujos.
Anyway, March has been much more fun with the bujo since I’ve actually done activities out of the norm for me! It always makes it more exciting to dedicate a page to something new. I also have been much more invested in it because of my hectic work load this past month. I’ve been working a bit extra lately as there’s just so much to do, so using my bullet journal to unwind is also nice. My bujo is mostly personal, and work only gets a tiny space amongst the monthly spreads. For me, I love that as it reminds me that my life is not work, work is only a small portion of my life and thus does not get too much space in my journal and should not get too much space in my mind. Even though I love my job, it’s my priority when I’m at my desk during work hours and then not at all the rest of the time (although I’d love if my dream self would understand that too!).
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 13 books.
- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, 3.75 stars
- Cobra II by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, 3.75 stars
- How to Be Perfect by Michael Schur, 4 stars
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson, 4 stars
- Out of Office by Charlie Warzel and Anne Helen Petersen, 3 stars
- Things We Lost to the Water by Eric Nguyen, 3.25 stars
- The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villaviencio, 4.5 stars
- House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J. Maas, 4.75 stars
- Verity by Colleen Hoover, 4.75 stars
- How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue, 4.5 stars
- Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam, 3.75 stars
- The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman, 5 stars
- Woolly by Ben Mezrich, 4 stars
These books will be featured in an upcoming Ten Mini Book Reviews!
Movies
I started the month with the film Midnight at Magnolia. It’s a Netflix romcom, and so fun! The idea is that there is a pair of friends who have cohosted a radio show together for years. They finally get a chance to take their local Chicago radio show to the national level, and part of the reason they are being considered is because of their hyped up Christmas show, where they will reveal their significant others to their families. But when their significant others break up with them right before the show, they decide they will fake a relationship with each other instead. I’m sure you can see where this is going and it was such a fun, sweet film!
I also watched Into the Woods on Disney+. Well I say I watched it, it was playing in the background as I was busy blogging, but I did enjoy the parts I did watch! I should actually watch the whole thing soon. It was such a fun film though, I loved how it all came together mixing up the different stories.
The final film was the documentary More Than Robots on Disney+. The film follows four different teams competing in the 2020 FIRST robotics competitions. I became acquainted with FIRST through my job, as I work in event planning, and I really loved the idea of robotics being turned into a sort of sporting event. Even though that sounds exciting already, the lessons the FIRST teaches extend past competition, and wants to focus on teaching the students to cooperate as well. Anyway, I don’t think it was the best documentary and I do think it could have been a lot better. But I think a big reason for it was because the 2020 season was cancelled right before the big championship event. They did still get a bit of the LA regional event so there was still some excitement but it’s always a downer when the documentary has to end with the cancelled season. Even so, it was really cool to see the season from the team’s perspective and to see teams from LA, Japan, and Mexico City prepare for the competition they should have had. I have a ton more thoughts on this so it will be shared in a future movies recap post!
TV Shows
The usual shows, Madam Secretary, Gilmore Girls, and Schitt’s Creek have all been playing nonstop again!
I have continued watching Love is Blind though. I’m about halfway through season 2 and watching the couples meet the families and about to start prepping for their weddings. Honestly, I hate season 2! None of these couples are interesting to me and I think they are all very poorly matched. If any of them actually get married I’m expecting a divorce before the reunion. Also, I have gotten some spoilers, which is fair since I’m mega behind anyway. But a big part of the reason for it is because this season featured people from Chicago. Since I’m always on Chicago TikTok (I live in the Chicago suburbs!) that means I eventually get spoiled. Ah well! But either way, I really don’t think the couples from this season are relationship goals and I actually find them quite aggravating to watch, so I’m not enjoying it. I’ll make it through, but my official prediction is no one will get married lol.
Musicals & Concerts
OMG I have one for this one! I saw the musical Hadestown recently! I did a full review that I’ve linked there, so read it if you’re interested. But wow, it felt so good to go to a musical again! It seems crazy that I used to go to see shows so often and this time it was about two years since I’d seen one. In fact, I think I was a few days off from the exactly two years mark. And I’m so glad this was the show that I saw first. I’ve wanted to watch Hadestown for such a long time, so I’m really glad I got the chance now. It really was an amazing show and I loved that I saw it with some amazing people (my sister and her two awesome roomies) along with the fact that it was in one of my favorite Chicago theatres.
Podcasts/Youtube
I’m combining these categories because most of the podcasts I listen to are on YouTube too, so then I struggle to decide where to put them. Here’s the podcasts I’ve been enjoying!
- Ladies & Tangents
- NPR’s Up First
- NPR Politics
- Pod Save the World
- Not Too Deep
- The Sip with Ryland Adams and Lizzie Gordon
- This Might Get Weird
- The Morning Toast
As you can see, it’s a lot of political pods as well as pop culture/fun pods! I, like many others, felt the need to be educated on the events in Ukraine this month, so I turned to the tried and true pods I love for things like that. But also I did need some lighthearted moments!
For YouTube in general, I’ve been sticking to videos that are more lowkey home vlogs, financial videos, and ACNH island tours. Same as always! I’ve also added in some book reviews though for books that I’ve read that have stayed with me lately.
Video Games
Okay, so now video games! First up is Life is Strange: True Colors. I did a whole review for this game and it’s the post that went up right before this one! (It’s not posted yet so I don’t have the link at the time of writing this!) I really, really enjoyed this game and there was a ton more I could say that I didn’t even include in the post, since it was just so long already! But I was really moved by the game and the story, so I am so happy I finally got to play it.
I also have been playing a bit of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I’m super behind on this, as I don’t play too often so I have to time travel a lot. Right now I am about two weeks behind! But when I do play I have been focusing on redecorating villager houses on my island. My goal was to make them more cozy and match the animal a bit more. At first I didn’t think I would change them too much but for some of them I really did change up quite a bit! I wish we could give them a second floor though, but ah well!
Active Life
Tai Chi
As I mentioned earlier, I did tai chi again this month! I actually had a slight headache most of the day, which I attribute to the hectic work week I’d had as well as the fact that I hadn’t been drinking enough water. Anyway, I considered skipping, because it was such a grey and rainy day on top of the headache. But it wasn’t snowing and I only do tai chi once a month so I forced myself up and out of the house. And it was amazing! I completely forgot about the headache soon after the start of class and I had a great time. Plus, I met my other tai chi people with their bujos that I mentioned earlier!
walks
I have gotten a ton more walks in! The weather is hit or miss most days, but when it’s nice I slap a harness on the dog and off we go! He hates it and I have a great time, so I’m thinking I might have to start ditching him at home because he’s such a baby about it and brings down the vibe. But he’s chunky and it’s good for him so he does still need to go at least once a day! If it was up to me, we’d go at least three times a day.
ballet
I’ve skipped a few classes this month but we did reach the end of our winter session and started our spring session! We had a great time in the winter session and since none of us were new, we were able to get some pretty complex combos to work on as we went on. For the spring session, we have new people so it’s nice to go back to basics for awhile! There were three new people at the first class of the new session, so that was nice. When we arrived one of the new dancers had a moment of panic when she saw I had my yoga mat with me but I assured her that there were extra if she didn’t have hers or didn’t want to bring it in the future and we don’t always use them. We also started chatting a bit and she was so excited because she was happy she’d already made a new friend before the start of the class! We discovered we’re close in age too and compared our “big three” signs in our birth charts. It’s great! Anyway, the three new people were really happy when they saw a bunch of us returning to class were welcoming and fun. It’s honestly so scary starting something new, and we’ve all been there, so it’s really important to us to welcome new people to the class and encourage them.
So that’s what I’ve been up to lately! Let me know what hobbies you’ve been enjoying lately!
Thanks for reading!
Pamela
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