Hello everyone! Today I’m sharing all the fun hobby updates I have for May!

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I can’t believe how quickly BirthMay has passed by! Anyway, I have a ton of really fun updates, so let me get right into it!

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My Lively

Creative Fun

DIYs

I had the absolute pleasure to attend two DIY nights at my local library! The first was a spring wreath. It was so fun! I don’t think my wreath was necessarily the best but it was a ton of fun to make. Our librarian said she worries she does too many wreaths but we reassured her that we LOVE to make wreaths. Honestly they are the fan favorites! The second was a dried flowers hanging DIY. This one was great in theory but I just didn’t like mine at all! I was so disappointed how it came out! So I already took it apart and reused the dried flowers/grasses I used in a mini vase to give my office a bit of a lake house theme. So much better!

Bookstagram – StarringPamelaReads

So I started a Bookstagram this month! I did it on a whim, really. If you’re bookish at all, please give me a follow at StarringPamelaReads! I wrote a whole post about this so far so I won’t go on about it too much but so far it’s fun and I am greatly enjoying it!

Bujo

I’ve had a lot to add to my bujo! Seeing as how it’s my birth month and I’ve been able to do a ton of things, there were many new pages. I love to take time around my birthday to reflect on how the past year has gone and how I hope the next year goes. BirthMay also takes more space to plan out, as I need to plan for 31 posts versus the usual 8-9 posts. There has just been a lot to put into my bullet journal and I’m so glad for that since I finally have used up more pages that went unused in previous months.

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.

Also, I started a Bookstagram! Feel free to follow me at StarringPamelaReads!

This month I read 18 books. These books bring my total for 2022 so far to 59 books read (you’ll see that Taste technically counts as two as I read it in two formats). My goal is 65 so looks like I’m way ahead of schedule!

• An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States: ReVisioning American History by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz with Laural Merlington (Narrator), 4.5 stars
• Land of Big Numbers by Te-Ping Chen, 3.75 stars
• The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale, 4.25 stars
• At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop with Anna Moschovakis (Translator), 3.75 stars
• Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters #2) by Tessa Bailey, 3.75 stars
• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton with (Narrators) Janina Edwards, Bahni Turpin, James Langton, Andre De Shields, Dennis Boutsikaris, Steve West, and Gabra Zackman, 4.75 stars
• Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert, 4.5 stars
• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, 5 stars
• Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu, 4 stars
• Taste by Stanley Tucci (this one counts as two since I did add both the hardcover and the audiobook into my Storygraph), 4 stars
• Matrix by Lauren Groff, 3.75 stars
• Signs of the Zodiac: A Modern Guide to the Age-Old Wisdom of the Stars by Carlota Santos, 4 stars
• Dog Training 101: Step-By-Step Instructions for Raising a Happy Well-Behaved Dog by Kyra Sundance, 3.5 stars
• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, 4 stars
• Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover, 4.25 stars
• Crossroads (A Key to All Mythologies #1) by Jonathan Franzen, 3.25 stars
• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, 4.5 stars

Movies

The first film I watched was The Lizzie McGuire Movie on Disney+. It came up at work and I had a coworker who kept singing the “Hey Now” song snippet from TikTok back at the online university so I decided it was perfect to watch one weekend. Can I just say how insane it is that these kids are middle school graduates? I swear, I always think they’re high school graduates! Anyway, I already did a post reviewing this film so I won’t go on about it much longer but it’s so funny how a bunch of middle schoolers went on an international field trip with only one chaperone. How funny!

The next film I watched was also on Disney+, the fabulous Lilo & Stitch. Fun fact, Stitch was always one of my top dog names for when I eventually got a dog. I ended up keeping Fox’s name, but he would have been a great “Stitch” considering how ill-behaved he was at first too! He’s a much better dog now, thank goodness. Back to the film. I adore this movie so much. It’s so fun, beautiful, emotional, and nostalgic. I really love this film and I can honestly recite a huge portion of the film by heart still, even though I don’t watch it very often!

The next two I’ll mention together as they have the same name, The Parent Trap! The Lindsey Lohan film came up during one of the aforementioned crafting sessions and I saw it pop up on Disney+ so I hit play! It was so funny! I loved the entire thing, honestly. How crazy that Annie both cut her hair AND pierced her ears though??? Poor girl had to do so much just to meet her dad. Also, it’s insane that Annie’s mom sent her to an American camp from England, right? ALSO WHO SPLITS UP TWINS LIKE THAT??? Was the conversation literally “you take one and I’ll take the other, okay bye”??? Pure insanity. Justice for the twins and justice for Chessy. Why Chessy? I don’t know, I just know she needs justice. And another thing, Meredith was literally 26 trying to be a step-mom?? I can’t image. Anyway, the entire thing was just fun.

I also started the older version of The Parent Trap. I haven’t finished it yet but I did want to mention them together as it was just too wild that I didn’t know there was an original, older version out there. Basically the same craft session when we were talking about it we had a wild conversation that went something like this:

“And you know the original version of The Parent Trap?”

“It Takes Two? The Olsen twins one?”

“No, the original.”

“The Lindsey Lohan one?”

“No, there’s another one.”

“Another one? Like, not the Olsen twins and not Lindsey Lohan???”

And that’s how that went! So I still have to finish the film, but it’s fun so far!

TV Shows

As per usual, I’ve watched Madam Secretary, Gilmore Girls, and Schitt’s Creek. How sad is it that Schitt’s Creek is leaving Netflix though? At least the best clips regularly show up on my TikTok FYP! I did finish this last rewatch of Schitt’s Creek right before it announced it was leaving, so thank goodness I did. Another favorite I restarted is Community. I think it’ll fill the void quite nicely!

I did start season two of The 100. I didn’t get very far because I hadn’t posted about season one yet and didn’t want to get confused when it was time to talk about season one. But now, full steam ahead! Thoughts on season one are in my most recent TV Shows I’ve Watched Recently post. I did really like the idea and plot of the show but it felt almost a bit too rushed for me, especially at the end of the season.

I also caught up on Selling Sunset and watched the reunion. I talked about this one in my most recent TV Shows post so I won’t get into it too much but it was almost too much drama! I just was getting so annoyed with how obsessed all the women were with Christine! But there was plenty else going on so I enjoyed watching it.

I also watched Get Organized with The Home Edit. I also talked about that one in the TV Shows post! I thought it was cool, but I wish the focus was more on the “edit” and less on the “organized” or at least more balanced. There’s no doubt that the spaces do look gorgeous when they’re done though. I also really loved how beautiful their friendship is too. One of the hosts, Clea I believe, just started chemo for breast cancer, so I do wish her all the best in her treatment and I wish her a speedy recovery!

Music

I think the only shout out I have is “This Love (Taylor’s Version)”! I, like many Swifties, was hopeful we’d have another album release, hopefully 1989 but any of the remaining ones would be great! Unfortunately there wasn’t but I did love the new single.

YouTube/Podcasts

I don’t have any new podcasts to recommend this month but Ladies & Tangents has been exceptionally phenomenal recently! Other favorites are The Morning Toast, Full Coverage, and The Financial Diet. The one I’m moving away from a bit more is The Sip with Ryland Adams and Lizzie Gordon. I don’t know why but I’m just not vibing with it as much lately!

On YouTube I’ve been trying to find more Illinois based creators, but there aren’t too many that I’ve really connected with. Most that I find are living really fabulous lives in Chicago but I’m hoping for a more low-key Illinois vlogger. If you know of any, let me know! Other things I’ve looked up recently are videos on buying a home, personal investment, giving myself a haircut (I’m totally going to chicken out and just pay someone I think though), and other random fun things!

Video Games

I celebrated my birthday in Animal Crossing: New Horizons! I both am enjoying the game still but also keeping the play sessions quite short. I mostly only play on one character now, my main character, but I do want to redecorate some of the houses and have done a few layout changes.

I did buy the DLC for Life is Strange: True Colors recently so I can’t wait to play that!

Active Life

walk

I’m so excited to share my walking/hiking adventures this month! I have decided to make it a goal of mine to take my dog for a little hike in the many nature preserves near me. I took my pup on a walk to the Illinois Beach State Park, which is the beach preserve for Lake Michigan nearby. I also took him to a forest preserve that is kept by Lake County. He loved it! And so did I!

ballet

Ballet has been a blast lately! The class is full, but not everyone goes every week so we all have fun catching up. I actually had class on my birthday and the class sang happy birthday to me, which was so cute! Another dancer also brought a ton of cookies for me, which was so sweet of her!

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So that’s all my updates in regards to my various hobbies this month! I hope your month as as fun as mine!

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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