It’s the best time of the year! | December Favorites ’20

It’s the day after Christmas and it feels weird. It always feels weird on this day, augh.

So today I’m gonna talk about my fave things this month to make me feel less weird!

Food and Drink

• Kujo beer – it’s a dark one and it’s been one I’ve gravitated towards the past few weeks
• Chocolate oranges – It’s been like a decade since I’ve had one of these, but I got a couple in my stocking yesterday!
• Irish Cream Cold Brews – my current drink of choice at SB
• S’mores snack mix – This is technically my husband’s food but he’s been kind enough to share. My parents got this for him in his stocking
• Breakfast egg bake – I have this every year Christmas morning at my grandmother or aunt’s house, but because the plague is around, I made one myself this year. I used turkey bacon as the meat. To be honest, I slightly overbaked it, but it still came out pretty decent
• Charcuterie board! – My husband’s bday was at the beginning of the month so I made this for him!
• Chocolate cookies with oreo bits – I made a lot of homemade cookies this year but I also made a store bought – these. And I gotta say the store-bought dough was way better than mine (wah).

Music

It’s literally ‘Music’ by Nightwish. This isn’t a newly discovered song, so it doesn’t fit in a Music Monday, but it’s one I’ve been listening to a lot recently and I love it. Give it a listen.

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And that’s it! Tomorrow, my 10 in 2021 list! My blogmas is still chuggin’ along.

Seasonal Favorites aka the best time of the year | #3

Today is the final installment of my seasonal favorites posts! If you’re interested, you can see part 1 and part 2 here.

Food

Irish Cream Cold Brew from Starbucks – Man, I’ve been living off these things. They. Are. Delicious. I’ll be sad when they’re gone.

Rooibos tea – I think this has made my faves list before, back when I did them as a normal monthly thing. It’s my favorite tea ever, perfect year round

Cookies – These are the cookies that Meredith @Allboutthembooksandstuff sent me! I’ve been munching on them since they got here earlier this week, and it’s making my tummy jiggle extra. Whoops

Crunchy Cookie butter – see above for what it’s doing to my tummy, yo.

Games

Terraria – (game play trailer above). I’ve been playing this for years, but this past month I’ve really jumped back into it. It’s kinda like… Minecraft? But way better, man.

Other Stuff

Weighted blanket – my husband kindly got me a weighted blanket for Christmas this year. As you can see I’ve already forfeited ownership of it to the cat. It was good while it lasted.

Phipps’ Winter Lights Show – Phipps Convervatory in Pittsburgh decks out its greenhouse every year with Christmas decorations, resulting in essentially a wonderland. Really, it’s gorgeous. If you’re ever in Pittsburgh during December, it’s worth going, man.

Not so subtle plug to my instagram, but here are the rest of the photos I took there too, if you’re interested

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And that’s it! This was a fun series, and I hope to do it again next year! For now, we’ve got the boring part of the year to look forward to. Until next August when it starts to get fun again. 😛

June Favorites ’15

New kind of post for me. I’ve seen a few of these posts on various blogs and youtubes, and I decided that I like them. These will be book and not book related things – I want to branch out a bit, I think. This is my way of doing it. I noticed a lot of favorites posts have a bunch of cosmetics and stuff in them. I’m not a make-up person, so that will be minimal on mine. There will be some skin-care stuff, but that’s about it. Oh, and nail polish. There will be that. But mostly, in these posts, you can expect from me things to do with books, movies, music, video games, skin care, nail polish, food, and anything else random I decide is worthy of mentioning. I’ll have the book stuff in its own section so if that’s all you’re interested in reading about, you’ll easily be able to find it all and skip over the rest.

Also, this first favorites post will probably be a lot, lot longer than the future ones. Consider it a back log, I suppose.
Thanks for reading!

Book Stuff

My first current obsession is still Clash of Kings by George RR Martin. Yes, I’m still reading it. Shit’s dense, man. This book I think I’m liking a lot more than the first one, and I rated that one 5 stars, so… needless to say I’m loving this one. I’m already on the look out for obtaining the third book. Want it. Want.

The other is The Martian by Andy Weir. I’m actually listening to this one on audiobook, and it is fantastic. I looove it. Aside from the humor, my favorite part I feel is the amount of research that Andy Weir put into the book – the chemistry and physics and all of that. He goes into detail about how every little thing works, but it does so in an entertaining and humorous way. So if you haven’t read or listened to this yet, do so.

The other other obsession is No. 6 by Atsuko Asano. This one I would not have picked up at all had it not been lent to my by a friend. It’s a manga about a boy who grows up in a futuristic ‘perfect city’ that in reality is anything but. It’s a story about lies brought to light. I’m two volumes in, I believe it’s nine volumes long. I have 3 and 4 sitting on my shelf waiting to be read, so I’ll be jumping into those pretty quickly. The art for one is beautiful, and the characters I feel are likable even though they’ve only had two volumes so far to develop.
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Other Stuff

Foods

There are a few foods/drinks/etc I’ve been obsessing over this month. Some of them are gonna be silly. :”D They are:

Bailey’s Chocolatini Coffee Creamer and Roaster’s Alley Coffee: Kona Blend – particularly these two things together, but they’re also super good when with other coffees/creamers, too.

Pure Main Maple Syrup straight from Maine. A friend went there on vacation and brought me back this stuff. Normally I despise maple syrup – I’m much more of a jelly on pancakes person, but uuugh this stuff is fantastic. I looove it.

Yoohoo Candy Bars – another gift from friendy from Maine. I had no idea these exist and I neeeed to find where I can get more – mine is almost gone. 😦 It’s so delicious. I want more.

Games

This is the section I’m most looking forward to 😀

I play a good bit of video games, but the two I’ve been hooked on this month are Cook, Serve Delicious and Europa Universalis IV. They’re kinda polar opposites as far as complexity gameplay and plot go, but they’re both oodles of fun!

Europa Universalis IV is a strategy simulation game where you create an empire and essentially try to dominate by various means – diplomatic, war, trade, so on. It’s a very, very involved game with a steep learning curve, but it’s so much fun once you’re used to it. If you’re a fan of Sid Meier’s Civilization series, I’d say try this one out too.

Cook, Serve, Delicious is essentially a restaurant game. You’re a chef trying to improve your restaurant through serving better foods, completing catering events, passing safety inspections – this one is a much more casual playing game and can be picked up quickly and easily. It starts you off slow and it gets harder as you progress. My restaurant is currently 2 stars, and I think I’m only a day or so away from earning my third.

Movies

I watched two movies in theaters this month and fell in love with one additional one from Netflix. So I’m just gonna link their trailers. You’ll have heard of most of them I’m sure.

Music

The genre I listen to the most is symphonic metal. Do you listen to it? Recommend me some bands! Do you not listen to it? Try it, maybe you’ll like it! These are a couple of the songs I’ve been listening to a lot this month:

Television

There have been four shows I’ve been watching this month. Inuyasha, which has shown up on Netflix for the first time, which is GREAT :D, Orange is the New Black, X-Files in prep for the new season coming out, and Archer. Trailers for all follow:

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Aaaand that’s all she wrote! For this month, anyways. Next month’s post will be shorter. Monthly reading wrap-up will be posted within the next couple days or so. Happy reading!