Update aka I'm back!!

Hello everyone! I'm finally back from my almost two month hiatus! I've definitely missed blogging but my hiatus was not remotely unproductive. Here's why:

1. As I mentioned in my last update, my boyfriend and I remodeled my kitchen. For future reference, I do not suggest remodeling your own kitchen no matter how easy IKEA furniture is to put together. Especially when you're two 24 year olds with full time jobs who have no actual contracting experience beyond just being fairly handy with tools. We ran into a bunch of random problems but after four weeks, it came out awesome and even more importantly, everything functions just as it's supposed to.

We went from this partially demolished horrible-ness:

(I should mention that my grandparents moved into this house in the 70s. Aside from the countertop which my uncle installed sometime in the 80s and the appliances, this was the kitchen that came with the house.)

To this loveliness:

All that's left is to tile the backsplash with the really pretty tiles I picked out. I tried to do it myself but I ended up cracking tiles in attempt to cut outlet holes. Oops.

 

 

2. If you live in the US and have a local BN that you frequent, you might have heard of the Get Pop Cultured Summer that was a three week long line-up of different events. As an employee of my local BN, I was thrust right in the middle of preparing/ running some of the events in it. Here's some stuff that made for it:

Several 3D snowflakes of varying sizes, an Olaf for our Pin the Carrot on Olaf game, and an ice palace for Elsa which was basically the same height as me all for our Frozen Friday event which had an insane turn out. The kids had fun though and I had fun making stuff for it.

 

 

 

I also did a Batman story time and got to dress up as Luna for our Page to Screen weekend. Sorry, I was not wearing a wig. I don't think I'd make a very good blonde. It's good to have fun at work sometimes.

 

What I was not remotely productive about this summer was reading. I started reading Code Name Verity at the beginning of July for a book club I'm in but I never got past page 50. What's worse is I'm a mod for that book club. Oops again. I'm not usually one to DNF a book but this was my second time trying to read it. I know, people really love this book but maybe I was just too busy or too tired (I barely slept most of July) to get into it.

Oh well, third time's a charm, yeah?

 

Before my hiatus, I meant to write a review of Eleanor and Park but it's not fresh enough in my mind anymore for me to do it justice. I will say that I whole heartedly loved the book and I need a sequel or at least a movie to tide me over until a sequel is written because that last line... not cool. I was fully expecting to flip the page and see another chapter.

I need to know what was said!!!

Anywho, I'm back on my regular trek through books now so expect reviews and other bookish fun to come! Also, anyone know of some good layout sites? I'm looking to get an original layout done. I'd do it myself but I'm mediocre at best with my knock off photo editing program and I basically suck at HTML/CSS. I have someone in mind but it's a little over my price range. I'm open to any suggestions =)