Wrap Up|| December.

wrapup

Hey!

It’s the end of 2018, how has this happened already? So many things happened this year. So many good things, like the hubby getting a new amazing job! It’s been a great year, to be honest. I can’t think of anything that was that bad. As far as reading goes, I really thought I would have read more than I actually did. BUT…Christmas and all of that, it just took up a lot of my time and energy. I did manage to still read a good amount of books though and I read books off my December TBR besides one, which is good because I suck at sticking to TBRs. As much as I wanted to complete my December TBR, I didn’t get the chance to read them all, but there’s always next year. 😛

Anyway, onto the books that I read in December. You can find a full list of these books and the other books I read this year over here. All will be linked to Goodreads below and I will also link to individual blog posts for them if I did a review.

Physically Read Books:
These are the books that I read myself (not audiobooks) throughout the month of December.

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What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli, Adam Silvera – 5 out of 5 stars.
I freaking loved What If It’s Us so much. My heart, ahhh! This book was everything I hoped it would be. I laughed a lot, I cried a lot. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or how to feel with that ending though, ugh. This is a book that NEEDS to have a sequel, because I just can’t handle not ever reading about these characters again. I loved them so much.

The Next Person You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom – 5 out of 5 stars.
The Next Person You Meet in Heaven is the sequel to The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I loved the sequel so much. I pretty much cried throughout the entire book too. It was so good! Mitch Albom doesn’t usually disappoint me with his books and this sequel was everything I hoped it would be.

The Hating Game by – 2 out of 5 stars
I’ve been wanting to read The Hating Game for a really long time, but it ended up not being for me. It wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. It started out pretty good, but then it just got so boring. I found myself skimming the pages sometimes and just wishing to get to the end.

The Lost Sisters by Holly Black – 2 out of 5 stars.
I never really liked Taryn in The Cruel Prince and I definitely did not like Locke either. The Lost Sisters did not change my mind on how I felt about any of them, especially Taryn. The story itself was okay, but I am still not a fan of those two.

The Extinction Trials by – 3 out of 5 stars.
I did a buddy read with Avery (Red Rocket Panda) of The Extinction Trials. It’s said to be a mix between The Hunger Games (I swear all books say this lol) and Jurassic Park. I thought the book was a lot of fun to read and it was pretty fast paced. It did lack some things though, like detail and character development. The ending was a bit weird too and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I still want to read the sequel though, because I did mostly enjoy it.

Bird Box by Josh Malerman – 4 out of 5 stars.
There is so much hype surrounding the Bird Box movie and I didn’t want to be hit with spoilers (they are everywhere); posts, articles, memes, etc. I wanted to read the book first before watching. I’ve had the book on my Kindle for so long (at least a few years), so I finally decided to read it so that I could see what the hype was all about regarding the movie. I really liked the book a lot. The movie, not so much. I know movies & books are always different in some ways and I’m fine with that, but I felt like the movie was way too different with this one and it annoyed me to no end. I probably would have enjoyed the movie more had I not read the book first. The book though, I really liked it and I flew through it.


Audiobooks:
These are the books that I listened to the audio versions throughout the month of December.

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The Cruel Prince by Holly Black – 5 out of 5 stars.
I reread The Cruel Prince by listening to the audiobook this time around. I started the year with reading The Cruel Prince in January and I ended the year with reading it again. 😛 I loved the audiobook and my reread of the story just as much as when I read it myself the first time.


Currently Reading:
These are the books that I started to read in the month of December, but didn’t get a chance to finish them yet.

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The Wicked King by Holly Black

I started The Wicked King, but haven’t had the chance to finish it yet. Hopefully I’ll have it finished in the next week though and get my review posted shortly after. So far it hasn’t been as exciting as The Cruel Prince was. I was pretty much hooked right away when I was reading The Cruel Prince; not so much this one. Nothing is really happening that’s blowing me away yet. I’m about 30% into the book, so hopefully it starts picking up soon. It’s still good, but I guess I was hoping for more right at the start.

What books did you read in December? What are you currently reading? Feel free to link me to your wrap up posts.

I will be catching up with your posts and comments later this week and doing some updates to my blog for 2019 as well. I need to update and create some pages for 2019 books & challenges. I can’t believe December is practically over!

In case you missed it;
Book Haul|| December.
Christmas 2018.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Book Haul|| December.

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Hey!

I am just going to jump right into my December book haul. You can check out all the books I own over here. There’s also links on that page to pages for my kindle books and my physical books (pages need updated since it’s been a few months though). I actually have a lot of updating to the blog to do before January 1st, yikes! 😛

Physical Books I Bought:

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Exile by S.M. Wilson

I ordered Exile from Book Depository this month, but it most likely won’t be here until closer to the middle of January. It’s the sequel to The Extinction Trials, which I enjoyed reading. You’ll see more on that in my wrap up post.


Books Gifted on Christmas:

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Love & Luck by Jenna Evans Welsh
To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo
Gmorning, Gnight! by Lin-Manuel Miranda
Dot Journaling – A Practical Guide by Rachel Wilkerson Miller
Lettering and Modern Calligraphy by Paper Peony Press

The Dot Journaling book came in a boxed set with a bullet journal. I got a ton of bullet journal stuff for Christmas, because I am hoping to better manage my life next year haha. I’ve always wanted to try bullet journaling, so now’s my chance. I also got a cookbook for my new Instant Pot that I got for Christmas, which is cool. Andy’s parents also got us a Harry Potter cookbook as well. I am actually glad I got a few books for Christmas, because I swear my family never wants to buy me books for Christmas.


E-Books:

December was the month of e-book purchases. I bought so many e-books. I couldn’t resist all the good deals. I even had to hold back on a few, because I already got so many this month lol. I have been super stoked for all of these books, so the e-book sales were a win for me.

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Aftercare Instructions by Bonnie Popkin
Obscura by Joe Hart
A Quiet Genocide by Glenn Bryant
My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren

I’ve had Aftercare Instructions on my Goodreads TBR for so long now and I am glad I finally caught it on sale. My Favorite Half-Night Stand is one of my highly anticipated, so I am excited.

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Maybe Now by Colleen Hoover
Verity by Colleen Hoover
The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell
Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake
Munmun by Jesse Andrews

I plan to buy the Colleen Hoover books in paperback if I end up loving them. Maybe Someday is my favorite CoHo book of all-time, so I hope I love the sequel! Munmun sounds so weird, so I was pretty intrigued when I heard about that one…..“In an alternate reality a lot like our world, every person’s physical size is directly proportional to their wealth. The poorest of the poor are the size of rats, and billionaires are the size of skyscrapers.” Sounds interesting. I’m glad I finally caught it on sale.

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Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson
9 Days and 9 Nights by Katie Cotugno
Pride by Ibi Zoboi
The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman
Lincoln’s Last Trial by Dan Abrams, David Fisher

I’ve never actually read Lolita (I plan to at some point in 2019), but I love true crime. The Real Lolita is about the kidnapping that inspired the book Lolita. Lincoln’s Last Trial….Abraham Lincoln & true crime in one book? Yes, please!

What books did you get in December? Have you read any of the books that I got? Feel free to link me to your haul posts.

Wrap up coming soon. I might be able to finish one more book before the end of December. Let’s see what happens! 😛

In case you missed it;
Christmas 2018.

I hope you have a great day and weekend!

ashleyblack

Christmas 2018.

pictureupdate

Hey!

For Christmas this year were were able to go visit Andy’s parents. It had been a very long time since we’ve been able to have a Christmas with them. They live about 2-2.5 hours away from us. We left on Saturday morning and stayed until the afternoon of Christmas Day. We both had to work the next day, so we had to come home on Christmas.

On Saturday we went downtown to look at some Christmas decorations. Above are a couple of pictures that I took on the way to downtown. You have to drive over a bridge and the sun was starting to set, which was nice.

There are two houses downtown that put up a ton of Christmas decorations. Top two pictures are of one of the houses. For $5 you can go inside and see them all. I didn’t take a ton of pictures inside, because there was so just so much to see and I was pretty much living for everything. I did get a few though.

There were Christmas trees in every single room, it was pretty crazy and totally awesome! These above are some of the Christmas tree pictures that I was able to take and a few of my favorites.

These above are just some other random pictures that I took inside and out side of the houses. After we looked at the Christmas decorations, we went to get some food at 3 Pepper. It’s a Mexican restaurant. It was pretty good. No pictures though. I was starving and dived into my food right away.

After seeing the Christmas decorations and eating, we went back to the house and watched TV for awhile. I think I went to sleep pretty early every night we were there. I had a list of Christmas movies that I like to watch every Christmas, so we worked our way through my list of Christmas movies all weekend/Christmas. On Christmas Eve we had dinner and then Christmas Day we opened presents, had breakfast, and then ate Christmas “dinner” for lunch since we had to leave shortly after that. It was so a lot of fun and I’m glad we were able to spend Christmas with Andy’s family. Dax had a lot of fun being able to hangout with their pup Digby too.

Below are just a bunch of miscellaneous pictures that I took throughout the time we were there.

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We (Andy, his mom, and I) took the dogs on a walk around the neighborhood and the park that’s down the street from their house. These are all the pictures that I took on that walk. It was a really nice day out.

I seen a squirrel in the tree in Andy’s parents backyard and got pretty excited about that, because it was the perfect opportunity to try out my new zoom lens that Andy got me for Christmas. The squirrel was pretty vocal and basically screaming at my dog. HAHA. I think the pictures came out pretty great.

Andy’s parents have an orange tree in their back yard, which is always cool. We were able to pick some oranges to bring home with us. I had fun taking pictures of the tree. Left the orange picking to Andy, haha.

First picture is of Andy and I after we ate dinner of Christmas Eve. Second picture is just a random selfie of myself.

These last set of pictures are from a couple of weekends ago when we went to Lakeland to visit my friend. I figured I would include them as well.

Random view from her guest bedroom window on that Sunday morning. I’m a sucker for a pretty view, haha.

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We seen a house that had SO MANY Christmas lights and decorations, so I had to snap a picture. We also drove down another street and every single house on the street went ALL OUT with their decorations. I didn’t get any pictures, but I wish I had.

And these are just a couple pictures of her cat Bruce. He’s so cute, but he’s still unsure about me. HAHA. Once we are living in Lakeland, I am determined to make him love me. 😛 Although we did make some progress after I gave him some treats. Treats = friend?

Anyway, that’s my picture update for today. I had a great Christmas and we got so many wonderful presents (including an Instant Pot and an iPad Mini) from both our families. I ate a TON of food and candy, which was good and bad (because I totally over did it) haha. How was your holiday or weekend? I have five other blog posts that I am working on that will slowly be making there way onto the blog. Wrap up and book haul coming soon. I’ll have a 2019 reading goals post and a reading challenge I am hoping to tackle in 2019 coming as well. I still need to work on my end of the year book survey too. Be on the look out for a bunch of posts soon. 😀

In case you missed it;
TBB Asks: Holiday Edition.
Random|| Picture Update.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleychristmas

TBB Asks: Holiday Edition.

Hey!

I’ve been so busy with all my last minute Christmas stuff and life in general, so I haven’t been around the blog much the last week or two. Hopefully that changes soon. I need to catch up with you guys ASAP, promise! 😀 A lot of things happening right now, so my mind is preoccupied. Today though, I figured it would be fun to post this holiday themed blog post since Christmas is coming up soon and I’m not sure when I’ll get another chance to post. I seen Brandie (Running on Words and Wine) post this on her blog, so I figured I would too. I love Christmas. 😛

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Candy Canes? Yes or No?
I don’t mind candy canes. I don’t usually eat them by themselves very much anymore, unless it’s a mini one. When I was a kid I used to love eating them right off the Christmas tree though. I do love candy cane flavored things though! Especially chocolate, like peppermint bark. I LIVE FOR PEPPERMINT BARK!

Christmas morning early riser or sleep in?
Honestly, I’m an early riser period these days. So I guess I am an early riser on Christmas morning; as a kid I was too. As an adult, I’m more of an early riser because I get way too excited about giving everyone their gifts. LOL. I don’t even care about gifts myself, but giving gifts is my thing and so I get way too stoked about everyone seeing their gifts, haha.

Did you shop on Black Friday? 
This year I went to a couple places to see what kind of deals they had going on, but I don’t think I bought anything besides one DVD for myself. Normally, I don’t usually do Black Friday shopping. I don’t like big crowds and being around a lot of people at one time, so I usually stay home.

Christmas tree up in November? 
Yes, I love putting my Christmas tree up in November. I’m very guilty of this and I don’t even care. Judge all you want, but I love being able to enjoy my Christmas for as long as possible.

Do you get holiday ideas from Pinterest?
I love pinning holiday ideas in my Pinterest boards, but I don’t always do them. I guess I just collect pins. But if I was looking for an idea, I would definitely go to Pinterest.

Christmas Glam or Ugly Sweater?
Ugly sweater, for sure. I’m not the “glam” type of person. I don’t really dress up and I definitely do not wear any makeup at all. I’m all about jeans, converse shoes, and ugly sweaters.

Stocking Stuffers: Wrapped or unwrapped?
As much as I love wrapping gifts, I don’t usually wrap stocking stuffers. Depending on the size of the gift, I will though; but very rarely.

Traditional or Modern Christmas songs?
Traditional Christmas songs. I don’t really listen to new Christmas music (or Christmas music in general), so I don’t know what all modern Christmas songs are out there or that come out. So I know and am used to the old traditional Christmas songs/versions of the old songs. I do love the Hanson Christmas album though, haha.

Fruitcake?
Never had it. I don’t even think I’ve ever seen one, but I hear they’re gross so I probably would never try it.

Is your Christmas shopping finished?
Yes! All prezzies are bought and wrapped. My Christmas shopping is officially done as far as buying gifts goes. I do have to stop by the bank before Christmas to get some money for my niece and nephew as their gifts, but it’s done.

Is there snow in December where you live?
Sadly, no. I live in Florida and there’s no snow here. On the rare occasion it’ll snow in northern Florida, but hardly ever, especially not in South Florida where I currently live. When I used to live in Illinois as a kid, it snowed and that was fun.

Classic Show: A Charlie Brown Christmas or Rudolph?
A Charlie Brown Christmas, always. I love Charlie Brown anything, so I always make it a point to watch the Christmas show every year. As I do with all the holidays where there is a Charlie Brown special.

This weekend we’re going to Andy’s parents house for Christmas, so I will be pretty busy with that. I’m excited though since we haven’t had Christmas with them in such a long time. What are you holiday plans?

In case you  missed it;
Random|| Picture Update.
December TBR.
Wrap Up|| November.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleychristmas

Random|| Picture Update.

pictureupdate

Hey!

I haven’t done one of these updates in quite awhile, so I have a TON of pictures to share with you guys. It’s almost 50 pictures, so be prepared. 😛 I’m just going to jump right into it!

My sister (Stephanie), Andy, and I went to this Renaissance festival called Camelot Days that we have here two weekends in November. It was an okay time. I felt like other years were a lot better than this year was. I didn’t take a ton of pictures while I was there, but these above are the ones that I did take.

My mom making homemade noodles for Thanksgiving! 😀 She made SO MUCH food! Thanksgiving was really great. Lots of food and some family friends came to our Thanksgiving too.

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My younger sister Stephanie and I made Christmas cookies for Thanksgiving too. We started off really good with them, but then we were just over it from spending so long making them that you can tell with the cookies when it started to go downhill for us HAH. They all tasted good though. 😛

A bunch of us sitting on my mom’s sofa waiting for all the food to be done. We were watching the dog show that they have on every Thanksgiving. We were also switching between that and the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. Right picture is DINNER! That was only one of my plates. There was so much food and I couldn’t fit everything on one plate, haha.

Speaking of Christmas, I got some pretty awesome wrapping paper from Target this year. SHARKS! SKULLS! YETIS! FLAMINGOS! SANTA BEARDS! 😛 I also go Home Alone 2 (my favorite one) for only $9 at Target on Black Friday. I can’t wait to watch that this week.

I’m not having a full size Christmas tree this year, but this is my mini Christmas tree that I have on my dining table. The cats already messed it up though, lol. But it was good for about a couple days.

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Stockings hung! I moved my desk to the living room, so it was right under this wall, so it was kind of hard to reach over my computer to get to the wall (LOL), so they all kind of went crooked and downhill. My sister is moving back here and going to be living with us, so I didn’t want to forget her and got her stocking up too. She’s the top. My stocking is Santa, Andy’s is the reindeer, and then of course the other stockings are for our furbabies (three cats & a dog).

Speaking of cats, here they are! Leaf (left picture), October (top right), ColbyJack (bottom right).

I can’t forget my boy, Dax! We took him to the groomer a couple weeks ago to get his haircut. His hair was getting out of control.

A couple weeks ago my sister Stephanie, my nephew, and I went to the park to go Pokemon hunting. I took my camera with and got a few pictures.  Middle two are pictures of my nephew. The bottom left is a picture of my sister.

A couple different sunset pictures from the nights I went to the gym. You guys already know how obsessed I am with taking pictures of the sky. It’s the first thing I do whenever I step outside. See if the sky is picture worthy, it usually always is. 😛

Some random pictures I took at the park over the weekend. It was Andy’s work holiday party (HOLY ANXIETY) and I went with him. It was kind of awkward, because well..I’m socially awkward and I don’t do good with small talk or social gatherings, lol. It was okay though. It wasn’t a horrible time and the food was good. There was also a ton of cookies and I love cookies. First picture is when we first got there. That’s Andy walking in the first picture. Second picture is when we were leaving the party and the sun was starting to set.

Some random pictures. Left one is of little Leaf laying on me. She was totally hugging me and it was the cutest. Right picture is just a random picture I took because I really loved my cacti shirt, lol.

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Another random sky picture that I am obsessed with.

So Andy and I kind of sucked with Christmas this year by deciding to give each other our big presents (the expensive ones) that we got each other, lol. He got me a new zoom lens for my Nikon D3400, which I was so stoked about. Check out the size difference! The zoom lens is on my camera and the lens that is next to it is the original lens that it comes with.

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I’m so used to my original lens being able to auto-focus, but this zoom lens that I got doesn’t auto-focus, so it’s going to take me some time to get used to focusing the shots myself. It’ll be fun though. I haven’t had the chance to use it very much yet, but I did take this picture that I thought came out really nice.

We all decorated the tree outside of the house a few nights ago. Totally looks a mess, haha. 😛 Very Charlie Brown-ish. It’s still cute in it’s own way. First picture is the three. Top right is one of the ornaments on the tree, and the bottom right is just an out of focus picture of the lights (bokeh). I like taking out of focus pictures of Christmas lights.

That’s all the pictures that I have. Feel free to follow me on Instagram (heyyitsashley) if you want to. Some of these have been posted there already in the last month or two. Others haven’t made it there yet. The next couple of weeks I’ll be pretty busy, so not sure how active I will be on here. Seems to always happen around the holidays though.

In case you missed it;
December TBR.
Wrap Up|| November.
Book Haul|| November.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleychristmas

December TBR.

sociallyawkwardbookwormorange

Hey!

The last two months I did really good with sticking to my monthly TBR created for each month (October & November), so I decided to go ahead and try one last time with a December TBR. There are so many books that I swore I would finally get to this year and sadly, I have not. I want to say I’ll try in December, but realistically that probably won’t happen because I have quite a few ARCs that I need to read. I created a reading challenge for next year to hopefully tackle those books that I swore I would finally read and didn’t. I’ll talk more about that and those books later at the end of the month or beginning of January.

As always, this may not end up being my final TBR or all the books that I end up reading. I have some books on hold at my library that I’ve been waiting FOREVER for, so if those get checked out to me then I will most likely read those first. Also, depends on my mood if I end up reading something else not listed. With that being said, here is my December TBR.

Physical Books:

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The Next Person You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (ARC)
The Lonely Dead by April Henry (ARC)
Famous in a Small Town by Emma Mills (ARC)
The Extinction Trials by S.M. Wilson (Buddy Read)

I have quite a few ARCs as you can see that I need to try to get to this month, so I can get my reviews up. The Next Person You Meet in Heaven was already released, but the others are January releases. I am also going to be buddy reading The Extinction Trials with Avery (Red Rocket Panda), which I am stoked for!


E-Books:

thelostsistersthewickedkinghatinggamewhatifitsusmynewcrushgavetome

The Lost Sisters by Holly Black
The Wicked King by Holly Black (eARC)
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne (library)
What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli/Adam Silver (library)
My New Crush Gave to Me by Shani Petroff

I am so stoked for The Wicked King. I am hoping to have time to reread The Cruel Prince before I read the sequel, but if not, it’s alright. There’s also a few other e-books that I own that I hope/want to read, but I’m not going to list them in case I don’t get to them. These are pretty much my top priority right now as some are library books and I may have a couple other library books that get checked out to me later this month. I am actually currently reading What If It’s Us now and it’s so good. I am really enjoying it a lot. It’s so hard to put down!

What’s on your December TBR? Have you read any of the ones on mine? Feel free to link me to your posts if you have one.

In case you missed it;
Wrap Up|| November.
Book Haul|| November.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleychristmas