Bookstagram 2020|| Part Two.

Posted on April 9, 2021 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Hey!

I’ve had a bookstagram for quite a few years now. It’s “sociallyawkwardbookworm” if you’re interested! There were some years where I was REALLY active and posting almost daily. Then I started to become less active and only posting maybe once a week or once a month. I wanted to be more active in 2020, but that ended up not happening. And even now in this new year I’ve only posted twice! For this blog post though, I thought it would be fun to post all the pictures that I uploaded to my bookstagram account in 2020! I had a total of 21 posts, but some of those posts contained more than one picture. Looking through my pictures kind of makes me want to get back into bookstagram, but honestly, bookstagram can be a lot of work! Coming up with cool photo ideas, sticking to themes, finding cool props, and writing captions (which I think is SO HARD sometimes). I’ve also been buying books less than I was before, so not having brand new books to showcase plays a part in that as well. Sigh. I am including the captions that I posted with them. I’ll put a link at the end of this post with part one, but for today here is part two!

April 12, 2020.

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Caption: happy easter, friends! 🐰🐣📖

August 17, 2020.

Caption: i haven’t updated my bookstagram since april 😭 it’s been a weird and crazy year because of everything happening in the world. i’ve also been struggling really bad with anxiety and depression this year, so my reading and blogging has taken a big hit along with it to where i’m only reading one or two books a month instead of 5+ like normally. i’m so ready for things to be “normal” again. i’m halfway through “beach read” though and it’s actually pretty good. what are you currently reading? ♡

August 27, 2020.

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Caption: “who am i then? tell me that first, and then, if i like being that person, i’ll come up: if not, i’ll stay down here till i’m somebody else” ♡ // currently reading “alice’s adventures in wonderland” again ♡

September 20, 2020.

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Caption: living for my new blood spatter bookmark from @thebookables! it gives me hella dexter vibes and i’m so here for it. it also goes perfect with the book that i’m currently reading. 🖤

October 2, 2020.

Caption: happy october! i posted my halloween themed TBR on my blog today (link in my info or sociallyawkwardbookworm.com)! i love this bookmark i am currently using from @rusticpages! 🖤🎃 do you have any plans to read spooky books this month?

October 22, 2020.

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Caption: i’ve been trying to read more spooky/halloween vibe books this month and using cute halloween bookmarks to go with them. 🎃🖤 // excited to start this graphic novel next!

October 26, 2020.

Caption: updated picture of my bookshelves. ♡ // we redid my book room over the weekend with new paint color on the walls (goodbye green) and new flooring (goodbye carpet). pretty excited with how it turned out!

October 29, 2020.

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Caption: i posted my october book haul over on my blog today! you can check it out with the link in my bio or by going to sociallyawkwardbookworm.com // what books did you get in october? 👩🏻‍💻📚🖤

December 7, 2020.

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Caption: just finished the cardan short stories and they were so good! 🖤

Again I struggled with finding a theme that I really wanted to stick to, so my pictures were just totally random. For the second half of the year, it looks like October was my best month for posting. I had so much fun posting all my bookstagram pictures from 2020 and I hope you liked them. 🙂 Maybe I’ll do it post again on my blog for this year if I start posting more over there. We shall see!

I am hoping to do some blog hopping on Sunday and catch up with you and reply to comments. 🙂 I hope you have a great day week. ❤

In case you missed it;
Bookstagram 2020|| Part One.
TTT|| Books I’d Gladly Throw Into the Ocean.
Will I Ever Get Tired of Blogging?

I hope you a great day!

Random|| Life Update.

Posted on September 18, 2020 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Hey!

This is just a random little life update, because I don’t have any book related posts that I want to write right now and it’s been a while since I’ve done a post like this. Sorry in advance if this post is all over the place and completely random.

So, for the last two or three years I haven’t been counting audiobooks toward my Goodreads challenge goal, because I wanted to challenge myself to see how many books that I could read on my own. I had that goal at the start of 2020 too, BUT…you guys already know this has been a crazy damn year! With that being said, I decided that I would start counting audiobooks toward my reading challenge for this year. The thought of not completing my Goodreads challenge would have just brought me down even more than I am already feeling. Since I decided to do that, I am only 1 or 2 books behind schedule and I’m sure I’ll be caught up soon! I’ve been listening to books while I do my diamond paintings and it’s been nice! Below is the most recent diamond painting I completed. Also, check out this new blood spatter bookmark I got from The Bookables on Etsy! It gives me so many Dexter vibes.

I got back into playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons more. Currently, I have been working on redoing the interior of my house and making it more homey. I’ve focused a lot of my main room and my basement. Next up will probably be the bathroom. And then I need to do some serious work on my island itself. I have way too many flowers and they just need to go. I’m not seeing the real potential for my island, because it’s buried under hundreds of dang flowers! It’s a long process getting rid of so many flowers though, which is why I haven’t touched them. But that needs to change A.S.A.P. lol. 😛 Do you play Animal Crossing? Let’s be friends!

The husband and I watched both seasons of Cobra Kai on Netflix and OMG….the feels! We both love The Karate Kid sooo much, especially me. Cobra Kai was AMAZING and I am dying for the third season. I can’t even count how many times I cried or got goosebumps. The episode that made me cry the most was episode five of season one though. I’m talking tears streaming down my face and me yelling that I can’t take this show anymore, LOL. We got so obsessed with Cobra Kai that for the last week we’ve been going around the house pretending to do karate moves on each other when we pass by each other.

I put up some Halloween decorations around my house! I still need like A LOT more, but I am happy with the little bit of Halloween touch I’ve been adding around the house. I also put out a jar of my favorite Halloween candy, because I love them so much and also because it makes for a good Halloween decoration as well….as long as I don’t eat them all lol. 😛

Speaking of Halloween, I’m in the process of creating my Halloweenie TBR that I do every year. I like to try to read as many spooky/Halloween vibe books throughout October. I’m not entirely sure what books I will be adding to the list yet, but we’ll see how that goes. I am excited to go through my bookshelves and my Kindle shelf to see what books I may want to read in October! As long as I can actually read, still battling a reading slump. I have been reading the same book for 18 days and only on page 120, UGH. I guess that’s where audiobooks come in. If I can’t read myself, at least I have them.

I’ve been struggling a lot with anxiety as you already know and maybe even some depression (or sadness if it’s not depression). My sleep schedule has been really bad, which I think I’ve also talked about here. Sometimes I don’t go to sleep until 5 or 6am. I function day to day on only 3-5 hours of sleep a day. This week I’ve been challenging myself to go to sleep by 1am every night and so far I’ve done that. There was one day I even went to sleep at 10pm, so that’s been a good thing. I still can’t seem to get myself out of bed in the mornings, but it’s progress.

Andy and I went on a day trip a couple weekends ago to visit my younger sister, because my mom, older sister, niece, and nephew were going to. We went to this place called the “Shell Factory”. I’ve been there many times in the past since I used to live near there, but haven’t gone in years and years. Some things were okay and other things weren’t that great. I did take some pictures, so here are a few. For the small ones, you can click the image to see a full size version.

These next pictures will just be a bunch of random pictures, furbabies, sunsets, etc. 🙂

Some banana bread and cheesecake that I made recently. 🙂

And with that, I think that’s all I have for this update. I still want to do a picture update from when I went to Illinois for a month in June, so hopefully I’ll finally get around to doing that post. I’ll catch up with your posts and comments over the weekend. 🙂

In case you missed it;
Release Day|| September Releases

I hope you have a great day and weekend!

Posted on September 4, 2020 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

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“who am i then? tell me that first, and then, if i like being that person, i’ll come up: if not, i’ll stay down here till i’m somebody else” ♡

Posted on April 19, 2020 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

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“i’m destined for better things and i’m trying to better me. i’ve been finding better days but i’m finding everything changes.” ♡

Thank You!

Posted on March 16, 2020 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

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I just wanted to make a quick post to say thank you for all the comments on my “Stuck…where do I go from here?” post. It really means a lot to me. You have been such a huge part of my life, so I am hoping to get out of this rough patch and continue to blog as much as possible. I will try to reply back to those comments soon. I will also be catching up with your blog posts soon as well.

On a random note, I was going through my closet in my book room and I came across probably like 50+ buttons/pins that I’ve collected over the last few years and this was one of them. So fitting for us book reviewers. Speaking of book reviewing, I have a review for Infinity Son by Adam Silvera coming soon. What was the last book that you reviewed? Feel free to also link me to it. 🙂

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Stuck…where do I go from here?

Posted on March 10, 2020 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

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“stop holding on, if it’s holding you back, then let it go; your grass will always be the greenest if you let it grow” 🌼🐝🌿

This is one of my favorite pictures that I’ve taken recently. You can find cool picture opportunities anywhere! Example: I took this photo in the garden section of Home Depot, lol. I’m going to do a series of picture posts; I have a ton of pictures to share. I went to upload them all into one post and it ended up being 60+ pictures, so I decided I’ll break it up into multiple posts instead. I’m going to start working on those this week, so that by next week I can start posting them.

Other than these posts, I’ve been feeling a little bit stuck in terms of my blog, my bookstagram, and essentially my life as well. I am trying to get back into bookstagram, but I have no idea what kind of pictures to post and what theme I want to go for. When I first started my bookstagram I had so many ideas and I was having a lot of fun with it. I guess since I haven’t really been doing it consistently over the last couple years, I forgot and lost my creativity with that. With the blog, I’m not sure what kind of content I should post. It’s kind of frustrating!

I think when I start to feel uninspired is usually when I quit things and I don’t want to quit blogging! I actually really love it and love all the friends I’ve made and continue to make every day, but sometimes I feel like I’m boring everyone with the same content over and over again. You know, it’s not even just blogging and bookstagram. I have an online journal that I write about things happening in my life (it’s more of personal journal and I’ve been using it since I was in high school) and I really have nothing to write in my own personal journal either.

I think it has more to do with how I’ve been feeling about myself lately. I have all of these negative feelings (and thoughts) about myself over the last 3-4 months that I’ve never had before. It’s so weird experiencing this because I used to always think so highly of myself. Now I question whether that was even real or if I was pretending/lying to myself all my life. The end months of 2019 messed with my self-confidence and shattered who I thought I was. I only feel like a fraction of who I was before and that scares me! I want to get back to my old self, where I was always positive and always happy. I want to get out of this negative headspace. Some days I think I am finally out of it and then others I feel right back in there. Sigh.

I’ve been obsessed with this song “Hangnail” by Rationale. I feel like I relate to it a lot lately. I just feel down about myself and my life these days. Here’s the song if you’re interested: https://youtu.be/O9sTYRUkSHc

“I wish I had this poetic poise, an articulate finesse.
I’m too clumsy and the words escape me.
I’m hazy and any passing thought can displace me.”

I think this negative headspace; these thoughts and these feelings are pouring into everything in my life, including blogging. I think this is where so much of my “stuck” feeling comes from too. Maybe I can Google search some ideas for both bookstagram and my blog and see what I can come up with! I did bookmark an awesome blog post from Kelly from Another Book in the Wall about “how to blog when you haven’t read anything new“, so I may also go back and reference her post to get some ideas as well. Anything you guys want to see on my blog? It doesn’t have to be book related!

Here are my social media accounts if you’re interested in being friends outside of the amazing blogosphere. I usually post regularly on my personal Instagram account.

Goodreads: heyyitsashley_
Twitter: whoa_itsashley
Pinterest: lalalaitsashley
Instagram: heyyitsashley – personal Instagram account
Bookstagram: foreverbookish_ – book Instagram account (underscore after “bookish”)

I will catch up with all of your posts and reply to comments later today or possibly tomorrow. I’m really hoping to try and get some reading in today. 🙂

In case you missed it;
Andy Reads|| Maybe Someday.
March TBR (Maybe).
Wrap Up|| February.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Posted on January 20, 2020 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

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Photo I took over the weekend of some new flowers at Hollis Garden.

I am currently in a bit of a reading slump, which really sucks. I can’t seem to get into my current read (Followers by Megan Angelo). So many people are saying such great things about it, but I’m about 22% into it and honestly more confused than anything else. I’m going to keep giving it a chance and hopefully my mind will change. It could also be this reading slump that is ruining my enjoyment of it. Who knows.

In case you missed it, my five year blogiversary happened on the 17th of this month and I am hosting a giveaway and it’s International! It’s running until January 31st and I will be picking two winners on February 1st. I’ll leave a link to the giveaway at the end of this post, so you can enter if you haven’t already.

I just wanted to post random little update on here since it’s been a few days since I’ve last posted. I need to finish up my 2019 book rating posts, write a review for Finding Mr. Better-Than-You and then catch up with your posts and comments. Hoping to do that all this week! I am just not really feeling very motivated lately. I just wanted to let you know that I am here though and even if I’m not 100% right now.

I guess that’s all I really have to say right now. Fingers crossed I kick this reading slump soon and start feeling better again too. Mentally I just don’t feel like I’m in a good place. I thought I was feeling better, but then it hit me all over again…sigh. I hope you had a great weekend.

In case you missed it;
Five Year Blogiversary Giveaway!
Release Day [January 14].
5 Star Reads of 2019.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Random|| Picture Update.

Posted on December 23, 2019 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Merry Christmas Eve Eve! 😀

Since it’s almost Christmas, I thought it would be fun to share all of my Christmassy pictures that I’ve taken over the last couple of months. Some you may have seen on Instagram (if you follow me) and some I haven’t posted yet. It’s going to be really picture heavy, just a heads up.

The first sets of pictures are from around our city (Lakeland). The Christmas tree pictures are from the big Christmas tree that they have up at Lake Mirror. I was sad I didn’t get a chance to see it at night (except from far away), but it’s still pretty in the daylight too.

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Story behind these last two pictures. The hubby and I were walking away from the big Christmas tree and as we were walking away, Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus were walking by us! It was so random, but so cool. They were having a little photo shoot by the Christmas tree, haha. The second picture is a Christmas tree made from kegs from Swan Brewing. It’s a brewery we like to go to. My family was visiting one weekend and I took them there.

These next set of pictures are ones that I took at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. They were all decked out in Christmas decor. I would have loved to see it all lit up at night, but we never got the chance to.

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This last picture is from watching the retelling of The Grinch (Grinchmas) at Islands of Adventure. It was probably about thirty minutes, but it was really fun to see it acted out live.

These next set of pictures are from when my family and I went to this little Christmas event in Celebration, Florida. There was live music, SNOW (aka soap, LOL), and lots of fun Christmas things and decor to look at.

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Celebration, Florida was a cute little town and I wish we would have walked around the neighborhoods at night, because so many houses were decorated with so many decorations and lights. It would have been so cool to see. And most of the houses were HUGE (like the one I shared). Always next year! 😛

The hubby and I are spending Christmas with his family this year, so we will be leaving tonight to drive over there. We are both really looking forward to it. I will catch up with you guys after Christmas and I have a bunch of end of the year posts lined up, so be on the look out for them!

In case you missed it;
Book Tag|| Christmas Book Blogger.
Friday Finds #84.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

ashleychristmas

Posted on August 20, 2019 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

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“eliminate everything that gives you conflicted feelings. embrace the things that resonate with your soul.” ♡

my instragram: heyyitsashley

Nature, Dinosaurs, & Other Things.

Posted on April 24, 2019 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

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Hey!

It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these posts, so I figured I would do a quick little picture update! 😛 I have a ton more pictures that I could post, but I am running out of storage space on the blog again (ugh). I may have to upgrade again or figure out some other way. Here are some of the things I’ve been doing and pictures I’ve taken over the last few weeks.

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We (sister, hubby, and I) went to Circle B Bar Reserve again, but this time we checked out the lake area and OMG it did not disappoint. I was able to get so many awesome pictures and see so much cool wildlife. There were a ton of different birds and alligators! Luckily we survived and didn’t get eaten by any alligators, haha. The area was huge and we didn’t walk the entire thing, so we may have to check it out again ASAP! Here are some of the pictures that I took there. I took a lot, so I had to really narrow it down for this post.

We even seen some wild boar/pigs, which was pretty awesome! There was like a whole family of them. I couldn’t really get great pictures because I didn’t want to scare them away and my camera wasn’t cooperating with me, but I did get these two pictures. We seen some armadillos too.

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These is one of my favorite pictures that I took at the nature park. It came out so great and I am pretty proud of it, haha. My main focus was the butterfly, so I didn’t even notice there was a bee on the flower next to it. So that was a cool surprise when I was going through my pictures and noticed it.

On April 9th, it was my younger sister’s birthday. She’s only a year younger than I am. Her birthday happened to fall on a Tuesday, so we went Moe’s for her birthday. Taco Tuesday 😛 ! Moe’s is always so good! We also baked her a cake for her birthday. It came out really awesome. I think we are really getting into this cake decorating, haha. Over the weekend of that week we decided to check out Dinosaur World. It was a good time, but not something to do more than one time. Haha. It was interesting though. Here are some pictures of the dinos. I took a bunch, but again, had to narrow it down a lot for this post.

Below are just some random pictures that I’ve taken throughout the last few weeks.

And of course my furbabies. Top two pictures are of my boys and the bottom two pictures are of my girls.

That’s all for this post. I hope you enjoyed seeing all my pictures. You can follow me on Instagram if you want to see more or as I post them. Username: heyyitsashley. I am currently battling a cold, UGH. I knew it was coming, because yesterday I had a stuffy nose, but I woke up today feeling like such crap. Hopefully this doesn’t last long, because my family is coming to visit this weekend and I don’t want to feel bad when they are here. Anyway, I better go start my work day now.

In case you missed it;
It finally happened!!
Friday Finds #79.
Review|| Girls with Sharp Sticks.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Random|| Picture Update.

Posted on March 19, 2019 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

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Hey!

Thought I would do a picture update since I haven’t really done one since my birthday and I haven’t really been reading very much this last week to do full posts about that. I will put a little reading update at the end of this post though. 🙂

On the second Thursday of every month Munn Park has food trucks, so my younger sister Stephanie and I decided to go check it out. It got us out of the house, because we spend 98% of the time in the house during the week. The 2% being when we go outside to check mail, take out garbage, walk the pup, or grocery shop. Remember how I mentioned stir crazy? Yeahhh. So we decided to go check it out and it was a nice day. Here are a few pictures from around the park.

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Now onto the FOOD! We went to two food trucks to get something to eat. We decided to try Southern Munchies and The Naked Cupcake. I loved the design and colors on the food truck for Southern Munchies. Funny story: I took a picture of the truck and forgot about it. My sister and I started talking while we waited our turn to order. I looked into the truck and I seen a man and I’m like “he looks so familiar, I know I’ve seen him somewhere” and then I glanced at the side of the truck and there he was, haha. So they designed their little character on the truck after the actual owner/cook. I thought that was so cool. He even had the purple hair in real life!

At Southern Munchies we both got donut hole sliders & fries. They were so delicious, but I think it would have been even better if they put some cheese on the little burgers. At The Naked Cupcake we got cupcakes, duh. 😛 I got a vanilla cupcake with strawberry frosting and sprinkles. My sister got a dulce de leche cupcake with white chocolate sprinkles. What I loved about The Naked Cupcake was you could get their standard cupcakes or you could design your own to be whatever cake, frosting, and toppings you wanted.

We ate and walked around for a little bit. I took a few more pictures from downtown area. I really can’t wait until the hubby is living here so we can go explore the city even more. Here are a few other pictures I took.

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Above is a picture of the Polk Theatre! I looked at their website and they play a lot of films there or host events there. Below are a couple of art banners. I thought they were cute and pretty funny.

I decided to add a little Easter touch to my dining table recently, so I found these little Easter eggs and glass bowl from Walmart for super cheap. It was about $6 to make this and it’s so cute. I love that I can just put anything into the bowl too to have as a centerpiece throughout the year. I’m thinking skull heads for Halloween. 😛

Me reading in the hammock and the hubby chillin in the hammock. We really love this hammock swing. I sit in it at least once a day, haha.

Below are some random sunset pictures, because you already know that I am obsessed with taking pictures of the sky, sunsets, and sunrises. LOL.

The next pictures are just a bunch of pictures that I’ve been taking of my furbabies throughout the last few weeks. I can’t help but take a ton of pictures of them.

Above are a couple pictures of my pup, Dax. He loves walks and spending time outside. He’s definitely really happy with his new yard.

Little Leaf. She loves sunlight and windows. Every morning she’ll take a nap in this spot when the sun comes out. And speaking of Leaf, she spends a lot of her day in my office with me, which is so cute. She also is so cuddly too and I love it. She is either laying next to me or on me. Below two pictures are Leaf laying in my lap while I worked.

October, I forever have heart eyes for her. She’s so pretty. She’s out a lot more now that we have this bigger house. She seems more happy, which I love. She’s still pretty skittish though, but I think that’s just part of her personality.

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ColbyJack, I love this dude. He’s been a pain in the butt since moving here, but hopefully he starts to chill out more once Andy is living here. Which will be this weekend! After this weekend he will start working up here.

And Digby! He’s Andy’s parents dog, but I’m dogsitting him this week. So I currently have a house full of pets. Two dogs and three cats, haha. It’s fine though and they all get along. Leaf loves him. They are always playing with each other and chasing each other around the house. Digby also spends a lot of time with me. He’s pretty much attached to me, so wherever I go he follows. The picture on the right (with me in it) you can see him sleeping on the little pillow in my office. He spends all day in here with me.

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This past week I’ve been kind of in a reading slump and trying out a bunch of different books. I tried to read a couple of my ARCs, but I wasn’t in the mood to read them at the moment, so I put them aside for now. I’ll pick them up soon though. I don’t want to force myself to read them when I’m not in the mood and end up not enjoying them. I decided to try out Jackaby, which is a book for my Alphabet Challenge. I’m actually really enjoying it. I get hella Sherlock vibes and I love that. I am also listening to the audiobook of The Priory of the Orange Tree. I’m a little over 100 pages into it (it’s an 800+ page book). Honestly, it’s so detailed and so much to remember that I don’t really know exactly what is going on. I kind of just forgot everything that I heard/read. UGHHH. Hopefully that’s not the case for the entire book, because it seems interesting. I just don’t want to be confused the entire time! Anyway, so that’s all for this update.

In case you missed it;
WWW Wednesday #57.
Friday Finds #76.
Random|| Birthday & Other Things.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Random|| Birthday & Other Things.

Posted on March 6, 2019 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Hey!

On Sunday (March 3rd) was my birthday! It was mostly spent just relaxing at home, because my childhood best friend’s wedding was later that night. It was nice though! We decided to go to Sonny BBQ for dinner the night before to celebrate, which was awesome.

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On Sunday afternoon we walked around a little shopping area and got cupcakes from Smallcakes. So good! Andy got a margarita cupcake, my younger sister got a peanut butter cup cupcake, and I got a chocolate & vanilla cupcake. My sister paid for them for my birthday, which was nice of her.

We also went to Books-A-Million, because it’s in the same shopping area and I can’t go to a bookstore without stopping in to look around! I decided to get one book, which was Tales of King Arthur & The Knights of the Round Table. I love anything King Arthur and this edition was in the bargain books section and only $10. I love the gold shiny cover so much! It has little illustrations inside as well. I can’t wait to read it. It’s probably one of those books that I’ll most likely read a story at a time and pick it up at random times to continue to another story, if that makes any sense. I could have gotten so many more books, but decided I better not haha. After that we went to Rocket Fizz, so Andy could get some sodas. I skipped on the saltwater taffy that I usually get when we go to Rocket Fizz. But now that we are living in this area, I can go whenever and don’t need to stock up like I usually do, haha.

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Onto some birthday gifts! I got most of my gifts days early, but I was fine with that! 😛 I got a lot of things that I really wanted, which was nice. My older sister got me a hammock chair for my birthday and my mom got me the little table to put next to my hammock. I am so stoked that I got a hammock chair, because I actually really wanted one since we have this huge tree in our yard that’s perfect for it. It’s so comfy! It came with two pillows as well, which is awesome. I would have eventually bought one for myself, but it was a nice surprise to see that my sister got it for me! Perfect reading/chill spot.

My aunt bought me these coasters, which are pretty hilarious. I am all about coasters now…does that mean I’m becoming a real adult? Andy’s parents got me the essential oils air diffuser, which I really wanted. My mom has one and her house always smells good, so I am stoked to have one now.

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Andy got me Crash Bandicoot for our Nintendo Switch and the Monsters Inc. Sora Funko Pop. I loved Crash Bandicoot as a kid and this game has the first three Crash games in one! I remember mentioning on my Instagram Stories a couple weeks ago how I hoped they would make a Funko of the Monsters Inc. Sora from Kingdom Hearts 3 and it’s a thing!! So when Andy asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I sent him that.

Around 3pm we started to get ready for my friend’s wedding. We wanted to get there early to make sure we found the place on time. Good thing too, because the address on the invitation ended up taking us to some other place! We eventually found it, so that was great. Her wedding was so beautiful. I didn’t really take any pictures at the wedding, because they asked for cameras to be put away during ceremony and at the reception we were just having fun and I didn’t really have my phone out. I did take a picture of the decorations on the table. It was nice seeing my friend get married. She and her husband looked so happy. I was able to say HI to her brothers and sister too, who I haven’t seen in YEARS. Last time was most likely around my eighth grade year in middle school! So it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her family.

Here are some random pictures that I took while we walked around the area that the wedding was taking place, which is called Lake Mirror. The building and swan were just in random places in downtown Lakeland. It’s so pretty there and I was able to get a ton of great pictures!

On Monday (March 4th) my cousin came over with her husband and son to see my house and visit. They bought us some housewarming gifts. A little ottoman filled with towels, toys for my dog and cats, some random misc. food, and a Presto Pizzazz (rotating pizza oven). That was really nice of them. I am really excited about the Presto Pizzazz! You can make so many things from frozen pizza, homemade pizza, other frozen food (like pizza rolls, bagel bites, chicken nuggets), sandwiches (like grilled cheese), cookies!!!, and even s’mores!! I am totally trying out making s’mores on this thing!

This weekend my older sister, niece, and nephew are going to come visit for the weekend. They haven’t had the chance to see my house yet besides videos or pictures, so that’ll be nice having them visit for the weekend. Anyway, that’s all for this post! I’ll have another picture update soonish with random pictures that I took throughout the last week or two that are not a part of this post/day.

In case you missed it;
Review|| Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee.
Wrap Up|| February.
Book Haul|| February.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Hello, Central Florida.

Posted on February 25, 2019 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

lifeupdate

Hey!

Friday was moving day! We packed up the truck on Thursday night and Friday after work we packed up the kitties and the pup and hit the road to our new house. It’s a four hour drive from where we were living. I was so nervous about the cats in the car for four hours, because they hate the car! They cry non-stop in the car. Luckily the hubby took two of them and I only had to take one in my sister’s car. He took the two that are most scared, so I didn’t have to listen to them crying the whole time. It’s always so sad. Leaf (littlest and the one we took) didn’t make a peep! See took it like a champ. Andy said the other two cried 3 of the 4 hours. 😭

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We made it around 10pm and started to unload some of the truck before it started raining. We did the rest the next day (Saturday). On Saturday I unpacked a lot of things and tried to put as much away as I could. The kitchen is pretty much done and so are our clothes. There’s still so much more to do though, sigh. My right arm is killing me today from all the moving and unpacking. Hopefully I can get a lot more done today though. We’ll see what happens!

My younger sister came up with us, because she’ll be staying with me until Andy comes up and until she goes back on the road (she was a truck driver and may go back to that job). She slept a couple nights in the room that will be my office/library until we finished the floor & borders in the guest room (pictures later in the post). I can’t wait until my desk gets here (Wednesday) and eventually be able to buy some bookshelves so I can unpack my books.

The cats took the new house in different ways. October is the shy one that’s scared of everything. Never likes being pet or anything. Always hides. Well…she’s loving it here! She’s out and about and very happy. She even lays with us and wants attention, which was never a thing about her before! She was the one I was most worried about when it came to this move, but she seems so happy. She loves all the windows. She spends a lot of time laying or sitting in front of different windows around the house.

ColbyJack (oldest) was not a happy camper. He spent a lot of time growling and hissing and just being grumpy. He also hid 90% of the time. Little Leaf wasn’t really sure about the house either. She hid majority of the time too. I really thought they would be cool about it, haha. Totally the opposite than I thought! I’m so happy about October though. I really worried about her. They other two kitties seem to be getting used to the house now though, so that’s a plus. I think that now that it’s not as chaotic, they are coming around.

My pup Dax loves the house. He’s been here before this weekend. We brought him up last weekend and he was so happy. He was even rolling around in the backyard. He has his own yard now! We didn’t have one at the last place and he’s never really off a leash outside often. Now he can be. At first he wasn’t sure about it, but by the end of the weekend he was rolling around in the yard.

There’s still so much to do, but I have plenty of time to do it. Hopefully by the end of the week it’ll be mostly done. 🙂 Here are some other random pictures I’ve taken at the new house from last weekend and now.

We’ve been in the process of changing the floors in one of the bedrooms as I mentioned. We took the carpet out and put a dark brown wood laminate flooring. Next I need to paint the walls in the room. I’m unsure what color I want, but I think it’ll be some kind of shade of white. There’s so many shades of white!! We were going to do our bedroom with this same flooring, but I think we may use something else. I want to find a similar color though. We have other remodeling/updating that we want to do to the house, but that’ll come in time.

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Second bathroom (not the master bathroom). This room is currently probably the nicest/cleanest room in the house right now, haha. We currently have boxes EVERYWHERE. I’ll be taking recycle out for weeks before we finally get all of them out of the house.

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My boss gave us a ton of furniture. The dining table and barstools above are some of the pieces that he gave us. The dining table glass is supposed to have that shattered glass look/effect. Andy thought it was broken, but according to the description and my boss it’s supposed to be like that lol. The dining table also has a leaf and two more chairs that we didn’t put out yet. Four is more than enough for us right now. Colby loves that table. He’s been out more now that we have it up. I love the bar stools. They are all the same shade (more the middle stool color), but the lighting and shadow makes them look different.

I’ll have more pictures of the rest of the house another time once we get everything put away and cleaned up. So far this is what is done. So until then, below are some random pictures I’ve taken of the area and outside of my house.

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I seen the below banner hanging up on a window when we were driving through some of downtown Lakeland. A lot of the buildings have different banners of art like this hanging on their walls. We were driving or I would have taken a picture of them all.

Some random flowers and plants growing in my yard. I’m pretty sure the white ones and the orange ones only grew because the grass needs cut. I hate to see them go, but I love that I have this plant in my yard that grows these really pretty pink flowers.

These are all of the tree in my backyard. I take pictures of it every single time I am here, lmao. All different views at least. I got some close ups, some of the branches, and some through my lens ball.

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I took this picture of my tree when we got here on Friday night for my Instagram stories (heyyitsashley) and I was looking at the picture after I posted it and with the lights/shadows it looked like a face and made me think of Grandmother Willow from Pocahontas, haha. 😛

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The sky this morning from my front door. Forever heart eyes. It was actually 60 degrees outside too, which was so nice.

All week will most likely be spent cleaning and putting things away in the house during breaks at work and after work. I have so much to do. I also forgot that we have a ton of boxes that we put in the closet. I plan to go find the library and get a library card this week too. I’m hoping to finish one more book before the end of the month to include in my wrap up, which will be posted in the next few days as well as my book haul. I’ll also try to catch up with your posts at some point this week as well and reply to comments.

In case you missed it;
Random|| Life Update – New House!
Review|| Just for Clicks.
Friday Finds #75.
Review|| Comics Will Break Your Heart.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Random|| Life Update – New House!

Posted on February 11, 2019 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Hey!

Exciting news….the hubby and I did a thing…we bought a house on Friday (2/8)! We pretty much kept it secret and didn’t talk about it that much to anyone. I didn’t want to jinx things, because we really wanted this to work out! AND WELL….it did!

We are super stoked about it! We took a bunch of our stuff up there that we don’t use often. Funny story…so we brought an air mattress to sleep on, but forgot the air pump to blow it up. So I was like, okay, that’s okay. We have a big comforter we can lay on the the floor with….yeah, forgot that too. LMAO! So we had a ton of sheets and throw blankets to sleep on. Not the best sleep, but it is what it is. HAHA. We aren’t bringing our bed or other furniture until next weekend or the weekend after that.

My mom and aunt ended up coming on Saturday afternoon though and we went out to Walmart to get some stuff. She ended up buying us a couch/futon. It’s a futon, but when folded up it looks like a couch. It is really comfy and it’s really cute. She also bought a couple of air mattresses too, so next time we are good to go until we get all of our stuff up there! It’s currently about 3.5-4 hours from where we currently live. Don’t mind the mess, we are moving in HAHA. 😛 We spent pretty much all Saturday morning cleaning and doing other things around the house until my mom and aunt got there.

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I haven’t taken any inside pictures yet (besides the one above), but I will probably do that once we are settled in. The weekend was just just crazy busy doing a ton of different things and I guess just taking it all in, because it’s like a huge step in our lives. It’s super cool though! We have SO MUCH space. It’s three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and there’s a bonus room (which we will use like a second living room/family room). The “bonus room” is actually pictured above. We already have a list of things we want to do, haha. That’ll be fun. 😛 We ate lunch on a piece of cardboard Sunday hahah, so we wouldn’t get the floor messy and because we wanted to watch TV. My mom left her hot spot for us to watch TV until we got our own internet setup on Sunday.

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We’ll be going back up Friday night to do some more cleaning and hopefully more organizing of things. The living room when you walk into our house currently has so many boxes, so hopefully we get some things put away and more organized before we bring in the rest of our stuff in the next week or two.

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I took my smaller lens ball with me and got this pretty awesome picture of our house. I’m kind of obsessed with how great this picture turned out. We also have this HUGE tree in our backyard and I’m totally living for it. I already have plans to hang a hammock chair from it. Perfect reading spot while the pup runs around the yard, haha. The yard is fenced in, but we’ll be eventually getting a privacy fence, but for now it’s fine.

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Our house is more in the country side of town, which we actually like. Lots of good picture taking opportunities in the future, haha. Also, there are cows, goats, and horses and lots of woods too. One house across the street before turning into our neighborhood has three goats in their front yard, LOL. The next few pictures aren’t the best quality because we were driving and I didn’t have my zoom lens on my Nikon or the correct setting, but here is some of the area. I definitely plan to get more later this week.

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So we’re now homeowners which is pretty neat! This year is going to be pretty crazy for us. New house, new city, but we’re super stoked to see what happens. We have so much work to do with packing, moving, unpacking so I may not be around too much like I mentioned previously. I apologize in advance! I didn’t even get to read that much this week, which sucked! Hopefully I can finish at least one book this week. I’m halfway through Crooked Kingdom, so I would love to be able to finish that one this week. Guess we’ll see what happens!

In case you missed it;
WWW Wednesday #56.
Wrap Up|| January.
Book Haul|| January.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Dr. Von D Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park.

Posted on January 14, 2019 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

travel

Hey!

Andy and I decided to find another park in our area that we haven’t been to and check it out. We used to do this a lot, but haven’t in awhile. We want to go to as many places as we can in this area before we move, so we decided to start checking out parks again. Dr. Von D Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park (damn that name is a mouth full, LOL) is pretty much just a few minutes down the street from us and I can’t believe we haven’t known about this place, because it was so nice; especially the the beach area! Part of the park is ocean and the other part is woodsy.

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These are all the pictures that I took in the beach/ocean part of the park. It was really pretty there and I was obsessed with the view, especially the very first picture that I shared. I think this is more of the fishing area, because a lot of people had fishing poles and they were fishing off the rocks as you can see in the first set of pictures. The last four pictures is more of a sandy area where a lot of people were swimming and laying out. It’s a lot more secluded in this area of the beach than the typical touristy part, which is pretty neat. Nice to keep in mind if I want to ever go to the beach. Even the bathrooms looked nicer than the typical busy touristy beach.

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These are the few pictures that I took in the woodsy area of the park. I didn’t take too many, because I was freaking out because of all the mosquitoes LOL! We made it through though and this was the view when we came out of the woodsy area. IT’S SO PRETTY! Heart eyes for days! We ended up on a bridge and when you cross over the bridge then you’re at the beach (the more sandy part)!

Below are just some random pictures that I took over the last week. I haven’t taken very many, so I figured I would include them in this post as well.

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It wouldn’t be a proper post if I didn’t include pictures of the sky. You all probably know by now that I am obsessed with the sky, so I take a lot of pictures of it. These are my first 2019 pictures of the sky LOL with probably a million more to come. 😛

It also wouldn’t be typical Ashley post without pictures of my furbabies. So the left picture of my kitties, this is the first time I almost got the perfect picture of them all three together. BUT of course the littlest one (Leaf – white calico at the top) ruined it. She was in the middle of smacking October (black calico), so I called her name and she looked up but October was still like “WTF” at Leaf and didn’t look up when I called. You can see little Leaf’s paw being held up slightly, lol. UGHHH. I just want one good picture of them all looking at the camera at the same time, is that too much to ask for? 😛 And then my pup Dax on the right.

That’s all for this post. I can’t wait to figure out which park we want to check out next. I have a few bookmarked and there’s a couple museums that I want to go to as well. So we’ll see what happens!

In case you missed it;
4 Star Reads of 2018.
5 Star Reads of 2018.
Thoughts|| The Wicked King.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Posted on January 10, 2019 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

“your journey is vastly different to anyone else’s.” ♡🌼

Christmas 2018.

Posted on December 27, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

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

Random|| Picture Update.

Posted on December 11, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

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

Posted on November 23, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

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“maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” ♡

Random|| Reading & Life Update.

Posted on November 9, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Hey!

It’s been a week since my last update, I guess I just haven’t really had anything to write about. My last post was my November TBR, which I will link at the end of this post. Surprisingly, I’ve been really sticking to that TBR and was able to read three books from it and now on my fourth book. I believe there was seven books on my list, so I think I might actually be able to read them all this month! I flew three books in one weekend. I’ll start with my reading update first and move on to some pictures.

What did I read?

I read The Poet X, And the Ocean Was Our Sky, and Speak: The Graphic Novel. It was actually pretty easy to fly through these in one weekend since one is written in verse (The Poet X), one is only about 150 pages and has illustrations (And the Ocean Was Our Sky) and one was a graphic novel (Speak). Overall, I enjoyed all three of these books.

What am I currently reading?

I am currently reading People Kill People and The Perfect Friend. I’m about halfway through People Kill People and it’s okay. I’m not really that blown away with it and sometimes it’s a bit boring. I hope it picks up. It’s half told in verse. I am also reading The Perfect Friend, which I should be finished with it today. I don’t have very much left of it. It’s pretty interesting, but it’s also probably going to end up being three stars. I like it, but it’s also kind of boring at times too.

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Now onto some pictures that I’ve taken recently and a little about whatever is going on in my life. Some of these haven’t been posted to Instagram yet, but will eventually make there way there. 😛 Feel free to follow me on Instagram (Instagram: heyyitsashley)!

A random selfie from Halloween. I wore my Harry Potter style glasses that day to work and also my Hogwarts/Harry Potter Halloween shirt. On Halloween I mentioned how I was taking my niece and nephew trick-or-treating with my sister. I sadly didn’t get any pictures of them in their costumes, but I took a few videos. They both had light up masks, which I felt would come off better in video than picture haha. They had fun and got a lot of candy. They didn’t want to stay out long, but I was fine with that because I didn’t really want to be out, to be honest. We walked by one house and they had this big lighthouse in their backyard and it lit up! I told Andy (he was with us) that when we get a house I want one in my yard, haha. I love lighthouses and this was so neat!

There was another night (the weekend before Halloween) where our city was having a little Halloween block party type event, so we all went walking around there too. I got a few nice pictures. It was really crowded and I don’t like crowded events anymore (not with all of these random shootings happening so often now). So I was glad we didn’t have to stay too long. My niece didn’t really feel like being there that long. We probably stayed like an hour. Anyway, here are the pictures that I took.

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First picture is a picture of the cat ears my sister was wearing. I thought it would be a cool picture with all the tall buildings behind her. The second picture is of the sun setting in the car. My mom was driving and my sister in the passenger seat. I think it came out really cool. Third picture is the sunset once we got out of the car. Fourth picture is a building and I like the reflection on the building since they are glass/mirrored windows. Fifth picture is stringed lights they had up at the event. Sixth picture is of some candy apples I seen in the window of the bakery we walked by. They look so good!

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I went to Five Below over the weekend and they had some Christmas decor out, so I picked up this throw blanket and pillow for $5 each. I was so stoked when I seen them! I really need to go through all our packed boxes and see if I can find the rest of my Christmas decorations. I don’t care that it’s only November and it hasn’t been Thanksgiving yet. I like to decorate for Christmas early, judge all you want. 😛

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I also got a mini Christmas tree for my dining room table and some little ornaments to go with it at Five Below. I haven’t put the ornaments on yet and not sure when I will. I don’t see this tree lasting long with three cats, lol. ColbyJack is already curious about it, so just wait until those ornaments go up. And speaking of cats…

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The weather actually got a little cooler during the morning last weekend, so we opened up our windows. The cats loved it and spent most of the time sitting on the windowsill in my bedroom. I love these three so much. Left is October, middle is Leaf, and right is ColbyJack.

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And a few other pictures of the furbabies. First picture is Dax. He was super stoked about playing with this Christmas toy, lol. I think he’s ready for Christmas too? He needs a haircut, haha. Middle is October and I love that she was with the Halloween decorations. The picture gives up hella spooky vibes with her coloring. She fits in perfectly. This was before she decided to knock over all of my decorations. UGH. And the last picture is of Leaf. I’ve been working at home on Fridays and sometimes she jumps up on my desk and decides it’s fun to take a nap when I’m trying to work, lol. It’s not always easy to work around her. Last week she decided she would use my mouse as a pillow.

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Another sunset picture from the other day. I take a lot of pictures of the sky. It’s one of my favorite things. It is always changing, which I love. Every day it can be something different, which is really cool.

This weekend I think the whole family is going to go see the new Grinch movie. My mom really wants to go and the previews look good. If my younger sister comes down to visit again this weekend, I might see if she wants to go to the Renaissance festival (Camelot Days). They have it two weekends in November every year, so it’s this weekend and next. I want to go, but also I’m so paranoid about events with big crowds now, UGHH. I guess we’ll see what happens.

What are you currently reading? What have you recently finished reading? Do you have any plans for the weekend?

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

I hope you have a great day and weekend!

ashleyblack

Travel|| Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse & Museum.

Posted on October 24, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

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Hey!

Andy and I decided to go check out the lighthouse in Jupiter on Saturday, which was a really fun time. Continue reading to see some of the pictures that I took while we were there.

I didn’t really get any pictures of the museum/inside the museum. I wasn’t sure if you were allowed to take pictures in there or not, so I decided not to. The museum was actually a World War II naval housing building that they turned into a museum. It had different things in the museum from World War II and information about the area. It was really neat and interesting.

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This is the Tindall Pioneer house. It was built in 1892! Again, I didn’t take pictures inside the house because I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to or not. It was really neat inside though. They recreated the rooms.

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This was the outhouse next to the Tindall House. I really liked the moon carved into the door, which is why I took a picture. LOL. We also came across this bell while we continued on the path to the lighthouse. I wish I would have gotten more pictures of things along the way to the lighthouse, but I was more enjoying everything I was seeing than taking pictures. Once the lighthouse came into view though, that was an entirely different story. HAHA. I couldn’t help but take so many pictures of it.

Above is a sign in front of the lighthouse with a little information about it. I thought it was really neat.

And here’s part of the lighthouse! I’ll have a few other pictures of the lighthouse below, but this is a small glimpse of it as we are walking up.

and almost died. 😛 They weren’t lying when they said the climb was strenuous. My legs were killing me the next day and still are. I am glad that I did though, because the views were pretty amazing around the lighthouse.

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Here are some more pictures of the lighthouse! I read online that it wasn’t originally painted red. It was seriously so beautiful though and pretty tall. It was 34 stairs to the base of the lighthouse and then 105 stairs to climb inside of the lighthouse.

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These last two are hands down my favorite pictures that I took. I wanted a picture of the plants, but also with the lighthouse in the background. I think they came out pretty perfect.

Here’s a picture of Andy with the lighthouse in the background. The red brick path was neat too. I wish I took a picture of it. You can donate to them/buy a brick and get your name or any message written on one of the bricks. So the entire walk up to the lighthouse were different names and messages.

This is a random picture I took on the stairs of the lighthouse. First picture is looking up and the second picture is looking down. I really love how these pictures came out.

Next weekend we are hoping to go check out the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach. I am so stoked for that! I seen a few pictures of it and it looks amazing. I feel like it might be an all day thing, because it looked like there were a ton of things to see and do there.

In case you missed it;
Thoughts|| Dear Evan Hansen.
Photo A Day|| October 11-17.
Random|| Picture Update.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyhalloween

Photo A Day|| October 11-17.

Posted on October 19, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

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Hey!

I’ve been taking part in monthly photo a day challenges on my Instagram account (heyyitsashley) and I’ve been having a lot of fun with them (when I don’t fall behind on pictures). I figured I would also cross post them to my blog as well. I think for the purpose of blogging, I will post 3-6 per blog post that I do throughout the month. That way I am not spamming my blog with a photo a day post every single day. You can follow me on Instagram (linked above) if you want to see them daily though! Some of these pictures will be taken with my Nikon cameras (CoolPix & D3400). There will also be some taken with my iPhone X.

October 11th-17th

There’s only five pictures, because I actually skipped a couple days this week. I skipped “baby blue” and “chocolate”. I didn’t have any old pictures that fit the category and I didn’t have any inspiration or things to take pictures of that fit them either for new pictures.