Random|| Picture & Reading Update.

Posted on August 15, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

Hey!

This won’t have a ton of pictures like usual, because I haven’t really been taking very many pictures these days. But I do have a few of neat ones from the weekend and some pictures that I found on my old camera. Also a desk tour, because why not? lol. I am skipping my usual WWW Wednesday post, so I can post this instead. I’ll put a little reading update at the end of this post though. First though….food, as always. 😛

The hubby finished school last week and to celebrate we went out for pizza and fried ravioli at our new favorite Italian restaurant. I usually always get the BBQ chicken pizza and he usually always gets the buffalo chicken pizza. It’s so good and it passes the cold pizza test. Their fried ravioli is so freaking good, so we have to get it every single time we go. I’m already craving them again and it’s only been six days since I had them. 😛

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The Umbrella Sky Project was happening in Miami, so the hubby and I decided to go check it out. It original started in Portugal for an art festival, but then other cities around the world started to do it. Basically during the hot summer months they’ll string a bunch of umbrellas up as shade for people. They’ll be taking them down in September, so I wanted to go see it before that happens. It was really neat and pretty. A guy that lives over there told us that when they first put the umbrellas up they were a lot more colorful and brighter, but the colors started to fade. I still think they look really neat though. Below are some more pictures of it.

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I set up my desk area our apartment. I really like how it came out. I’ve been neglecting finishing up my school stuff (sigh), but I am hoping now that I have my desk all setup, it’ll motivate me to finally finish it. I’m kind of close to being finished with all the work. I am hoping to have it finish by the end of next month.

On the left I have some notebooks and school book, one basket with post-its and page flags, one with sharpie markers, desk organizer that just has random things in it that I need to clean out. A box that has note cards in it, because I have an obsession with buying all of Target’s dollar bin note cards. A cork board (and dry erase board behind it) that I need to hang up, a stack of books that I hope to read soon. A cat mug, some candles, a Stranger Things coaster, my butterbeer mug from Harry Potter World that is being used as a pencil/pen holder. Some paper clips (I have some others that are currently MIA right now and I am annoyed that I can’t find them), armadillo lamp, my laptop, my desktop computer, some random faux succulent plants, and my TARDIS Funko Pop. Hanging on the wall I have a Sherlock print, Supernatural print, and a Doctor Who print. At the time of this picture the hubby hung them up crooked but I have since fixed them because it was bugging me LOL. Under my desk I have some baskets with a bunch of miscellaneous things in them.

A couple random pictures. I took this picture the bird on the power lines awhile ago when I first got my Nikon D3400. I actually didn’t like that picture, but then I was going through my memory card again to delete pictures and I decided to transfer it to my phone anyway and I ended up really loving it, lol. I found my “whatever forever” bracelet and perfect timing, because I need to live this like I used to. I’m letting stresses of life affect me way too much lately and I hate it because I was never like this. I started to wear it every day again as I reminder.

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The sunset from Friday night. It was storming really bad, but once the storm was over the sky looked like this. I love the shades of orange. It was really pretty and I of course had to get a picture of it. I’ve said it a million times, I am sucker for the sunset.

I found my old digital camera that I bought back in 2016 for our California trip and there were still pictures from California on it. These four a pictures that I took when we went to Monterey Bay, California. Such a pretty town! I definitely want to go back to California again.

Random selfie from Friday. The picture on the right is Leaf and I watching Pocahontas. Funny story, so I was talking to Leaf (because I always talk to my furbabies, lol) and I was listing all the shows on Netflix that we should watch. Secretly hoping she would answer back and pick one, because you know…maybe cats can truly talk? 😛 Eventually she got bored with me and ran off, so I chose Pocahontas. Then she comes back and I say to her “oh, you came to watch Pocahontas with me! You’re in for a real treat.”, haha. Crazy cat lady….for damn sure.

Here is my mini reading update. I usually do a WWW Wednesday post on most Wednesdays, but I really wanted to post this little picture update, so I am including a mini WWW Wednesday down below.

Currently Reading: Ghosted by Rosie Walsh. So far it’s pretty interesting. I’m not too far into it, but I like it so far. It’s one of my most anticipated reads of the year, so I am hoping it’s amazing.

Recently Finished: #MurderTrending and Florida. #MurderTrending was so good! You can check out my review linked below. Florida was just okay. It wasn’t anything too exciting. It wasn’t what I expected it to be.

Reading Next: I am hoping to read All Your Perfects next! I am so stoked to read the new Colleen Hoover book. Hopefully I can start that at some point this week or definitely next week if not. I am EXCITED!

In case you missed it;
Thoughts|| #MurderTrending.
Travel|| Lake Placid, FL.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Random|| Picture Update.

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

Hey!

It’s been almost three months since I’ve done one of these posts and I don’t even know where to begin with it. I don’t remember what I have and haven’t posted already. So there may be a few repeats. I love posting these type of posts and my pictures, but when I go so long without doing one then I have no clue where to begin again, ahhh. 😛 Warning this is probably going to be REALLY picture heavy, because there’s probably 60+ pictures.

Feel free to follow me on Instagram (heyyitsashley)! A lot of these haven’t been posted on my Instagram yet, so you’re seeing them first! Eventually they’ll make their way on there. I take so many pictures and don’t want to post a million at one time, so I hoard pictures to post later, lol. Anyway, onto my pictures!

Let’s start with FOOD, because food is amazing. 😛

I stumbled upon this restaurant called “I Heart Mac & Cheese” and holy crap I was in heaven. I needed to go their, ASAP! Last week the hubby’s parents came down to visit and they took us there and it was great. I got the pulled pork mac & cheese. SO MUCH CHEEEEESE!

Recently the hubby and I tried a new pizza place (it’s amazing and we’ve already gone twice in like a week and a half) and we also tried a new burger place that was really great too. The burger place is called BurgerFi and the pizza place was called D’Salvos.

This new shaved ice place opened up down the street so we tried it out for my aunt’s birthday. It was really good. They sell alcoholic drinks in kind of shaved ice form and they were good. No picture of the drink, but I do got a picture of the shaved ice we got too. Also, their interior decor is amazing. One wall is painted like the ocean/sky. The ceiling has lights that are printed with clouds on them. The floor is like the ocean. And the table is sea glass. I accidentally deleted my picture of the floor. They also have a chalkboard wall so you can write/draw on it.

The shaved ice is blueberry. It’s sitting on the shaved ice table. The ocean/sky scene in the background is one of their walls. Below is my mom writing on their chalkboard wall and the top right corner is their sky/cloud lighting. SO COOL! 🙂

Alright, moving right along. Onto, furbabies!

A year ago yesterday my little Leaf turned one (well technically she turned one in June, but I got her in July so that’s her new birthday). I tried so hard for days to get pictures of her in the birthday hat, but she just wasn’t having it. So I got pictures of her eating the birthday hat instead? They are all still pretty cute pictures though. I am so stoked we decided to keep her. We love her so much.

We’ve been dogsitting the hubby’s parents’ dog and Leaf and Digby love each other so much. It’s cute. They’ve been playing so much together to. 😀 Here is another picture of Digby, because I have a problem with taking pictures of animals. 😛

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My four! Dax, Leaf, October, ColbyJack.

And some pictures of them loving each other.

Some other misc. pictures. First two are the cats are when I was trying to relax in the bath, but they all wanted to watch me. WEIRDOS. Third picture of me walking the pup. And the last picture is Leaf photobombing my picture of October.

Now onto nature type pictures. First up, the sky.

Next, flowers and plants.

First picture is a shadow of some leaves on the side of our house. I really love how it turned out.

The rest are just some random pictures.

Some really neat buildings I’ve seen. The first picture each shop is a different color. Second picture is a parking garage that is painted to be a sunset (or sunrise). The entire parking garage isn’t picture. It’s HUGE.

A couple different pictures of the moon.

Playing with sparklers with my nephew and sister. My nephew didn’t a bunch of scribbles with his sparklers while I took a picture. My sister tried to write things out. Got this really cool one of an “A” she did. Last picture is just me holding the sparkler.

The hubby’s eye, lol. For some reason I really LOVE this picture though. And the second picture is of me and my new glasses! 😛 I really love these glasses.

And DONE! So many pictures. There’s even more pictures that I probably didn’t post, but trying to figure them out will be so hard. I’ll just leave you with these and hopefully I don’t let myself go months without doing another one of these posts. I will hopefully catch up with all of your posts at some point this week. I hope you had a great weekend!

In case you missed it;
Travel|| Black Point Marina.
Wrap Up|| June.
Book Haul|| June.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Random|| Picture Update.

Posted on April 13, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

pictureupdate

Hey!

I haven’t done a picture update post (besides photo a day or travel ones) in a month, so I have quite a lot of pictures to share. My total picture count was a little over 60 pictures. I decided to break it up and put my Disney on Ice pictures in their own post that will probably go up next week. If you follow me on Instagram (heyyitsashley) you may have seen some of these; others haven’t made it there yet, so you’ll get to see them first! Anyway, onto the pictures!

The hubby and I went to walk around Downtown Hollywood (Florida), because they always have new wall art popping up on buildings and I wanted to check them out and get some pictures. Here are some of the ones that we seen. I still have so many more to see though.

These mermaid ones were pretty awesome! It was one giant wall, so it was harder to get the entire seen in a picture. Instead I broke it up into three pictures of the mermaids.

These were some smaller ones or close ups. The parrot one is a smaller one that was on the side of a hotel. The anchor and fishes were a closeup from the mermaids above.

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I really loved this robot one so much.

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FLAMINGOS! This one was my all-time favorite one that I seen so far. This is also a big wall. The other side has more flamingos on it, but these two looked the coolest.

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This one was across from the mermaids. It was also on a giant wall, so this isn’t even half of it! The other side looks identical though. Really love this one and the colors.

It was National Beer Day on Saturday, so we went to this bar in Downtown Hollywood called Old Hollywood Beerhouse. They sell 200 different beers, so we decided to check out a few of those. I loved all the ones I got (pictured above). The sour wheat ale was probably my favorite. We plan to go back again to try some more. It was a cool vibe there. They played old Hollywood movies on old TVs and played old music on a record player.

Random selfies, because why not?

PIZZA! We love pizza at my house. Right was from when the hubby and I went to go see Love, Simon at the movies. I love that our theater has recliner chairs now.

I am living for dresses lately. I finally got around to wearing my cat one (right) and my sunflower one. I am in love with my sunflower one. My yellow TOMS went perfect with it too.

Weekend Vibes.

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My nephew Jackson.

I seriously hate these things (all spiders and bugs, really) and this time of year they pop up EVERYWHERE. We probably have 10+ in our backyard. Even little baby ones.

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These three above are just some random pictures. The last one of the sunset is really cool though. I took it from the side passenger mirror in the car. It came out really cool.

Little Leaf! She got spayed last Friday. Colby and October HATED her when she came back from getting spayed. They didn’t want to be around her and if she went near them, they would hiss at her. She went to hide in blankets and plastic bags to get away from them. 😦 I guess it’s a thing that happens sometimes with cats when you take one to the vet and bring them home. After about a day, Colby was friendly again with her. October took the entire weekend before they became best friends again.

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See! Friends again! 😀

Leaf (left), ColbyJack (top right), October (bottom right).

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My boys; Colby & Dax.

I bought a lens ball recently, because I seen so many cool pictures on Instagram taken with it. I got the 80mm ball and it has a bit of weight to it and it’s a pretty big size. I also decided to get a 60mm one as well. I was so scared I was going to drop it, haha. I decided to take it down to the railroad tracks and get some pictures. I still need to get the hang of it though and try to get more creative with it. This was just me trying it out since I’ve never used one before! Here are a few of the pictures I got. The left side are the originals and the right side are the rotated versions.

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And this one was just a random one that I took at my house. I didn’t rotate the picture for this one, because I really liked it like this and how it came out with the lighting. Depending on the picture, sometimes it looks cooler rotated and other times it looks better as it originally is taken (subject being upside down).

Minus the bad lighting in my house, I tried it out with a book. I also figured out that it’s so much easier to hold the lens ball this way versus how I was holding it in all my other pictures, haha. Easier for me anyway, since I have smaller hands and the 80mm is a little big and heavy. I already took all the other pictures before trying it out this way though, lol.

Well, that’s all for this post! My Disney on Ice picture post will come at some point next week. I should also hopefully have a review of Hot Mess. I am hoping to finish it this weekend. I think I am also going to finally get to some of those tags done as well. I currently have eight drafted tag posts that I need to finally work on. I think once I get this next lesson done for school, then I’ll have a little free time to do some tags.

In case you missed it;
Thoughts|| Invictus.
WWW Wednesday #49.
Thoughts|| Huntress.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack

Random|| Photo Update.

Posted on March 2, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

pictureupdate

Hey!

Happy Friday! 😀 So stoked that Friday is finally here and tomorrow (Saturday) is my birthday! That makes the weekend even better! Not entirely sure what we are going to do for my birthday yet, but the carnival is probably one of the things. My older sister and I usually take my niece and nephew every year. This little carnival always lands on my birthday, so we go every year for them. We plan to sit in the beer garden while they play games and go on rides, lol. During the day I’m not sure what we’re gonna d. probably go out to eat with the hubby since he took the day off work.

Last weekend I went to the beach with my older sister, my cousin, and her son. That was a pretty fun time. It was really hot that day though! I got a little sunburned. We also seen dolphins! They were playing and jumping out of the water, but I couldn’t get a picture. Wasn’t fast enough!

After we ate, we went to get something to eat. We chose to eat at this place called Le Tub Saloon. I’ve always wanted to eat there after reading one of Tarryn Fisher’s books. I don’t remember which one it was, but it mentioned this restaurant and I decided to look it up and it’s right on the beach! That was last year I found out about it and FINALLY checked it out. Their decor consists of bathtubs, toilets, toilet seats, etc. LOL. It was interesting. I wish I would have taken more pictures, but here are a couple.

They also serve these HUGE burgers that they said they are well known for. It was 13oz they said and holy crap it was huge! HAHA. It tasted so good though and I was really happy with it. They had some good fries too. I need to go back ASAP!

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Last weekend I also chilled out in the hammock a lot of the day and drank this new blackberry beer that I found at the grocery store. OMG, this beer was freaking amazing! I need to go see if I can get some more, because it was so good. I ended up drinking all six beers, LOL.

I don’t remember if I shared this on here or not, but I got my February Pura Vida Bracelets pack and it was pretty awesome. It was a Valentine’s Day themed one, which was really cool. I also don’t have a lot of pink bracelets, so I was happy. I love their bracelets so much.

50+ bracelets (I also have some anklets too), you guys! I’m not lying when I say I am obsessed with Pura Vida Bracelets, lol.

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FLOWERS! I love taking pictures of flowers. Funny story about the yellow ones, so my mom planted this random branch in her garden and sore it was going to grow into something. I didn’t believe it for second, because it looked like a dead broken branch. For a year it didn’t do anything at all. A couple days ago I walk past her garden and these yellow flowers (found out they are called plumeria) grew from it, lol. I guess I was wrong, oops. 😛 Every year around this time, these redish/pink flowers grow next to my sister’s door. They are really neat and pretty. I’m still not sure what they are called. At the time of the picture there was only two, but now there are like 20+!

Onto all the furbaby pictures, because I am obsessed with my babies. My boy, Dax. He’s always so cute. We gave him a haircut, because his hair was getting a little ridiculous, plus it’s going to start getting even hotter here soon.

My girl, October. She’s going to be two this year! Crazy how time flies. I miss her being a tiny kitten, but I still love her so much. I am still and forever obsessed with her face, lol.

My little girl, Leaf. I can’t believe she’s going to be one year’s old in like 4-5 months. It’s hard to believe that I’ve already had her for more than half a year.

She always loves being held and I freaking love her to death for it. She loves all the attention while the others do not, lol.

And my other boy, ColbyJack. I love this guy so much. He’s so needy sometimes though, haha. He’s going to be five years old in 5-6 months, which is just crazy! When I first got him he was the tiniest little kitten and now he’s this big chubby cat, haha.

Leaf & ColbyJack. Sometimes they do love each other. Most of the time Colby can’t stand Leaf. She’s too crazy for him.

I believe that’s all for this post! I think I’ve pretty much shared all my other pictures. Feel free to follow me on Instagram to see more. 🙂

Instagram: heyyitsashley

I also have a Bookstagram account as well, but I haven’t been able to use it as much lately. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to get back into it like I used to be. Since moving into a smaller place and currently in the process of moving again, it’s just harder to take pictures. I also packed up over half of my books too, so that’s that.

Bookstagram: foreverbookish_

In case you missed it;
Wrap Up|| February.
Book Haul|| February.
Photo A Day|| February Part Three.

I hope you have a great Friday and weekend!

ashleyyellow

Travel|| Lakeland…again.

Posted on January 8, 2018 by ashley @ socially awkward bookworm

lakeland

Hey!

So I did a trip to Lakeland once again (told you that I love this city!), but this time with my younger sister, mom, and aunt. We only went for a couple days, but it was still pretty fun. We went the weekend of New Year’s.

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View from the window in our hotel room. The hotel was pretty nice and we were right in the middle of Lakeside Village, which was nice. Lakeside Village has a lot of shops and restaurants in it. It’s like a little shopping center type place, but outdoors. My younger sister and I spent most of the time there.

The first night we went to dinner at Glory Days. We were meeting up with my mom’s and aunt’s cousin. That was pretty fun. I didn’t take any pictures of that. After we ate dinner, we went to a bar for a little bit. We didn’t stay out long though. We were all pretty tired since we went to Lakeland straight after work. The next day we went to breakfast and then back to the hotel. My mom had to work during the day, but once the shops opened in Lakeside Village, my younger sister (Stephanie) and I went down there to walk around.

Fountain in the middle of Lakeside Village. I really wanted to go to Rocket Fizz, so I could get Andy some soda and to get myself salt water taffy. He loves all the different flavored sodas they sell and we don’t have a Rocket Fizz near us. We always make sure to stop there every time we go to Lakeland. My sister ended up getting some sodas too.

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Does anyone remember Whistle Pops?! Rocket Fizz had Whistle Pops, so my sister got some. We used to get these ALL THE TIME when we were kids. I love that Rocket Fizz has a bunch of older candies from back then. It’s hard not to buy everything, haha.

My sister and I went to Books-A-Million and I managed to leave the store without buying a single book! Left is a picture of us in some masks they had there. She’s the dinosaur and I’m the cat (of course). 😛 There was also a frozen yogurt shop inside Books-A-Million, so we got some. I haven’t had froyo in so long, because the place by my house closed down.

On the way to Lakeland, we drive through this little town called Lake Wales (which I love that town too, haha) and they had this bar we seen called “Y’all Come Back Saloon”, so we decided to check it out after hanging out in Lakeside Village. My mom and aunt went with. It was such a fun bar. It was defintely a dive bar (which we love) and super country (which we love) and cheap beer (which we love), haha. It was perfect for us and it was a lot of fun. My sister and I played pool for a little while. I suck at pool and I also think it’s kind of boring, lol. Back home my mom, aunt, and older sister play. They are all on pool teams too, but I don’t like it. LOL.

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My mom and aunt drank quite a bit, so they went back to the hotel once we got back to Lakeland. My sister and I decided to go back to Lakeside Village and go to Brass Tap. We both got flights and pizza. I loved all the beer that I got. My sister liked three of the four that she picked up out. I love craft beer and of course pizza!

After we drank and ate pizza we walked around and ended up at Smallcakes. They were on Cupcake Wars on Food Network! I ended up buying cupcakes and we ate them for breakfast on Sunday. THEY WERE SO GOOD!

We were originally supposed to stay in Lakeland until Monday (January 1st), but ended up coming back a day early. These are some pictures I took on the way back home from the car.

Even though we came home a day early, it was still pretty fun. Especially getting to hangout with my younger sister. She’s a truck driver with her boyfriend, so I don’t get to see her that often. I am always down for a trip to Lakeland and Lake Wales. I think there will be another one in the next month or two.

I think I am going to do a few blog posts with the books I read last year with their ratings. Example: a blog post with all of my five star reads in 2017, four star reads, etc. I actually had quite a bit of five star reads, so it’ll be cool showing them all in one post. That may be coming at some point this week or early next week.

In case you missed it;
Phot A Day|| January 1-4
2018 Reading Goals.
New Year, New Blog.

I hope you have a great day!

ashleyblack