What am I Nerding Out About? March 2019 Edition
/Finding time to write on the blog this week has been such a challenge! Both the work and home life have been SO busy. This post has taken me a full week to write! Ideas for blog posts are oozing out of me (my January trip to WDW, souvenirs from Disney, earring collections, sticker collections, self care posts, Sims stories, bullet journal spreads, cat and dog updates and more!), but there just isn’t enough time in the day. I have a wonderful full time job that I am super grateful for, but I really wish I could be a full time blogger! If you have a preference about what I write about next, please let me know in the comments. It will help me decide!
(All recommendations are spoiler-free.)
One of my aims for this blog is to help you find new hobbies or other means of finding more joy in your life. To that end, I give you just a sampling of what I have been enjoying lately. Let me know if anything catches your interest! Also, if you have any recommendations for me leave those in the comments too!
Reading
I recently finished One Plus One by Jojo Moyes. It is an adorable feel-good romantic comedy. I was in the mood for something heartwarming and fluffy, and that’s what I got. Don’t get me wrong, it was a page-turner and I did stay up very late one night to finish it. Also, I’m not very big on physical love scenes (yawn for me)- I’m all about emotional attachments, and this was perfect! If you are ho-hum about romantic comedies but think you might want to try one, I highly recommend giving this one a go. It is supposed to be one of her best, but I’ve never read anything else by her. Thanks to this book I might be more willing to check out a romantic book in the future.
Watching
My husband and I also just finished watching seasons 1 & 2 of “The Good Place”, an American fantasy comedy. While season 3 exists, only seasons 1 & 2 are available on Netflix. The show has gotten great reviews, and was highly recommended by some friends. It did not disappoint! The writing is wonderful and the actors are superb. The story is unique and is constantly moving forward. I quickly became attached to all the characters. While always funny, it is also, at times, intense and heartwarming. I LOVED it and highly recommend it! I can’t wait for season 3 to drop on Netflix.
Planning
I love organizing gatherings with my friends. However, I’ve lived, worked and gone to school in many places and I have friends all over the states these days. Getting together as a big group is much harder, but it is SO worth the effort!
Right now, I’m planning a weekend trip for some of my friends, and we are using a site that calculates the midpoint between all our homes (we are scattered from Michigan to New Jersey, and down thru Virginia). I use Doodle Polls to find out who is interested in attending and when they can make it (do this months in advance for better success!). Once I know who is going we calculate the midpoint using something like: https://www.whatshalfway.com/. And then we get a house with enough space for all of us on something like AirBnB or https://www.vrbo.com/ (I prefer the latter).
For my friends, we plan to stay at the house, play board games and chat. If you planned one for your friend group you could also explore the area, go hiking, watch movies all day, cook a meal together…whatever your particular group of friends loves to do.
It’s like having a big sleepover party with adults, and it’s amazing. I highly recommend it.
Listening
I listen to about 15 podcasts a week at the moment. I only listen to one episode of each every week as I’m not a fan of bingeing. While I enjoy all the pods I’m listening to, my current favorite is a fairly new addition to my list. I’m only about seven episodes into it, but I’m madly in love with it.
Girl in Space is a fiction audiodrama…I’d describe it as “space fantasy” maybe? It’s witty, charming, adorable, intense, fascinating…just listen to it. It’s impossible to describe exactly how dang good it is, but it is definitely worth listening to. It’s high quality with fabulous voice acting and storytelling. Also, once you listen, we can discuss throwing a party together where we watch Jurassic Park and eat cheese. (Don’t worry, that was not spoilery.)
Investigating
I’ve been doing a lot of research in the area of self care, and experimenting with how to improve my own self care. It’s not just taking “me” days and allowing yourself an ice cream sundae. It involves everything from doctor’s appointments to journaling , and from budgeting to calling your mom. I’m planning on doing additional posts soon, but you can checkout my first one on: the Types of Self Care.
Playing
Two Point Hospital came out last year from Two Point Studios as the spiritual successor to the 90’s game Theme Hospital. It’s a hilarious business simulation game about running a hospital. The humor is whimsical and silly, but also quite clever with lots of wordplay. The game has a lot of detail, and they’ve already come out with quite a bit of DLC for it, so there is lot to keep you coming back. I immediately fell in love with the game, and it always makes me happy. I started playing it the week it came out, but this past weekend I returned for another fling, as I have done many times since downloading it and hope to continue doing for quite some time.
And those are just some of the things that have been enjoying recently! Thanks for reading!
Learning about Tapirs using Planet Zoo!