Hello valiant blog readers!

I have been terrible at keeping this thing updated. I know. Every time I get busy this blog is the first thing to go, but it’s also one of my favorite things I do online! I don’t understand it! I’m gonna be better. I promise.

Anyway! Here’s what I have been up to since the last time I wrote a blog post, which was… early November.

The biggest thing for me was – I finished my 9th NaNoWriMo novel! It was a crazy month, with very little time for anything other than writing, but I DID IT. It felt amazing, and here’s my video documentation of the process if you want to know more about what it was like for me:

 

I also recently started up a book club on Goodreads if you haven’t heard about that yet. It’s called The Restricted Section and we’ve already got a great group of people involved! Our first book (for November) was Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore (which I loved) and this month we’re reading My True Love Gave to Me, a compilation of holiday themed short stories written by popular YA authors. I can’t wait to dive into it.

As for this month, I’m currently gearing up for Project 4 Awesome (that’s taking place December 12-13 if you wanna get involved) and then shortly after that is the Christmas BookTubeAThon! I can’t WAIT to find out what the challenges are; I love BookTubeAThon so much. I will likely be making daily videos and shoving everything else on my to-do list way down so I can knock out a bunch more reading before the end of the year.

It’s also going to be my birthday soon… I turn 27 on the 27th, making it my golden birthday! This will also set my well into my “late twenties”, which is something I am still grappling with, emotionally. Where did the time go? I honestly couldn’t tell you. I was too busy wearing footy pajamas and watching My Little Pony to notice how old I’ve gotten.

That’s sort of it, for now! I hope you’re all doing well and I will be back very soon with another blog post. Happy December!

Hello, lovely blog readers! I know we’re well into November by now, but I still wanted to share with you a few photos of our Halloween party. Halloween is a big event around here for my housemates and I – we’ve thrown a party each Halloween since 2008; it’s automatic now. Halloween rolls around, we throw a party. It’s always big, loud and tons of fun.

This year’s didn’t disappoint! We turned on those black-lights, cranked up the tunes and opened our doors!

This is the one day of the year we actually put our built in bar to use! This is where we stuck chips and all the various bottles of booze, mixers and beer.

 

This was the ‘fancy drinks’ table. We reused our Unicorn’s Blood recipe from last year’s Harry Potter party (Blue Hawaiian Punch and whatever vodka you have lying around) in our punch fountain, vodka gummy worms (dear lord these were strong) and radioactive green test tube shots (pineapple juice, sour apple shnapps, dragonberry rum and a few drops of green food coloring).

This was our food table! This year we had the Mummy-Rollups (weenies wrapped in crescent rolls), graveyard dip (standard 5 layer dip with tombstone shaped “headstone” crackers) and orange pumpkin-shaped rice krispies treats.

 Finally, it wouldn’t be a party without good ‘ol Aragog. It felt like old times, having our little spider friend watching over the festivities.

 

How was your Halloween? What did you do? What’s your favorite Halloween snacks or drink? let me know in the comments, and I hope your Novembers are off to a great start!

 

Okay, I haven’t just “sort of fallen off the blogging wagon” – it’s completely left me behind and I’m going to need to call a Lyft to catch back up. Even though writing is just about my favorite thing to do, whenever I start to get busy this blog is the first thing to get the axe. I don’t mean to! I love this blog! But I am going to try to be better. I mean we’ll see, since next month is NaNoWriMo, but I am going to try.

So what’s been getting in the way of blogging for me? Well, I have two easy answers to that, actually.

1. Cosplay

2. Reading

Usually I have a million excuses as to why I haven’t got time for a damn thing, but lately, it’s been those two things, 24/7. If you haven’t noticed, I have recently jumped headfirst back into reading, and it’s been seriously awesome. Every once in awhile I’d feel that little tug, like there was something missing from my life – and it was totally reading. I’ve been doing a book challenge over on Goodreads to read 30 books this year (modest, I know, but I wanted to start realistically) and I am flying through! You can follow me there if you want to see what I’m reading and how much I like the books I’ve read.

And the cosplay… don’t even get me started. To be fair, I love it. I am head over heels, honeymoon phase totally smitten with it. But good lord it’s expensive and time consuming. I don’t even want to know how much money and how many hours I have dumped into this hobby already. I really don’t.

But this weekend I’ll be at Geek Girl Con here in Seattle and I’ll be cosplaying both days! Saturday I will be reprising my Queen Frostine costume I wore at PAX, as we now have the addition of a Mr. Mint and plan to enter the costume contest with them.

 

And then on Sunday I get to fulfill a life-long dream of cosplaying as Sailor Moon. That’s right – I’m dressing up as Usagi herself. The best part is, we have an entire cosplay group of every single Sailor Scout, including the outer scouts. The only sad part is that our Uranus can’t actually make the event, but we know she’ll be there in spirit.

I don’t know how I managed to snag Sailor Moon, but I am so pumped it’s actually happening. I’ve put literal blood, sweat and tears into this project. Between a sewing machine needle going directly into my thumb, to hot-gluing my finger prints off, to having to redo a depressing number of parts of this costume due to mishaps and mess-ups… this pretty soldier of love and justice cannot wait for her costume to be finished so she can just wear it and feel like a magical girl.

I will definitely be posting pictures! Be sure to follow my cosplay page on Facebook for more regular updates about our costume journey.

That’s all for now! Please don’t abandon me – this blog will be up and running again very soon. I promise. Pinky swear. See you later!

I love Renaissance Faires. I really love them.

Usually I manage to make it to about one a year but in 2014 I’ve had the good fortune of attending THREE. I got to check out LA’s Pleasure Festival back in April, then I finally finally finally got to attend Faerieworlds down in Oregon in July, and I wrapped up my Renaissance circuit with the Midsummer Fantasy Faire right here in Washington this past weekend.

I figured I would put together a compilation of photos from the events to share the experiences with you, dear readers. Photos go a lot further when it comes to these events.

Row 1: The SoCal Pleasure Faire with Ariana, Tyler, Sammy and Joe! This one was so big we didn’t even realize we’d missed a whole section of booths and shops until the faire was almost over! We spent the day shopping, eating, and enjoying the fact that it wasn’t 100 degrees out, like most Faires we usually attend.

That second picture has detail shots of all my new medieval swag (the best part of attending a Ren Faire is adding to your outfits each year; I’m totally guilty of overspending all the time). The third picture was just a funny vendor that made me laugh.

Row 2: Faerieworlds is my new favorite event of all time. It’s sort of a Renaissance Faire meets music festival, and it’s right outside of Eugene, Oregon. I attended with some of my best friends: Eia, Joe, Justin, Ariana, Jenn and Liz. You set up camp, you shop, you dance, you listen to live music and you seriously unplug from everything else. We started the weekend in elaborate mythical creature costumes and ended up wearing next to nothing as it got hotter and dustier.

That second picture is a bunch of us hanging out in a yurt that Ariana was totally in love with… they just left it open all the time, so it became our go to chill space when it was too hot during the day or too cold at night.

The stage with constant folk music playing was a serious highlight, as was the fact that most booths and food vendors stayed open at all hours of the weekend. However, my favorite part was that there were workshops and activities for everyone – I spent a good amount of time with hula hoopers, learning new tricks (as you can see in the third picture) – while the others were at sword fighting workshops. It was truly amazing.

Rows 3: This was our first day at the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire with Eia, Ariana, Joe and Meagan. It included immediately getting my hair braided (because it was way too goddamn hot) and putting Eia in jail. It was her birthday, so it seemed like the thing to do. These guys publicly “arrested” her and dragged her over to be contained until she tap danced for them and sang Happy Birthday to herself.

We’re great friends.

This is the Faire I’ve been going to since high school, so it’s always fun to run into familiar faces and delight in how much the event grows each year.

Row 4: The second day of the faire was absurd when it comes to impulse buys for just about everyone involved in the trip. Also Liz joined us. I bought mermaid ears (can you believe it!? mermaid ears that look totally amazing!) and a crystal flute. I’m not even joking you. If someone told me as a child that I would spend my hard earned adult money on mermaid ears and a crystal flute… well… I probably wouldn’t have been surprised. I was a weird kid.

So that was my Renaissance Faire experience for the year, and I’m terribly saddened that it’s over for now. There are always yuletide feasts to look forward to, but I’ll miss the dusty paths of the faire, the turkey legs, the bards, the bodice ice. Until next year, huzzah!

I’ve recently been in contact with Absolute LoJack – a really neat company that deals with device theft. They sell software that not only helps you secure your information if one of your devices is stolen, but also helps you stay one step ahead on being able to locate and get that device back. It’s available for laptops, cell phones and tablets and the more I learn about it, the more amazing it sounds.

I’ve never personally had my laptop or phone stolen, but I definitely know multiple people who have. I have had my wallet stolen, and it was a similarly devastating experience. Not only is the item itself worth something to you (especially in the case of an electronic device) but the information inside it – that’s what can be really scary to lose. When I think about the information that exists on my laptop or phone and what could happen if it fell into the wrong hands… it actually makes me feel sick to my stomach.

Knowing there are programs out there that can not only lock and delete information from your device if it gets stolen, but can also help recover it is extremely helpful to my peace of mind. Absolute LoJack asked me what I would hypothetically pay to get my computer back if it was stolen and I said “oh god, I dunno. At least $1000”. It costs so, so much less than that to take the precaution before the worst happens. That was seriously mind-blowing to realize.

Why is this relevant to you? Well, aside from the fact that I think everyone should make sure they have a plan in place in case their important devices get stolen, I also wanted to share a project that they’re doing. Absolute LoJack has come up with the idea of encouraging people to try going “Digitally Dark” for a day – this means you cut off access to one of your important devices for 24 hours to emulate how it would feel to lose that device. The experience is supposed to make you realize how catastrophic it would be if it went missing, and to use that motivation to take the steps you need to make sure you’re covered if it does happen.

I think this is a fantastic idea, and as much as I hate the idea of not using my phone for a whole day — I think it will be good for me. Hopefully the experience will help myself (and others!) realize how serious device theft is becoming and how easy it can be to get yourself  prepared. Over 100 cell phones are stolen every minute in the United States – that’s a horrible statistic and it’s rising all the time. This is why I am planning to go Digitally Dark this week Wednesday, June 18th.

If you want to try going Digitally Dark WITH me, you’re more than welcome to! I will be ditching my cell phone for the entire day, and will be filming a video diary of the experience. We can commiserate online together using the #DigitallyDark hashtag.

Let me know in the comments if you want to join me – or, if you’re just interested in finding out about Absolute LoJack, they’re offering readers of my blog 30% off any 1-year standard or premium subscription until June 30th. Check it out here and use the code “DARK30” at checkout.

Thanks for reading, and if you decide to unplug on Wednesday – good luck!

I have just been terrible at updating this blog regularly. I have a number of exciting things that I’ve been dying to share, but with VidCon and the release of Job Hunters right around the corner, I just can’t seem to find a good balance for all the stuff I’m doing right now. But these wrap-up posts seem to be working just fine for now, so let’s see what’s been happening since the last time I updated.

1. I posted a video I am quite proud of, that people seemed to respond to very well – either they agreed whole-heartedly or they completely disagreed. I feel like that’s the optimal scenario in an opinion piece, so I’ve been enjoying reading through the comments. If you missed this video, it’s called “Tell Them Hi For Me”.

 

 

2. I’ve also been spending a good deal of time on costumes/cosplay lately, which I’m sure you’re probably aware of. I’ve found my forté is scouring the internet (ebay, etsy, google shopping) for that exact pair of shoes or a replica toy rifle you could paint and alter to look like the real one… but I’ve also been trying my hand at sewing. Sewing doesn’t come quite as naturally to me, but I managed my first skirt yesterday! And it hasn’t fallen apart! Well – okay the first one looked terrible so I started over but then the SECOND one… the second one was GREAT. If you want to get regular updates on my sewing and costuming woes and successes (as well as Eia’s!) you should follow our Cosplay Facebook Page.

Our current headache project is a fairy-inspired costume for an event my friends and I are all going to called Faerieworlds, though neither Eia or myself are actually going to be fairies because wings are the worst. Watching our other friend Jenn struggle with bending wire yesterday turned us both off wings maybe forever. It’s been a lot of fun (I say that now – yesterday during our sewing party extravaganza there were a whole lot of expletives coming from my living room) working on costumes for all of this stuff, but we could only handle doing one really involved costume for this event. The rest of the time, we’ll be wearing the stuff in this video:

 

 

3. The final thing I’ve been really trying to work on lately is reading more. It started with comics, which are a nice departure from longer books and something I am so thankful I’ve been learning more about. But funnily enough, it gave me the bug – and now I spend a lot of my time itching to get a book back in my hands. I’ve been doing a bit of lurking in the Booktube community on YouTube and I’m thinking about trying my hand at reviewing a few of the books I’m reading myself. Keep an eye on my channel for potential book reviews this summer. They’re coming.

Okay I couldn’t find a way to expertly make this last video relevant, but I also did a really fun unboxing video of a Ninja Crate, which is my current favorite mystery box subscription service thingy. Everything inside is kawaii and adorable and handmade and I loved it:

Thanks for continuing to read my blog, even when my projects keep me from updating it regularly! There will be a few new posts in the coming days, including where I’ll be at VidCon, so stay tuned! Hope everyone is having a lovely start to their summer!

I’ve been working on so many new things recently – cosplay, getting into comic books, doing more with fashion on YouTube etc. – it’s been somewhat difficult to balance everything I am trying to do all at once. However, I recently attended a “Bloggy Boot Camp” here in Seattle put on by SITS Girls that was hugely motivating and inspiring, so let’s get back on this wagon, shall we?

Here’s what I’ve been up to.

1. COSPLAY! Eia and I have been hard at work planning our cosplays for the summer, which currently include a fantasy costume for Faerieworlds in July, and the overly ambitious prospect of 3 different costumes (each!) for PAX in August. We’ve luckily got a fair amount of time to get started on all of these, and what with ordering wigs and things from China, it’s really never too early to start. If you want to follow our progress this summer, we’ve just created a Facebook page where we’ll be posting updates, photos and musings about the whole process. Be among the first to follow it!

2. READING! Not only have I been inspired to make reading more a part of my daily regimen for Answerly Books, I’ve also made the executive decision to dabble a bit in the BookTubing world on YouTube. I’ll admit, part of this decision was spurred by the jealousy I felt watching people have so much fun at BEA this past weekend, but jealousy is just as valid an emotion to start doing something as any, right? I’ll be starting reviewing YA books, fiction books, and even the sporadic comic book on my channel so make sure you’re subscribed if that sounds interesting to you!

This Comic Book Haul was sort of my first foray into that new direction on my channel, and it seems to have gone over well.

 

3. FASHION! I don’t know when it really clicked for me, but it just did. I think I was looking at old pictures of me from my touring days, and just honestly couldn’t believe anyone ever let me out fo the house (not to mention ON STAGE) wearing the stuff I used to own. Not to say you HAVE to have good fashion sense, or really that I was even doing anything wrong, but let’s be real sometimes I really could have used a little help getting dressed in the morning.

This all leads me to my point which is, lately I’ve found fashion to be extremely fun and rewarding and I’ve loved finding ways to mix geek with chic (I know, so original) but really, it’s still a new concept to so many people and I love being a part of that journey. A good place to follow me if you’re interested in this aspect of what I do is Instagram. I’ve also done a few fashion haul videos already, but here’s my most recent one:

 

That’s all my news for now, though I also put up my standard monthly favorites video if you missed that. Book related favorites have been creeping in more and more to these videos, and if you haven’t noticed, I’ve also recently developed a pretty permanent anime category in these videos. It’s been a year of self discovery, for sure. Revisiting old hobbies I loved from my childhood (anime) and discovering new things about myself I never knew I was passionate about (comic books, costume making, clothes). I’m so happy that it seems my viewers are along for the ride and enjoy whatever I throw their way, and please keep suggesting more things you think I might like! You probably have no idea how often I take your advice.

 

Thanks for keeping up with this blog as well, and be sure to check back soon – it may be getting a total redesign in the near future! Exciting!

Have a lovely day and remember to get outside if you can. Our weather has been beautiful and I have not nearly taken as much advantage of it as I could.

I fell a little behind this week in my blogging (it’s really sort of difficult to do anything with as bad of a sunburn as I’ve been nursing) but I’m here today to remind you all about two videos I’ve posted on my channel for the week! I haven’t really “announced” this anywhere but I’ve been trying to post twice a week lately (rather than our usual one) and I’ve been really enjoying it. I’d have to say Patreon is a bit to thank for the rejuvenated creative energy.

 

First up was a video I was quite excited about… my first “official” haul video. I’ve been getting more into fashion lately, but I’ve still been much too timid to really talk about it online. This week, I finally pulled off the bandaid and just did it, and I think it went over pretty well! Basically I went to my favorite clothing staple (Forever21) and I only bought items under $15. You’d be amazed at how nicely you can update your wardrobe on a budget!

If people seem to like this type of video (it’s already looking pretty positive) there will likely be more.

 

The second video was something I was tagged in, a video to promote the awesome book drive being held by the Harry Potter Alliance called Accio Books, was also a fine excuse to talk about books. As this is one of my favorite topics, I gladly obliged.

This is a great video tag for anyone to take part in, as it’s fun and promotes a kick-ass message. If you make videos, please consider it!

Let me know in the comments if you’d like to see more videos about fashion and books (two topics that are relatively knew to my channel) and I’ll be back soon with my ipsy review for the month!

 

I posted this video last week and I am quite proud of it… it’s one of my “take the camera with me on an adventure” style videos of my and Joe’s trip up to the Tulip Fields. That might sound lame, but Skagit Valley (north of Seattle) is one of the largest tulip suppliers in the US and their festival brings in hundreds of thousands of people. With 100’s of acres of beautiful flowers, I’m not surprised.

We caught the tail end of the festival this year, but still had a fantastic time taking in the sights, soaking up the sun, and making a lot of bad tulip jokes. Come along on our adventure, and let me know your favorite festivals/fairs in the comments!

I have always been a HUGE advocate of programs like Free Comic Book Day – and as excited as I am by the prospect of events that urge young children to read, I’m also equally excited to partake in the festivities myself. May 3rd was Free Comic Book Day, and as usual, I took my camera along for the ride:

 

I think this year was a personal record for me in both A) number of comic stores I managed to hit up in one day and B) the number of comics said stores were allowing participants to acquire. No previous Free Comic Book Day has lead me to regularly reading comics in the off season (besides those from the haul I picked up at the event) but I think this year is going to be different. I’ve already worked my way through about half my collection and I’ve got a growing pile of “comics I need to go buy more of because they were great”. I think this is the year, folks. This is the year I become a full-fledged comic book nerd.

What are your favorite comics? Which did you pick up during Free Comic Book Day and which were you a fan of already? I’m going to be doing reviews of my favorite new comics here on this blog, so I’m hoping to share some favorites with those of you who read this. 🙂