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Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash |
If you haven’t caught up with what I was up to last month, check out my March wrap-up post here!
What I've Been Doing In April:
I binge-watched so many TV shows and movies! Thanks to staying at home to keep this nasty virus at bay, I’ve been doing my part by bogging down the internet and streaming sooo many TV shows and movies! I watched all three seasons of The Good Place on Netflix with my family (sooo good! But when are they adding season 4?? I neeeed to see it!), Little Fires Everywhere (which was amazing. Also, Kerry Washington is perfection), a few horror movies (including A Tale of Two Sisters, which was so well done that I can't believe I hadn't seen it before!), and some classics I had never seen before (Blade Runner, meh. The Shawshank Redemption, great.) If nothing else, all of this free time and access to lots of streaming services is not really giving me any excuse to not not watch all of these movies and TV shows I’ve had on my Netflix list for forever. Now is the time to watch!
I worked hard on my Pinterest pins! Last month I decided to really up my Pinterest game by making a new pin every single day. (I know that's easier for some bloggers, but I'm not that creative!) And my Pinterest impressions have actually grown! I went from maybe getting close to 10k impressions to now almost 100k! And I even skip some days and don’t make a pin, which I know is bad, but sometimes I need a break (am I the only one who thinks making a pin is hard? I mean, some pins are easier to make than others!). I’m not sure what the magic combination of making pins is yet (is it mostly the pin image itself? The subject matter? Is it the time you post? Is it the keywords and hashtags you use?), because I’ve worked really hard on some pins, and they get almost no action, and some of the ones I barely work on get so many impressions! (Also, I’m not using Tailwind, I’m just manually pinning at this point) I’m flummoxed, but it’s been a great way for me to experiment with pin designs, to really see what works, and to stretch my (non-existent) graphic design skills! (Thank god for Canva!)
I finally got my Google Analytics to work! Oh man, am I a bad blogger! You’d think after blogging for 5+ years (yes, I’ve been doing this for a while now!), I’d be better at it. Nope! I could not for the life of me figure out why my Google Analytics wasn’t working (though the basic stats were working on my blog…?) but I finally got it to somehow work! (I’m really not very tech-savvy. My focus is on the writing, not the coding! Coding is scary!) Yay! Now I can have a better understanding of my blog’s analytics! Sort of. Check in with me again next month, haha.
I binge-watched so many TV shows and movies! Thanks to staying at home to keep this nasty virus at bay, I’ve been doing my part by bogging down the internet and streaming sooo many TV shows and movies! I watched all three seasons of The Good Place on Netflix with my family (sooo good! But when are they adding season 4?? I neeeed to see it!), Little Fires Everywhere (which was amazing. Also, Kerry Washington is perfection), a few horror movies (including A Tale of Two Sisters, which was so well done that I can't believe I hadn't seen it before!), and some classics I had never seen before (Blade Runner, meh. The Shawshank Redemption, great.) If nothing else, all of this free time and access to lots of streaming services is not really giving me any excuse to not not watch all of these movies and TV shows I’ve had on my Netflix list for forever. Now is the time to watch!
I worked hard on my Pinterest pins! Last month I decided to really up my Pinterest game by making a new pin every single day. (I know that's easier for some bloggers, but I'm not that creative!) And my Pinterest impressions have actually grown! I went from maybe getting close to 10k impressions to now almost 100k! And I even skip some days and don’t make a pin, which I know is bad, but sometimes I need a break (am I the only one who thinks making a pin is hard? I mean, some pins are easier to make than others!). I’m not sure what the magic combination of making pins is yet (is it mostly the pin image itself? The subject matter? Is it the time you post? Is it the keywords and hashtags you use?), because I’ve worked really hard on some pins, and they get almost no action, and some of the ones I barely work on get so many impressions! (Also, I’m not using Tailwind, I’m just manually pinning at this point) I’m flummoxed, but it’s been a great way for me to experiment with pin designs, to really see what works, and to stretch my (non-existent) graphic design skills! (Thank god for Canva!)
I finally got my Google Analytics to work! Oh man, am I a bad blogger! You’d think after blogging for 5+ years (yes, I’ve been doing this for a while now!), I’d be better at it. Nope! I could not for the life of me figure out why my Google Analytics wasn’t working (though the basic stats were working on my blog…?) but I finally got it to somehow work! (I’m really not very tech-savvy. My focus is on the writing, not the coding! Coding is scary!) Yay! Now I can have a better understanding of my blog’s analytics! Sort of. Check in with me again next month, haha.
I’ve started on my minimalist journey and have been researching sustainable (and affordable) clothing lines! If you didn’t catch one of my latest blog posts, you can read it here or down below in the Blog Posts I Wrote This Month section at the end. But I’m super excited to start decluttering and documenting it here on my blog. Plus, I’ve been doing research on sustainable clothing brands for the future, and seeing what’s affordable (to me). It’s amazing how expensive sustainable clothes are, but it makes sense when you factor in safe places of work for workers, fair wages for them, and real, quality materials (not synthetic!) that goes into the clothing. It’s a whole new world and I’m loving learning all about it!
I tried to make Cauldron Cakes from Harry Potter for the blog- but they didn’t come out quite as planned! You know how sometimes you get a great idea for your blog and you’re like “yes! This will make a brilliant post!” and you get so excited and eager to do it? Because usually I struggle with what to write, what I feel passionate about talking about and if it will connect with readers, but I thought I had this idea in the bag. It wasn’t just a typical blog post, it was one of my old school DIY “let’s try to make this recipe” inspired by something that I love. In this case, Cauldron Cakes from Harry Potter! But it didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted them to. Don’t get me wrong, they tasted delicious, but my decorations skills were not Pinterest- or blog-worthy. I shudder at the thought of posting them on Pinterest and being all, “check out my recipe! I know what I’m doing!” HA. But I’m just taking this as my first attempt, and hopefully on my second attempt (let’s be honest, my third), I can post an even better (looking) version of them on here! (By the way, I made them out of a brownie mix, since I don’t like chocolate cake. Yes, I’m strange, and yes, they were really yummy. Suck it, chocolate cake!). But please don't laugh at my first attempt, because trust me, I tried! But I know what I'm going to do differently on my second (or third) attempt and will definitely explain what went wrong in my first attempt! (Because a lot did!)
I read 11 books this month! Though sadly, none of them were quite winners. I feel very accomplished that I read so many books (because I obviously have the time!), but I didn’t really read any that really grabbed me and sucked me in. The best book I think I probably read this month was The Phantom Prince: My Life With Ted Bundy by Elizabeth Kendall, about her long (and certainly complicated) relationship with Ted Bundy. I first learned about her story from the Netflix movie Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile with Zac Efron and Lily Collins (which was excellent, by the way), and her account of what happened on her end was so heart-breaking. You don’t often hear about serial killers from a partner’s perspective, so it was incredibly interesting and disturbing and I really felt for Elizabeth and her daughter even more so than after I watched the movie. If you’re into true crime and want a different perspective of the pain it causes not just its victims (though I would call Elizabeth a victim of Ted), I’d give the book a read.
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They're definitely not how I wanted them to look, but they tasted quite yummy! But not good enough to serve on the trolley on the Hogwarts Express yet! |
I found my first white hair! (On my head!) After a few years of just having a few random white eyebrow hairs (aging is weird, you guys), I finally found one. A white hair on my head, hidden amongst my own normal brown hair. I was appalled! I blame the stress of this awful and chaotic time! At least I’m still young at heart, even though my body is obviously trying to tell me otherwise! But on the plus side, my hair is growing ever longer still (I guess that’s one plus from not being able to get your hair cut) and my ponytail is almost at 5 inches! I’m looking into a hair donation program where you only need to donate 8 inches of hair, so I’m well on my way to donating my hair for a good cause! Plus, I’ve never had long hair before, really, so it’s kind of fun to be able to flip it around and put it up! (Just girly things!)
Margot the kitten update time! And now here is my favorite section of these wrap-up posts! Margot the kitten is doing very well, and she’s over 6 pounds now! 6 pounds, 10 ounces to be exact (probably more by now!). My big girl! She loves sleeping on chairs, and now that I’m not keeping her in my room at night (for fear that my sister’s cat will attack her. My sister’s cat is a bit of bully), Margot has now been sleeping on the couch, which I’m trying not to take personally (okay, I’m kind of taking it personally…). Since she’s a long haired cat, our little routine is that I brush her every night before I go to bed, which she loves, and now she’s been letting me brush her tummy, which is oh so adorable! It’s been getting a bit hot here though, and Margot is not loving the heat, and has been spending a lot of her time catnapping while it’s really warm during the day. And it seems like the only time I can get a good picture of her is when she’s sleeping and staying still! I’d just love to take a picture of her when she’s awake but she’s always moving!
Blog Posts I Wrote This Month:
13 of the Most Rad Foods from the 90’s/2000’s!
Why I’m Trying to be a Minimalist
The Let’s Stay at Home 2020 Reading Challenge!
And this post that you’re reading now!
Of course, I didn’t manage writing five blog posts like I wanted to this month (and the month before this one, and the month before that!), but I’m blaming it on my Cauldron Cakes not being blog-worthy ready yet! That would have been my fourth post for this month, and then this blog post would have been my fifth. Oh well. Sometimes life just doesn’t work out that way! That seems to be the theme of 2020, anyway!
I hope you enjoyed my April wrap-up, and if you have any recommendations for things to watch or read, or if you know of a somewhat affordable sustainable clothing brands, please let me know in the comments! I have nothing but time on my hands and plenty of time to watch, read, and research! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you’re all staying safe and sane!
Stay Weird,
Emily
Margot the kitten update time! And now here is my favorite section of these wrap-up posts! Margot the kitten is doing very well, and she’s over 6 pounds now! 6 pounds, 10 ounces to be exact (probably more by now!). My big girl! She loves sleeping on chairs, and now that I’m not keeping her in my room at night (for fear that my sister’s cat will attack her. My sister’s cat is a bit of bully), Margot has now been sleeping on the couch, which I’m trying not to take personally (okay, I’m kind of taking it personally…). Since she’s a long haired cat, our little routine is that I brush her every night before I go to bed, which she loves, and now she’s been letting me brush her tummy, which is oh so adorable! It’s been getting a bit hot here though, and Margot is not loving the heat, and has been spending a lot of her time catnapping while it’s really warm during the day. And it seems like the only time I can get a good picture of her is when she’s sleeping and staying still! I’d just love to take a picture of her when she’s awake but she’s always moving!
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The only times I can really get a good picture of her is when she's asleep. Sigh. But she's so cute when she awake and moving! |
Blog Posts I Wrote This Month:
13 of the Most Rad Foods from the 90’s/2000’s!
Why I’m Trying to be a Minimalist
The Let’s Stay at Home 2020 Reading Challenge!
And this post that you’re reading now!
Of course, I didn’t manage writing five blog posts like I wanted to this month (and the month before this one, and the month before that!), but I’m blaming it on my Cauldron Cakes not being blog-worthy ready yet! That would have been my fourth post for this month, and then this blog post would have been my fifth. Oh well. Sometimes life just doesn’t work out that way! That seems to be the theme of 2020, anyway!
I hope you enjoyed my April wrap-up, and if you have any recommendations for things to watch or read, or if you know of a somewhat affordable sustainable clothing brands, please let me know in the comments! I have nothing but time on my hands and plenty of time to watch, read, and research! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you’re all staying safe and sane!
Stay Weird,
Emily
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