so blogmopolitan.

Admit it. You've always loved reading the celebs' answers to the quiz in Cosmo. That was probably my favorite part. That and the Sexy vs. Skanky section. Thanks to Erin from Two-Thirds Hazel, I can finally channel my inner (never-actually-going-to-be-on-the-cover-of-Cosmo-but-I-can-pretend-that-I-am) celebrity and answer the random questions that all of the girls on the cover get to answer.

It was so much fun answering all of these, and you can join in on the fun on Erin's blog!

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orange is the new black {book review}

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Favorite quote: “When you are deep in misery, you reach out to those who can help, people who can understand.” 
Favorite character: Miss Natalie (Piper's bunkie)
Book Synopsis from Piper Kerman's Website

When federal agents knocked on her door with an indictment in hand, Piper Kerman barely resembled the reckless young woman she was shortly after graduating Smith College. Happily ensconced in a New York City apartment, with a promising career and an attentive boyfriend, Piper was forced to reckon with the consequences of her very brief, very careless dalliance in the world of drug trafficking.

Following a plea deal for her 10-year-old crime, Piper spent a year in the infamous women’s correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, which she found to be no “Club Fed.” In Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, Piper takes readers into B-Dorm, a community of colorful, eccentric, vividly drawn women. Their stories raise issues of friendship and family, mental illness, the odd cliques and codes of behavior, the role of religion, the uneasy relationship between prisoner and jailor, and the almost complete lack of guidance for life after prison.

Compelling, moving, and often hilarious, Orange is the New Black sheds a unique light on life inside a women’s prison, by a Smith College graduate who did the crime and did the time.

My Thoughts Orange is the New Black is the first book that I experienced through an audio book. The only reason I decided to get the audio book was because the actual book was checked out from the library. I really think I'm hooked! I didn't just sit in my apartment and listen to the book. I just played it in my car. I think it was the perfect book to listen to because it wasn't a mystery novel or something that you just wanted to tear through. It was a good book, but it wasn't working up to anything, other than her release from prison.

TV Piper Chapman with real-life Piper Kerman
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I decided to read this book because I really enjoyed the show. I didn't like it at first though. There were a lot of things about the first few episodes that made me uncomfortable and were just really awkward to watch. Once you get past the 5th or 6th episode though, things really start to pick up. You start to pick out your favorite characters, and I got really attached to Piper. I just wanted to be a voice in her ear to tell her to keep going to tell her that she was being an idiot, and she needed to get it together. The season finale was just very dramatic, and I felt the need the read the book to see how much of the book was dramatized. I'm also really looking forward to the second season.

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Turns out, pretty much the entire TV series is different from the book. They picked out the most dramatic parts of her experience and just made them even more dramatic. The show stressed me out a lot, but I never found myself stressing out during the book. I honestly view the book and the TV series as two separate entities, each with their own positive and negative qualities. Just because you like one doesn't mean that you'll like the other, and that's okay, obviously. The two have almost nothing in common. Even most of the characters from the TV show were just made up by the people who worked on the show. A few of them were adapted from the book, but only parts of them or certain aspects of different people were thrown together to create one character, and they were all given different names, some even changed races. Lots of complication.   
I really liked so many of the characters in this book. I felt like Piper did an amazing job describing each of the characters and capturing the little things that each of them do to make prison life just a little bit more bearable. They would celebrate birthdays and holidays together and help each other out in little ways that would be brushed aside in every day society. In a weird way, a lot of the prisoners become like family to Piper, which is happy and sad at the same time. Happy because they helped make prison life more bearable; sad because some of the people she met in prison were there for much longer sentences than her, and while she would be living her life on the outside, they would still be in prison, ticking off the days until they would be able to experience freedom. 
Even though Piper really painted an excellent picture about prison life through the people she wrote about in her book, I never really felt like I got to know Piper that well, which is strange considering the entire book is about her experience. She doesn't make prison sound like a cakewalk by any means, but she does make it sound much more bearable than I would have assumed it to be. 

Overall, I would give this book a 3.5/5. It wasn't the best book I've ever read, but it was a great insight to every day prison life. It also just goes to show that sometimes, you can never really know everyone as well as you think you do. Piper is not the typical kind of person that you would see in prison (blonde, middle-class, educated), which is obviously what a lot of other people thought because she was constantly being asked what she was doing in prison. I really think Piper actually did a good job of holding her own in prison. Even though she didn't make prison life seem like it was too bad (at times, it even seemed kind of fun), I know that I could never handle prison, even if it was a low security prison like Danbury.
For more information about Piper Kerman and Orange is the New Black, check out her official website or follow her on Facebook or Twitter. For more information about the TV series, go to Netflix.com or IMDB. I also just really enjoyed this article about the book and TV series.

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DIY chevron and glitter countries.

Since it was so cold this weekend, I decided that I would spend it inside, avoiding going out at all costs. I stayed in my PJs, read a whole bunch, and got a little crafty! I was inspired by the canvases that I saw on Emily's Etsy shop and decided to try to make some of my own. I chose four countries with unique shapes, all ones that I would like to visit one day - Australia, England, Italy, and South Africa. I took the pictures with my phone, so sorries for the bad quality.

Materials:Mod PodgeGlitter (I used gold glitter that I got from Wal-Mart)Paint (I used navy and vintage white)Paint brushCanvasesPencilSteps:1. I started by printing out pictures of the countries' outlines and traced them onto the canvas.2. Next, I drew a chevron pattern around the country's outline.

3. I painted the vintage white chevron stripes first.
4. Then I painted the rest of the chevron stripes navy. I had to do two layers of the navy.

5. Next, I mixed one part mod podge and two parts gold glitter together.

6. I painted the mixture to fill in the country's drawing. I did two thick layers. Just do it until there are no more white spots!
7. And voila! Done! Admire your masterpiece!

I'm also participating in my first giveaway, so be sure to enter below!

Bits of Days / Noor's Place / I Have A Messy Bun A Weekend Crossing / d'Asti at Tiffany's

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Terms and Conditions:
Open Worldwide.
Winner will be selected by Random.org.
Winner's entry will be verified then winner will be notified by email.
Winner has 48 hours to respond before a new winner is selected.

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Christmas {and Birthday} Wishlist.

With Christmas just 19 days away (and my birthday just 9 days away), I've been getting asked more and more the dreaded question, "What do you want for Christmas?" I really never know. I've been telling everyone that I just want money because I'm still trying to pay for my trip to Europe (which is less than 200 days away!). But I do have some people who just hate giving money, so I tried to come up with a few things that I would be excited to get. I always think that I'm easy to shop for, though Jon would disagree. I'd honestly be happy with anything (or nothing! A hug will do). And I love homemade things.

Here are a few things that I've been wanting for quite some time (yea, I know I'm super nerdy, but y'all should know that by now):

1. The Veronica Mars complete series DVD set. I love Veronica Mars (and Kristen Bell) so much. I would probably cry from happiness if someone got this for me.  2. A sparkly cell phone case (any color except green or any ugly colors).  3. An "Expecto Patronum" ring from FamilyHouseStampin on Etsy. 4. A Mockingjay necklace from BetseyMaeK on Etsy. 5. The Lunar Chronicles book series by Marissa Meyer.

6. This owl sweatshirt made by Olsenboye at JCPenney 7. A large antique world map. I'm trying to do a travel-themed room, but I still haven't bought a map. 8. The Mary-Kate and Ashley coffee table book, Influence. Preferably the one with MK on the cover (she's my fave). 9. An Amazon gift card. 10. Disney DVD's! Any and all. The only ones I have are Fox and the Hound 1 & 2, Oliver & Company, Princess and the Frog, Peter Pan and Pocahontas 1 &2. What's on your Christmas wishlist this year?

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learning to fight my insecurities.

Everyone always told me that I couldn't be insecure about my body because I'm skinny, but weight isn't the only thing that people can be insecure about.

Middle school me.

Being comfortable with my self image is something that I've always struggled with. It was really bad in middle school. I spent so much time comparing myself to my friends, constantly thinking that my friends were prettier than me and that I would spend my life being single because there was no way any boy would want to go out with a girl who had hairy arms, gap teeth, a unibrow and a big nose. 

High school me in 2007.

In high school, I started to find different things to be insecure about. I'm actually a pretty oblivious person, and I don't realize a lot of things until someone points it out to me. That's where a lot of my insecurities stemmed from. Someone told me that I was wearing my pants too high and that made me realize that I had a short torso. I stopped tucking in my shirt and started stretching out my undershirts so they would go past my hips and make my torso look longer. Someone told me that I was probably supposed to be born a boy because a part of my neck bone sticks out a little, making me look like I have an Adam's apple and "only boys have Adam's apples." People would point things out about my body that I never even noticed, and I started to call myself ugly. 
It wasn't until my junior year of college that I was finally able to silence those voices and stop worrying so much about how people viewed my appearance. I realized that it didn't matter what people thought about me; it only mattered how I viewed myself. If I continued to allow everyone else's voice to be louder than mine, then where would that leave me?

Everyone is insecure about themselves in some way, which is why I don't understand those who feel the need to point out negative things about another's appearance...or anything else about anyone for that matter. People have enough trouble trying to create a positive self image of themselves; they don't need anyone else's opinion affecting it. I mean, it took me 21 years to finally be comfortable with how I look, and a lot of that has to do with the negative words that people were putting in my ear (some of which I'm still trying to silence). Wouldn't it be nice if we could just ignore the negative things people say about us and stop comparing ourselves to celebrities and the people around us?

College me in 2012. I'm so lucky to be me, because no one can be a better me than me!

I'm still fighting my way through my insecurities, but I'm incredibly lucky to have gotten to a point where I'm comfortable with how I look (it's not like I can change it! And now I don't want to!) and to have family and friends that support me and a boyfriend who thinks I'm beautiful no matter what.

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dark places {book review}

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{Dark Places by Gillian Flynn}
Favorite Quote: "Worries find you easily enough without inviting them."Favorite Character: Lyle
Synopsis from Gillian Flynn's Official Website

I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ.

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived–and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust created by well-wishers who’ve long forgotten her.

The Kill Club is a macabre secret society obsessed with notorious crimes. When they locate Libby and pump her for details–proof they hope may free Ben–Libby hatches a plan to profit off her tragic history. For a fee, she’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club… and maybe she’ll admit her testimony wasn’t so solid after all.

As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the narrative flashes back to January 2, 1985. The events of that day are relayed through the eyes of Libby’s doomed family members–including Ben, a loner whose rage over his shiftless father and their failing farm have driven him into a disturbing friendship with the new girl in town. Piece by piece, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started–on the run from a killer.

My ThoughtsAmazing. Fantastic. Fabulous. Incredible. Phenomenal. So. Freaking. Good. I wasn't sure what to think when I first picked up this book. To be honest, the only reason I did was because the movie adaptation was recently filmed in Shreveport, and I just wanted to read the book before I went to see the movie. I was discouraged after the first chapter just because I don't have as much time to read as I did before, and this was a really long book, and I wasn't sure if I really wanted to dive into it. Now I know what a mistake that would have been if I had decided not to read it.
I haven't read many mystery books in my life. The only ones that come to mind are the ones I read in middle school, circa Nancy Drew. I think the reason this book really pulls you in is how it's written. You're immediately struck with the horror of Libby's tragic childhood and how she is struggling as an adult over twenty years later. Then the book flashes back to the events of the day that her mother and two older sisters are killed. It was like as soon as I was getting really intrigued about what was happening in the present, that section would end, and the book would transfer me back to January 2nd twenty-five years ago. 
I spent the entire book stressed out about whether or not Libby was actually going to figure out who killed her family that night. I don't think I could have predicted (actually I know I couldn't have because I didn't) how the events leading up to her family's death would have played out that night. It was just a shocker, and Gillian Flynn is just absolutely brilliant. Not only was I satisfied with the ending and figuring out what actually happened that night and why, I also literally breathed a sigh of relief and smiled because Libby got her piece of mind, and, in a way, so did I.
Gillian Flynn does an amazing job illustrating everything in the book. Through her words, I really felt like I could picture everything, and then it made me more excited that I would actually see this book come to life next year. Her words were so descriptive and flawless. Not to mention, I feel like I knew each of the characters personally. I was outraged reading every part that talked about Michelle, Runner, Krissi, and Trey. I wanted to comfort Libby and her mother. I rolled my eyes at a few of Ben's actions from his teenage years. I felt like Lyle was my friend. I connected with these characters in a way that was so different from characters that I've read in other books. I was just so engaged during every part of this book.

This book definitely deserves a 5/5. Flawless writing, brilliant characters, stellar (yeah, stellar) ending. I just loved it so much.
For more information about the movie adaptation of Dark Places, click here.For more information from Gillian Flynn, check out her official page or like her on Facebook.

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a million reasons to be thankful.

I won't name all million of them (mostly because I don't know every single reason, but there has to be a million. I'm sure.). My 4-day Thanksgiving weekend couldn't have been more awesome if I wanted it to be (other than a celebrity run-in with the entire cast of Harry Potter, Ellen DeGeneres, David Giuntoli, NSYNC, and the cast of Pitch Perfect all at once. But what are the chances of that happening? ... Exactly. Moving on.).  One random thing that happened over my mini break was that my blog reached over 200 followers on Bloglovin! It made me super happy to get the email (just ask my sis. She was there when it happened), and many many THANKS to all of my beautiful followers. Y'all are so sweet.  Thursday Happy Thanksgiving! I stayed the night at my parents' the night before and woke up in time to watch lots of TV and a movie and a half (Pitch Perfect!!!) with my sister. My mom had to work, but my sis, my step-dad, and I ate a delicious Thanksgiving lunch. Yum! 

At 5:30, my sister and I were on the way to Wal-Mart for some Black Friday shopping. It was a cluster. More crowded than last year. By 7, we were already in line for Target. 

I bought 27 movies (yea! TWENTY-SEVEN! I ended up going back on Saturday and buying Silver Linings Playlist), 2 scarves, and some black riding boots. I mostly go for the movies, but the other things are a little bonus. Friday I had stayed the night at my co-workers because I house-sat the whole weekend while he was out of town. 

Chiweenies. The cutest.

I woke up extra early so I could drive to Converse to see my friends, Tyler and Analeigh, and then ride with them to DeRidder to see my friends, Anamaria (she flew home from Chicago) and Mandy, and Jon came later. We talked, laughed, played games, and ate a lot. I forgot how much I missed those crazy people. It made me sad to leave them because who knows how long it will be till I see them again? College reunions are the best for real. Miss them already. Anamaria also gave me an early birthday present, but I want to wait to post what it is later! It's super awesome though.

I got a little too aggressive trying to surprise Jon for a funny picture. 

Saturday I caught up on some TV shows and cuddled with the puppies before Jon got to my co-worker's house. Then we watched a movie and passed out because we were super tired.

Sunday Jon and I ran a few errands and then watched Despicable Me before he had to leave me until my birthday. Sadness. What a weekend! I wish every weekend was as awesome as this one. I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend!

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