Welcome to our super belated August wrap-up because Ellice and I are terrible at getting posts ready and Ellis has been ready for ages, oops, sorry Ellis. Anyway, this is what we did in August, month of sun and freedom and summer vacation, please come back, I miss it already. – Judith
we did
Ellis: August was a trip. I first went a few days to Copenhagen with my family. It’s a beautiful city, but there were some things under construction at the time, so there was a lot we couldn’t see. My mother and one of my brothers had been a few times before and they both said it was better to visit it in the autumn, because better weather to be walking around all day (seriously, I got sunburnt in the weirdest way) + fewer people. With the flying and everything, three days seemed incredibly short, but it was a pretty cool city trip. My other brother and I flew back home after a few days, while the rest of my family moved on to Sweden and road-tripped there for another ten days or so. MEANWHILE I had an evening and a morning to get ready by the time I got home from the airport because Judith would arrive the next day for what would be one of the best weeks of my life. Gaby and Gillian wouldn’t be arriving until the next day so Judith and I pretty much hung around the house, talked bunches, stroked pretty books, ate pizza hawaii and watched the Georgia Nicolson movie. My favourite moment was when Whelk Boy said something absolutely ridiculous and we both spontaneously burst out laughing and didn’t recover until 10 minutes later. It’s probably not even that funny but it was prime entertainment at that moment.
Picking up Gaby and Gillian was an adventure in itself. I remember that Judith and I were so proud of ourselves because we were much earlier at the airport than Gaby said she’d arrive, so we sat down and started talking, and then suddenly Judith looks behind us and starts laughing. At that point, I still thought she’d just seen someone she knows and was having one of those OMG SO FUNNY TO SEE YOU HERE moments but nope, turned out Gaby was sitting behind us the entire time. I have no idea how I eventually got labelled the mama duck because CLEARLY I’m the kind of parent who forgets her child in the supermarket parking lot. Gillian wouldn’t arrive until ten hours later so we drove back home, Gaby took the longest nap in existence, I took a mini nap in comparison, and Judith was super productive and wrote blog posts and bonded with my brother. (I think. I heard sounds downstairs and have decided that was what was happening.) (Note from Judith: I got him to tell me where the food was because priorities.) Eventually we picked up Gillian, introduced Gaby and Gillian to the phenomenon that is a frituur, ate a bucket of fries while Gaby and I also split a bottle of wine, and crashed hard. Or at least Gaby and I did because apparently Judith and Gillian don’t need sleep and are still able to function as perfectly normal human beings, which HOW. Oh, and Gillian used the fries to act out her in-plane face-space sharing with Tom Felton. Important detail.
The most important detail is that we spent an entire day IN BRUGES. (Gaby’s going to kill me.) Before that, we also walked around IN ANTWERP, Judith and I also spent some time IN BRUSSELS when G&G were already gone, and there were also a lot of shenanigans AT HOME. We played Cards of Humanity a lot. We also introduced Gillian to Belgian supermarkets (Judith was already a connoisseur at that point seeing as how we did some emergency shopping the first day) and I have never in my life seen someone so excited over pickle chips. Gaby was taking another nap at the time. Other notable things: Gaby got kicked off the tram by a very rude driver, I got kicked off the couch by gravity, Gillian got to meet Belgian delicacies such as European macaroni and stoofvlees (Flemish beef stew), and Judith paparazzo’d everything (read: me) AGAINST MY WISHES. (Okay, I’m glad she took spontaneous pictures of everything but don’t tell her that.) There’s a lot more, but most of it has been reduced to inside joke status at this point so that’s not really interesting to anyone else.
The rest of August was a mix of getting back to work, trying to read, and getting back used to not waking up to three blogger friends that have either been up, reading, and drinking coffee for hours (Gillian), what I just said minus the coffee (Judith), or still asleep but ready to cook some eggs and pancakes the moment she’s up (Gaby). BEING ALONE AGAIN WAS WEIRD 0/10 WOULD NOT RECOMMEND. Especially when you then run into things like the coffee drink Gillian forgot about, or one of her cardigans, or all the yoghurt and stracciatella ice cream we bought way too much of. Oh, and my brother left for his study in Paris and his room is now doubling as a gym.
Judith: Ellis’s recap of our Belgium adventures is pretty much all I have to say about it. I honestly had the best time ever and I laughed so hard I cried over so many things (IN BRUGES, FUCK ELLEN, GODDAMN JEN). I wish we all lived closer (well, Ellis and I live close so that’s good at least) so we could do this every weekend. What I really loved was how completely comfortable I felt the entire time, and that’s not always the case with me when staying at people’s houses. It really was one of the best weeks I’ve ever had.
Other than that, I celebrated my 3rd blogoversary, I had a few beach days before the weather started to become terrible, and I went on a short hotel retreat with one of my best friends. This was actually a thing that I’d won through Twitter, by posting a picture and using a hashtag that I had no idea were even part of a competition. But it was amazing: the hotel was beautiful and spending three days wandering around a new city and eating great food was fantastic and exactly what I needed towards the end of August. That last thing mostly because August was a mix of ups and downs for me, and I struggled with mental health issues a little bit, especially (unfortunately) to the end of the Belgium trip and the two weeks after that. It’s annoying when half of you is ready to have fun and go out, and the other half is just not having it. Fortunately, the past week has been very good, and I’m very excited to get back to uni and try new things this year. *
* September update: I NEED YOU SUMMER VACATION PLEASE COME BACK
Ellice: For about two weeks, I had written two sentences for my August recap. They said: “What did I do this month? I have no idea.” Hahaha. I’m telling you this for no other reason than I laughed just now when I saw that because it still pretty much sums up August perfectly! It’s been a whirlwind of students coming back to campus, readjusting to work with lots of people after getting used to a VERY quiet library over the summer.
The week after school started back, my coworkers and I did manage to squeeze a fun weekend trip into our agenda– we went to the First Annual Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson! YAY! It was a lot of fun, although it was a typical Mississippi summer weekend (i.e. miserably hot!). There were tents set up outside where you could buy the authors’ books from Lemuria Books (Jackson’s indie bookstore), and then the panels were (thankfully!) inside the capitol building (which is BEAUTIFUL, as you can see in the picture). Mississippi is well-known for the many writers who call it home, so that made for a pretty awesome adult fiction lineup (John Grisham, Greg Iles, and MO Walsh, to name a few). However, there are hardly any YA authors, so my favorite genre wasn’t really represented. :( My boss reserved tickets for us to go to a luncheon featuring John Grisham (a book event in Mississippi isn’t complete without THE MAN, haha). The atmosphere at this restaurant was the best part– it was very Southern and bluesy, and there was a blues band playing while we ate. All in all, it was a fun trip. I don’t think the ones who organized the festival anticipated such a huge turnout because they had to turn people away all day as the panels filled up. Maybe that means next year will be even bigger and better :)
All in all, August was busy but fun. I got my first package from Secret Sister, who is so incredibly thoughtful– it was full of librarianish things, aka it was perfect! I can’t wait to find out who she is!
We’re 9 days into September as I’m writing this, and I can’t wait for the next recap post because it’s already been an awesome month, thanks to some very awesome cobloggers, a sweet Secret Sister, and the beginning of FOOTBALL. wheee! So there ya go… a teaser for September’s recap, to keep you coming back for more. ;) haha
we read
our favorite books this month
Ellis: I read nine books, which I’m pretty happy with considering I was too busy doing other stuff to read the first two weeks of this month. Bout of Books helped a lot, since I managed to read four books, even though only one of them was on my actual Bout of Books TBR. Ah well, what can you do. The absolute highlight was The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, which everyone has been telling me to read for ages, and the HOW HAVE YOU STLL NOT READ IT screams were totally justified. Achilles-Patroclus-Briseis OT3 forever. Close seconds were Magic Shifts by Ilona Andrews, which blew me away with some old school Kate Daniels goodness, and The Rose Society by Marie Lu, which I am still hurting over. SO GOOD.
I finished up the Addicted series by Krista and Becca Ritchie with Addicted After All and Fuel the Fire, which were also incredibly solid and WHEN IS LONG WAY DOWN GOING TO RELEASE I HAVE A MIGHTY NEED. Less impressive was The Boy Most Likely To by Huntley Fitzpatrick, which is the saddest thing because I wanted to LOVE it and not merely like it. Meg Cabot’s Boy trilogy were quick and easy reads that saved me from looking like a total failure during Bout of Books. The Boy Next Door (#1) was my favourite, and I’m so glad it held up in English because I used to read the Dutch translation all the time when I was a kid. Boy Meets Girl was cute but the characters in Every Boy’s Got One got on my nerves real quick. All in all, this was a pretty good reading month.
Judith: I read Jesse’s Girl when I was at Ellis’s house and I hurried through it because I had to finish before I left, but it was cute. I really liked the first half and the second half not so much. Then I started/continued my reread of the Throne of Glass series, with Throne of Glass, Crown of Midnight, Heir of Fire and The Assassin’s Blade, and basically I was dying the entire time and it’s all so perfect and flawless and I love this series so much. And THEN I was randomly hanging around my local Waterstones and stumbled upon a copy of Queen of Shadows four days before release date (this is a blatant lie: I actually went to Waterstones to see if they’d have it but whatever details). I technically finished this story on September 1st but I read most of it during August so I’m counting it as part of my August wrap-up and OH MY GOD, IT WAS SO GLORIOUS. I already reviewed it, in case you are interested in my (non-spoiler-free) thoughts, but basically, it was an ode to girlpower and I love it so very, very much. Oh wait, and between Heir of Fire and Queen of Shadows I read 150 pages of Illuminae but I had to stop that because my queen had arrived, I’m sure you’ll understand.
Ellice: First & Then by Emma Mills was my favorite book of the month. It was billed as Pride & Prejudice meets Friday Night Lights, which, loosely translated means “written for Ellice.” :) It started out a bit slow (my expectations were HUGE, keep in mind), but it really started coming together halfway through and I enjoyed it a lot. Watch for my review and our stop on the blog tour later this month!
we watched
Ellis: Usually I’m all about the TV shows but this month I watched some movies too. (You’d be surprised at how rare a thing that is.)
On the show front we had UnREAL, which is AMAZING and OMG NEED SEASON 2 STAT. A rewatch of that is going to be needed soon because these characters are so complex and flawed (honestly, everyone is absolutely terrible but so very fascinating at some point) that I can’t wait for however long it’s going to take to air new episodes. The only other show I really got into this month is The Office, and I have mixed feelings. PB&J all the way, obviously, but I now also have the suspicion that Parks and Recreations was in a way created to apologise for putting people through nine seasons of Steve Carell.
THE MOVIES. First of all, Judith and I watched the Georgia Nicolson movie twice – we absolutely needed to rewatch it with Gillian present because reasons – and it was PUHFECT. Whoever told me Robbie is not as bad in the movie as in the books is A FUCKING LIAR, though, because I’m pretty sure he actually broke up with Wet Lindsay in the books before he tried anything with Georgia. Also this entire experience was terrible, because Dave was RIGHT THERE with the least tragic hair of all the boys – aside from Tom, who was unexpectedly hot in the movie?? – and I got totally shipbaited. Unfair.
(Note from Judith: Watching Georgia Nicolson with Ellis and then again with Ellis and Gillian was one of the highlights of the Belgium trip. Tween me was absolutely obsessed with this movie because it is the most hilarious thing ever, and it was still just as terrible as I remember, mostly because of fucking Robbie, who has the babiest of baby voices and can’t wait for shit (seriously, what were his legs doing?!). Other parts were also hilarious, like goddamn Ellen and wet Lindsay’s party and Tom being shirtless for no reason at all but none of us complaining. GEORGIA’S PUHFECT TOO.)
Less successful was my buddy watch of The DUFF with Meg. I’m just – no words. I’m one of the people who liked the book a lot, so this was a special kind of hell, but what were they even THINKING. I’d say my favourite part is how they transferred Bianca’s story line of dealing with her shitty home life by hooking up with semi-randoms to Wesley in the movie (I kept calling him Robbie probably because of the GN movie hahaha) because lol @ girls having casual/unemotional sex amirite, but my actual favourite part was Allison Janney, because she made the movie not a total waste. Luckily I repressed that terrible life decisions by watching the Jump Street movies and coming up with loads of Jump Street AUs for the Sebastian gang.
Ellice:
The PLL season finale. WHAT EVEN? If you watched it, we need to talk. DM me on Twitter or email me. I’m still not over it. Also, Switched at Birth is back! Wheeee! I just love Bay and Daphne and their families. Apparently I am super obsessed with ABC Family shows right now. I’ve had hardly any time for watching anything new this month, but I plan on changing that soon. I need some new shows to fill the void that Sons of Anarchy left!
Judith: Georgia Nicolson was obviously the highlight of the month.
I also saw Inside Out and cried, because it was such an accurate portrayal of depression and so important for kids to see. When I was in a particularly crappy mood I watched Two Night Stand with Analeigh Tipton from ANTM and Miles Teller and it was really cute. I think that’s it for this month?
we listened to
Judith: I must have been listening to some kind of music before Badlands Release Day but after that nothing mattered because BADLANDS WAS RELEASED AND IT’S BEEN ON REPEAT EVER SINCE. Honestly, I can’t express in words the brilliance that is Halsey. Her sound and lyrics and voice are mesmerizing and I’m just so, so obsessed. I’m not gonna pick a favorite song, because I love them all pretty much equally, but today’s obsession is Control, the ultimate female villain anthem, and the perfect song for pretty much all my favorite characters.
Ellis: Before the era of Badlands happened I was listening to My Jam by Zendaya, Bobby Brackins and Jeremih, and War Paint by Fletcher (which resident music connoisseur Meg linked me with a “I think you’d love this but idk” message, the last three letters of which were absolutely unnecessary because that song is my current jam.
And then Badlands happened and now I’m spending my days listening to Gasoline (HOW QUINTANA/ADELINA IS THIS GUYSSSSS) and Young God in particular, and everything else on the deluxe album in general, on never-ending repeat.
Ellice: I bet y’all have already guessed that my favorite songs of the month will be country. YOU’D BE RIGHT. ;) I stumbled across the first song when I was listening to Spotify on my way to work this week. I’m sure I was quite entertaining to the people I was passing on the road, because I can’t help but dance when I hear it! Haha
And Luke Bryan’s new album came out this month, so of course I’ve been playing it almost nonstop (I’ve seen Luke in concert 3 times… I might be a fan. Ha)
Does that song make anyone else want to re-read their favorite romance? Sigh. :)
we added to our shelves
Judith
Purchased: The Demon King, The Exiled Queen, The Gray Wolf Throne and The Crimson Crown by Cinda Williams Chima, Dark Triump and Mortal Heart by Robin LaFevers, Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas, 99 Days by Katie Cotugno, The Secrets of the Wild Wood by Tonke Dragt | Gifted by Gaby (<3): Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, Tonight the Streets Are Ours by Leila Sales, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Ellis
Gifted by Judith: Something Real by Heather Demetrios, Just One Year by Gayle Forman | Gifted by Gillian: Blackbringer by Laini Taylor, The Boy Next Door by Meg Cabot, Boy Meets Girl by Meg Cabot, Every Boy’s Got One by Meg Cabot | Gifted by Angie: The Rose Society by Marie Lu | Gifted by Gaby: Walk on Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson, Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy, The Boy Most Likely To by Huntley Fitzpatrick | Purchased: Remix by Non Pratt, Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway
Ellice: Nothing! September’s book haul will make up for it though :D