February Book List

1. Teach Me by R.A. Nelson

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 264

2. Fat Girl in a Strange Land by Various Authors (won from LibraryThing)

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 150

3. The Final Problem by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 17

4. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 149

Quote: “The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”

5. The Enterprise of Death by Jesse Bullington

Read in: 5 days

Pages: 464

6. The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 238

7. Princess in the Spotlight by Meg Cabot

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 223

8. Princess in Love by Meg Cabot

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 229

9. Princess in Waiting by Meg Cabot

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 225

10. Princess in Pink by Meg Cabot

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 256

11. Princess in Training by Meg Cabot

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 269

12. Under the Dome by Stephen King (ultra epic, but I recommend it.)

Read in: 8 days

Pages: 1072

13. Bone Doll’s Twin by Lynn Flewellling

Read in: 8 days

Pages: 524

14. Empress by Shan Sa

Read in: 3 days

Pages: 319

Quote: “Beauty is not happiness.”

15. The Ten, Make That Nine, Habits of Very Organized People. Make That Ten. by Steve Martin (it’s a collection of his tweets…hilarious!)

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 105

16. Sense & Sensibility (graphic novel) by Nancy Butler

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 120

Total Books Completed: 16

Total Pages Read: 4,624

Average Pages Per Day: 159

Average Days To Read A Book: 2.6

11 more books read than in February 2011.

2,664 more pages read.

89 more pages per day.

2.2 less days to read a book.

My newest project

I have a slight obsession with Post-It notes...I have more little pads than I could possibly use (and I'm still lusting after new colors), so I decided to get some more use out of them...

http://pleasantpostits.wordpress.com/

I'm going to try to leave a note somewhere every day (or as close to that as possible) that says something nice, inspirational, or funny. My goal is to make at least one random person smile, but the more the merrier! I am definitely open to any quote or saying suggestions you might have. My ultimate goal is that this will become popular--I want other people to start doing this too. Everyone needs more smiles in their day! I'm encouraging people to leave their own notes and send me pictures too!

I also made a twitter account...

https://twitter.com/#!/PleasantPostIts

Check me out!

January Book Log

1. A Good American by Alex George

Read in: 9 days

Pages: 381

2. Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 216

3. Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 184

4. Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 248

5. Feed by M.T. Anderson

Read in: 4 days

Pages: 299

6. Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore

Read in: 8 days

Pages: 325

7. Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Vol. 3 by Naoko Takeuchi

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 248

8. The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde

Read in: 5 days

Pages: 382

9. The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington

Read in: 5 days

Pages: 425

10. Fallen Skies by Philippa Gregory

Read in: 6 days

Pages: 509

Total Books Completed: 10

Total Pages Read: 3,217

Average Pages Per Day: 104

Average Days To Read A Book: 4.1

1 more book read than in January 2011.

366 less pages read.

12 less pages per day.

0.5 more days to read a book.

New Banner

So I've changed my banner it's not much at the moment...but that's because I haven't quite figured out the direction I want to take everything in. I'm sort of basing it around my business card, and I'm not sure I've got that nailed down yet.

Eventually (hopefully rather soon) I'll start working on my website. I'm getting caught up in figuring out the layout. There are lots of different ways to set up a portfolio site, and I haven't quite figured out how I want mine...and then when I do...I need to make a banner for that too. One that's a lot better than this blog banner.

But at least I designed something! I need to get back into the swing of things.

A New Year

 So I stopped being lazy and uploaded pictures from my camera....

Here are my new favourite snacks to make! Chocolate covered cherry mice! They are super tasty and ADORABLE! I brought them to Tim's family's Christmas party and everyone loved them. I wish I'd thought of the idea myself, but of course I found the recipe online. They have pumpkin seeds for ears (I substituted those for almond slices because I don't enjoy nuts), Hershey's Kisses for heads, chocolate coated maraschino cherry bodies and frosting faces! I plan on making them for lots of major events (though they are a pain to transport, because they slide together and then their little faces get messed up). I also want to make white ones too.

I got a cork board from Anne for Christmas (which is actually the only thing I really asked for this year) and I am super excited. I pin all my design and writing ideas/inspirations on it, and it freed up some space on my magnetic board.

 This is Artemis....being cute. ^_^ She is getting bigger!

 The lovely wall clock that Mama made for us. It brightens up our drab kitchen! And it's blue, my favourite!

I bought a bookcase from work (normally $140 down to $25 thanks to my store going out of business and the display model discount), so we rearranged our living room a little bit to accommodate it. The two bookcases are now side by side, and we moved the small one over to our half wall. It's opened up the living room and given us more space. Also, I FINALLY bought frames for my Mucha posters, so they are hanging up too. Yay artwork! 

Here are some goofy pictures from New Years. It was a small group of us, but we had a BLAST! (No, sadly I didn't edit these myself. My four years of college taught me very little about Photoshop. I used a Google Chrome app Pixlrmaticsomethingorother to fiddle with these. It's the same effects as some ipad app).

Last post of 2011

I'll start off this last post with the books I've read in December, along with my year-long totals...

DECEMBER 2011

1. A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin

Read in: 19 days

Pages: 959

2. Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 162

3. The Thing About Cassandra by Neil Gaiman

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 12

4. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 200

5. The Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick

Read in: 9 days

Pages: 473

6. Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Vol. 1 by Naoko Takeuchi

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 240

7. The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston (I highly recommend this!)

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 233

8. Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison

Read in: 6 days

Pages: 311

9. Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Vol. 2 by Naoko Takeuchi

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 244

10. Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 192

11. Codename Sailor V Vol. 1 by Naoko Takeuchi

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 276

12. Codename Sailor V Vol. 2 by Naoko Takeuchi

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 291

Total Books Completed: 12

Total Pages Read: 3,593

Average Pages Per Day: 116
Average Days To Read A Book: 3.8

I got a bit more reading done this month than normal, since it doesn't take long for me to fly through the mangas/comics. They add to my page count without taking up too many days! I'll be starting off 2012 with an  advanced readers copy of The Good American by Alex George (courtesy of LibraryThing).

2011 YEAR END TOTALS

Total Books Read: 105 (my goal was to read 100, so I just made it!)

Total Pages Read: 37,024

Average Books Per Month: 8.8

Average Pages Per Month: 3,085

Average Pages Per Day: 101

Most Books Read In: March (16)

Most Pages Read In: March (6,077)

I'm very happy with how many books I've read this year! If I was better with Excel, I could probably have a cool spreadsheet done up (eventually I'll take a class on Excel) and maybe some fun pie charts. But for now, it's cool just to see the numbers. I've still got 287 books in my 'To Read' category on LibraryThing (and those are just books I currently own!), so hopefully I can do even more reading in the new year! (After all, it may well be our last year in existence! *eyeroll*)

I don't really have much to say about this year. I'm not motivated to do a big "year in review" type deal. Overall, it was a decent year though. I turned 23 (I am constantly forgetting my age x_x), I moved out of Mum's house and into an apartment with my wonderful boyfriend, I took some pictures of flowers that I'm rather proud of, I graduated college with a Bachelor's Degree (and I'm now continuing my education online to fill in all the gaps that my four years of classes failed to fill), I got our wonderful little kitty, Artemis, I bought a new car, I had a wonderful visit from Melissa for a week, and uh....I....bought a lot of books and another bookcase to put them on! :]

My hopes for this new year are the same as always....write more, work on my graphic--and now web--design, get a job in my field (no more retail!!!), eat right, and exercise. 

For now, I'm going to start getting ready for tonight--Tim and I are going out with a few friends to a hibachi/steak house for some good food, Asian drinks, and hopefully some dancing if I'm lucky! (Hey, it counts as exercise, right???)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! HERE'S TO A GREAT YEAR!!!

Reflections Desktop

Just another little desktop design. Maybe someday one of mine will be posted on SimpleDesktops...

I'm feeling too much pressure from the holidays. However, tomorrow I will be done with my shopping...and I've made a list of people to make cards for, and some ideas...so hopefully I can get on that soon.

It's just so easy to procrastinate! I'm not feeling very festive or jolly anyway. I'm kind of over Christmas. As much as I love getting (and giving!) presents, I hate that it has to be one stupid day of the year, and there's no time to really see all your friends and family and you have to buy, buy, buy all this new stuff or else society will think you're an ass. I just never seem to feel prepared. Especially this year. December really snuck up on me this year.

Maybe next year I will have a craftier Christmas. I have to start planning over the summer, to get some ideas flowing and then gather supplies...and give myself a little time for procrastination as well!