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March In One Word
I conquered this reading slump I had so badly so far in 2014 and I conquered something that scared me!
5 Things That Happened In March:
1. Veronica Mars movie!! I love Veronica Mars so much and was happy to back this film the moment I found out about the Kickstarter campaign so I was delighted when Will surprised me with special fan event tickets so we got to see the movie a night early and got Neptune High Reunion shirts. I loved the movie as a fan!!
2. The Storycrush tour came to Philly — Lauren Oliver, Melissa Kantor, Robyn Schnieder, Courtney J. Stephens and Katie Cotugno. You can check out my quick little recap I did of the event…tried something new so I’d like feedback on it!
3. Divergent!!! I rather enjoyed it as far as book to movie adaptations go. Wasn’t perfect but I liked! But THEO JAMES. DROOL.
4. I got my first ice cream of the season from a new ice cream shop that was SO tasty. I even went bold and tried a new flavor — blueberry crunch — rather than going with my staple of mint chocolate chip.
5. I got back into pilates! I was sick right when the new year started and just really fell off the working out wagon and FINALLY I’ve gotten into a routine again!
6 Songs That Were Most Popular On My Ipod This Month:
I put all my Monthly Rewinds In a Spotify playlist so you can listen to them here now ! I also have a March playlist filled with other AWESOME songs that wouldn’t fit on here.
1. Thunder Clatter by Wild Cub
2. Cardiac Arrest by Bad Suns
3. We Might Be Dead by Tomorrow by Soko
4. Turn It Around by Lucius
5. Fire Eyed Ones by Fire Eye
6. Up The Wolves by The Mountain Goats (they are one of my all time faves but The Walking Dead played this song on a recent episode and OMG it made me remember how much I loved them/I went on a TMG bender!)
Honorable Mentions: Elaine (Until Now) by The Fleeting Ends , Pull Down The Moon by Cattle & Cane, Casino by The Notwist
Follow my March playlist
Top 3 Books I Read This Month:
AHH I had such a good month for books in March! So hard to choose!
1. Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson(review to come)
2. How To Love by Katie Cotugno
3. If I Lie by Corrine Jackson
Most Popular Review This Month
Most Popular 5 Blog Posts Overall This Month
1. DO NOT READ IN PUBLIC — I loved how varied we all about emoting in public while reading. LOVED reading your awkward public crying (or laughing) stories about books that made us cry.
2. What It’s Like To Be A Mood Reader— In which I talk about what it’s like to be a mood reader and how it affects my reading and my blogging.
3. On Binge Reading Series…And Why I Haven’t Done It Since 2008 : I really appreciated all your recs!! Still going through them!
4. Top Ten Popular Authors I’ve Never Read: Oh the shame! But some of you made me feel better!
5. Top books on my Spring TBR list : Lots of good books for me to read Spring 2014!
3 New Obsessions In March
3 Things I’m Looking Forward To In April
3. Visiting my dad and family for Easter!
Favorite Quote From A Book I Read In March
“Sometimes a moment defines you, defines how people see you for the rest of your life. You can accept it or fight it. If you’re lucky, you’ll recognize the moment when it happens.” — If I Lie by Corrine Jackson
5 Posts I Starred In My Reader That You Should Check Out
1. 6 Ways To Honor Your Time (And Live Your One Wild & Precious Life): I’ve always been a fan of that Mary Oliver poem (it even spurred this post) but I admittedly always just focus on the well known quote of it but I LOVED that she talked about the lines together. It hit me even more profoundly. This was a post I NEEDED to read and I think others could get a lot out of it. #1 and #4 were big for me.
2. The Grace In Saying No: I’m a person that struggles to say no. Like really, really bad. Sometimes I genuinely want to do something and don’t want to miss out. Sometimes its guilt. Sometimes it’s feeling bad. It’s a whole mess of things. I want to please people. I stretch myself thin. I need to get better at this.
3. How To Get Back To Kicking Ass if This Year Has Gotten Away From You: Oh GOD. This year. I had all these huge goals and THINGS for this year and like seriously how are we saying goodbye to March already?! I slacked so far this year and I’ve been beating myself up on it so this post was gold!
4. DIY Skin Clearing Mask: This blogger has been my go to for skin care and such for the past couple years. She’s always coming up with new things for me to experiment with and I can’t WAIT to do this.
5. Someone Else’s Pain + Struggles Do Not Negate Yours: Loved this post a lot! Very thought provoking! I do try to keep my problems in perspective and feel guilty often because I know others have it worse than I do right now but my financial situation + long term unemployment is what I’m going through right now and it’s hard for me.
What sort of things were noteworthy for you in March? New obsessions? Any new song recs?? Best books you read this month? Great posts I missed on your blog? Tell me! 🙂
Christine says
Thanks so much for including my post! I still struggle a lot with learning how to say no–especially to cool opportunities–but I’ve found that just because you say no to one thing, it doesn’t mean good things will stop coming 🙂
Jamie says
So very true!! Thanks for stopping by. It was an excellent post! 🙂
Trina says
I really enjoy that you share your starred posts by other bloggers in these monthly recaps. I usually find something I really relate to from a blogger I was unfamiliar with before. Today I really enjoyed post #5 from Yes and Yes.
Also looking forward to sandal weather, come on April, you can do it!
Jamie says
YAY this makes me happy. That’s my aim! 🙂 Yes & Yes is one of my all time fave blogs. She’s always got such interesting stuff!
*cheers April on*
Iris says
I always look forward to your rewinds because of all the bookish things, but mostly the songs you mention! I love your taste in music, and it always manage to find one or two (or more) that I hadn’t heard yet, and end up loving!
Also, the recipe you mentioned… I am so looking into that one, cause it sounds yummy! And illbe stopping by and checking out your reviews! I have been a bit absent this month because of exams, so I’m gonna catch up om everything that’s happened 😉 (that includes drooling over Theo James in Divergent, I can’t wait to see that movie!)
Jamie says
YAY! Sometimes I wonder if people like these posts or not (I love doing them) so this feedback makes me happy. I always hope people find new music!
You should definitely look into that recipe. Both Will and I declared it a new favorite. And no, worries. Hope exams went well!! Let me know what you think about Divergent!!
Danielle @ Love at First Page says
Really, THEO JAMES. Just those two words, that’s it. 😀
So jealous you’ve read Since You’ve Been Gone – I can’t wait to read your review, lady!
Jamie says
I seriously couldn’t contain myself in the movie. He is REALLY nice to look at and he kept making me melt and that doesn’t happen too often!!
Since You’ve Been Gone was so, so good. I hope you get to read it soon! My review is either going up tomorrow or next Monday. Haven’t decided which review I want to go up quite yet!
Missie says
Great month! So loved The Veronica Mars movie!
Missie @ A Flurry of Ponderings
Jamie says
It was nice to be reunited with the gang! 🙂
Leigh @ Little Book Star says
So glad you got out from that slump! I’ve been having slumps too since January of 2014, and sadly, I still am. I’m not sure when it’s going to go away, but hopefully before I graduate (May 31) of this year because maaaaan, I DO love reading, but I feel lazy picking up a book right now. And good for you that you chose a different ice cream flavor. It’s really hard for me to do that because I don’t like trying new flavors out. I always end up getting either cookies ‘n cream, vanilla, chocolate, or cotton candy.
Jamie says
OH NO. We need to get you out of it!! It looks like we started around the same time. The two books that got me out of it? The Sea of Tranquility and How To Love! Maybe they will work for yoU! But school work is rough so I can understand how you might be distracted and that could add to it!
I always pick either mint, cookies n cream or peanut butter chocolate. It was nice to get something else!
Nadia says
I love when you do these! My favorite parts are the posts at the end and the music you share. Seriously, because of you I spent almost the entirety of March listening to “I wanna get better”, that freaking song. I hate that spotify won’t let me listen to your playlists because I’m not from the USA, ugh, but I guess that’s what youtube is for.
This month my top songs (besides the Bleachers one) were “Harlem” by New Politics , “Kinks Shirt” by Matt Nathanson (the video rocks), Mary Lambert’s new ep and her cover of “Teenage Dirtbag”.
And my newest obsession combines with the best books I read this month: The Archived series by Victoria Schwab (2 books), SERIOUSLY, IT’S SO GOOD! WELL WRITTEN AND GRIPPING AND JUST UGH READ IT THE FEEEEEEEEEEEELS. I love it so much, I think I have a book hangover.
Nadia says
btw, how do you find so many cool artists/songs ?
Jamie says
YAY this makes me happy hearing your feedback. Those are my two favorite things to share in these posts!
Ah that makes me so sad that Spotify won’t let you listen! GR. Is there any other sort of playlist thing you know of that I could make my Monthly Rewind playlist on also? I’d be happy to make it somewhere else in addition to Spotify so people outside of the US could listen!
Thanks for sharing! Haven’t heard the new Mary Lambert and I SO want to hear her cover of that song!! Ah and the Bleachers song right?! I am obsessed. I need more.
Ah I have had The Archived on my shelf since it came out. FAIL.
And honestly I spend a lot of time on Spotify discovering new music! Before I got super into books again when I graduated college that’s how I would spend my time is just finding new music all the time so it’s just never left me but I don’t spend NEARLY the amount of time as I used to.
Nadia says
I think maybe Soundcloud or 8tracks. But it’s always easier on Youtube! Thanks for considering it 😀
OMGGG GET ON THATTTTTT, The Archived was SO good. I need more books in that series.
Oh I seee! I used to find new music on last.fm, but I have stopped using it, and now I mostly just go on recs and things like that.
Rissi says
Though there were other fabulous things… Veronica Mars was awesome. 😉
Jamie says
Wasn’t it?! I got all teary eyed for sure watching it. It was the best sort of reunion. And DAYUM Logan looked good.
Emmah says
How was the Blueberry Crunch ice cream? It sounds SO yummy!
I only read three books this month (and two of them were finished in a total of five days [both books, together])! But “HP and the Deathly Hallows” took awhile to read, but it was really good! And then I read “Asunder” and “Infinite” by: Jodi Meadows!
Oh, and a new song that I like… “Waiting Game” by: BANKS.
Jamie says
It was very tastey! Not as blueberry-y as I thought it would be (which I hoped for a little infusion of it) but the crumble that was in it was delish.
I still need to get into the Incarnate series!!
I LOVE BANKS. I think I had Banks as a Monthly Rewind pick a few months ago. *goes to check* YES in October. That is one that could probably be on this rewind every time but I try not to repeat the same songs haha. SO GOOD.
Emmah says
I don’t know if you get Hood ice cream in PA, but you should try their “Maine Blueberry & Sweet Cream”. It’s SO yummy and tastes like summer!
I found that song through Amazon MP3 haha. It was one of the free songs of the month!
sarah/appifanie says
Oh Wild Cub and Bad Suns are two of my current favs!
Jamie says
They are fantastic!
Hannah @ Broc's Bookcase says
I also had my first ice cream of the year this month, sadly mine was from McDonald’s though. I need to find a nice ice cream place nearby now that it has finally started to get sunny!
I am so jealous of you already seeing Divergent. It isn’t released until April 4th in England so I have been so so jealous reading everyone’s posts etc about how much they love it. Spend my days searching for clips online to try and keep me going until the weekend when I can finally go see it!
Great post this month, some great reviews too. Coming on your blog always makes my TBR list grow a lot bigger!!!
Amenah says
I really got into the bands Metric and Fall Out Boy this month (–really, just in the past two weeks haha). FOB’s song Young Volcanoes is just playing in my head, and it’s put me in such a great mood this morning! I also started on the book Witch Child by Celia Rees, which is one of many historical fiction books I’ve picked up in March. I think I’ve found a new genre to love, which is exciting! I’ll be on the lookout for some awesome historical titles from now on.
& I love the ‘wild and precious life’ post you’ve linked to. Number four was the one that really clicked with me.
(By the way, I’ve just read your reply to the email (/fanmail :$) I sent you. Thank you so much — I’m so happy it put a smile on your face. 😀 Keep up the good work!)
Alexa S. says
Here’s to hoping that April brings us warmer weather and more adventures to come with it! I’m glad that you’re no longer in your reading slump, and that you’re back to Pilates. It’s really awesome to be active in both mind and body, I’d say 😉
Megan C. Stroup says
Yeah Angry Orchard! Love that stuff. It was my gateway cider haha. Now I like exploring other flavors/brands. 🙂