My Top 10 Favorite Books

It’s no secret that I love to read. I always have, and always will. My Mom often tells the story of how I learned to read. She had been teaching the 5-year-old me for a while, and I wasn’t making much progress. One morning, I woke up and headed downstairs to try reading a book. All of a sudden, I was reading with hardly any effort! My Mom asked me how I was doing it, and I said “The words are just coming into my brain!” XD

Ever since then, I’ve read practically any book I can get my hands on. I have quite a long list of favorites, but I somehow managed to narrow it down to just 10. So without further ado, here are my Top 10 Favorite Books!

The Iliad – A Book Review

Sooo…

I know, most people read the Iliad in college, not their freshman year of high school. But since I’m homeschooled, things are a little different for me regarding the work I’m assigned.

Lots of homeschoolers use lots of curriculums, and there’s countless options out there. However, our family has been following a classical curriculum for the past several years, and we love it! Part of our homeschooling is going to “co-op,” which is the homeschool version of, well, school. Let me explain.

Once a week I attend “school” with other families who use the same classical curriculum. I’m in a class with kids in my grade, and we listen to lectures, eat lunch, have fun, participate in class discussion, goof off, get a weeks-worth of homework, and then go home. We then have the next 6 days to complete the assignments before going back to “school.”

For the most part, I enjoy my education and the material I’m studying. But believe me, it’s no picnic. It may sound easy, but in reality some of our work is a lot harder than you think. For example, this year I was assigned to read Homer’s “The Iliad.”

You can probably imagine how excited I was when I received this news.

Haha, no. I was not excited at all.

However, I am proud to say that I survived the Iliad, although many of the characters in this epic story did not.

The Liebster Award Tag

Hello everyone!

I’ve been nominated for the Liebster Award! Yay! My good friend Jo tagged me, and you can check her out here. (Thanks Jo!)

Alrighty, here goes nothing!

“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” – A Movie Review

Ah, yes. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

I’ve been a huge fan these magical books for years, and I enjoyed seeing them come to life on screen. I fell in love with the characters, setting, and plot at an early age, and they’ve been with me ever since. So you can imagine when I saw the announcement of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” in 2016……I was bouncing off the walls with excitement! My friend (whom I had introduced to Harry Potter a few years earlier) was equally excited, and we eagerly anticipated the film’s release. After seeing it together, we decided it was an “ok” addition to the franchise. It contained some darker, almost scarier, magic than in the Harry Potter books, along with some violent and pretty creepy scenes. Overall, the movie had a good ending – the plot was wrapped up nicely, and all of our questions were answered. Plus, it had lots of fantastic beasts.  We both agreed that it was a great ending to the franchise.

Or so we thought.

Earlier this year, I saw that yet another movie was coming out: “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.” After doing some research, I discovered that this was only the second installment in a 5-part “Fantastic Beasts” series.

Naturally, I was pretty excited! I pulled out my Newt Scamander t-shirt and headed to the theater with my Dad, who generously agreed to take me, even though he had absolutely no knowledge of the wizarding world. (Shout out to my Dad – thanks again for taking me!) I walked into the theater eager for the film, and emerged terribly disappointed. This movie was extremely underwhelming, and I was not impressed.

2019 Goals / A Much-Needed Update

Hello everyone!

Yes, I know I disappeared from this blog for *gulp* 3 months. And I have a long list of excuses as to why. But who wants to hear those? All that matters is I’m back now, and trust me, I’m here to stay. For real this time.

I started this blog in May of 2017. Since then, I have switched the theme a dozen times, changed the overall “vision” for my content, re-designed the entire site (including deleting all my previous posts and starting over from scratch), accidentally erasing everything, starting over from scratch again, and now here we are! A year and a half later with a grand total of (drum roll please)……

4 posts. Wow.

I know. What an accomplishment.

Ok, but seriously. My 2019 New Year’s resolution is to start taking this blog and my content much more seriously. Not because I want to make money or be an internet celebrity, but because blogging and writing are things I love to do. What’s more, I know there’s people out there who enjoy reading my words. If I can uplift, inspire, and bring happiness to people through my content, I don’t need money. Encouraging others and brightening their day is worth more than gold to me.

For those reasons, I’ve compiled a list of 3 main goals I’d like to accomplish in 2019 to further advance my blog and content.

NS & PEI – New Sights & Pretty Exciting Islands

Hello everyone!

As I’m sure you’ve probably noticed, the back-to-school season has made yet another appearance. The lazy summer days are over and study sessions and cold weather have returned. (Well, maybe not the cold weather just yet, but it’s coming!) It’s on those days when you really miss heat and sunshine, and start to think about all the fun things you did over summer break. I know I did some really exciting things over my summer, especially my trip to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island! My family and I traveled there in August, and it was an amazing experience! We visited landmarks such as Peggy’s Cove, and the Cabot Trail, went hiking, swimming, and tried new foods! So, if you would like to read more about our experience, keep scrolling!

Life of Pi – Book Review

For an online film-class I’m currently taking, we have been assigned to watch the movie Life of Pi. However, this movie is based on the book, Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I make it an unbreakable personal law to never, ever, under any circumstances, watch a movie before reading it’s book. So on a recent 17-hour road-trip from Toronto, Canada to Kansas City, Missouri, I read Life of Pi. My Mom had previously read it, but she wanted me to read it aloud to her to experience it a second time. Some parts made us laugh out loud, and some made us cringe with horror. But overall, we enjoyed reading the book together, and we had fun discussing the plot afterwards.

An Indian boy, a zebra with a broken leg, an orangutan, a hyena, and a Bengal tiger. What could these things possibly have in common? Well for one thing, they are all stranded in a lifeboat on the Pacific Ocean, and they are the center of Life of Pi.

“A real adventure: brutal, tender, expressive, dramatic, and disarmingly funny . . . . It is difficult to stop reading when the pages run out.” – San Francisco Chronicle

I couldn’t agree more. Life of Pi has all the elements a good story should – suspense, surprise, drama, action, humor, and much more. In the story, an Indian boy named Pi is the victim of a shipwreck, and must survive on a lifeboat with several dangerous and wild animals. How does he survive? What happens to the animals? How long are they on the boat? Do they get rescued? The book will answer these questions and more, but will leave you dumbfounded at the unpredictable ending.