I’m Back From Hiatus, So Here Are Some Life Updates!! // ft. no reading, meeting chris colfer, & pizookies

Hi, it’s me again!

I can’t tell you how happy I am to be typing these words again. It’s been over two months since I last wrote a blog post, and I hope I don’t go that long without writing a post ever again, or at least not for a very long time. I also haven’t interacted in what feels like years, and I missed reading posts and talking to everyone just as much as I missed writing posts. Moral of the story, I’m so excited to be back!!

I wanted to ease back into blogging with a life update post of sorts! It will serve as somewhat of an October and November recap post, since I don’t want to do full separate posts for each of those especially since I didn’t read or blog in either month.

The past couple of months have been the most stressful and busy months that I can ever remember having (thank you, school), but there have also been high moments, happy memories, and a lot worth sharing. So get a cup of hot cocoa, settle in with some blankets, and let’s catch up!

So, reading wasn’t my priority, and I’m sad about it.

I always underestimate just how much school and dance takes out of me, and I feel like every year I have a little less time to dedicate to reading. Case in point, I only read three books in the last two months, and they were all in October!

Two out of three of these were additions to series I loved in my childhood, which was very comforting to return to amidst school stress. I can’t tell you how happy I was when I found out there was a new Mysterious Benedict Society story, and it really filled my heart with so much nostalgia and joy when I read it! The Riddle of Ages was a perfect conclusion that I would highly recommend if you were a fan of the MBS growing up like I was.

Chris Colfer also came out with a new Middle Grade novel, A Tale of Magic, and it’s a prequel series to his famous Land of Stories series. One of the most exciting events in October for me was that I actually got to meet Chris Colfer, and I’m still in shock that it actually happened??

When I saw the dates for his A Tale of Magic book tour release months ago, I couldn’t believe that out of all the cities he could have gone to all over the country, one of his locations was a Barnes & Noble less than an hour away from my house. My friend and I both went, and it was an amazing experience. I was so starstruck when I met him, but I still don’t know how I managed to speak at all.

The last book-related thing that happened recently was that I exceeded my Goodreads challenge! By one book so far, but still, that’s exceeding, right? It’s a good thing that I read a lot over the summer because that made it possible for me to read very little in the fall and still hit my goal.

At the moment, I’m very slowly reading Anna Karenina (I love it, but can only take small doses of it) and I have plans to go to the library today to get some YA novels that can get me back into reading. I’m sure I’ll keep you all updated on how reading goes in December. 😉

A lot of life things happened.

When I was trying to figure out what to include in this post, I looked back through my camera roll and realized that I did have a lot of happy memories over the past few months. Sadly, I can’t exactly share a lot of those pictures on here since they mostly all have my face in them, but I will talk about them anyway!

• I’m another year older. My birthday is in October (one of the reasons why it’s usually my favorite month) and so I had a party with my closest friends, which was a lot of fun. Also, hey, I can do magic legally outside of Hogwarts now.
• I visited my sister at college! In October I got to stay with my sister in her apartment and go to a football game with her and I even went to one of her classes with her, which was terrifying because I definitely was not supposed to be there.

I have to say, one of the best parts of my visit (besides, of course, seeing my sister) was eating this really delicious skillet cookie with ice cream on it. I highly recommend trying a pizookie if you never have, because I don’t know how I went so long without it in my life.

• We had homecoming! I had the best homecoming of my high school years so far. Two of my very best friends and I dressed up pretty fancy (I even did eyeliner, which is when you know you’re going all out) and got cupcakes and Italian food and took pictures together. It was pretty perfect.
• I had my fall concert for dance. One of the sources of my stress over the past couple of months was definitely this concert, and thankfully it ended up going really well. I’m a shy person, but I thrive off of performing, and I love it. The whole second act of our show was all Queen songs (we pretty much danced nonstop, I danced for four dances in a row) and it was so!! much!! fun!!
• My best friend and I dressed up as Max and Eleven from Stranger Things for Halloween. I couldn’t help but include a picture of our costumes in this (I just cropped out our heads) because we were just way too proud of them, especially since we only used clothes we both already had.

Please disregard the bruise on my leg, I have no idea where it came from, but that’s a dancer’s life for you. Bruise aside, we had our own little Halloween party by dressing like El and Max, watching our favorite episodes, and having a dance party to our 80s playlist.

• I saw Frozen 2! This happened just a few days ago, and it was so good. I thought the music from the first one is better, but the plot and overall enjoyment factor of the second one were better. The next movie I’m desperate to see (it comes out on Christmas day) is Little Women! It looks amazing.
• I became addicted to Jane the Virgin. Knowing me, after I finished Stranger Things, I needed a new show, and now I’m really loving Jane the Virgin. It’s a strange mixture of heartwarming-but-also-sobbing-your-eyes-out-and-it’s-also-a-little-scary-and-lots-of-crime. I’m only on season three right now, but since it’s my Thanksgiving break right now, I’m planning to watch a lot.

My goals and plans for the upcoming month!

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I’m so happy to be back, and I genuinely hope I can get back in a solid routine of reading, blogging, and interaction. My plan is to go easy on myself at first because it takes time to build a habit and I do know that I have higher priorities, like school, dance, and my health.

This hiatus was scary for me to take. I’ve never taken a hiatus for this long, and it was frightening to step back and let everything I’ve worked so hard for on my blog unravel a little bit. It’s hard to know that I might not reach some of the yearly blogging goals I set for myself back in January because I wasn’t around for two whole months.

But I know it was something I needed to do, and I’m don’t regret taking it. I feel refueled with my passion for blogging, and that’s a wonderful feeling to have.

I just want to take a moment to thank you all for being so supportive, kind, and understanding! I feel very sad to have missed so much while I was gone, but I will be doing my very best to read and comment on all your lovely posts again so you can all be shown the proper amount of love.

My main goals for blogging next month is to consistently post each week, blog hop at least three times a week, reply to comments within five days, and to start reading again. I feel like these are realistic goals for someone who is currently on a week-long break from school and has a two-week-long winter break at the end of December??

I’m looking forward to seeing what this month brings.✨

Thank you all so much for reading this post! I’ve been gone for quite some time, so it means a lot to me if you’re still around. *virtual hugs for everyone* I hope this life update post wasn’t too unorganized, and that it served as a transition from my hiatus to being an active blogger again.

I hope you all have a lovely day, and if you celebrate, I hope you have the most amazing Thanksgiving with family and friends. 🤗

How have you been? If you want, link your favorite post that I’ve missed in the comments and I’ll go check it out. What was your fall like? Do you have a Thanksgiving or fall break? I’d love to talk with you in the comments.

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash >> credits for the image in my featured image!