Hi, guys! Emily here. As most of you probably know, on Friday I confessed my busy schedule and not being able to blog much. At least… I need to take a step back to get on top of other things that my blog depends on – like reading! (If I’m not reading, I don’t have much to blog about, do I?) I’ve also been preparing for National Novel Writing Month, so the posts throughout October and some of November that I do get to write will probably be mainly updates and ramblings, but I hope you don’t mind. 🙂

There are several things I want to talk about in this post. First of all: THIS!

Do you see that little number up there? Do you see it?? That’s 49! Forty-nine of you peoples follow me and read my silly little rambles on the internet, and for that I am very grateful. It may seem like a small number compared to other blogs, but I am proud of my little forty-nine and when we hit fifty… there will be a PARTY! (Hint hint.) So hit that subscribe button to the side (via email or bloglovin) and get going!

ALSO. NaNoWriMo. You know, that thing I talk about every year that I never seem to accomplish?? 50,000 words in the month of November? Yeah. I’m participating! … again. Perhaps this will finally be the year I reach my goal. If you want to follow my novel, I’ll be updating chapters every Sunday and Wednesday here, so hop on over.

Then there’s this tiny overflowing thing called my To-Be-Read stack. It’s taking over the world, it is. Or rather, my bedroom, which is pretty much my little bubble of a world.

There are some pretty amazing books in that stack, aren’t there?? At least from what I’ve been told, that is. Divergent, Rose Under Fire, Cinder, Reached & Crossed… I’m excited to get to all of them, but school-required reading comes first. Right now I’m making my way through The Hiding Place (I’m glad to finally be reading this one) and after that The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I always forget to update my little “Reading” widget, but I’m always checking up on everyone on Goodreads, so you’ll always know what I’m reading here. (Little no-shame self promotion never hurt anybody.) 😉

And then there’s that last thing in the title: FALL! It’s finally sweater-weather, which means 60-degree weather and planting some new fall flowers in our yard! We just planted these yesterday. I think I’m in love.

Oh – and can we talk about Kiera Cass’ Happily Ever After for a moment??! If you haven’t read The Selection series yet, you need to now! I think it’s safe to say by now all my blog followers know how obsessed I am. 😀 Marlee and Carter’s story was my favorite, and the illustrations are GORGEOUS! If you want a sneak-peek, you can read the first three chapters of The Queen (Queen Amberly’s story) and a bonus epilogue to The One (America and Maxon fangirling! EEP!) here. Brooke and I are going to try to do a part two to last week’s co-post soon, so keep a look out for that.

I just noticed I have eight wonderful comments waiting for my approval and response… so I better get to that! Sorry about my lack of comment-replying. 😉

That’s about it for today. Hope you didn’t mind my rambling and self-promo. Also, don’t forget: fifty followers, and I’ll do *something* special (not entirely sure what that is yet, but I’ll brainstorm. Maybe an international giveaway?) ONE MORE, people!

Hi, everybody. Emily here. It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve talked to you guys one-on-one, or at least in general. I’ve been scheduling all the posts that have gone up recently, so I haven’t written any content that’s new, and I’ve been lacking in my comment-answering-skills. Sorry about that, by the way. Life’s been crazy!

On Sunday, my family and I left to stay in South Carolina for a few days. In a nutshell… a post on my mom’s facebook asking for a few donations (enough to fill our minivan) for a day trip to Columbia (which is near my mom’s hometown in S.C.) turned into two churches and our home-school group filling an entire U-Haul truck to take to the flood victims! We know an organization in our area who was able to get the U-Haul for free for us (as a charitable donation), so all we had to do was drive it on over and find a few churches to donate the clothes, food/water, & toys to! My mom’s girlfriend and her family were just outside of the flooding, so we stayed with them until Tuesday.

Other than that, school’s been keeping me busy – along with sewing, writing, piano lessons, and a bible study group I’m apart of! Whew! It’s all starting to catch up to me. Can I just take a looooong nap, please?? With all that’s been going on, you know the drill – life gets in the way, ugh – and that leaves 0 time for reading.

*sigh* Plus there’s that gruesome school-required reading… (just kidding, I don’t hate it as much as I pretend to.) The last two books required to read this year are The Hiding Place and The Witch of Blackbird Pond; both of which I’ve been wanting to read forever, so now I’ll finally get to them.

Aside from that, I’ve got A BAJILLION STACKS of books I need, absolutely must read. Among them are: Divergent (YES I shall finally see what this is all about; I know I’m late), Cinder (a few of you have become infatuated with this book, so here goes) and the other two books in the Matched trilogy. Those are the most popular books in my stack, among manymanymany others.

Oh and one more thing before I forget on my superduperlong mental list: I’m participating in NaNoWriMo! YAAAY! It will be my fourth year; and I’ve only won once so perhaps this year I’ll be lucky! (I have not given up yet!) If you want to see what I’m up to in November, I’ve rebooted my old Wattpad account just for that. Since I have no plans to publish this story, it’s going up there! *Cheers for me finally sharing my writing* And if, maybe-possibly-some-day, I do get this published – you get a sneak peek! You can follow that here. (My username is emily_ellerby; I use the pseudonym Ellerby for my stories there. If you want to look at my old works from two years ago you can… but I wouldn’t recommend it because I wasn’t the best writer back then.) 😉

So THANKS for keeping up with me… with all going on, I’m not sure where blogging fits in the mix, so forgive me if I miss some posts. I’ve just got to get my routine organized, and I’ll try to post whenever I can. 🙂

Hi guys! Sorry I was MIA on you Friday and Saturday. We just got back from our AWESOME beach trip last night, and… my cat is lost. Yep. Maisy’s a stinker. Our other cat, Mittens, is an inside/outside cat (he was a rescue when we got him, and we couldn’t keep him inside, so he goes outside and comes inside. But he always comes home!) This drives Maisy nutty, however, because she thinks she can go outside too. My grandfather was at our house last Sunday and most likely Maisy got out unnoticed when he had the door open. We’re pretty worried… dad’s going to make some flyers and we talked to some of our neighbors. So if you could pray that we find her soon, that would be great. 🙂

In other news… I figured I would go ahead and do a beach trip recap, along with a picture of all the books I’ve gotten (!!!!) and everything, ’cause you don’t want to hear about my missing cat the whole time, right?! 😉

Florida was a TON OF FUN. I absolutely love the area we stayed in; we’ve been several times before and I can’t wait to go back! Our condo was right on the beach, so we had this gorgeous view. I loved watching the sun rise and set. It was beyond beautiful.

My cousins, Sydney and Olivia tagged along with us this week, and it was so much fun having them with! Sydney’s just five months younger than me and Olivia and Anna are exactly two weeks apart! You could say we’re built-in best friends! 😀 So one night we had a mini photo shoot on the beach since we all had these adorable dresses that were dying to be worn. Jump shoots are the best!

Remember how I kept talking about my new Hannah Everly skirt?! You may have noticed I’ve recently changed all of my profile pictures (or not, but now you know!) because I absolutely adore the pictures of me in my new skirt. 🙂 Hannah’s skirt is so amazing; the fabric is super nice and it fits me so well. It’s worth every penny!

There’s also this one that I love, too! I can’t decide which one I want as my profile picture, haha!!

The donuts were the best part though, just sayin’.

Also… we all came home with TURTLES! Meet Squirt. We found these little guys in one of the shops nearby. Everyone in my family knows I’ve been wanting a turtle FOREVER! They’re not freaky like my sister’s crabs (LOL… they look like spiders!) and you can still hold them, unlike fish. Of course I had to name her after my favorite Disney character. You know, Squirt? From Finding Nemo??

DON’T WORRY. That weird stuff on my hand is just water, from her tank. 😀

And you didn’t think I forgot about books, did you??!

The week wasn’t good BOOK-WISE. Let me explain. In the beginning of the week, I bought When Audrey Met Alice from one of the bookstores. I decided to read that one first because I thought it would be a funny, light beach read. Few chapters in. Content was icky. No thanks. Theeeen I opted for Rebel Belle, which I had borrowed from the library, and it was kind of weird. I kept going anyway because I really wanted to see if I liked it or not. And then it got really mushy, so I said no to that, too! FINALLY I started The Last Sin Eater by Francine Rivers, which was a recommendation from my mom. I’m half way in and LOVE it. I should have started it ages ago. 😉

Here’s the total stack of books I’ve gotten in the past 8 days. I’m so overwhelmed. It’s the best feeling in the world.

On the left is the Ascendance Trilogy series, plus I have a second copy of The False Prince, but it’s SIGNED!! (I mentioned my Aunt Corrie getting me a signed copy from the author last week.) Look at this!!

The on the right is my stack! On the top is The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor. My mom and dad picked it up for me at one of the bookstores – it’s an Alice in Wonderland retelling! Next are Upside Down in the Middle Of Nowhere and Absolutely Almost, which I talked about in last week’s post. And then I’ve got the books my lovely pen pal Brooke sent me: the first in the 39 Clues series, Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale, and Beauty and the Beast: The Only One Who Didn’t Run Away by Wendy Mass. Oh, and on the bottom is Rose Under Fire – the sequel to CODE NAME VERITY!! CNV had me sobbing with my heart in a hundred tiny pieces, but. I shall read the sequel anyway.

SOOOO. That was a long post! If you read this all, I shall give you a reward. Haha just kidding I’m completely broke. You know with the turtle I bought and also some cute clothes I got in Florida. Among other things. (Who am I kidding I’m always broke.) Anyway your reward can be getting to comment below! Because I love hearing from you!

Off to hand out ‘missing cat’ flyers to my neighbors. Please don’t forget to pray for my cat; she’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But we love her and we will find her! 🙂

Until Monday. =)

Well, guys. It’s official today. I’M FOURTEEN!!!!

This is SERIOUSLY the dance move I’ve been doing for the past four weeks whenever I announced how many days there were until my birthday to my family.

The past year has been such a blur! I think I’m starting to understand adults who are always talking about how time flies. I guess it really flies when you’re having fun, and I did a ton of fun things this year. Though sometimes being thirteen felt more like this:

Most of the time I felt a tad more like Rapunzel.

Like when I went on a Disney Cruise. Or to Washington D.C. And met Kiera Cass. And on a completely spontaneous Florida trip. Not to mention the summer (and school year!) full of zoo trips, pool days, Six Flags or White Water trips, baseball games, loads of shopping sprees with mom, sleepovers with cousins, summer camp, and dozens and dozens of library visits. It’s been real, 13.

Alright, I’m gonna go ahead and warn you about the abundance of exclamation marks I’m likely to use in this post. I get excited, okay??!

On Tuesday – the 8th – I got a box of birthday goodies from Brooke in the mail! (Most of you know her – she’s the sweetest commenter and my favorite pen pal ever.) (hahaha Brooke, are you turning red yet??) She got me three books!!! SCORE. I got Beauty and the Beast by Wendy Mass, the first book in the 39 Clues series by Rick Riordan, and the second book in the Princess Academy series by Shannon Hale! Not only did I get those three books, I got a neat Japanese bookmark and the SOFTEST, warmest pink infinity scarf she arm-knit me!!! (Which will be worn a LOT, I can tell you.) I wasn’t expecting her box until Thursday, and Tuesday wasn’t such a fantastic day for me. So it was such a nice surprise getting it early! I could not wait to open it on Friday, so I went ahead and opened the box. 😀

So on Thursday, I stayed home (it’s usually a home-school co-op day, but I stayed home to get some schoolwork done so I wouldn’t have to do any on Friday!) and got my first Hannah Everly skirt in the mail!! I wasn’t expecting it in time for my birthday, and I am beyond happy that it came! I love it so much. It’s worth every penny! (And in case you didn’t know, she’s Rachel Coker‘s fabulous little sister. They’re both amazing – you should read Rachel’s books and buy Hannah’s skirts!)

Annnnd on FRIDAY (That would be today!! EEP)… I woke up and my dad wished me a happy birthday (mom was in the bathroom, LOL) and then I went to let my cat inside. Set our security alarm off. Whoo-hoo, what a start to my birthday. Splitting my eardrums! I then a cold slice of pizza (it’s good to me and it’s my birthday, don’t judge!) and baked my own cupcakes. Mom was joking “She’s making her OWN birthday cupcakes” but I just added butter, eggs, and water. Plus I was hungry. We ate most of the cake batter before the cupcakes… and I haven’t actually eaten a cupcake today yet – need to do that after this!

So then my mom and I got dressed (got all cuted up of course) and went shopping. (‘Cause what else is a girl supposed to do on her birthday?!) I got some new shirts to go with my skirt, and can’t wait to wear them when we go to the beach tomorrow for the next week!

My dad and sister met us for lunch, and of course there was ice cream! (More dessert, hello.) Then my dad had a gift for me (my other gifts were new makeup I got last week, the clothes to go with my skirt, and the beach trip – which we would have gone to anyway but is also partly in celebration of 14!) And guess what my dad got?? WRITER TO WRITER, by Gail Carson Levine! Remember I mentioned wanting it in a blog post the other day?! Sweet Daddy saw it and ordered it for me. 🙂

Afterwards, my mom and I went to Barnes & Noble. Now I know you’re all going to be astounded about this, but I DID NOT BUY ANY BOOKS. I DID, however, get this adorable notebook for myself!

I figured with all the library books I got, plus the books I owned and hadn’t read, plus Writer to Writer, plus (hopefully) some tomorrow when we eat lunch with dad’s side of the family… I have enough to take! 😉 I’m also 100% likely to buy some in Florida.

Oh, and we SO did not leave B&N without getting Starbucks. Pumpkin spice lattes, always come right around my birthday. Best time of the year.

And that pretty much concludes my day! I got SO many texts and DM’s and happy-birthday wishes on social media, and I feel so blessed and loved today! Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday and just made my day even brighter. 🙂

I’d also like to end this post with this unreleased song by Taylor Swift. (She was twelve when she wrote it; sometimes artists record it in a studio or get it on recording at home and it gets leaked or released somehow.) This is one of my favorites; she wrote it about 9/11/01 (my birthday) and it makes me cry every time. Today is such an important day in American history and it’s so important to take some time to remember the 3,000 too many lives lost all those years ago.

I love the line where she says, “Down the aisle three men walked and said ‘We’re here to die for our God.’ He stood up and said ‘That’s funny, ’cause my God died for me.'” It’s so beautiful and sad and makes me remember the brave Americans who lost their lives and their loved ones who lost their family and friends.

So thanks for reading this little recap of my day! I hope you don’t mind I sometimes post things non-bookish-related. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a Stacking the Shelves up tomorrow. 🙂

Oh – and just for kicks – I made this comparing last year’s 13-year-old picture in Barnes & Noble to this year’s fourteen-year-old one. 🙂 You can read my birthday post from last year here!

Thanks for reading, as always!

xx

Greetings from Florida! I’m on the road right now… thank goodness for hot spots, so I can write up some posts from the road. We’ve got about eight or nine hours left to go until we get home, so I’ll be busy sleeping, watching Netflix, and (hopefully) reading, if I don’t get sick.

In case you missed it, in my last post, I told you about my family’s impromptu Florida trip! My “Aunt” Tina (close friend of my mom’s we call aunt 🙂 ), and her husband live near Tampa, so at about 6PM on Thursday, my mom was texting with her and as it turned out, she had a three-day weekend! So six hours later, our car was packed and we were on our way to Florida! It was definitely spur-of-the-moment. But hey, my dad can take his work anywhere (a plus of being a web designer), and we had a free place to stay. Whoo-hoo, here we come, Florida! 😀

So here are some pictures from the trip. Enjoy!

We got there at about 9 in the morning (after driving through the night; it was actually a lot of fun! 1AM stops at McDonald’s – you don’t do that every morning, right?) And later that afternoon, we headed to my aunt’s neighborhood pool. Isn’t it nice?

You know I didn’t get in the car without at least one book with me! (I brought three.) Turned out great – I finished The Phantom Tollbooth, and started Listening for Lucca. I couldn’t really get into Listening for Lucca, so I decided I’d try that one later and start with a lighter read, The Wish, by Gail Carson Levine. It’s great so far.

The view from the backyard. Look at those beautiful trees!

Okay, I know these are your plain-old, store-bought cookies, but they’re my FAVORITE. So yes, I took a picture of the cookie. It’s good, though, right??

Aunt Tina’s neighbors were having a fourth-of-July party, so we hung out there for a little bit. Since even Aunt Tina didn’t know everybody, we didn’t stay too long. But look at me, my dad, and Anna’s festive outfits!

I went bold and wore a tutu! Isn’t it cute?! Sadly, we didn’t get to see any fireworks (we did see some over the tips of the trees in the yard), but we had a great time with Aunt Tina and Uncle Tom’s “sing trix,” a karaoke machine that changes your voice when you sing! They found it on Shark Tank. It’s super cool!

Selfies on the beach! 😀

Here are the girls! Left to right: Aunt Tina, my mom, me, and my little sister, Anna.

Can I live here?!

And that was my weekend! 😀