The Wonders of Christmas

Anyone who's spent more than a couple minutes with me knows that my phone is a horrible piece of crap. So much so that the manufacturer has stopped making it. If it loses full service for longer than a few seconds, it stops trying to connect to the service. I can't call people when I want to. I can't text. Heaven forbid I got in a dangerous situation and had to use my phone.

But my fantastic mom bought me a new phone for Christmas! She even let me open it a few days early so I could use it at work and be safer driving home. She is great :) of course this replaced any other gifts she would have got me, but that's perfectly fine with me.

Now that I actually have service almost everywhere all the time, I can go back to being productive and reading at work and editing there, too. I anticipate better reading times and many more updates. Not to mention photos and videos I can upload here to make my life a tad more interesting.

New life!

Sunday, September 21

Oh my gosh, it has been so long! It's been months!!

I've finally gotten back to schedule with my reading and my work and school and my new job and all of it. Last month was pure catch-up and now I've got time this week to get ahead. Hopefully, my posts will be more regular. I'm hoping to be more reliable with my schedule.

I'm about a third of the way through with Serena and once I finish that book in the next couple days, I'm going to continue reading Virus and that will end my September books and I'll be back to reading my books on schedule. In fact, if I read at least 60 pages a day (about an hour), I should be ahead in my October books and I can get to the ones I've missed in previous months.

Since I can't work for a few more days because of my poor toe, I've decided to spend it between TheReadingCorner and the 20 something video games I have yet to finish. I'm already doing better than I anticipated. I should have at least two videos out tomorrow and another three out by the end of the month.

The Maze Runner has been a popular book for a few months, mostly because of the movie (which I liked a lot. It even made Val run to the nearest book store the minute we got out of the theater), and it means I've been pretty far down the wait list at the library. If Valerie can finish reading it by the time I get it from the library, I'd prefer to have them skip on to the next person so they don't have to wait for me to read my copy. But she doesn't read like I do and it takes her a bit longer. But seeing as how I'm 45 out of 210 holds, I can't imagine I'm going to be able to get that video out for a long time. I have already recorded the movie review side of it and it'll be a little bit of a complicated video, but it won't be that hard.

So I'm planning on getting back on a regular blog and video schedule which will be so nice! I won't have all that guilt weighing on me all the time.

100 Questions Tag!!

As I explain in the video, this has been requested by my friends and family. So here you go, me answering 100 fairly random questions about myself.

So I haven't uploaded the Twilight Tag to my youtube channel yet, but when I do, I promise I'll replace this sentence with that link.

Tuesday, May 20

Surprisingly, not a lot has happened in the last few days, but I've been crazy productive.

Sunday, my mom had some old volleyball friends over. They hadn't seen us in over ten years and I didn't recognize them at all, but we got along well enough. Because we were having company, I had to clean out my three rooms (bedroom, study, and bathroom). I got through most everything and sent it down for the garage sale. The upstairs has never looked this clean and organized.

Yesterday, I finally finished reading Blue Bloods! It's been over a year and I finally got it off my list! I know it doesn't sound like much, but it was a pretty big deal for me. I've been trying to get through it since about February of last year. Since I have to return some movies at the end of the week, I had to record the video this morning in the little gap I had before a meeting. While I was moving the video to my laptop so I could edit it later, I noticed that I hadn't finished the A Soul to Take video. I got that done once I got home, though. So all that's left for videos is the book haul and the Blue Bloods one.

The Book of Disquiet and Evermore are the only books I have left. It shouldn't take me that long to finish them, but I've been saying that for a while and I still haven't done it. Maybe I'll spend the whole morning tomorrow reading and editing those last two videos.

Here's a link to my youtube channel with the new A Soul to Take review:
https://www.youtube.com/user/RainaEvink

Saturday, May 17

It's been a week since I've written anything and I'm sorry! I made a video response, but I wasn't able to attach it for some reason and I've had to wait until I had enough free time to get through a whole post in one go.

Valerie, my FoodFoolery friend, and I have finished our discussions and she's moving in at the end of the month. Incidentally, we had been planning a yard sale for that weekend and we have to kind of mush everything together and try to get it all done that Friday. It'll make our video making schedule much easier. Plus, we don't have to drive across town to hang out.

I finally received Blue Bloods and The Book of Disquiet from the library today. When I went to remark my place in the books, I found the notes I'd been missing from The Book of Disquiet!! The first time I borrowed the book about year ago, I accidentally left my notes on a notecard at the back of the book. No one took them out and now I finally have the things I'd forgotten! Apparently, the last times I'd ordered the book, I'd gotten the other copy the library had, but the notes were there all along! (also, there's a book sale down at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds the last weekend of the month, which sucks 'cause that's the weekend for our yard sale and I can only spare an hour or two in the morning of that Friday, which may not be enough time)

Because I've got all three books to read at the same time, I'm reverting back to the style of reading I employed when I was trying to read The Cloud Atlas, The Book of Disquiet, and some other book I can't remember right now. So an hour of reading turns into about 20 minutes of reading for all three books. I hope it won't take very long if I'm reading an hour a day.

For the yard sale, I sacrificed 55 books today. Most of them were non-fiction books that I wasn't really interested in or that I had multiples of, but I was still sad to see them go. Hopefully, it means more money for the stuff that's really important like extra cash for my family reunion.

I have to get back to reading, but there's a new book haul coming out tomorrow!

Saturday, May 10

The last few days have been crazy, but wonderful. My superhero best friend went into labor with my beautiful godson on Wednesday and then I got food poisoning on Thursday.

Wednesday, in the middle of me winning Monopoly on Game Night, I got the call I've been waiting for for weeks. Kevin and I drove down to the hospital, but I had to leave around 2 in the morning to go home to sleep. At 7:14 May 8, Odin Vincent was born happy and healthy. After I woke up, I reheated some ribs for a quick breakfast and within half an hour, I was throwing up. I felt sick all day, but surprisingly, after a big bowl of late night ice cream, I felt much better. I visited Sonia and Odin in the hospital yesterday and they're both doing great. I can't wait until he's old enough to read with.

Speaking of reading, I'm almost done with Evermore and I'm about to start on Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen. The video for A Soul to Take is still on my list. I promise I'll get to it soon and post the video for Evermore soon, too. FoodFoolery is kind of on a standstill right now. We're having some scheduling issues and we're pretty far behind.

And now my cat's throwing up a hairball on my newly washed clothes. Time to get back to cleaning.

Tuesday, May 6

Sorry it's been so long since my last entry! Life has gotten crazy recently and spending a long time writing out a blog bit has been difficult for me. So I solved that problem by recording myself instead. This is an unedited video and I'm sorry! It's quite long, but I answered a few questions I've been getting and problems I've been having.

Saturday, February 22

I was finally able to post new videos! An update (that mostly focused on my contributions to A Sea of Fate that's coming out pretty soon), and an actual review. I just taped my review for Broken Hearts, so expect that in a day or so. 

I'm very excited for Kyle Throw's first novel, A Sea of Fate (hereby referred to as ASF). He's been working on it for seven years and he's already got a sequel in the making. It's hard to summarize it without giving anything away and there's no official summary yet. What I can say is this: it's a fantasy novel with three main characters. Sheala is a sheltered girl who is forced out of her home and into the city of Roghulth for protection. Alexander is a young boy who wants nothing more than to go on adventures like the ones in the stories he hears about his father, King Aireander. Victor, Alexander's half brother, is the captain of the Honored Guard, a group of highly trained soldiers, and is soon getting ready to battle the Mentore, a race of powerful creatures that have only been defeated once. They have come from their mountainous prison to destroy the world of men and kill all in their path. We have a tentative date of mid-March set to start printing, but because Kyle is self-publishing, only a few copies will be printed. The electronic version will be cheaper and available to anyone who wants it. 

Today was probably the most productive day I've had in a long time. I finished reading Broken Hearts, made my review, edited the hour long video I made for Sweet Treats and Secret Crushes down to about seven minutes, and edited a couple chapters of ASF. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it was at least ten hours of work and I'm about to do another hour, at least.

Since I haven't made a video since Valentine's Day, I'll post the picture of Kevin and my gift to my mom. It was the nicest thing we could have done for her. She came home from a stressful class to a whole bunch of candle-lit cupcakes.

Thursday, February 13

I'm not proud of myself at all. I still haven't taken the laptop in. Today is the day, though. I hope. I'm just really uncomfortable with going, I think. Maybe if I had another person behind me, prodding me the whole time, I'd be okay. I might make my mom go with me tonight. Or make Kevin go tomorrow, but that's not a real romantic thing to do on Valentine's Day. 

Speaking of Valentine's! My mom's presents include getting her car taken in for a tune-up (we're dropping it off tonight), flowers, a store bought card, breakfast in bed, and me driving her around for a day. The car thing is going to be pretty expensive so we had to cut back on actual presents. I got Kevin a fan for his computer because it overheats like crazy and I'm going to take him shopping for something to sleep in and cute boxers. He really needs something other than regular monochromatic black and grey. I'm also thinking a hat so he doesn't have to keep stealing them from people, but I'm not sure if I'll have enough. Kevin already ate my present of chocolate, I think, which is good. I'm not a big fan of chocolate, especially since dark chocolate make me puke and if I eat too much milk chocolate, I get a tummy ache. I probably would have just given it to him to eat anyway :)

Tomorrow, I have a meeting with an author about his book, but I'm still struggling with some of the sections that are worded weird. I think I. Just going to have to go over it with him and see if we can't both agree on the wording and the syntax. For instance, I use the Oxford comma, but he might not.

The Book of Disquiet and Blue Bloods didn't get finished like they were supposed to, sadly. I have to return them in about three hours, but there's no way I can finish another 200 pages of Pessoa by then. So I'll just have to return them and check them back out when I'm done with the February books I set aside.

Right after this, I'm going to go back to editing and when I get tired of that, I'll start writing my reviews on hubpages again. I can't do either for longer than an hour, but if I go back and forth, it shouldn't be so hard. I really need to start catching up on hubpages or the pile of books that I haven't finished is going to get higher and higher and overtake my desk again. I must not let it happen!

Sunday, February 9

Still haven't gotten my laptop fixed. It's not that I'm lazy, I swear. Every time I found a chance to go down to best buy or that computer store near my house, something came up and I couldn't go. Tomorrow is my last chance. I have to find time to get it looked at or I'm handing the responsibility to either Kevin or my mom. They're both pretty good at getting things done. 

I've been crazy busy with a book that I've been editing recently. There were a lot of errors and it's taken me hours to get through it. I'm still not done, but I hope that I can finish the whole thing by Friday even with the exam I have on Thursday. Speaking of class, I've been struggling with that, too. Two English classes was not a good idea. I've calculated that I have the equivalent of one essay each week between the English and psychology classes. I'm not sure how well this is going to work, but I'll try my damned hardest. There's no way I can just quit now.

In good news, I picked up the books from the library and the chosen ones are (in order):

1. Sweet Treats & Secret Crushes by Lisa Greenwald - three girls give away homemade fortune cookies to their neighbors in an attempt to bring happiness to those around them

2. Broken Hearts by R.L. Stine - girls at Shadyside High get scary valentines which quickly turn to murder

3. The Trouble With Valentine's Day by Rachel Gibson - two spurned adults find themselves in the middle of the gossip pool after a compromising accident in a supermarket

4. A Catered Valentine's Day by Isis Crawford - two sisters get involved in a Valentine's Day fundraiser only to find themselves in the middle of a mysterious death.

This means I have to read two books a week or so. :( Not the most fun, but I'm sure I can manage it. 

No videos for a while, but there will be new reviews on hubpages, hopefully. If you're interested in reading them, you can find them here: rainaevink.hubpages.com.

Monday, February 3

I believe I have been cursed. 

First, the Broncos lose the Super Bowl in an embarrassing defeat. They haven't played so horribly in quite a while. I'd like to believe they were payed off, but I'd also like to believe that they have the moral strength to not be bribed so easily. 

Then, a few hours later, my laptop breaks. I'm not sure how, but I opened it and got the pixelated white and black that occurs when you apply a great deal of force to a small area of the screen. I'm not sure what caused it, but it certainly wasn't me as I was two floors above it, showering at the time. It's still under warranty so it shouldn't be too difficult to get it running again.

On top of that, my washing machine is on the verge of giving up and my dryer burns all my clothes. It's grinding and shaking and making horrifying sounds like a whale dying with a sinus infection, all wet and gross. I'm just hoping I can get all my laundry done before it floods my house.

So no video for last week. I was in the process of editing the bookshelf tour when the screen cracked or whatever. I'm thinking about making a video that explains the computer thing. But it'll have to be done in one go on the ipad and I'm not so awesome with that. There's a lot of blank footage of me staring off into space while I record my regular videos. 

I'm not sure how long it's going to take to have it fixed. Kevin is going to have a shot at it (which I'm not too thrilled about) and I'll probably have to take it to best buy and have them replace the whole screen. Hopefully, that will be done by the end of this week so I can continue with homework and editing stuff. 

Blue Bloods and The Book of Disquiet are still kicking my ass, but I've passed the halfway point in each of them. It's a slow process, but I hope that I can finish them this month. I started reading both of them about a year ago. Which is aggravating for me. I should have finished by now!!!

I'm still not sure what I'll be reading this week for valentines day. They tell me the books are "in transit" to my library which means they could come later today or take until Friday. But whichever one I grab first (maybe the shortest one if I don't have a lot of time to read) will be the lucky one and I'll put it on goodreads as soon as possible. I'm still reading and updating goodreads almost everyday so you can keep track of my progress on there.

Saturday, January 4

New Years passed fairly uneventfully for me. I haven't had time to finish editing my video but I hope to do it later today if I have time. It's 4 in the morning, I haven't slept, and Kristin and I have a few errands to run. I have to finish painting my living room before I leave, too.

A little update (since I haven't done anything lately): I'm in the process of updating my house. The wall between my kitchen and living room had horrid wallpaper that we took down. Now we're painting over it all and it is taking much longer than I anticipated. As such, all my money and time has gone into Christmas and paint. I got Sonia a baby animals crochet kit for Christmas and I want to finish all six or eight of them by the time she has her baby.

Reviews are coming slow because of the remodel but it's gonna get better, I promise. In a week or two, I'll have my workspace cleaned up and everything will be so much more efficient. For now, I'm stuck doing everything from my dining room table or coffee table. And neither of those places is comfortable at all.

This month is manga month!! I've already got all the books planned out for January, but next months books aren't decided on. If anyone has any suggestions for a Valentine's Day theme, I'm open to them.

Sunday, November 24

Happy Teacher's Day (in Turkey)!

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything on here, but I've been productive, I promise. Apart from a crazy amount of tests, watching every episode of Mythbusters, and trying to finish the video games I'm halfway through, I've finished reading, writing, and taping book reviews.

I've been worrying about being able to complete the 2013 reading challenge of 50 books because I've been hovering around 30 books for a month or so. As I was cleaning up my Goodreads shelves, adding ratings and so, I noticed that I hadn't added the Dengeki Daisy mangas I've been reading all year. When I added those in, I found myself only a few books away! Now, I only have to read two more books before New Years and I'm all done! Hopefully, I can make more than just 50 this year.

There is a wonderfully growing pile of books on my headboard that I need to write the written reviews for. Thanksgiving on Thursday needs to be returned to the library as soon as possible, so that one is on the top of the list. I've got Zenn Scarlett mostly done. It only needs a little bit of revision and it'll be ready for publication. After that, Steve Jobs is up, followed by any library books I finish in the next few days.

Keeping with the Thanksgiving theme for this month, I have another festive book that I would like to have completed by Wednesday morning so I can make a Thanksgiving day video this week instead of Friday. But that means that I have to get through it and take notes in the next three days. I'm sure I can do it, but I'm not sure if I'll have the time.

Thankfully, my mom has finally agreed to change the look of our house. Yesterday, we went couch shopping and it was more difficult than we thought it would be. It turns out that we have different tastes entirely. I think we'll be lucky to find something that we both agree on. As exciting as it is, it means that I might be spending this week painting, reupholstering, and building new furniture. This means I'm going to have to plan reading time, which is not something I'm used to.

But I have to finish The Catered Thanksgiving by Isis Crawford by Wednesday. Keep track of my progress on Goodreads!

Friday, November 15

Happy National Spicy Hermit Cookie Day! (I have no idea what that is, but it kinda sounds gross...)

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything. It was hard to find time to post the last two weeks. I had three different tests at school, plus helping Kevin move into a new house, and the strange problems with my appliances. Hopefully, most of that will be over and done with now.

Today, I finally finished The Vampire Stalker review at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0FjeamGjds. I know that I was supposed to do a review of Zenn Scarlett or Steve Jobs, but I've had reader's block for some reason. I just haven't had the motivation. Strangely, once I actually force myself to read, I get drawn in very quickly and it's hard to stop. I just have to make myself sit down and do it.

Appliance problems: The trash compactor was successfully installed, however, it's the wrong color. So we had to order it again and it should arrive later this month. The dishwasher should be here by the beginning of December and all the appliances should match the black oven we have. I'm hoping that all of this can be done by Christmas. That'll be my present to myself :)

My reader's block has become a real problem. I got two books from the library that I was supposed to finish by Thanksgiving or thereabouts. But they're second to Zenn Scarlett and Steve Jobs. So I have to buckle down and spend maybe the whole day just reading those two books. I'm halfway done with both of them and that gives me hope.

The long list of books I'm "currently-reading" on Goodreads is way too long. Most of those books I haven't touched in months, if not years. I'd really like to get most of those off the list so other people don't get confused about it when I don't update those books for a while. Wish me luck on finishing everything!

Please follow me on Goodreads and Youtube for further updates!

Friday/Saturday, November 1 & 2

I hope you all enjoyed your Halloweens. We just finished up an awesome, if somewhat uneventful party of four.

I edited and uploaded my videos for Hair Raising and The Great Little Madison, which makes two videos in three days. Not something I'll ever have to do again hopefully. The links are down below. But now I only have to finish the written reviews of those books and I'm done with them. To be honest, I'm toying with the idea of not doing the written reviews until after New Years. It can be very time consuming and I'm trying desperately hard to finish reading fifty books before December 31st. On top of this, I have school work and class four days a week, plus another day every month for labs outside of class.

The dishwasher that was supposed to be installed on Wednesday arrived damaged and the man wasn't enterely comfortable saying it would work properly. It was very hard trying to prepare for Halloween without a dishwasher. We had to clean everything by hand. I did dishes three separate times today before the party even started. So we have to wait another couple of weeks to get that installed, too. Plus, we're still waiting on our trash compactor. Hopefully the second one doesn't have any problems and we can instal it and get it working ASAP.

I have yet to crack open Zenn Scarlet, but I'm hoping I can have it read by the 8th. I'm not sure how much longer Steve Jobs will take, but I'm hoping not long after that. If I can get through at least one or two books a week, when the holidays come and I have nothing to do but sit at home and read and watch Charlie Brown everything, I'm hoping I can get through enough to pull out that total of fifty by the end of the year. Maybe I should just start reading children's books or books I can read in less than half an hour...

Please keep track of me on goodreads and my videos. Now my cat is whining for attention and she won't let me be until she crawls her way under the sheets and falls asleep with me.


The Great Little Madison Book Review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za8QRqhPaZA

Hair Raising Book Review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX4Op_AP9M8

Tuesday, October 29

Thankfully, I've been able to catch up on enough of my stuff to record a video for this week and I just need to edit it. I apologize for the huge gaps in video and blog making. I know I say this a lot, but hopefully after next week, I'll be back up to snuff.

Tomorrow, my new dishwasher will arrive and it should be installed just in time for the Halloween dishes rush, provided it's not damaged. The trash compactor I ordered arrived damaged and that's why I have to wait another week for that one. I'm very excited to not have to wash dishes by hand anymore. I admit that I'm a faily lazy person, but I barely found time to do the dishes before and now it takes me three times longer. 

I had planned on being finished with the two books I've been reading by now and started on Dracula, but I'm too far behind schedule for that. I don't think I'm going to get to Dracula until November, which kind of ruins the whole point of Dracula. I might keep that one until next year and keep in on my list of Halloween books.

There's only nine more weeks left until the end of the year and it's starting to creep up on me a little. I pledged fifty books this year on goodreads and I've only managed to get to thirty. When I chose fifty at the beginning of the year, I thought that I wasn't oiling to come even close and I was going to have to lower the bar by twenty or thirty so I'm pretty proud of where I've gotten, but I'm still a little hopeful that I can get there. If I focus more on reading, I think I might be able to read two books a week, especially during school breaks and Christmas. But I'll still only do one video review a week.

Check in with goodreads and hubpages to keep track of my progress if I don't post anything in a timely manner. Thanks for keeping up with me!

Friday, September 27

I was finally able to finish a video this week. I still sound unlike myself and nasally and congested, but it worked out. I sort of feel like I didn't make much sense in the video, but I'm still pretty drugged from the cold medicine I took last night and I was very tired. Still am. Also, I cleaned up my room and some parts of the kitchen right after I finished taping and I feel a little bit better now that my house doesn't look like a dust devil flew threw it in a rampage.

Here's the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jauycRd3Gto. Please follow the link on it to the hubpages written review because there's a bit more information on there than in the video.

Tuesday, September 24

After a long week of being sick and only doing homework, I am back on the bandwagon. I've started reading again and I'll post my progress on goodreads at the end of every day. I apologize that things are going so slow right now, but I'm still trying to figure out my time schedule for all the stuff I have to do during the day. 

I won't post any videos until after my voice stops sounding way too masculine and nasally to understand, but I will try to do that as soon as possible. Because I can't do anything on youtube for a while, I'll compensate by adding to and updating hubpages.

From now on, I will have something new on hubpages or youtube every week. Hopefully, I'll be able to work it out so I can do something on both sites, but I'm not sure how much time I'm going to have to read and write each week. 

As I've said before, I'm taking classes and involved in the writing process of a few books and those take priority over reading and writing my book reviews. I'll keep everything updated as much as I can, including this blog.

Sorry for lagging way behind! But I've caught up on my school stuff mostly and almost all of the personal stuff I had going on.

Monday, August 26

Happy National Cherry Popsicle Day!

My new laptop finally arrived today!! I still have to move all my files over from both my old laptops and that might take forever. Depends when Kevin can get the cord for my poor dead-won't-charge-anymore-and-the-batteries-ruined laptop. So, all tonight, I'm going to be playing with it and probably ignoring my homework. But I don't care because I love my new computer that I have yet to name.

I was really hoping that I could have a salad for dinner tonight, but I still haven't gone to the store yet and salad greens don't exist in my fridge right now. So, I'm left with fries and maybe some frozen blueberries. I really need to go to the store. Maybe Kevin will agree to go to Costco with me tomorrow night after work.

Netflix rocks. It's official as of today. All I've done all day was watch New Girl and Law and Order. Minus the two hours of class time. Kristin and I literally just sat on our asses all day long and stared at a flat screen that shows pictures.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get through all the stuff I'm supposed to do this week, but I don't have that much confidence in myself. So, it's shower time for me and more messing around with new laptop of awesome. I really want a name for it so please please help me come up with something!!