Inside Kimmy's Mind

I love receiving/writing letters! As a child, I always wanted to have more people to send letters to.

The term pen pal was introduced to me in the 2nd grade, my class was practicing letter writing and we had been assigned a pen pal from a neighboring school. Sadly, I have no memories of my pen pal nor can I remember the gender or school my pen pal was/from. I can only recall the day my teacher told us that we would be paired up. I remember writing out my first letter to them, but again, no memory of what was actually said.

As I grew up, I still found joy in the idea of writing out a letter or sending a package to a friend. I exchanged letters with friends, whom I’d met at school from time to time but nothing that actually remained constant. It wasn’t until my first semesters at university did my best friend and I start exchanging a notebook where we would keep our letters in. She had moved to another state, me to another city and we wanted to keep in touch. Life got in the way but we kept it up for while and I was pretty proud of us. She and I still send each other mail from time to time and that always puts a smile on my face. And then this year for Christmas, the wonderful Whimsical Joy sent my sister and I a Christmas card with two crochet bookmarks. I just had to respond with my own handmade item so I wrote her a letter and made her a knitted mug cozy.

And when Matt and I first started to date, he went out of town several times during those beginning months and he would send me a post card from each place he visited. Such a thoughtful souvenir to receive from him. Also, a friend from college and I have agreed to write each other letters from time to time. He lives in Galveston, so we aren’t very far away from each other but he’s currently going to Med school and we’ve decided to stay in touch in anyway we can. Don’t know how he does it, but he’s always been a very positive guy and I’m glad to be reconnecting with him now.

I’m excited and hope to maintain a consistent back and forth of letter writing. It’s nice, getting a letter from a good friend. I plan on upping my card game. He’s in for a surprise.

That’s fall for now. Thanks for reading. ♥

 

The moments before I fall asleep I snuggle against your back, wrapping my arm around you and I can easily fall asleep with you beside me.

The moments before I’m fully awake, I can feel you kiss my cheek. I can feel you touch my hand.  My vision blurred, streaks of light peeking in through the blinds while purrs and high pitched meows beckon us to wake up.  I can feel myself wanting to say good morning yet I want to linger in your arms just a bit longer before I wake up. 

♥

 

It took me a while to finally finish editing this video but here it is! I sort of took a break from buying books during those months and wasn’t reading as much either. But hopefully, I’ll return to reading more books, I didn’t reach my goal of 50+ books in 2016 so now I’ll try again in 2017…haven’t gotten off to a great start but no sense in giving up. 😀

Here are the books I mentioned in the video:

• Bitter Sweet Love – Michael Faudet
• The Universe of Us – Lang Leav
• Fresh Romance
• Gabi,  a Girl in Pieces – Isabel Quintero
• Beauty and The Beast and Other Classic Fairy Tales
• Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, Illustrated Edition – T. S. Eliot
• Crimson Bound – Rosamond Hodge
• The Sandman Collected Covers – Dave McKean
• Jane, the Fox and Me – Fanny Britt

Going to try to get back on a vlogging schedule and try to read more. I have a Book Outlet Haul coming up and I can’t wait! What books have you been reading lately?

Thanks for reading

While in school my concentration was in Creative Writing, and I struggled with characters, and creating different voices for each character. But I still enjoyed writing each of the different stories I came up with. Story Genius by Lisa Cron stuck out to me because of its catchy cover but also because of its subject matter. It never occurred to me to continue writing stories after college, I haven’t made any effort to write creatively but this book brought back a lot of those college semesters.

What I liked about the book was the voice of the narrator. Very funny and it was almost as if I was discussing literature with a peer. Another thing was the humor, especially when it brought up Fifty Shades of Grey. (If you like this series, take no offense, you are entitled to like any book you like. And hey, if this series made more people read, then right now!) It poked fun at it for sure and explained how ‘beautiful writing’ isn’t enough to get readers interested. It’s the story itself, how does it capture your audience? In the case of this, it had readers wanting more…

The next thing I liked about this book was its helpful prompts…or exercises. The ‘What to Do’ sections. I thought it was an interesting way to sprinkle those in every once in awhile and not beat with it over and over again.  If you are the type of writer that struggles with finishing or developing your story, I suggest giving this a try. If anything, it might just help you think out the parts of your story that you haven’t really put much thought into in the first place. It also made for an interesting read.

Happy reading!

*I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

I love affirmations and being positive is something I myself am working on and it’s a bit difficult sometimes. I try not to become a “negative evidence collector” but I find myself leaning more towards negativity rather than positive thinking.

Think Happy by Karen Salmansohn is the pep talk everyone and their pet cat needs. Now this book doesn’t just automatically change the way you view life. However, it helps you slowly want to change. But if you rather remain on the gloomy side, then this book won’t do much for you. I just want to express that.

The cute illustrations and happy go lucky attitude is just the bright light you may need to want to see that rainbow you seem to be ignoring. This book is small and the perfect addition to your coffee table. The cover alone brings a smile to your face and actually reading the different sections was eye opening for me. I found myself agreeing out loud.

My expectations when reading this book was that I figured it would be generic information that, if you’re not always a shiny, happy person, then it would just be annoying to read. I thought this would be the type of book that made me feel bad for not always feeling happy. After reading this little book, I felt myself feel motivated. Motivated to see myself in a more positive way. I expected the line, “If we all saw ourselves the way others see us, then we would all be happier.” But that’s not how this book was written. It was written in a way for you to feel inspired about being positive. And I’m glad the book wasn’t at all what I expected.

Learning how to be something is difficult, there are many tools available and having someone tell us what worked for them might not work for us. But this book isn’t exactly telling you how you can be happy. Only you are capable of finding happiness. I just feel as though this book motivated me, and I don’t want to be a pretzel!!!

*I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Thanks for reading.

Here are the books I bought in the month of July, and I can tell you that I have made up for the lack of books in July jut in the first two weeks of August. But in July I just was taking it easy and trying to make time to read the books on my TBR.

• Maybe in another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Roses by Rose Mannering
• The Oxygen Thief by Anonymous
• Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

I have three videos in the making and I’m hoping to make some time to get them filmed and edited, but I also have a few workshop possibilities that I need to work on….aside from my full time job. It’s all about balance, and as long as the other things don’t disturb my day job, then I’m good. But here’s hoping this outside stuff works out. I hope you’re doing well, what are you reading or what have you recently purchased?

Thanks for reading

Now that I have a full time job, scheduling all the things I want to do has been tricky. I miss having more time during the week, however, now that I have to schedule things like work and my hobbies it’s making me a better planner and less lazy.

Before, I’d put things off and think, I’ll eventually get to it. But now, I’m trying to make sure I get to it sooner rather than later. There are a few excuses that I use when I can’t though. Filming requires good lighting, and I use the sun still, I don’t have lighting equipment. But that’s something I’m considering more and more lately.

Blogging however, does not require much. It just requires me to sit at my computer and type of entires that I’d like to discuss.  For this entry,  I’d like to discuss my now typical morning routine.

I filmed a little vlog for it too. I had fun filming it but I couldn’t film certain parts, like walking into work. I’m sure I could have but I’m not yet comfortable with filming in public quite yet. Plus, the job is still new so I should still be on egg shells. But next time,  I might do like a weekly-Life blog. Film a bit every day and then combine it into one video at the end of the week. We shall see. It’s just an idea, I just like working on new videos and improving on my editing.

 

 Other than that, work has been going well. I already have deadlines and projects to work on. I’m also working on  Mind-Speak projects as well.  It’s all about planning and making time for everything. Wish me luck. 🙂

How are you with planning out work and hobbies? Do you have any secrets?

Thanks for reading and watching

I present my June book haul!!! I have a total of 7 books this month and I read 4, so I think I’m doing pretty good. If I don’t enjoy the book then I get rid of it. I don’t see the need in forcing myself to read a book I’m not enjoying. I’m just trying to keep my book collection under control.

Here are the books I mentioned in the video:

• Never Never parts 2 and 3 by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher
• Confess by Colleen Hoover
• The Future for Curious People by Gregory Sherl
• Romeo and/or Juliet by Ryan North
• The After Party by Jana Prikryl
• One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Big things are happening and I’ll update about it as soon as I can, but for now know that I am extremely happy.

Happy reading

Punderdome -Puns of Fun!!!

This game was created by a father-daughter team, Jo and Fred Firestone. Their last name sounds like a superhero team if you ask me. The game requires at least 2 people to play but recommend having more than 3. I think playing this game with teams would be really fun and can’t wait to try that out.

First impressions: Excited to play

The game is nicely illustrated and brightly colored which makes it eye-catching. It’s packaged nicely, a place for everything included. The box is small and will fit snugly on a shelf or cabinet, so if you’re short on game storing space, worry not.

Continuing on, this is a game of puns.

That’s right! Puns!!! If you do not like puns, this game will either A)change your mind about them, or B)make you a punmaster! Either way, try it out before you decide against it.

Here are the written instructions:

The objective: Win a Mystery Envelope prize(before playing, the prompter fills Mystery Envelopes with a prize. i.e a candy bar or a dirty napkin) by being the first player/team to obtain ten pairs of cards.

• First, Prompter draws two cards and reads one Quick Pun question
• The player who responds quickest with a pun wins 30 extra seconds for the Prompt Round to follow
• Prompter flips cards, reads Green(situations) and White (topics)
• Players have 90 seconds to write down a single pun (word/phrase/sentence) that combines both topics and then give to the Prompter
• Prompter chooses best pun and awards that player that round’s Green and White Cards.
• The winner becomes the new Prompter- rounds continue until one team/player has ten pairs of cards

According to the game’s inserts, the game Punderdome started as a competition in Brooklyn, New York. The card game was only created in 2015, so it’s still fairly new but the live game show in New York began in 2011. This game requires a sense of humor and cleverness that might surprise you. I think I will enjoy this game much more if I play it with a larger group of friends.

I’m definitely adding this game to future game nights. It’s compact enough for trips out to bars or a friend’s house. I guess it also depends on the type of friends you have. Some might not find this as entertaining, but in my opinion, I think it will convert those skeptics.

*I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Thanks for reading

Wanted to film a Plan with Me video for this week. I added just a few things that I knew I had to do but obviously if more things occur I plan as the week goes on. For the most part, work is the only thing I can really plan ahead since  I know my work schedule by the end of the previous one. I have a few other videos planned for this week but didn’t think about it until after I filmed this video, so that’s why they aren’t there. Bare with me, I am terrible at planning out videos.

After I had written out the few things I knew would happen this week, I decided to make the end of the video just a montage of some planner supplies. Mainly, these Memento Dew Drop inks that I have fallen in love with. I’m a sucker for colorful things, and these are perfect for stamping my planner pages. Anyway, I’ve been thinking of some other videos to film and upload so stay tuned for some book and non-book related videos!

Thanks for reading and watching