Happy New Year - 2018

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2018!

2017 was a crazy year, full of ups and downs and a bunch of twists and turns in between. Here’s looking to an interesting and adventure filled 2018.

Finally, even though the holidays are ending, you can still enjoy them by entering to win some festive books! Hurry, the giveaway ends soon.

End of Year Reflection and Giveaway

Here we are, the end of 2017. I don’t know about y’all, but it’s been a crazy, busy year for me. Medical scares and revelations, new opportunities and challenges, multiple moves. And to top it all off, after many years and a lot of hard work, I graduated with my bachelor degree this month, bringing more joys and challenges (and limiting my ability to post these past few months). All in all though, 2017 was a good year for me, and so to send it off with a bang, I’m throwing one last giveaway (and my first giveaway of 2018). Let me know how 2017 was for you, and have a happy new year! See you in 2018!

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Update and a Surprise

Hi y'all!

I know it's been a while, but I promise I'm still around. I've been sticking to blog tours in the past few months due to all the craziness going on in my life. I've been going through and preparing for some major life changes, one of which is I'm finally graduating this December! So between working, finishing school, looking for a job, and everything else going on, I've been stretched a little thin, hence why I didn't do a month-long celebration for Halloween this year. However, that doesn't mean I don't have a few tricks and treats up my sleeve. So tune back in this Tuesday for a Halloween treat!

Belated Birthday Giveaway

To start, as I’ve said in previous posts, I’ve been very busy this past few months, which is why I haven’t been posting as often. While I’m still busy, life’s calmed down a bit now, which means I will be posting more.

However, due to being out of town last week, I was unable to post my birthday giveaway. So, while this is a week late, it’s time for my annual birthday giveaway! This year, I put together an awesome bag of swag from Coastal Magic, which I attended for the fourth time back in February, and a bunch of awesome books, including several donated by wonderful authors such as Eric Asher, Kait Ballenger, HD Smith, and Katie Reus. 

Awesome big box of swag and books!

But, because I really want to share the love (and since I was late this year), I’m giving away a second box of swag as well! Unfortunately, due to postage costs, this giveaway is US only, but don’t worry, I will be doing more international contests in the near future (you can also see open contests under Current Giveaways, many of which are open internationally).

That’s all from me for now. Thanks so much for following and visiting my blog, and good luck!

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It's Halloween Time!

I felt this song was appropriate. The song starts at 47 seconds if you want to skip ahead. 

International Tiger Day

Photo courtesy of TigerDay.org

Today is International Tiger Day, which I wanted to mention since, in case you can’t tell from my email address or various profile pictures, tigers just so happen to be my favorite animals. I've been in love with tigers for a very long time. They are beautiful and majestic cats that are in danger of losing their lives and habitats. So with that in mind, I wanted to share with y’all what Big Cat Rescue in Tampa and Clemson University Tigers for Tigers are doing for today. In order to raise funds to protect tigers in the wild, they have designed an awesome t-shirt, the proceeds of which will all be donated to the International Tiger (ITP), a not-for-profit project supporting Sumatran tiger conservation, rainforest protection, and local community partnerships. Plus, Big Cat Rescue is matching the profits for all t-shirts sold up to $3,000.

To learn more about this and the struggle of tigers in the wild, visit Big Cat Rescue’s website. And to buy a shirt to help support tiger conservation, click here. And now, here's some adorable tiger pics to make you smile:

My heart can't even take the adorableness of this.

Those eyes!

Absolutely majestic.

Awwwww... this reminds me of my friends and I.

The fluffiness!!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Fourth of July to all my fellow Americans! I hope you have a great time celebrating today. I plan on eating lots of great food, shooting off a bunch of fireworks, and of course, spending time with my family and friends. Have a great 4th y'all!

Hop for Visibility, Awareness and Equality

Today is the International Day Against Homophobia,Transphobia, and Biphobia. To mark this important day in the fight against hate, I’m participating once again in the (formerly) HAHAB blog hop. While I enjoyed participating and supporting those dealing with homophobes and bigots, this is the first year that I’ve felt personally impacted by this.

As followers of my blog may remember from previous years, I define as asexual, a rare and misunderstood sexual identity. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve tried to explain what it means, which led to this blog post in 2013. I’m not going to write about that again, since I think I did a pretty awesome job of it already. Today, in keeping with the theme this year, I want to talk about the visibility and awareness of asexuality.

Since my post back in 2013, I’ve noticed that asexuality is becoming more and more recognized. I’ve met and befriended several other people who either identify as being asexual, know someone who is asexual, or know about asexuality in general, even if they did not personally know someone who identified as such. I’ve found that I’m not having to explain as often as I used to when my sexual orientation comes up, and it’s nice to see how asexuality is becoming more visible.

So what’s the next step in increasing visibility and awareness? Books. The books we write, read, review, buy, and share. We are part of a community that prides itself on being inclusive and supportive, yet I’ve noticed that there aren’t a whole lot of books with asexual characters, much less main asexual characters.

                

I was at a convention two years ago speaking with a gay romance author about how I wanted to see more people like me being represented in novels. He agreed with me, yet told me that while he would love to write an asexual character, he wouldn’t because an asexual character wouldn’t sell. He told me that people wanted tons of sex scenes and wouldn’t buy a book with a main asexual character. When I raised the question in a panel later, I received similar responses such as this.

Needless to say, I was not only upset by this, but a bit angry as well. I knew these authors weren’t trying to insult me, they were just telling the truth as they saw it. Nevertheless, I felt like they were telling me that those who were asexual didn’t matter as much as others in the LGBT community because we weren’t sexy enough to be marketable. Like the world would end if an author published a book that didn’t contain explicit sex scenes. Like we couldn’t have romances that people would like to read. Like we didn’t really belong.

Why had no one wanted to write about the challenges of a relationship between someone who was asexual and someone who wasn’t? What if you had a werewolf who discovered his mate, only to find out that he couldn’t just seduce him into bed because his sexy, manly wiles didn’t really work on his mate? Why had no one written about the confusion and complications behind a character discovering that he or she was asexual? Why hadn’t anyone dug into this gold mine of potential stories?

Since then, I’ve found books with asexual characters. However, these have been few and far between, and many only had secondary characters who were asexual, or they had main characters who were asexual but didn’t focus on romance at all. Several authors have also told me they were either considering writing novels with main asexual characters or they had novels coming out with secondary asexual characters.  

While I’m glad that authors are willing to take the plunge and write asexual characters, I want to see people talking about this. Readers, let authors know you would be willing to buy books with characters with varied sexual backgrounds. Reviewers, be open to reading and sharing books with asexual characters (and for those of you who are sharing, please keep doing so!). Authors, there are readers out there who would be interested in these kinds of books.

I will buy books with asexual characters. I will buy books that focus more on the plot and the romance rather than the sex. I’ve been meeting and hearing from more and more people who will buy those books as well. There is a market for this, and more importantly, a need. It’s time to bring us in under the umbrella.

After all, we want happily ever afters too.

This year, instead of just giving away one prize, I've decided to give away 12. You see, when I find books that I like, I go and buy a second copy to either gift to someone or give away as a prize. And sometimes, I buy a copy forgetting that I already own a book, or that I've won it, etc. So I went through my list and chose some of my favorite books to give away to 12 lucky winners. Here are my 10 choices for M/M novels:

Called to Mate by Lynn Tyler - Amazon     |     ARe

Chaos Unchained by James Cox - Amazon     |     ARe

Frat Boy and Toppy by Anne Tenino - Amazon     |     ARe

Inherit the Sky by Ariel Tachna - Amazon     |     ARe

Jaynell’s Wolf by Amber Kell - Amazon     |     ARe

Love the Sinner by Avril Ashton - Amazon     |     ARe

Mannies Incorporated by Sean Michaels - Amazon     |     ARe

Old Loyalty, New Love by Mary Calmes -  Amazon     |     ARe

On Thin Ice by Jessica Lee - Amazon     |     ARe

Starling by Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese - Amazon     |     ARe

And for those who enjoy M/M/F:

Felicity Jones by Dee Dawning - Amazon     |     ARe

Magic of Three by Jenna Castille - Amazon     |     ARe

To enter, just leave a comment and include the name of the book you'd like to win and your email. That's it! At the end of the hop, I'll do some fancy ordering and random generating (random.org is my friend in this) to find our 12 winners. Oh, and you have to have an ARe account as that will be where I am gifting all the ebooks. Other than that, easy peasy!

I hope you enjoyed my long post (yes, I did get a bit on my soapbox for this) and are having a great time hopping along and raising awareness about everyone under the QUILTBAG umbrella. To keep on going, click here to visit the other participating blogs.

Birthday Celebration Announcement

Some of you may have noticed that I didn't stop in and comment on the Birthday Celebration posts (until now) like I normally would have. The reason for that is because I ended up getting sick for my birthday this year, so I've been recovering and completing my finals, which limited my time spent on the computer, since I couldn't look at a computer screen for long periods of time. 

This being said, I am feeling much better now, and I'm getting ready to start a new job to boot! I did notice that several of the contest dates either had no entries or few entries, which I feel is because I wasn't able to spread the word about the party like I wanted to since I wasn't feeling well. That being said, I have expanded several of the giveaways (found under the Current Giveaways link above), which are now open until 11:59 PM on May 9. So that gives y'all a little more time to enter if you haven't done so already. 

I will announce all the winners on the 10th, so keep your eyes open for the post to see if you were one of the winners!

Birthday Celebration Day 7 - Today's the Day!

It’s finally arrived…it’s my birthday! Whoot, whoot! I am now a wise, beautiful 24 year old who still has a lot of life to live and a lot of love to give (yes, yes, I couldn’t help the rhyming).

I think today I’ll just keep this short and sweet. You see, I decided to spend my birthday celebrating with my family and friends. I went out with my girls last night and now I’m going to visit my family and spend the day with them, reminiscing and enjoying life.

So I will see y’all tomorrow for the wrap-up…but first it’s giveaway time! You didn’t think I’d forget you guys on my day, did you? Today I’m giving away another $5 Amazon GC to a lucky commenter. Let’s see…best comment wins. It can be heartfelt, funny, share a video, whatever. Just leave your email address with your comment, and that’s it. Have a great day guys, I’m off to enjoy my big day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I’ve been waiting for today, since it’s one of my favorite holidays. I get to let my Irish flag fly, which I love to do. I know this is considered a big drinking and party holiday, but for me it’s more about celebrating my heritage (I’m already rocking the green with my nails). Oh, and the awesome food. Corned beef, fish and chips, boiled cabbage, mash and bangers, leek soup, potato pancakes (which I absolutely love). Not to mention the fantastic music. My favorite band is Flogging Molly, though I also enjoy The Cranberries and of course, U2. All in all, today is a fun day to celebrate a part of my cultural background, and for those who celebrate, I hope you enjoy yourselves. And on that note, here are my favorite songs from the top three bands. Enjoy!

(Though Ode to My Family is a close second).

Beware the Ides of March

Photo courtesy of veraukoion

That’s right, today is the Ides of March (also known as the fated day Julius Caesar was warned about). As I said yesterday, this is one of my favorite days because I love the name the Ides of March. Originally just a fancy sounding name for the middle of March, every month technically had an Ides. The Ides of [insert month here] was determined by the full moon, which usually occurred on the 13th or 15th day of the month.

However, after Caesar's death, the Ides of March became a turning point in Roman history, and helped mark the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. And this event is also why the Ides of March in particular are so well known and the name still used today, even if the Ides of other months aren’t.

Lesson learned: if a famous soothsayer tells you to beware the Ides of March, it might be a good idea to listen. 

Photo courtesy of someecards

Hopefully today is much tamer for you than it ended up being for Caesar. Have a wonderful Ides of March!

On a side note: Today is also Hungary’s National Day, in memory of their 1848-49 Revolution and War of Independence. Google makes Google Doodles every year to celebrate this in Hungary, which you can see here.

Happy Pi Day

Photo courtesy of Holiday Pictures

Hey guys, happy Pi Day! I hope y’all have a fun math and pie filled day. I found some funny cartoons and some yummy recipes to try for today, so have a happy pi day!

But before that, I just wanted to say that as you may have noticed in the past, today and tomorrow are two of my favorite days because I absolutely love the nicknames they have been given. Today Pi Day, tomorrow...well, you’ll just have to visit to find out why I love March 15 (in case you haven’t gone and looked back to last year yet).  

Photo courtesy of Spiked Math

Recipes:

• Pecan pie - My family modifies the recipe by adding chocolate chips and creating a sublime chocolate pecan pie 

• Every single pie here. Thank you Mental Floss for this brilliance.

• And last but not least, here's a delicious recipe from an author that I had the opportunity to learn quite a lot about last spring down in the Florida Keys...Ernest Hemingway's Campfire Apple Pie from The Hemingway Cookbook (the recipe's on pg. 11).

Changes for 2016

I hope y'all had a great New Year's Day. I'm making several resolutions this year, which I will talk about more tomorrow. When I started blogging, I didn't know if people would like my idea of wanting to review anything and everything that interested me, yet I still gave it a try. And now here we are, 4 years later. Y'all have stuck with me through thick and thin, and I appreciate that. 

There have been a lot of changes over the past 4 years, some good and some not so good. I've gotten to expand my original focuses and I've tried new things, which I am glad I got the opportunity to do. That being said, I have decided to make some more changes here on the blog in order to go back towards my original idea: sharing anything and everything; in other words, sharing links and wisdom.

First, I'm stopping the weekly Throwback Thursday posts. I've found that most of the reviews I've written that I want to share with y'all have already been posted here, making throwback posts redundant. If I do a Throwback Thursday post, it'll be for a special occasion or holiday, rather than a weekly meme. Plus, I want to focus my attention on reviewing new material, which is also part of my New Year's resolutions.

As for my second weekly meme, Wellness Wednesday, I am still going to continue these posts, though not necessarily on the blog. One of my resolutions is to start posting more content on the blog Facebook page, so while I will still do WW posts on the blog for now, I am also going to start transitioning and doing those posts on the Facebook page rather than the blog.

You know I had to throw some Dr. Who in here.

I'm also not going to be starting any new weekly memes at this time. I know some people like doing weekly memes, but I've discovered that they aren't my style. While I enjoyed doing them I also found them constricting. I would rather write a Wellness Wednesday post because I found something awesome that I wanted to share rather than write one because I "had" to as part of a weekly meme.

I want to instead focus my attention on going back to what I started this blog for: sharing anything and everything I find that I think y'all should know about. It's what I love, it's what I'm good at, and it's what started all this. So I hope y'all have a wonderful and prosperous 2016, and I hope you stick with me throughout it.

Happy New Year!

The beginning of a new year is all about firsts. The first song you hear, the first movie you see, the first big news you have, the first big event, etc. It seems to hold a bit of magic at times. For me, I love seeing what my inadvertent firsts are, especially my musical firsts. For example, the first song I heard in 2016 was New York, New York by Frank Sinatra. It’s the song I’ve started quite a few years with, as it’s played after the ball drop in New York. It’s a bit of familiarity, as well as a promise of the start of a new year. I also like to see what other musical firsts happen to me. For example, Gwen Stefani was the first performer I saw this year (singing my favorite song of her’s coincidentally). And on the way home from my New Year’s Eve party, I heard a song on the radio that has apparently been out for over 6 months already, yet it was the first time I’d ever heard it. The song (Once A Day) perfectly summed up the feelings I have about going into a new year, and I’m taking it as a good sign.

So here’s to a new year, full of exciting opportunities and surprises. I hope yours is wonderful, prosperous, and safe, with lots to look forward to (more on that tomorrow). Enjoy 2016!

Holiday Party - Happy New Year's Eve!

I’ve had a great time this month putting together this holiday party. I hope y’all had a great time and enjoyed these posts as well. The giveaways are open until the end of the 1st, so I’m giving y’all an extra day to enter. Have a happy New Year’s Eve, and a wonderful 2016!

Holiday Party - Christmas Movies

One of the biggest things people do during the holiday season is watch Christmas movies. I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t seen one. Even the people I know who don’t celebrate Christmas have seen Christmas movies and some even watch them every year.

It’s a cultural experience. Every TV station plays at least one or two during December, and some stations play nothing but Christmas movies during December. New Christmas movies are released every year (Lifetime is big on this). People take quotes from the movies to use for various items (like on my Christmas sweater), others take decorations (such as the infamous lamp leg in A Christmas Story), lingo from the movies becomes pop culture references and more. Companies even make commercials using characters from these movies (such as the AT&T ones this year with the old characters from Rudolph).

In my family, we have a giant collection of holiday movies that we watch. However, there is one movie that we absolutely have to watch every year together. In fact, since my sister wasn't able to come down until later this week, she forbid us from seeing the movie until she got here. For us, that movie is Christmas Vacation. I can’t tell you how this became our must watch movie. It just did. It’s the one holiday movie that we all love. The jokes and craziness make me laugh even to this day, no matter how many times I see the movie. It’s funny, it’s heartwarming, and it’s an absolute delight that I look forward to every year.

Do you have a favorite Christmas (or holiday) movie that you absolutely have to watch every year? Do you like experimenting, watching all the new movies coming out or do you just stick with all your old favorites?

Holiday Party - On This Day in History Fun Facts

I’ve always loved fun facts, the random little things that you wouldn’t really need to know unless you were going to go on Jeopardy or try to stump or impress someone with random trivia facts. When thinking about what I want to do in the upcoming year, I wanted to add another weekly meme that would be interesting to read about and research, without requiring a huge time commitment. Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in seeing as a weekly meme here, or if you have any other ideas for weekly memes, let me know. But for now, here are my top 10 facts about events that happened on this day.

1732 - "The Pennsylvania Gazette," owned by Benjamin Franklin, ran an ad for the first issue of "Poor Richard’s Almanack."

1832 - John C. Calhoun became the first vice president of the United States to resign, stepping down over differences with President Jackson.

1846 - Iowa became the 29th state to be admitted to the Union (and tomorrow marks the anniversary of Texas becoming the 28th state).

1869 - William E. Semple patented an acceptable chewing gum.

1895 - In Paris, the first commercial public screening of cinematographic films took place.

1902 - The first professional indoor football game was played at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Syracuse defeated the Philadelphia Nationals 6-0.

1912 - The first municipally-owned street cars were used on the streets of San Francisco, CA. 

1945 - The U.S. Congress officially recognized the "Pledge of Allegiance."

1964 - Initial filming of the movie "Dr. Zhivago" began on location near Madrid, Spain. The movies total running time is 197 minutes.

1981 - Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American test-tube baby, was born in Norfolk, VA. 

Holiday Party - Taking a Break

I’m taking a break from posting today. Unfortunately, the authors that were going to be posting over the next few days had to cancel for various reasons, and will be doing posts in the new year instead. That being said, I am planning other posts to do instead, since I did have some ideas on back-up. However, I also have a lot to do in my personal life before I go back to school, so I decided to take a break from posting today. I will be posting again tomorrow through New Year’s Eve, so you’ll have that to look forward to.

Holiday Party - Boxing Day and Start of Kwanzaa

Today marks both Boxing Day and the start of Kwanzaa. I talked about Kwanzaa last year, so I decided that I wanted to touch on Boxing Day this year since it’s a holiday that I’ve heard mentioned often, but have never really celebrated since it’s not as big of a holiday here in the US. However, it’s a big deal across the pond (and to the North).

Boxing Day is a holiday traditionally celebrated on the 26th, when servants and tradesmen would receive gifts, known as a "Christmas box", from their bosses or employers. It is now considered a bank holiday in the countries it is celebrated in: the United Kingdom, Barbados, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Bermuda, New Zealand, Kenya, South Africa, and other former British colonies.

This day also has many other names. For instance, in South Africa, Boxing Day was renamed Day of Goodwill in 1994. 

It is also known as St. Stephen’s Day since the day is dedicated to St. Stephen in the Roman Catholic Church's liturgical calendar. 

And in Ireland, it is known as both St. Stephen's Day and the Day of the Wren. It is also celebrated in some European countries as the Second Christmas Day.

Just like Black Friday in the US, Boxing Day is considered a major shopping holiday. It is also a major day for sports, particularly in the UK, Australia, South Africa and Sweden, with all having major sporting events occurring on the 26th.

So in other words, this day is a big deal for many people. I think the closest comparison here in the US would be a mix of Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the Super Bowl. It sounds like an interesting holiday, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it, so feel free to share below. And have a good Boxing Day and Kwanzaa!