In Which I Discuss Birthdays and Shelfies

Hello, my lovelies!  I’m here to do another life/book update!  Oh yes, I do feel that this is going to become a thing.  There’s so much that I’ve always wanted to share with you guys, but never knew how!  This seems to be the way.  🙂

Birthdays

So, as some of you know, if you follow me on Twitter, yesterday was my birthday!  I’m now a proud 23 year old.  (I really like being 23 so far, more than being 22.  I like how the number looks.  I like that it goes 2-3 instead of repeating the 2.  That probably shows my inclination toward OCD or something.)  23 really is my favorite number, so I am stoked that it’s finally my age.  (I’m also probably going to be that person that is loud and proud about be 34, 56, and 78 just because that’s my personality.)

In case you were curious, I had a very lovely birthday.  I wore a dress all day long, which I don’t normally do.  But hey, I felt pretty.  So that’s always awesome.  My family and I went out to eat, and I got a giant cookie dessert that I split with one of my brothers.  We then proceeded to go to a hardware store and–I kid you not–I galloped through the aisles while banging two small cardboard boxes together like the coconut gag on Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  This is what vast quantities of sugar does to me.

But seriously, the best part of the whole day was just reconnecting with some of my old friends.  Summers tend to be a lonely time for me, especially since my friends from college are all over the States.  Some of them, I haven’t seen in over a year.  It was so nice to hear from them, you guys.  You really don’t realize how hard it is to maintain adult friendships until you realize you haven’t spoken in a year.  School always made it so easy to spend time with friends.  The adult world sucks in that respect.

It was just lovely to hear from so many people.  And so many texted me instead of posting on my Facebook wall!  Texts are so much more personal than Facebook.  I didn’t realize how awesome that was until I realized I valued the 4 texts I got over the 20 Facebook posts.  (Though one of my friends’ birthday posts was actually beautiful enough that it almost made me cry.)  I’ve always been better about making friends with books than actual people, so it was nice to take a step back and see just how many friends I really do have.  Sometimes I think we lose sight of that in our day-to-day lives.

Shelfies

If you saw it a few weeks ago, I was asked to give a shelfie of my personal book shelves to a new organization that wants to encourage kids to read.  And I thought that was a really cool idea.  If you missed it, here’s my shelfie.

With my shelfie, I wanted to show specifically that my shelves weren’t just about my books.  I mean, yes, of course they are, but as you can tell, it’s more than that.  My bookshelves represent my life, in a way.  My shelves hold school supplies, a tear-a-day calendar, and my stereo system.  Music is just as much my life as books are.  The two have always gone together for me, and it made sense that they should be in the same place.  If you’re curious, yes, that is a bookshelf on top of a bookshelf.  What can I say?  My books cannot be contained.  (Actually, that’s where I keep my library books, so they don’t get mixed up or lost.)

And because of that shelfie, I thought I’d share another shelfie with you guys.  Seeing as yesterday was my birthday and all, I wanted to go to the library.  And I took a shelfie of the books I picked up that I will be reading over the next few weeks.

Tada!  For once, all realistic fiction.  Either I’m seriously in the mood for them or I’ve fallen behind on them because there just wasn’t anything else at the library that grabbed my attention like these books.

And these only crack the surface of what I hope to read this month.  I’ve got a couple of books from authors I hope to get to, many books from sales I haven’t read yet, and a few rereads (namely If I Stay, since the movie is out August 22).

So how has your month been going, friends?  If you’ve made it this far in my lengthy post (and I hope you have!) feel free to share your shelfies/upcoming reads in the comments!  I’m always looking for new books to try!  🙂  Happy July!