The Real Deal

Today's post is one of my favorite posts to write: a content roundup!  I love watching people's YouTube videos and read people's blog posts about what they've been loving, and it's been so fun rating and keeping track of everything I am reading and watching.  So here is an update on what I've consumed the past few months, and hope you all enjoy! BOOKS "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo" by Taylor Jenkins Reid: 10/10 //  This is in my top 10 reads of the year so far.  It is so incredible and I was pretty much glued to my iPad throughout the book.  It's about a writer who is tasked with writing a memoir about a very prominent and private actress, Evelyn Hugo.  There was even a HUGE twist at the end of the book that I was not expecting at all, and it was just so so incredible.  Highly recommend! "In Five Years" by Rebecca Serle: 10/10 //  This is another top 5 read for the year!  This is about a girl who just got engaged and has her whole li...

A lot of the podcasts I listen to, YouTubers I watch, and blogs I read talk about what they have watched, listened to, read, etc.  I always love getting new recommendations for things to consume, so I thought that I would start tracking mine monthly.  So here are the movies, books, and TV shows from the past month and what I though of them! BOOKS Winter in Paradise  by Elin Hilderbrand: 7.5/10 This was my first read of 2020.  I love a good chick lit read every once in awhile, and her books are juicy and easy to read.  This book is about a woman whose husband dies while on a "work trip", and she finds out that he has a whole other family that she didn't know about in the Bahamas.  I enjoyed this book and it was a quick and easy read, but it wasn't my favorite of hers that I've read.  But you bet I'll be reading the sequel in the near future! Park Avenue Summer  by Renee Rosen: 9/10  This is a book that has been on my "Want to Read" ...

Happy 2020, everyone!  I hope you all had a great holiday season!  I seriously cannot believe that the holidays are already over.  Christmas is my favorite holiday and I'm already looking forward to next year's Christmas.  Now that it is a new year, it is time for some new goals.  I like making a post for this every year because it keeps me accountable, and I love looking back on the past year to see if I accomplished what I wanted and made myself that much better.  So, before I get into what I want to accomplish this year, here is a recap of my 2019 goals: BETTER DENTAL HEALTH //  This was probably my top goal for the year since I had surgery at the beginning of the year for not having great dental health.  I now brush my teeth twice a day and incorporate flossing once a day, and have not had any more gum problems since!  I also got a Sonicare electric tooth brush for Christmas so my dental health will continue to get better in 2020! REA...

Honestly, I've been doing way better on my reading goal so far than I thought I would.  I've already knocked off a few books from my list on GoodReads, and usually end up reading more than just one chapter every day.  The last week of break, one of the books that I checked off my list was To All the Boys I've Loved Before  by Jenny Han.  I had kind of half-watched the movie on Netflix with my roommate last year, but I didn't really pay attention or know what was going on so I basically took in nothing from it.  But everyone loved and raved about the movie so much that I decided to add the book to my reading list. Well after reading the first book, I decided to read the next two in the series, even though I wasn't originally planning on it.  And, to be honest with you, the first book in the series was actually my least favorite.  And my favorite book in the series was the last one, Always and Forever, Lara Jean .  I literally stayed up until ...

I am very aware that we are very into 2019 already, but I thought it would be fun to do one last little recap of 2018.  I wanted to talk about not only products that were my favorite throughout the year like most people do, but also my experiences and lifestyle changes that I made throughout the year.  So, without further ado, here are my favorite parts of 2018! ONE // FAMILY TIME As a college student, I spend a lot of time out of town in my college town, so family time is hard to come by.  However, in 2018 I feel like I made so much more effort to be with my family and I loved every second of it.  We travelled together all summer, celebrated some big milestones, like my brother graduating from high school and me turning 21.  We had lots of adventures over the summer, not to mention all of the times they came to visit me at school and I came home to see them.  This winter break, though, has seemed extra special to me.  Christmas is my favorite t...

Reading is something that I have always loved to do, but unfortunately I don't get a lot of time to read for pleasure during the school year.  Now that it's summer, I'm trying to make a dent in my "To Read" list on Goodreads! The other day I finished my first book of the summer: What Alice Forgot  by Liane Moriarty.  She is also the author of Big Little Lies  which I read last summer and absolutely loved, and this book was just as good!  After reading these two, I definitely need to read more from her! This book is about a girl named Alice who is newly married, pregnant with her first child, and the next thing she knows, it's 10 years in the future.  She doesn't remember the last 10 years of her life, and she tries to figure out who she is in this new life that she knows nothing about. I was sucked into this book right away.  As a reader, you are just as clueless as Alice is about her new life, and learning everything along with her as she goe...

One of my New Year's Goals was to try and start reading more.  I absolutely love reading, but I never can fit in the time to read when I'm at school.  I use the app "Goodreads" ( highly  recommend by the way) and set a goal to read 20 books for the year of 2018.  I haven't been doing too well so far, but I read a lot during the summer, so I'm ready to meet my goal! I recently finished the book You Are A Badass  by Jen Sincero as part of my reading goal, and to kind of see what all of the hype for the book was about. Let me tell you, I loved  this book!  I've been in a mindset throughout 2018 to start doing things for myself and to do what makes me happy, and to not care what other people think about that.  This book preaches this mindset.  It made me even more motivated to get in touch with my "inner self", and gave some great tips for how to keep in that mindset, because sometimes it can be a struggle. It gave some great advice abou...

Hi everyone! Today I am going to be talking about my favorite gift that I got for Christmas: my Apple Watch!  I got a Fitbit Charge 2 for my birthday in May, and even though I loved it, I was starting to want a watch that did more than what my Fitbit did.  Since I had only had my Fitbit for around six months, I was going to wait until May to ask for an Apple Watch.  However, much to my surprise, I was gifted the new Apple Watch without asking for it! And I could not be happier about it! The Apple Watch is completely  customizable which took some time to get used to since I didn't know what I wanted the faces to be, and it comes with a lot  of different faces, including a whole face gallery on the app.  I eventually went with the "Classic Mickey Mouse" as my main watch face, and the Activity Summary as the second.  I had originally left the other default faces on, but quickly realized that I didn't need them so I didn't see a point to having them on...

Hi everyone!  Today I'm talking about an early Christmas gift that I got: the iPhone 8 Plus!  When getting a new iPhone, most people have been trying to decide between the iPhone 8, or the iPhone X.  I chose the 8, so today I'm going to be letting you know what I think of it! The main reason that I wanted the 8 over the X was the home button.  I know that the face ID is new technology and is supposed to be way more secure than a finger print, I'm too used to the home button to try anything else! I got the 8 plus in the color "gold" and I really like it!  I was worried about the phone having a glass back again like the old iPhone 4 had, but it genuinely feels pretty sturdy, and not too fragile.  Plus the fact that I have a case on the back helps to make sure that the glass back is protected. The main reason I wanted the plus over the normal size is the portrait mode camera.  The phone I had before this one was the iPhone 6s and althou...