First Impression Friday: “When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age” by Justin Kaplan

Full disclosure: I get a lot of my books nowadays from the library where my mom works. She'll bring a stack of donated books home and we'll go through them together, picking out one or two where or there to buy and then she'll take the rest of the stack home. This weekend, the book …

The This or That Book Tag

Hello, everyone! This week's tag comes from Books & Roads, which I found while I was browsing the book tag tag on the Reader attempting to figure out what to write! READING ON THE BED OR THE COUCH? I prefer to read on the couch, because the bed is for sleeping. I went through this …

Recipe Review: To-Go Baked Oatmeal

Original recipe from The Wholesome Dish. Now that I'm out on my own where nothing's within walking distance, I have to learn how to survive by grocery shopping and not depending on running to a quick fast food joint when my stomach starts rumbling. Also, picking up snacks at Wal-Mart is neither budget nor health …

Top 5 Summertime Reads!

Welcome back to Top 5 Tuesday, where this week's topic deals with something I hate: summertime. (Thanks, Shanah.) Don't get me wrong: summer is great when you're in school. You're younger and can handle the heat better. But do you know what summer is once you've graduated and gotten a full-time "adult" job? DESPAIR. I'm …

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Disclaimer: While the cover photo may be "Rants," I'm not exactly sure if this is a rant or not. I came across an interesting news article this morning at work: Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name stripped from children’s book award over ‘Little House’ depictions of Native Americans This is something I'm very conflicted on. Laura Ingalls …

Top 5 Reasons Why I Blog

Well, readers, Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm is on a  hiatus this week, so I decided to go back and find a post in my Drafts box that I really wanted to finish, but was so busy with schoolwork that I couldn't do it. (Honestly, though, June has been absolutely insane in terms of real-life …

Book Review: “The Half-Known World” by Robert Boswell

Whoops. I know this was sudden, because I just posted the First Impression Friday topic on this book a few days ago, but to be honest, that was written a few weeks ago when I actually started the book. Now we stand here, with me scratching my head and attempting to figure out how I …

ENG 590: “Jailbird”

Where has June gone? It's June 16th! I don't like this! I've somehow let the first half of June slip away from me without publishing any posts (only the ones that I had pre-scheduled to post, at least...). Y'all, I just don't know what to do. Anyway, we're here to talk about Vonnegut's novel Jailbird. I …

First Impression Friday: “The Half-Known World” by Robert Boswell

This is my way to attempt to make finishing up my thesis reading list "fun." Originally, I had myself scheduled to finish all of my thesis reading by the end of May. And yet, here we are on June 15, and I'm only two books into my twelve book list. I know that I'll be …

The NOPE Book Tag

Is it time for another book tag already? I don't know why I love these so much - maybe because they force my brain to think in other ways and I usually get a ton of writing done on these, like several thousand words. I found this one on Between the Pages. It goes without …