Howdy! You know what time it is; I don't even have to say it. I tried some new things this month that I'd like to share with you, but I've got some items on here that you've definitely seen before. Let's get started!
Lady Speed Stick Invisible Dry antiperspirant, Australian Gold Broad Spectrum SPF30 Sunscreen, Hawaiian Tropic Silk Hydration After Sun Lotion
With summer on the way, I need a good deodorant and my previous one just wasn't cutting it for me. This one hasn't completely eliminated sweating, but it's improved the problem substantially. To my surprise, I realized that I'm in the market for a natural deodorant. I don't normally give them too much thought as they're usually out of my price range, but with the gap between eco-friendly and regular products starting to close, I'm ready to start testing a couple of them for myself. The Lady Speed Stick has worked better than the Suave and Secret deodorants for me, but I'm still looking for something that's too legit to quit.
I've mentioned the Australian Gold a couple of times since I received it in a VoxBox last summer, and I'm still digging it today. Works well, smells good, doesn't require too much maintenance when I wear it outdoors. Not much else to say about it.
The Hawaiian Tropic after sun lotion is another product that I received in a VoxBox and it's worked quite well for me. This summer has felt much hotter than previous years and I've been in it a bit more than I expected so my skin's been peeling when I come inside. The after sun lotion soothes my skin, helps repair the damage done to my skin and smells good to boot. Again, not much else to say about it.
A Life Intended by Kristin Harmel
It's been awhile since I read a book that pulled at me the way this one did. I read this book a couple of nights ago and there was a sense of urgency because it was only available on XOXO After Dark's Free Reads section for a week so I had to read it in one sitting. I didn't mind at all though; this book was amazing. A Life Intended is about a woman named Kate who, years after losing her beloved husband Patrick in an accident, is in a new relationship with a man named Dan. Dan seems fine enough, but Kate knows something important is missing. Despite that, she agrees to marry him. At night, however, she begins to be plagued by eerie dreams about Patrick. In these dreams, Kate gets a brief glimpse at 'what could have been' with Patrick, but these dreams begin to have increasing importance over her actual life and relationship. These dreams, however, have more importance than Kate initially intended, and the answers may not be the ones she hoped for, but they guide her in the direction she needed to go. This was a beautiful heartbreaker of a book and I loved every minute of it. I don't often re-read books, but this is one I'd love to revisit and I recommend you giving it a go as well.
Breaking the Magician's Code: Secrets Revealed
Magic, in the sense of illusions and the like, has never had a serious pull over me. I have always been more interested in how the trick was performed rather than the fact it was performed. So when I saw this show on Netflix, I was all for it. The fact that the magician revealing all of the secrets took great care to conceal his identity helped to amp up the hype factor, and I loved it. The typical tricks you see from your street magicians were revealed, as were the high-tech, elaborate illusions you see in Vegas magician performances. I started to make it a game with myself and try to figure out the trick before it was explained and actually became irritated with myself when I got something incorrect and the answer ended up being a simple one. If you enjoy magic shows for the illusions, I probably wouldn't watch Breaking the Magician's Code because once I know how something works, it kills the mystery. If you're a fan of the 'behind the scenes' part of illusions, however, then I think you'd like this show.
Megapolis
If you've read a few of my Monthly Favorites posts before then I'm pretty sure you're tired of me including this game, but there have been a lot of recent additions to the game and I've been loving them. A lot of the game's missions are helping to introduce new permanent features that I've really been enjoying, so I've had more fun lately than I have for the past couple of months. I know that Megapolis and many games in that genre are money traps. I know this and up to this point, hadn't even considered spending any money on it. I've had a change of heart. lol I think I've officially hit full on addict status.
Photosuite
Photosuite isn't a new addition to this list, but it's become one of my favorite apps. As I've said before, Photosuite is the closest thing to GIMP that you'll get in mobile form and it's been a godsend to me. I wish that the app allowed for font customization because this would eliminate me needing to use Phonto entirely, but oh well. Nothing's perfect.
I've been using LibraryThing for a few years now; it's actually where I get the majority of my book reviewing jobs (which I have severely been slacking on and I'm sorry). After I realized I had way too many books to review but hadn't reviewed them yet, I stepped back from putting my name in for new books for a few months. I went back in June and won quite a few for review. I'm working my way through them now so I apologize in advance if you suddenly see an overload of book reviews on the site. LibraryThing is largely what kickstarted my 'job,' if you want to refer to it that way, as a book reviewer. I really need to start giving that back and doing what I'm supposed to do. I've read most of the books I won this past month, so the reviews are on the way.
As for other types of products, Bloggers Required is still the primary source for me to get my reviewing jobs from. Admittedly, it's not the best source as many of the jobs are for bloggers based in the UK and those with larger audiences, but it's the main site I know of that caters specifically to bloggers in need of reviewing jobs.
Summer Under the Stars is coming up in August and I cover it over on ATV every year (my preview post for the festival just went up today!) so I have to spend quite some time on TCM getting the month's schedule written down. If you're into old films but either don't know what type to start watching or don't often have the time, I strongly recommend checking out All Things Vintage during SUTS. Shameless promo I know, but seriously. For a beginner to retro films there's no better time to start watching them, no better platform for variety, than in August.
Summer decor, DIY For Cheaper project inspiration
The main DIY-related things I was looking for over the past month concerned summer decor for the 'Touch' portion of my Summer Inspiration post. I try to mix it up a bit every summer because it can be easy to do the same things, look up the same types of projects, for a season and I didn't want to do that. I wanted a healthy mix of both easy and ambitious decor projects, which I hope came across in the Inspiration post.
DIY For Cheaper is a series I've been looking to start for over a year now, but in order to start it I had to start pricing projects. Even though it's summer, I'm already looking ahead to Halloween because I came across a plethora of DIY For Cheaper inspiration projects last year. I want to get a collection of projects together so that I have a variety to choose from, but I'm also trying to start pricing them so I know where to start.
Blog improvement articles, used vehicles, summer trends, vlogging, 4th of July clothing, summer inspiration
I've been at the blogging game for a hot minute now (this blog's anniversary is this month!) but I've only been blogging as a career of sorts for a couple of years. I usually didn't pay attention to the various blog improvement articles because I was blogging for fun. Now, though, I'm trying to be as sponge-like as possible because I've realized I really do want to grow my audience and make the best of this platform. I actually think that I've always wanted those things but was too afraid to go after them. Fear will convince you of some crazy shit, friends.
I feel like I've mentioned used vehicles on a Favorites list before, but I'm still looking so I'm talking about it again. lol It's of the utmost importance to get some reliable transportation in my neck of the woods soon. So if there's a car company out there who wants to pay it forward outside of the Christmas season, I'm game. LOL I kid.
Summer trends were on the list for a pretty obvious reason; my Summer Inspiration post just posted a few days ago and I wanted to make sure I had enough material so it's one of the main things I've been researching. My list is a mix of things that I like for the season and a few media trends. Same goes with summer inspiration; I find myself inspired by a number of things for each season but it was important to me for the Summer post to be different from the Spring post. I was trying to find things that inspired me in a slightly different way from the Spring post, so I was all over the place.
For some reason, one of the things that spikes my productivity is watching vlogs. I have my list of favorites to watch, but they always help me when I'm trying to get a blog post finished. I also like the camera tricks and angles; while I've been into photography for quite some time I didn't always pay the same attention to the effort that went into creating videos. If my life was more interesting I might consider doing them myself. My philosophy on it is that those who can't vlog just watch instead.
Everyone who knows me well knows that the 4th of July is one of my all-time favorite holidays. I go all out most of the time, if not with my outfit than with decorations or how I choose to celebrate the day. I was looking for some inspiration on what I could wear but I couldn't find what I was looking for, so I'm probably going to go to my fallback of a crop top and cutoffs.
What did I watch this month?
A Girl Like Her, The Life & Crimes of Doris Payne, Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?, Tab Hunter Confessional, Hot Coffee
I watched quite a few documentaries this month, all of which were pretty intriguing. I'll try to give a short synopsis of each one so that I don't keep you here longer than normal.
A Girl Like Her was my tearjerker docu-film for the month. A Girl Like Her stars Lexi Ainsworth as a high school sophomore named Jessica Burns who is the victim of some pretty intense bullying at her school. The culprit, a popular sophomore named Avery Keller, was once a friend of Jessica's but began to bully her relentlessly once they reached high school. A film crew who was at the school supposedly to capture the life of an everyday high schooler captures the fallout from the drastic measures Jessica takes to end the bullying. That's where the film goes from good to great. What could largely be described as a 'typical' high school scenario (and the film could have taken that angle and still been a good film) is explored from a totally different perspective than I'm used to with these films. As a kid who was bullied by a group of boys, sometimes just for being alive, this film resonated with me so deeply it made me uncomfortable.
The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne is a firsthand retelling of events by famed career criminal Doris Payne. What I liked about this film was mainly that rather than being told by other people, Doris Payne herself explained how she pulled off her early heists and the psychology in getting her marks to trust her. She was undergoing a trial at the time of the documentary for something that she was adamantly claiming innocence on, so it shone an interesting light on career criminals getting accused for things they actually didn't do. Her trial and innocence claims were juxtaposed with her telling the stories behind the crimes she did admit to. But was she lying about the case she was claiming innocence with? That was the question throughout the doc and I enjoyed the ride.
Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? is pretty self-explanatory. I love a good conspiracy theory but it has to be just that, good or better. I had never even considered the possibility of landing on the moon being a hoax, but I've been seeing it mentioned more and more lately, then I came across this documentary. Landing on the moon was one of those things that, for me, was a given in American history. It had never occurred to me to even consider that it could have been faked. Evidence, some convincing and some a little shaky (imo), was presented to back the theory that the moon landing was faked for a variety of reasons. It's a documentary that is clearly slanted towards the belief that the moon landing was fake, but it also encourages you as the viewer to make your own conclusions.
Tab Hunter Confessional is a documentary that appealed to me as a retro film lover because it got into the hush-hush society surrounding Old Hollywood stars and the gay taboo at the time. The policy with gay actors, especially the debonair, commercially marketable male actors, was very much a "Don't ask, don't tell" situation because an openly gay actor at that time was committing career suicide. They couldn't successfully be marketed as being a heartthrob for women if the public knew they preferred men, so it was more of an open secret amongst the actors themselves. Many of yesteryear's biggest names were suspected of either having same-sex encounters or of being gay, so most of them were given 'studio relationships,' mainly to market films but also to cultivate the actor's image. Many actors suspected of being gay were in what is referred to as 'lavender marriages,' to keep the press off their backs and their secrets safe. I explained all of that to say that the former is what happened to Tab Hunter, a heartthrob of '50s movies. Tab takes us back through his life and career, to the scandal surrounding his sexuality that could have ended his career, to his openness about his sexuality now as an older man out of the public eye. It was an interesting look into the mystique of Old Hollywood and the lengths people had to go to to keep their secrets concealed.
And finally, Hot Coffee is a documentary that explores the various lawsuits that people have filed over time that for the most part, are dismissed by the public as being 'stupid' or 'greedy.' The lawsuit driving the documentary is the case of an elderly woman who ordered a cup of coffee from McDonald's and successfully sued the company afterward when the cup of coffee spilled onto her lap, causing severe burns to the lower half of her body. I have to admit that when I came across this documentary in my Recommended feed, I blew it off too. And I'll be the first to say that you'd be making a mistake if you do the same thing. Not only was there just cause to sue McDonald's for the hot coffee incident, but there are so many other cases within this documentary that deserve attention. This was a good doc to show that you really shouldn't judge a book by its cover.
Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? is pretty self-explanatory. I love a good conspiracy theory but it has to be just that, good or better. I had never even considered the possibility of landing on the moon being a hoax, but I've been seeing it mentioned more and more lately, then I came across this documentary. Landing on the moon was one of those things that, for me, was a given in American history. It had never occurred to me to even consider that it could have been faked. Evidence, some convincing and some a little shaky (imo), was presented to back the theory that the moon landing was faked for a variety of reasons. It's a documentary that is clearly slanted towards the belief that the moon landing was fake, but it also encourages you as the viewer to make your own conclusions.
Tab Hunter Confessional is a documentary that appealed to me as a retro film lover because it got into the hush-hush society surrounding Old Hollywood stars and the gay taboo at the time. The policy with gay actors, especially the debonair, commercially marketable male actors, was very much a "Don't ask, don't tell" situation because an openly gay actor at that time was committing career suicide. They couldn't successfully be marketed as being a heartthrob for women if the public knew they preferred men, so it was more of an open secret amongst the actors themselves. Many of yesteryear's biggest names were suspected of either having same-sex encounters or of being gay, so most of them were given 'studio relationships,' mainly to market films but also to cultivate the actor's image. Many actors suspected of being gay were in what is referred to as 'lavender marriages,' to keep the press off their backs and their secrets safe. I explained all of that to say that the former is what happened to Tab Hunter, a heartthrob of '50s movies. Tab takes us back through his life and career, to the scandal surrounding his sexuality that could have ended his career, to his openness about his sexuality now as an older man out of the public eye. It was an interesting look into the mystique of Old Hollywood and the lengths people had to go to to keep their secrets concealed.
And finally, Hot Coffee is a documentary that explores the various lawsuits that people have filed over time that for the most part, are dismissed by the public as being 'stupid' or 'greedy.' The lawsuit driving the documentary is the case of an elderly woman who ordered a cup of coffee from McDonald's and successfully sued the company afterward when the cup of coffee spilled onto her lap, causing severe burns to the lower half of her body. I have to admit that when I came across this documentary in my Recommended feed, I blew it off too. And I'll be the first to say that you'd be making a mistake if you do the same thing. Not only was there just cause to sue McDonald's for the hot coffee incident, but there are so many other cases within this documentary that deserve attention. This was a good doc to show that you really shouldn't judge a book by its cover.
So that's what I was digging for the month of June. Honestly, the most interesting part of this month's edition is the last section, where I talk about the documentaries I watched over the past month. There are some new goodies dispersed throughout this month's list, but as always, there are quite a few oldie but goodie entries. I'm having some trouble financially so I'm not sure when I'll be able to add even more new things to the list, but I'm working on it. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed this post and were able to find something new to sample for yourself. What were some of your favorite things in June? See you soon!
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