2016 In Review: Part 1

Hi! Originally, I was going to write about some things I'd like to stop seeing in 2017, but it came off too whiney and cranky for me so I scrapped it. lol I found a post on Pinterest with 50 question prompts for those with bullet journals, and I liked the questions so I thought I'd share my answers. I probably should have done it last month since the last set of questions are a look ahead at 2017, but I didn't think of this until earlier today. lol I don't know what I'll do for February on through the rest of the year, but I thought I'd split these up and post them throughout January. 

1. What one event are you going to tell your grandchildren about?

This was the year that two of the largest nations in the world simultaneously lost their shit; I can't sum that up with just one event. lol One event that I will tell them about is the election of our PEOTUS because that, for me, will probably always stand out as one of the most polarizing moments to be alive to witness. Now for all I know, Trump's going to come in office, defy expectations and completely own the game by giving us what we didn't realize we actually needed, and in four years I'm going to laugh at how apocalyptic his election initially felt to me. But the truth is, that's probably not going to happen and whether my fears are confirmed or not, I won't ever forget how afraid I was watching the election that night.  

2. If you had to describe your 2016 in three words, what would they be?

Stagnant. Discovery. Backward.

3. What new things did you discover about yourself?

I discovered a lot about myself, which is why the second word I used to describe my year was 'discovery.' I found out why I seek certain things from others, I found out where I got my feeling of not being enough came from, I discovered quite a few things about my anxiety, my health and how they relate to how I feel in a relationship, and I discovered a bit more about my underlying sense of optimism that I'd thought was permanently buried under the blanket of cynicism I wear daily. This was a big year for self-therapy for me so even though the year overall was pretty shit, in terms of self-discovery and help it was a pretty good year. 

4. What single achievement are you most proud of?

Hmm. It's kinda sad that there's not anything I can immediately recall, mainly because this year didn't net any large successes for me. Can I come back to this one?

5. What was the best news you received?

The best news I received, hands down, was that my uncle was going to be okay. In September he had total knee replacement surgery and some post-surgery complications resulted in the incision having to be reopened and cleaned. He wasn't placed back on his blood thinners afterwards, which caused clots to develop in his leg in the days following the procedure. On the day he was supposed to be discharged, moving his leg caused a clot to break loose and travel to his lungs, where it lodged and caused him to code three times. We nearly lost him that day, and the fear from almost losing him is not something I'll be likely to forget anytime soon. The next couple of weeks were very touch and go and there was a very big gray area over whether or not he'd make it through, but his body recovered amazingly and today, he's doing awesome. So the confirmation that he was going to pull through is near and far the best news I received in 2016. 

6. What was your favorite place that you visited in 2016?

The happy place inside my mind? LOL I didn't have the good fortune to visit anywhere new in 2016, so this one's a blank for me. 

7. Which of your personal qualities turned out to be the most helpful this year?

There were a few things that happened this year that required me to stay calm, find out facts and solve an issue without panicking and my ability to do that (it's ironic that I can do that considering I have anxiety disorder and can't do it on a daily basis) has come in handy each time. My mom had a medical crisis shortly before my birthday in January, my uncle had a legal issue in May and a medical emergency in September/October, and my siblings' father and one of my nieces had the same medical emergency during the summer. Because I can separate my feelings from the facts needed during a stressful situation, it helped me calm my family when needed, get the answers that we needed and fix the situations that I could. It feels like that's my superpower, because when I really need to disconnect and get shit done in a crisis, I do. It's on a daily basis that my anxiety makes me its bitch. 

8. Who was your number one go-to person that you could always rely on?

Nobody. I have a couple of people around, but the amount of things they don't know about my life could fill a football stadium. As for people I could rely on, I'm batting a steady zero right now other than myself. And always being able to rely on yourself isn't a bad thing at all, so either way it's win-win for me. 

9. Which new skills did you learn?

I would have loved to have learned a bunch of new skills but I did learn more about web design (which is how I was finally able to create this pretty cute design you see now lol), I learned about photography and product photos in particular, and I learned some basic home improvement skills, both common and a couple unorthodox. Common--caulking, sealing and insulation basics. Unorthodox--filling holes and gaps in the wall with cotton balls, then sealing them in there with sealant spray. LOL 

10. What or who are you most thankful for?

I am immensely thankful that I've gotten the opportunity to watch one of my nieces grow and thrive this year. I'm sure every adult in a child's life says the same things I'm about to say, but my niece is so smart. She's observant and precocious and hilarious and resilient, to say the very least about her. It's been so much fun to be part of the teaching process, even if I may have caused some headaches in the process by showing the girls Baby Bum videos that were then put on repeat for months. lol I wish I could watch the process on a daily basis with both of my nieces, but I digress. Either way, it's been a blast watching both of them make the transition from silent, waddling babies to sassy, galloping toddlers. lol 

11. If someone wrote a book based on your 2016, what genre would it be?

Comedy and self-improvement, although the book should be marketed as 'self-improvement for cautionary tale purposes.' lol  

12. What was the most important lesson you learned in 2016?

I learned a few painful lessons this year. The biggest lesson though was that some people don't learn and some don't change. Your pain may be ammo to fuel someone else's negativity and hatred, and even if you live your life by the saying, "Do onto others," you have to acknowledge and understand that many others, many many others, do not and will not. If, to you, your loved ones' feelings and pain are as important to you as your own, it's going to be especially hard to wrap your mind around the fact that it may not be mutual. I struggled with this one a lot in 2016, and I would have saved myself a lot of pain if I'd accepted that fact sooner instead of trying to change it. I also learned that among the beauty of the world lies a lot of ugliness. Between the vivid colors of nature and life lay the darkness of shadows, which may or may not consume you. You may not be scary and ugly but the world often is, despite its vivid colors. That one was very hard to deal with. 

13. Which mental block(s) did you overcome?

I know I had writer's block, but I don't know if I had a mental block. I probably did, but I apparently haven't overcome it yet since I can't name anything. lol

There were quite a few 'lol''s throughout this post, hmm? I wish I could apologize for it, but I can't. I'm an LOL addict; I've had this issue since my Myspace days. I have legitimately written LOL's in my posts for that long. I've tried several things to stop myself from using them outside of texts, but none of them have worked so I'm just going to accept that it's here to stay. I'm dying to write another one, but I won't. Until next week's post, anyway. But LOL overdoses aside, I hope you enjoyed this first peek into my 2016, even though to me it sounds rather sad. Make sure you come back each Saturday this month so you can see the rest of my answers and I'll see you soon!

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2017 RRNT Reading Challenge

Hi! I'm back with RRNT's 2nd annual Reading Challenge! Now there are tons and tons of reading challenges out there, the vast majority of which I'm positive are better than mine. What a lead-in, right? LOL But seriously. I look at a bunch of reading challenges throughout the year and I always envy their creators for having such intriguing and boundary-stretching entries. I know mine aren't quite at that level, but I'm willing to keep trying until they are. As you saw in my post a couple of days ago when I went over last year's challenge, I had quite a few things to learn about what to do and what not to do. With that being said, I've created this year's challenge and you'll notice that it is quite shorter, but there's a mix of new entries and some I rolled over from last year's.

Challenges 1-9

Challenges 10-18

As a side challenge, I'm also doing Elyssa Nalani's Single Ladies Reading Challenge. You would think that I hadn't learned anything because immediately after saying I was going to scale it down, I write a post in which I'm actively taking on two challenges. lol But the thing about this one is that it's one book a month and each month focuses on a different theme, and that's really all the challenge is. For example, January's theme is spiritual growth, so I'd be finding a book that focuses on that topic. Next month will have a different theme, and I only have to read the one book. I can do that. So if you're a single lady, try taking on both challenges with me and let's see how we fare.

Now if my challenge is way too elementary for you, go to Reading Challenge Addict and check out the page I linked you to. It is the most extensive list of reading challenges being done by all kinds of bloggers, on all types of books. If you're up for something that's actually going to challenge you and not the child's play we're doing over here, I guarantee you'll find it in one of the sites linked on that page.

I do have a small extra with this year's challenge, though. Since it still chafes my buns that I could only show you 9 books from last year's challenge despite having read much more than that, I also want you to track how many books you read throughout the year. Again, I have no tiers yet. lol But it's cool to keep track regardless.

But anywho, that does it for now. I hope you'll be joining me and this time I promise....to try....to keep my reading challenge updated on my Instagram, but if I fail at that, I'll be doing four updates throughout the year. If you do participate in the challenge, upload your entries to your social media with #rrntreads so I can find them easier. See you soon!

p.s. If you were to drink a cup of water every time you read the word "challenge" or "book" in this post, including that last one, you'd probably drown yourself. lol 

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2017 Goals

Hi and Happy New Year! I hope you brought in your year surrounded by happiness and love. I realize that sounds cheesy as shit but I promise I mean every word. Nineteen days separate us from a new president taking office, and there's no telling what will happen in the next four years. I think it's important to make sure that you cultivate all the happiness and find all the love that you possibly can. I also believe in the saying that the way you bring in the year is what will follow you throughout it, so I try to bring in every new year with as much happiness, positivity and love as I can. Anyway, cheesy stuff aside, let's get to the foundation for this year's report card. This year's list is a little different; I included one goal for each category that I review, then some general goals for the blog. Here they are!

In a sentence, my main goal for this year is just to do better. I'd like to do better with the products I review here, in the topics I don't review as often, like the Tech and DIY categories, with promoting the blog and trying to maintain a consistent presence on social media, and being a better blogger in general. One of the largest things I'd love to do is revive old series and start new ones that I've had in the works for years but didn't have the opportunity to kick off. Last year I'd like to think I stepped my game up a lot from past years, but this year I'd like to kick that into high gear. And it would genuinely bring me a world of excitement if you'd join me. I may not be as high-tech, as consistent, as financially sound as bigger bloggers so the desire to read my rambling ass reviews may not be as high. I realize that. But I like what I do here. I like my rambling ass reviews, and I think that with the right resources (or the right usage of the resources I have), I am more than capable of creating quality reviews for you to read. There's something different about my site, and I like that. I hope I get to show more of that this year, if not to an audience then to myself, just to prove that I could create what I initially envisioned when I revamped this as a review blog. So here's hoping that this year's report card reads better than last year's. See you tomorrow!

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2016 Report Card

Hi! Since it's New Year's, I wanted to end the year the same way I started it--talking about my goals for 2016. I'm a very goal/list-oriented person and setting said goals or deadlines help give me a bit of purpose. I don't always stick to said deadlines (clearly 😑) but having something that I'm actively working towards helps me out a lot. When I first started this blog and it was trying to find its way, each December was reserved for figuring out any changes I wanted to implement in the upcoming year. I still keep to that in a way as it helps me to track how the blog grows and changes, but this was the first year that I created an actual list of goals specific to this blog. So let's review what my goals were for this year:

1. Be more active on social media ✔ ❌

I gave myself both a 'yes' and 'no' for this goal. I gave myself a 'no' because before, I would hardly promote my posts and I only did so on Instagram. This year, I started posting on Google Plus as well and I've been working on being more active on the 'Gram. I'm not at all where I'd like to be with it, but that's mainly because I haven't been able to review new products so there hasn't been much point. I'm also still trying to move past my issues with social media in order to be more active. I gave myself a 'no', though, because I wasn't entirely successful. I wouldn't say I have a regular presence on social media, and that was the goal so technically speaking, I didn't achieve it. But am I better than I was last year? Yes. 

2. Stick to blog schedule ❌

Do I have to go into detail about the level of failure associated with this goal? lol The intention was never to slack off; this was actually supposed to be the year that I really got my shit together enough to balance both blogs successfully and get everything on the right foot. But as is usually the case with my life, it never quite works out the way I intend. The reasons (I promise they're not stupid excuses) vary, but the point is that it gets in the way enough to throw me off my game. So unfortunately, this is a goal I didn't meet this year. 

3. Sharpen my reviewing skills ✔

I may not have been as consistent as I wanted to be with my posts, but I am increasingly proud of the end result of the posts that I do publish. I think that's another reason why I have issues with consistency; I'm a perfectionist and I know what I want my blog and its content to look like. If I feel that the post I'm doing isn't up to par, it's not getting published until it is. I have a skeleton for each post now and always try to work on being thorough without being too wordy in my reviews, which I do think I've gotten better at. I think this year has shown an improvement in both the content and the layout of my reviews, and I'm happy with where it's going. 

4. Strengthen my photography skills ✔

When I look back at my reviews when I was first understanding the importance of photography to a review blog (it always makes me laugh now to remember that when I first started, I thought just writing about my experience rather than including photos would be sufficient lol), I always cringe. They're so bad it's ridiculous. This year I really tried to improve the photography on the site, from the header shots to the product photos and any swatches or other examples of the product I was reviewing, and I think it's gotten a lot better. The lighting in most of the posts is natural light now so the exposure and saturation are more consistent, and I switched cameras this year so I think the quality of the photos has also improved. Again, not quite what I'd like it to be just yet, but I'm making it work with the resources I do have.  

5. Apply for more reviewing jobs  ❌

At first, I'd given myself both a 'yes' and 'no', but when I actually thought about it, I switched it to 'no', and I'll explain why. A lot of the reason why I haven't been able to apply for reviewing jobs is because there either aren't many coming my way to apply for, or more commonly, I didn't meet the social media criteria and influencer reach that the company required. I can see the issue from both a blogger and business perspective and from the latter side of the problem, I don't have the influencer stats that would make hiring me a profitable experience for the company. I have nothing to give them in return, least of all an increase in sales that would create a return for the price of the product they sent me, so it makes sense that I wouldn't be able to get the job. But from the blogger side of things, this is largely a labor of love until your reach meets the criteria for many companies. Almost every review is an out-of-pocket thing while you build up your audience, and if your pockets are as small as mine, it can be difficult to keep the content feeling fresh if you're not reviewing current products. So in short, I didn't apply for more jobs because there weren't many out there with criteria that I could meet, but that was why I ultimately gave myself a 'no.' 

6. Be more consistent with posts ❌

LOL. You see the timestamps on these posts. At the moment, there are way too many gaps between the dates, but as always, that wasn't the intention. When the late posts are finally published, it will present the consistency that I was aiming for from jump, but the reality is that I couldn't achieve the consistency I desired in time, which is why those posts are now late rather than already being live on the site. The lack of consistency and falling off schedule always leave me feeling overworked because I stay playing catch-up, but because there are so many obstacles in the way when I'm trying to keep to said schedule, this will probably be an ongoing issue until I change some things in my personal surroundings. I haven't learned to work around or through those things completely and they throw me off, creating the lack of consistency and failure to remain on schedule. This is a big failure for me so even if I accomplish nothing else on my list of goals for 2017, if I can switch this to a check mark next December, I'll consider my goals as a success. 

7. Build up posts in all blog categories ✔ ❌

This is the other one I gave myself both answers for. I gave myself a 'yes' because there are more entries in some of the sections that weren't there a year ago, mainly the 'Things' and 'TV' sections, the latter of which just started a couple of months ago. Overall, however, I still give it a 'no' because the busiest section is still the 'Beauty' section, and I don't want to review just beauty products. They're the most fun by far lol, but I get bored when that's all I'm reviewing. I keep so many sections here because I am legitimately interested in all of them. I can't effectively prove that, however, when one section is pages longer than the others. So this one gets both on technicalities. lol 

8. Resume old blog series ❌

This is another one that I consider to be a huge failure on my part. The goal here was to revive the SBS and Pinterest Project series, and I've been planning a couple of new ones that I was really excited to roll out. There are a cocktail of issues at play, which negated the time I needed to put my effort into growing these series the way I planned. As a result, this too is now a rollover goal for next year. 

9. Grow my audience ✔

This one I do consider to be a success, although it again isn't quite where I'd like it to be. I now promote more posts on Instagram and I'm steadily building up followers there, but I've also started promoting on Google Plus, which has also started getting my posts more views. The promoted posts have more views than the ones I didn't promote, so for me that's growth. I haven't found my audience yet, and by that I mean regular readers who leave comments and interact with me, but to be fair I probably haven't given them reason to do that yet. This is still an improvement from last year, where I was averaging an all-time high of like 3 views per post. lol I've got a long way to go before I'm satisfied, but I do see improvement. 

Overall Grade: D-

So overall, this wasn't the year of come-up that I'd originally anticipated. It was a good reality check that I needed to see in black and white (....and red and green. lol) If this was a regular business and the check/cross marks were profits and losses, this would go on the records as a loss. A big loss. I understand that but I'm not discouraged. Despite the final result being a loss, the profits were large profits that I think have helped the blog overall. I would prefer if there were a few more profits, but I can take what I've gotten so far. Now I just have to maintain those categories and try to bring a couple more into the mix. I don't know how well I'll do, but I'm hoping that next year's report card reads a bit better. I know what my goals are for the upcoming year, and now I know that the goal is to work smarter and harder if I'd like to get around my obstacles and achieve them.

Right now I think I work harder, not smarter, and as a result I stay overworked with tons of content unpublished. If I know what my obstacles are, then the goal should be to figure out how to work around or through them--to me, that'd be working smarter because they would no longer negatively impact what I'm trying to do. But anyway, I hope you have an awesome New Year's, wherever and however you choose to spend it. Please, please please stay safe--driving under the influence is never the answer and even if you're driving sober, please be careful on the roads because there will inevitably be more than a few drunk drivers out there. I hope you have tons of fun tonight and do me a solid--get that New Year's kiss; I'm not going to get one tonight so I'm living vicariously through you. That sounds so creepy when you think about me living vicariously through your kisses. LOL Happy New Year!

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2016 Favorites

Howdy! As part of Wrap-Up Week, today I wanted to go over my favorite things for 2016. Honestly, I don't have a terribly large list of favorites for the year because financially, it was a shit year so there wasn't a ton of left over money to put towards trying out new things. But I wanted to bring you the list anyway, so I hope you enjoy it.

Beauty: Whish Revitalizing Cleansing Oil, Nuxe Multi-Purpose Dry Oil for Face, Body and Hair, Maybelline Fit Me! Matte and Poreless Foundation, elf Brow Kit, Avon Eye Makeup Remover Lotion, Burt's Bees Coconut Foot Creme, Briogeo Don't Despair, Repair! Deep Conditioning Mask, Cantu Intensive Repair Deep Treatment Masque, Maybelline Color Tattoo Pure Pigment in Breaking Bronze, Bodycology Fragrance Mist in Sweet Petals


Last year, I was more focused on finding lip products and this year, I've been more focused on my hair. I did a Lite Big Chop on my hair back in February (I call it 'Lite' because I just evened my hair out as best I could rather than intentionally getting rid of all of it, but I still took most of it so that qualifies as 'big chop' worthy to me) and this year has been about finding my natural curl pattern, bringing it out, and improving the texture. The Briogeo Deep Conditioning Mask is wonderful for shedding, which I'm prone to dealing with for a few reasons. This mask, however, almost completely stopped my shedding while I was using it and I'm in desperate need of the full-sized product. The Cantu masque was wonderful for softening my hair, which I needed desperately as my hair's true dry texture came out in full force this year. I've been focusing more on deep conditioning treatments, curl enhancers and hydration/moisture lotions this year and I'm looking forward to trying more products in 2017.

As for makeup products, the Whish cleansing oil was an immediate holy grail product for me. If you've never tried an oil to remove your makeup, trust me when I tell you you're missing out. This stuff was great, especially when it came to removing my mascara, which I wear a lot of, without damaging my skin or making me have to scrub at my eyes.

The Avon Eye Makeup Remover lotion is an oldie but goodie but I used it again this year when I ran out of my regular remover and it reaffirmed my love. It's another one that doesn't damage or dry out my skin and easily/gently removes my layers of warpaint.

The Fit Me! foundation was another holy grail product, because it's the first foundation that I've really loved. I've never been big on foundation, mainly because my skin doesn't particularly need it and it's always seemed a bit too heavy for me, but this one is amazing. I was lucky enough to get this from a VoxBox back in the spring and I've been yammering about it ever since.

The Nuxe dry oil works wonderfully with the Fit Me! at giving my face a bit of a glow, minimizing the effects that a matte foundation can have on the skin, and allowing the foundation to spread and blend easier. The elf Brow Kit made the list last year so I don't have to elaborate, but it's on here again. lol

The Maybelline shadow is a loose pigment and it is so beautiful that I find myself reaching for it almost every time I put on my makeup. It's beautiful applied wet or dry, it looks great against my skintone, and it stays put without tons of fallout, despite it being a loose glittery pigment. This is probably an old product because I got it at Dollar Tree but I love it regardless.

As for body stuff, this year marked my first venture into a Burt's Bees product, which I was immensely satisfied with. My favorite foot product was one from Carapex up until I tried out the Burt's Bees one. With this one, the two of them are about neck and neck now. My feet are often super dry because I'm usually barefoot, so the too legit to quit factor is high for me when it comes to foot products and this one fits the bill. I usually put it on before bed and with winter in full swing, I might double up and use both because this formula is thicker than Carapex's foot cream. Either way, it's great. Lastly, my mom got me the Bodycology spray a few months ago, which has notes of sweet pea and berries, and it's a light, tarty scent that I really like.

Books: Bloodwalker, A Beautiful Mess Photo Idea Book

As is the case with the other subjects on the list, I choose my yearly favorites out of the things in each topic that stuck out to me, that I couldn't stop thinking about. I didn't get to read a ton of books this year because my focus was on other things, but there were a few that stuck out. One of those is Bloodwalker, a YA novel (and entrant into this year's Reading Challenge) by L.X. Cain that even now, sticks out in my brain. If the title is familiar to you, that's because I reviewed it here a couple of months ago so go check that out if you'd like to hear more about it.

Another book in this year's Reading Challenge was A Beautiful Mess's Photo Idea Book, which I went over yesterday. I wish I could buy a copy of this book (partially because I'd like to mark it up with my notes and partially because my fines at the library are too high for me to check it out again lol) because it's really helped me when it comes to stepping up my game with product photos. It's also just a good book.

TV: Narcos, The Fall, A Girl Like Her, Marriage Contract, Finding Vivian Maier, Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories

I believe Narcos and The Fall may have been on last year's list, but the 2nd season of Narcos came out in September and the 3rd series of The Fall came out in sometime in...well, the fall. lol These were amazing shows that I still fully recommend to anyone looking for something to watch on Netflix. I shouldn't have to recommend Narcos though; unless you've been under a rock I'm sure you've heard something about it by now. I successfully got my uncle and his wife stuck on it and now they're just as anxious for the next season as I am.

A Girl Like Her is a documentary-styled drama I watched this summer and there are tons of films I can watch more than once but this isn't one of them. The film focuses on bullying, a really soft spot for me, and they explore it to an uncomfortable level. If you've been bullied, this may hit home for you a little too much, but overall it's an underrated gem that I think more people should be talking about.

After years of teasing my sister for her K-dramas, I finally started watching a couple of them myself. I watched one sometime in the spring called Marriage Contract, and I really enjoyed it. I wouldn't recommend K-dramas to everyone as they're more of an acquired taste, but if you are into K-dramas then you should check this one out. A single mother desperate to finish settling her late husband's loans and get his debtors off her back enters the risky organ trade by agreeing to sell her liver to her boss's mother. In order to do that and avoid getting caught, the two have to be married. In order for her to trade her liver and get the payout she needs, her body has to be healthy, so she keeps her recent diagnosis of quickly progressing fatal (bc it's a K-drama) brain tumors a secret from everyone. As is usually the case with these 'forced together' situations, the two unintentionally start to fall in love. It had its moments of 'really, dawg?' but overall I loved it.

Finding Vivian Maier is a documentary I watched much earlier in the year and I still remember it as one of the most intriguing films I'd seen in a long time. If you didn't read my initial mention of it in one of my Monthly Favorites (and there aren't many to choose from; I only did 6 this year lol) the film is about a man who bids on an abandoned storage unit and inherits what he initially blows off as being useless photographs and undeveloped film. But as he continues to go through it in search of something valuable, he realizes he's already found something valuable--the photographs, which are of considerable talent. He puts forth a ton of effort developing all of the film, finding out more about both the photographer and the various subjects in her photos. The photographer, however, was a nanny, a long stretch from the photography career she could have easily taken on. The story that is revealed through the course of the film is totally unexpected and it was a great watch.

Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories was something I watched during the fall and mentioned during the first What I've Been Watching and I'm still in love with it. It's an anthology series of sorts, all focused around this one midnight diner and its chef. People from all walks of life come into the cafe to share memories, tell their stories and listen to others, and that's what the series is about. Each episode centers on a different dish and like I said then, I really love that the root of the show is the food, rather than just being a prop. It's not an on the edge of your seat excitement-filled show. It's simple and subtle and I think that format is what helps it shine.

Games: Virtual Town, Murdered: Soul Suspect, Skyrim: Legendary Edition for PS3

This year didn't net many new games for me except for Murdered: Soul Suspect, which I played way back in January. Hell, it's been about a year since I finished it. lol It wasn't the greatest game I've ever played, but I enjoyed it a lot.

Virtual Town comes from the developers of the Virtual Families and Virtual Villagers games, which are available on both mobile and PC, and I kinda love it. The concept with this game is that rather than being confined to your house or village, you become the owner of a decrepit town and are tasked with bringing it back to its former glory. As you grow food for your residents, clean up the town and add more things, people move in, special features become available, and your town's beauty meter improves. It's a simple game you can use when you're bored in the can. lol

I got my hands on Skyrim's Legendary Edition for my birthday this year, and even though I've been playing this game for 5 years, it's still not old to me. Once you do most or all of the quests, it can get boring like any other game, but starting over brings all the old excitement back. I started a new game a few months ago, playing the exact opposite of everything my original character was about, and it's been as fun as I imagined. I wish I had a PS4 so I can start over on there too. lol

Apps: Phonto, Phone to Chrome, Push2Droid, Reddit, Influenster, Soundcloud, Tumblr, Aviary

The primary app I use to add fonts in my photos is still Phonto. I ran into some issues with the quality of the finished images earlier this summer but after I fixed it, it worked its way back onto my favorites lists. lol I still recommend it for fontheads using their phones. What I do is add all of my unzipped fonts to Dropbox and download them from there. It's tons easier and saves you the annoying process of having to unzip the files on your phone, which doesn't always work.

Phone to Chrome and Push2Droid saved my life since Chrome to Phone went dark back in the spring. Because I do the majority of my editing on my phone, I need there to be a clear path between my computer and phone. Push2Droid helps when I'm trying to put a photo on my phone from the computer, and Phone to Chrome helps when I find something on my phone's version of Chrome and need to send it to my computer. Push2Droid also saved my ass back in October when I thought I'd lost over 500 sites of information, which I'm going to talk about more in the Websites section.

Reddit released their app this year and I mentioned it during either April or May's monthly favorites post, but I'm still enjoying it. After years of being intimidated by it, I finally embraced parts of Reddit and it's been a great source of motivation, an easy way to get important news, and get inspiration for projects. Influenster was on last year's list and it's on this one too because it's helping me sharpen my reviewing skills, I'm still getting reviewing jobs from them, and it's just fun to use.

Soundcloud as always saves my ass when I'm trying to find new music. I've said this a lot of times before but I don't often use Spotify anymore so I'd be completely music-less without Soundcloud. If you like underground, electronic or anything in the dubstep/ambient families, you should try out Soundcloud. I'm about a month into a 3-month trial Soundcloud Go subscription, which I'll be reviewing when I'm done.

As I'm going to mention again in a few minutes, Tumblr is awesome if you're looking for visual inspiration on something. There's a bit of everything, there's something for everyone, and the style of photography in many shots is really inspiring. It helps make things a bit easier when I'm putting my seasonal inspiration posts together to just download the photos directly to my phone from the app.

Aviary is the other app I use when I'm editing photos and now I have even more packs to edit the photos with than I did before. It's really easy to use and doesn't require too much effort or work to create a good picture. The filters and other image manipulation tools help a lot with improving the quality of your photo and giving you something high quality looking without the price or work involved.

Websites: Tumblr, Hootsuite, Google+, PINCHme, OneTab, LunaPic

Tumblr is one of the biggest resources for me when it comes to creating my seasonal inspiration posts. A lot of the items in the 'See' category, especially the 'Headspace/Vibes' section, are from Tumblr. For someone like myself who relies on visual inspiration as a way to express themselves or get into a particular state of mind, Tumblr is great. I post on there occasionally, but they're mostly reblogs. I'm not that committed. lol

Hootsuite is a social media management tool I found earlier in the year and for the time I used it, it was awesome at helping me manage all of my social media without needing 35 tabs open at once. I was able to see everything from both blogs at the same time and because I promote my blogs using different social media sites, it can be tedious to remember which blog is promoted using which site. Hootsuite condenses it all so you can do it at once. If you run multiple sites or have multiple accounts for one site, this would be an efficient resource to have in your pocket.

I finally started utilizing Google Plus for my blog posts this year and it's done quite the job for me ever since. My individual post views have gone up, my monthly numbers have gone up, and depending on the post those numbers roll over to future posts. It can be a little tedious having to remember to promote the post on different sites, but Google Plus has made it worthwhile for me.

Finally, PINCHme isn't a new site to me; I've been using it for a couple of years but this year I finally got some good products that were worth reviewing out of it. The Maybelline mascara I reviewed at the beginning of the month was actually a pre-release product that PINCHme let me get my hands on early and a few of the items you'll see in the next Sample Roundup are from there as well. If you're a smaller review, home or beauty blogger and don't yet have the budget to make purchases specifically for your blog, check them out.

Another thing that has saved my life this year is OneTab. I wish they'd allow users to create accounts and save their tabs that way, but I digress. Earlier in the fall, my laptop battery finally called it quits on me and I had a OneTab page with over 500 tabs open at the time. I thought I was going to cry until I remembered I'd sent the page to my phone (using Push2Droid) and I was able to retrieve my tabs, then send the page back to my new computer, where I added it to my new OneTab page. lol OneTab is a lifesaver.

LunaPic is something I found last month and it's helped a lot when creating header photos for my posts. Since my header images have the subject icon on one of the sides, I often have to go through hell in order to create it on my phone and even then it still doesn't always come out right. So what I do now is edit the basic photo then send it to Google, where I can download it onto the computer and finish my editing from there before adding it to the post. Even though that still sounds rather complicated, it has made things a lot easier for me.

DIY: organization tips, home decor/improvement, wall art, photo equipment, SFX makeup, DIY For Cheaper inspiration, Cheap Gal's Guide topics

One of my biggest goals this year has been organization. How to organize my room, how to organize my blogs, how to organize my life. Right now I have a mildly controlled chaos going on, but I can feel it starting to spiral. lol So one of the biggest things I've been looking into is organization and how to make it work for me.

As I'm going to mention somewhere below, I love home decor and improvement projects. They're some of my favorite DIY projects to create or tweak. When I have the space and money to dedicate to doing them more often, they'll be here. Wall art is often, in my opinion, overpriced to the level of ridiculousness and I'm not here for it. Creating your own is tons cheaper and a lot more fun. You won't be able to sell it to an auction house or anything lol, but it'll give your home more of a personal touch.

Same goes for photo equipment and SFX makeup; they're the sources of both a personal desire to learn and an upcoming DIY series here on the blog. SFX makeup in particular has become a big interest of mine over the past couple of years and even though I don't like scary or gory movies, I LOVE gory makeup.

That brings me to my next two things, the DIY For Cheaper and Cheap Gal's Guide series that I've been looking to start on the blog at some point. The basis of the DIY FC series is based off of home decor and the Cheap Gal's Guide is basically a crash course into a number of subjects but tailored to the gal with empty pockets. I'd love to go into more detail, but I'll save it for when I can finally get the projects off the ground.

Things: yoga, branding tips, seasonal trends & inspiration, vlogging, photography equipment and resources, recipes, apartments and home decor, food trucks, business, podcasts

This year, I did my first yoga challenge. My primary doctor has been recommending I try yoga for years now as he wants to keep me off anxiety medication until I can't manage it on my own anymore. The challenge I tried was two weeks long and I've been much more open to yoga ever since. Unlike the wellness challenge I did a couple of years ago, I was a bit more excited to try and integrate a daily yoga regimen into my day. I'm starting a new challenge with Wanderlust on January 9th, so we'll see how that goes.

 I've realized that one thing I struggle with is branding myself. I have to admit that for the longest time, I kept coming across branding articles and tips but always blew them off because I didn't really feel I needed it for myself. This year though, I took an interest in trying to create a brand of sorts for myself and it's something I'm trying to figure out going into next year.

Seasonal trends was a big deal for me with this being the first year I really committed to creating seasonal inspiration boards. Those were some of the most fun posts to create because they have nothing to do with reviews, integrate different things from the site into the post, and are done in a way that I don't often see. They were also the hardest though, partially because I don't normally keep my eye on trends. Still loved creating them, but I need to start working on them earlier so I can release them on time for once.

Vlogging was a focal point of the things I watched this year mainly because it's good background noise while I work on a post. I went back and forth on the idea myself before ultimately waffling because there just isn't anything interesting enough going on in my life. Maybe when things actually start moving around I'll revisit it. Would anyone even watch them? I dunno. But for myself, I think it might be fun to try.

I really wanted to continue stepping up my game with the product photos I took, so I spent a lot of time looking at different photography equipment and trying to learn about their functions. I'm also preparing to do a post on said equipment so I needed to learn everything I could before I got started.

Because I'm in the start-up process with my food truck, I've been combing any relevant cookbooks I can get my hands on, trying to figure out new ways to cook dishes or bring in flavors to dishes I can already make. Exploring food and the tons of flavors, cooking methods or other items I can pair it with to create the best end result is a bit like science for me. The possibilities are often endless and I thoroughly enjoy experimenting.

If I have to reiterate how badly I want to move out again I may lose my head. I am dying to have my own place, if for no other reason than because I need an environment I can control so that I can work on the blog in peace. I've always loved home decor and it's what I'm most excited to DIY--I already have a series in the works dedicated to that very subject--but when I have to cram 29 years of life into one room, it's just not feasible to go on trying to create new things when I have nowhere to put it. It'd be nice to finally have my own place and do what I want with it.

Another iron I've been waiting years to put in the fire is podcasting. I've wanted to have my own podcast since my very first blog back in 2008. At the time, I wanted it to be an anxiety-based podcast, where I could talk more in-depth about issues related to anxiety because I understand people will only read so much. (LOL have you seen the length of this post? I know you're not still reading!) I no longer run that blog, but my desire to have a podcast hasn't gone away. I started seriously considering it sometime this spring, and it's been in my head ever since.

I know this post was super long, but the way I view it is if you were to watch me doing this video on YouTube, it'd probably be a 30 minute plus video. Yearly favorites videos are always the longest, so I'm hoping for some leeway that my yearly favorites posts will also be the longest because I'm covering so many subjects. There are a few things here that were on last year's list I'm sure, especially in the DIY and Things categories, but the Beauty and TV sections have the most new items. What were some of your favorites this year?

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2016 Reading Challenge in Review

Hi! So as I'm sure you saw a couple of days ago, last year was a failure for me in more ways than one. One of those ways was the year's Reading Challenge. lol I realized when I was going through the final update that there were a few challenge entries that were a little repetitive. I honestly hadn't even put it together. Here are some examples, so you don't think I'm just bullshitting you about not finishing it.

So one entry was "Read a book about a popular conspiracy theory" but another was "Read a book, fictional or real, based on a government conspiracy." One book, fictional or real, could fulfill both of those things so I didn't really need to have both. 

There was an entry that said  "Read a book considered to be a 20th century classic" and then another one that said "Read a book that was published over 100 years ago." Shit books from other centuries aren't really available anymore so if you find something that's over a century old, the likelihood is high that the book is already considered to be a classic and explains why it was still available to be read. Another case in which one book could fulfill both entries. That's already four entries done from a 36-entry challenge with just two books, and I'm not even finished yet. 

An entry said, "Read a book set in Africa by an African author" but another one some time later said, "Read a book about an unfamiliar, non-Western culture." To most people, Africa is an unfamiliar, non-Western culture. Again, one book could fulfill both of those entries. But you can take that even further, because another entry said, "Read a book about an impoverished or 3rd world country." There are quite a few impoverished and countries considered to be 3rd world in Africa, so you could actually use one book to fulfill all three if you read a book set in an impoverished African country by an African author. That brings us to 7 entries and three books. If you'd like to take that up a notch, you could add in "Read a book about racial issues by an author of color" and bring the total up to 8 by reading a book by an African author about racial issues in an impoverished African country, but these three seemed a bit closer to me.

There's an entry that said, "Read a book listed as a recommendation from Oprah's book club," but there's another that says, "Read a NYT bestseller." Many of Oprah's former recommendations were NYT bestsellers, so that's two more fulfilled with the same book. That moves the total up to 9, which is officially a fourth of the challenge done and only 4 books read.

One of the entries was, "Read a romance set in the future," but another one said, "Read a post-apocalyptic fiction by a female author." Post-apocalyptic books are obviously set in the future, so you could just read a dystopian/post-apocalyptic romance and be done with both. That's 11 entries and five books.

An entry said, "Read a graphic novel," while another one said, "Read a comic book from the last 5 years that is not about a superhero." Many comics are about superheroes and they're ongoing, so your better bet would be to find a graphic novel. This one didn't have one book to fulfill both entries, but it still felt a little redundant to me. That's 13 entries. 

But enough about my failures. Let's get to the few I did do.
   

A few of these actually got a review here; No Rest and Tales were reviews I was asked to do earlier in the year, then I reviewed Tree Taylor and Bloodwalker back in September. This is a pretty pathetic showing. 😑 These weren't the only books I read throughout the year so it angers me on a different level that I only fulfilled nine entries from this year's challenge. It makes me look like a lazy reader and I'm not here for it. lol

Minus the extra entries, a total of twenty-three books over a year's span doesn't seem hard at all, and I probably should have stuck with that. It would have been challenging enough for me, seeing as how I only fulfilled nine. lol But per usual with me the first time I try to do something, I overdo it, hence my Summer Bucket List of All The Things from two years ago. I learn largely through trial and error, but as is the case with these things, the error has to come first. lol The good thing about overdoing things the first time around is that it's easier for me to scale back than to add things on because I didn't have enough material. Overdoing things the first time around helps me figure out where my limits and boundaries are and establish challenges that make more sense for me instead of diving into the deep end and drowning.

It's easy to get overly ambitious when you read a lot, and that is another of my faults--because I usually read a lot of books in a year, I didn't think 36 things would be a lot. I didn't fulfill all of this year's challenge entries, but I still read over 36 books. So numerically speaking, it isn't a lot at all. But having to read specific books is a bit of a challenge for me because like most readers, I have the genres I prefer to read and that's usually what I stick with. I think another of the issues I had was that I got too overzealous in my planning and didn't really give myself time to think through the challenge entries, which is why there were so many examples above of more than one entry being fulfilled by the same book. One thing I noticed though was that if you have one vague entry, like "Read a romance" and a more specific entry like, "Read a dystopian novel," you could still combine the two. There's bound to be some overlap; it's inevitable if you vary how much you specify with each entry. But there shouldn't be 11 entries fulfilled with 5 books. That's ridiculous.

Now that I have these things in mind and I know where I went wrong, I'm ready for round 2. I've been looking at challenges for 2017 and none of them are getting my goat enough to not want to try my own again. I'm really excited about trying to create my own challenge for the second time so I think that's what I'll stick with. If I do find one I like, I'll leave it on there as a bonus. But I'll go into that more in a few days when I reveal the 2017 Reading Challenge. Again, there's probably going to be a bit of overlap; I've finished all of this year's entries and again, there are a couple of non-specific entries that can be blended with specific ones, but overall I think it's a better challenge. I hope you'll be joining me, both here and on Instagram, where I will finally keep my word and tell you about what I read. lol Tomorrow you'll see RRNT's report card for the year, which is just my twist on revisiting my 2016 goals and monitoring my progress towards each one. See you tomorrow!

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What I've Been Watching: December

Hi! I know last month's edition of this series was quite long, and I'm sorry. I wanted to make up for my lack of Favorites posts so when I had the idea to create something specifically to talk about what I've been watching, I had months of stuff I wanted to share. This one isn't quite as long, but I did watch a lot this month. I watched a mix of things this month, from documentaries to stand-up specials, cheesy romance flicks to crime-based shows. It was a healthy mix, so hopefully you'll find something in it worth taking a look at. So what'd I watch this month?

Gabriel Iglesias: I'm Sorry For What I Said When I Was Hungry 

The Irish Mob 

The Spirit of Christmas 

Border Security: Australia's Front Line 

A Family Affair 

Diary of a Chambermaid 

Ricardo O'Farrill: Abrazo navideño 

Beauties of the Night 

Meet the Blacks 

The Confessions of Thomas Quick 

Ralphie May: Unruly 

Penguins: Spy in the Huddle 

Hitler in the Andes 

Travelers 

My thing with stand-up specials has continued this month, as there are three entries on this month's list. Gabriel Iglesias' new special, I'm Sorry for What I Said When I Was Hungry, was funny although I have to admit it also sounded a bit.....self circle-jerk? now that he has the fame of a seasoned comedian. Maybe I read it wrong, I dunno. I still recommend watching it.

I also watched Ricardo O'Farrill's Christmas-themed special Abrazo navideño, which had cameos from a couple of the comics I mentioned in November's list, and it wasn't laugh-out-loud funny but amusing enough. There was a line about the Christmas special hopefully not giving him 1-star again, which led me to O'Farrill's first Netflix special, which has--obviously--one star. lol I'll let you know how that one was next month.

Finally, I watched Ralphie May's Unruly special and it had its moments of hilarity but the rest was amusing, if for no other reason than because of the way Ralphie May tells a story. He's aware of his non-PC style of comedy and admits to it without crossing the line just for the sake of doing so. That's what some of his special centered on so if light race jokes and the like aren't your thing, you might not want to watch. I liked it though. 

As for documentaries, the ones I watched were pretty heavy in terms of subject matter. The two that stand out the most for me were A Family Affair and The Confessions of Thomas Quick. The latter focuses on the long and twisted story of Thomas Quick, a man on record as Sweden's most prolific serial killer. After confessing to over two dozen murders, he later recanted his entire confession. That doesn't sound too uncommon; many killers do that. This story is a twisted one that involves mental institutions, repressed sexuality and false memories. It's a good one.

A Family Affair is a personal, often to the point of being uncomfortable, look at a family separated by the behaviors of its matriarch, the filmmaker's grandmother. He gets drawn into his grandma's world, to a level that makes him (and you, I promise) uncomfortable, but you wonder at the end how much of the story was revealed and how much of it was true. It's a mindf*ck at parts but it was really good.

Beauties of the Night is about five of Mexico's most famous burlesque dancers, all now retired, and what drew them to their former careers as well as what happened to them after they left the stage. You go into it assuming it's just about burlesque and the women's careers, but that's where you get misled and a much more personal story unfolds for all five of the women. They may have had burlesque in common, but life ultimately drew them in a myriad of directions, from activism to God's altar. I loved it and if there was ever a sequel in store for these former Beauties, I'd be here for it. 

The last documentary I watched this month was Hitler in the Andes, which explores the apparent popular conspiracy theory that Hitler wasn't killed on the date recorded in the books, but actually escaped to the Andes. I only recently--as in the last six months--became aware of the conspiracy theory that Hitler faked his death, and I've already seen two documentaries exploring the subject. It's a viable theory, as this documentary revealed some original video footage of the bodies of men suspected of being Hitler's body doubles. I'm not sure which side of the argument I fall on, but neither answer would surprise me much. 

Moving on, my animal documentary this month was Penguins: Spy in the Huddle. Different kinds of penguins were followed in this documentary in the period leading up to the breeding cycle, then it takes on new life as the babies are born, the parents leave and the babies learn to follow in their parents' footsteps as they grow. I love penguins anyway, but I especially love the subtle hints of personality and sass that they have, depending on the situation. Because it's so quiet though, it's easy for an asshole like me to create my own dialogue of what I think the penguins would say if they could. I'm easily amused. 

Now for tv series, the one that sticks out for me this month is Travelers. Eric McCormack heads the show as the leader of a team of consciousness time travelers. What I mean by this is that the present-day for the travelers is over 100 years in the future, so traveling back to their former bodies is impossible as none of them are actually born yet. So their consciousness travels instead, taking over the body of a host seconds before the host dies. I am guessing that the host actually does die, but that hasn't been explored too much as it is the host's body, not mind, that's important. Anyway, these travelers go back in an effort to stop the origin of the events in our time that almost entirely wiped out humanity in their time over a century later. I know I'm shit at describing shows lol, but if you're into sci-fi, tech or time travel, I think you'll like it. It's actually on tv in Canada and was just released on Netflix, so if you're my northern neighbor then you've already seen the show.  

The Irish Mob fills the void I've been having since I finished watching the other mob-based series on Netflix. The Irish Mob focuses on two different Irish mobsters per episode and I realized that I'd made a mistake in thinking they weren't as ruthless as Italian mobsters. In some ways, they're a bit worse. The Irish were who the Italians called when things needed to get a bit muddy and they needed outside help. I know there were significantly less Irish mobsters than Italians so I know it can't be as long of a series, but I wish it was a bit longer. 

Australia's Border Security is pretty similar to America's but I like theirs more, so I've been watching it over and over again. lol Meet the Blacks stars Mike Epps as the patriarch of the Black family in this comedic spoof of movies like The Purge. You'll see a number of Black comedians in this film, Charlie Murphy and Michael Blackson being among them, and a funny choice for a corrupt President in George Lopez but overall it's not gut-splitting hilarious. The Spirit of Christmas is my cheesy romantic Christmas flick about a woman battling a stubborn ghost in order to appraise the property he once owned and of course, falling in love with him. My biggest gain from this movie is my introduction to the deliciousness that is Thomas Beaudoin. Yum.

Diary of a Chambermaid is a remake of a remake about a maid's experiences while serving a number of rich families and their spouses. She seems to regard everyone as beneath her, which is ironic considering her own position, and ultimately falls in love with a reticent, scowling servant of the family she works for. It was okay but not chronological, which made it a bit confusing and the moments of silence are a bit too long, with not enough meaningful dialogue between some of those silent periods to make up for it.

Picks of the Month: Travelers, A Family Affair, Beauties of the Night and The Irish Mob

Throwaway Pick: Meet the Blacks

I know this was a rather long list, but this month was about trying to get more tv shows on my list a month so I'm sorry. These probably won't be short entries. lol I hope you found something that intrigues you from this list; is there anything you've already watched? As always, I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you soon!

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Posts from the Vault #1

Hi! To bring things to a close and try to start the New Year on a (moderately) clean slate, I wanted to do a small collection of posts recently released from the vault. By that, I mean that there are late posts that my dumbass was finally able to finish and I'd like you to check them out but I needed a cool name for it. LOL There are also a couple of posts that aren't necessarily late but were unpromoted because I was already planning this post. There aren't too many right now but going into a new year, it's more unlikely you'd go this far back in my archives to find these reviews so I wanted to put them out there now. I think I might do this every six months or so to clear out the draft posts, I'm not sure yet. Anyway, here's the first collection of Vault posts from earlier in the year. 

Physicians' Formula Sexy Booster Cat Eye Liquid Eyeliner

Tales of Blood and Sulphur: Apocalypse Minor

Joyetech eGo AIO Experience

Kleancolor Classic Nude Eyeshadow Palette

Autumn Aesthetic 

Winter Wonderland

What I've Been Watching: December

I love the end result of all of these posts, partially because there are a couple of posts with a new style of review in them (the Kleancolor and eyeliner posts), one that I've never done before (the Joyetech pen) and the last two seasonal inspiration posts, which I'm really happy with. The last two items on the list were the current but unpromoted posts. So my obvious recommendation is that you check them all out, but if you'd like to remain current then the last two or three posts should suffice. Let me know how often you think I should do these posts--monthly, twice a year, once a year? I'm not quite sure how to play this just yet. See you soon!

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