Big Little Basket

So since my Little spoiled me during big little week and decorated my room all week, at activation we spoil them rotten with a basket of goodies. And I went all out. Now I don’t have individual photos of everything that went into it but enjoy some of the highlights!

First thing first, my canvases. Her canvases that she gave me were beautiful so I had to measure up. The first one is just an outline of her home state, Delaware. Her favorite color is red and our sorority color is maroon so I used those colors. The second one is because our family is the “Harry Potter Family” so giving this canvas to our littles is a family tradition. The last one is because we bonded over loving New Zealand and LOTR. I was there this winter for study abroad and she’d just learned she’d been accepted to a program for next winter so I knew I needed a Tolkien Quote with New Zealand featured.

Next I’m sure the eye is drawn to the beautiful letters. I have my fabulous GBig to thank for sewing all of those. I think the marvel letters will be her favorites but hopefully she likes out purple family letters (not pictured) for HP and the others I picked because she likes red.

 

Of course seeing as me and my little bonded over all things nerdy I had to include some geeky gifts. I got her a Groot Pop thingy to go with the  Groot she gave me during big little week. She also got a copy of one of my favorite new books Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell because I’m sure she’ll be able to relate to it as much as me. While I was in line at Barnes and Noble they had a little Outlander Mortar and Pestle that she had fawned over last time we’d been there so I threw that in. I also found this huge wooden book box that opens so I found a nice quote about books with the word little in it. She can keep her poem in it. I had to thrown a Harry Potter Coloring Book in there because we’re the Harry Potter fam. Not too mention the Harry Potter glasses in there that she had to wear and a mason jar full of popsicle sticks with Harry Potter quotes on them.

I also included 2 pieces of drink ware. I copied the mug she gave me so it says “Today I’m Mrs. _____” and her options were Whitethorn, Greenleaf, Blake, Snow, Fraser, Thor. And then her wineglass is “Wee Jamie”. I tried to give it a kilt pattern similar to that of everyones favorite scottish highlanders James Fraser and then decided to just go for it and give the glass some curly red hair and a beard.

The other super nerdy thing in there was the big wooden letter E. It’s black and just has the names of books, movies and TV shows all over it on all sides.

Everything else is pretty much your more standard Big Little Gifts. I had a cute Big/Little picture frame, a little box for her to put her new membership pin in. A little hanging set of letters on a nice Terresan Green background and a tie blanket to cushion the whole basket.

And then the poem I had to write her which gets read aloud by someone else. I thought it was cute. I had plenty of little inside jokes (if you watch Outlander you know the Honeypot reference). And then of course in Fam tradition it had to end with a reference to her Hogwarts house and with our closing line about Hogwarts letters and Greek letter.

But the piece de resistance of the whole basket and what I’m most proud of is the paddle. It is beautiful. It’s fire engine red with “Fire Breathing Bitch Queen” across it, some clashing swords and a vibrant flame. I love it so much. True we’re not supposed to have swears with letters (and it does have letters on it) but technically it is a quote and it’s a Throne of Glass quote so I HAD to do it. I love it so much and think it came out great and if that isn’t enough, my little tweeted it at Sarah J Maas and Sarah LIKED IT!!!!!

That was everything and did I spoil her? Maybe. But I was trying to live up to the fabulous Big Little Week she gave me and almost everything in there was a personal gift of something that helped bring us together so I’ll just say she was worth it. Needless to say I think she was pretty excited…

The Biggest Book Hangover Ever…

So it has now been exactly 1 month since I finished Sarah J Maas’s new book A Court of Mist and Fury (ACOMAF), the second book in her A Court of Thorns and Roses series. Since then I’ve had at least 3 books I’ve been waiting at least a year for to come out but that doesn’t matter because I am still hopelessly and completely hooked on ACOMAF. And the first book in the series did this to me too, though not nearly as bad. Although after ACOTAR I didn’t think it was amazing, I thought it was good. But then I found myself rereading it day after day, and must have reread it 3 or 4 times in the first week after I finished it and realized I was hooked more than I was willing to admit to myself.

If you read the book then you know it was fabulously written and Sarah absolutely killed it while showing important topics and developing meaningful relationships and
characters.Plus the en was feels on feels on feels like really really bad (see image). But I’m not looking to spoil anyone in this post if you haven’t read it yet (if you have read my review here!). I’m just looking to vent how oppressive my book hangover has been for the past month with the help of some hilarious and extremely fitting memes (thank you pinterest).

 

 
So, like I said it’s been a month and I’m currently reading 3 other books but none of them
feel right. Every single book I pick up just isn’t what I want even if it’s good because all I want is more ACOMAF. Literally the moment I finished the book I started rereading it and after I did that (more than once) I was looking for fanfic. I have NEVER immediately looked for fanficon a book. In fact, I don’t actually read it that often and the only thing I’ve ever really looked at it for is The 100 which is the last thing I was this hopelessly obsessed with. But anyway I was
scouring the internet for quality fics that took everything that happened in the second book into account, not just the first and found all of 3. Then I
was checking them every day to see if they updated because I needed MORE and was always hopelessly disappointed (did I mention it was my finals week?).

Now I will preface this by saying I don’t have a tumblr, don’t understand how to use it and have never wanted one. That said, since finishing ACOMAF I have had a tumblr page open on my laptop and phone for the past month. It is the page of a tumblrer (tumblie?) who is writing a third ACOTAR book fic and it is what I need in my life. She puts up a chapter a day so I refresh this page 5-15 times a day. And once the chapter goes up I will drop
EVERYTHING to read it. I have also just gotten in the habit of reading everything she posts about ACOMAF/ACOTAR or “reblogs” (again, I don’t tumble) because I need everything ACOMAF. I have even gone onto tumblr and searched “ACOMAF” just so I can look at all the posts about it. That is how bad this book hangover still is.

I honestly do not know what to do with myself. The next book doesn’t come out until May 2017 and even worse than that it will be THE LAST book in this series so it will kill me twice. Honestly I’m such a mess right now all because this one book just came into my life and killed me. I am dead, deceased, bereft of life, pushing up daisies all because I can’t get over the feels from this damn book. SOS

 

Wish me luck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming Into Your Nerdiness

Most people think college is the time to grow out of all your weird high school quirks. Did you ever imagine college would be the place you grow into them? For me high school was always about what the cool kids were doing. What clothes did they wear? What did they do for fun? What could I do to fit in with the cool kids?

And sure I still had all my nerdy quirks. I pretty much discovered the world of YA fiction in 11th grade after I finished the Hunger Games and started reading way too many books way too fast (something I had not done since Twilight in 8th grade). My friend Sarah and I loved to see all the Marvel movies as they came out because we both loved super hero movies.

I had always been obsessed with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings from an early age, but I had never really let my “fandom pride” show before.

And then I went to college.

My first semester of college I started watching Game of Thrones and was immediately obsessed. But none of my friends watched it so I never really talked about it. This was the year I discovered “Booktube” on youtube. Polandbananasbooks became a staple for me and I took all my book recommendations from her. I liked reading books she had videos on because it felt like I finally had someone to discuss them with; someone who understood. Now I wasn’t a loser of a total shut in if that’s what you’re thinking.I went out, drank, had 3am pizza and did all the fun “college things” and honestly enjoyed it. I had new friends but they just  had 1 new friend who also loved LOTR so we could nerd out about it a bit, and another who liked superhero movies. But it was my sophomore year of school that I was able to grow into my proud nerdiness. All my friends at school knew how much I read and I can’t say any of them felt the same or read any of the books I did. But it was when I joined a sorority that I finally found my people.