Wow.

So I know when I said that it would probably be a while before I got back to blogging on a regular basis I did not mean to completely drop off the face of the blogging earth and just not blog for a whole month. But that's what happened, so I mean, there isn't much I can do about it now, haha.


Mostly school, pups. Yeah, I realized about the first week of April that I had like four weeks to save my GPA so that's where my time went. So far, it's paid off. I'm out of school now (finals week was lit) and I'm waiting for my final grades to be posted, but right now I have three out of four A's, so maybe this girl can maintain her 4.0. Maybe. English is stressing me out a bit because my teacher didn't post any of the grades during the semester, my final paper was a hot mess, and I have B's on most of the library literacy quizzes. Stressful stuff this is.

However, I do plan to write a post about my college experience so far, so I won't share too much about this semester. I've taken two semesters of college classes so far and now I have lots to share! If you have any questions you would like to ask, drop them in the comments and I will answer them. (They don't have to be serious questions. I'm totally up for questions like "worst experience," "weirdest experience," or "strangest study habit." That may or not be foreshadowing.) The more questions you ask, the more fun we'll have! :D

Okay, so I've only driven once so far. My dad took me to the empty parking lot of one of the elementary schools nearby so I could practice. At a glance it doesn't seem that hard, but I swear it's like Rainbow Road over there. I did very well on the speed bumps; not so much on the sharp turns. At one point I was trying to turn around and pulled into this little section of parking spaces, but then I realized the van was too big to turn in that small space. So I ended up accidentally acing my parking skills. (Skill 3, mind you. We hadn't even passed 1 yet.)

Aside from driving, I was working on my college transfer application and getting a job (which I still don't have yet. Prayers are appreciated.) but honestly there's not much other than that. I did participate in Camp NaNoWriMo, but I wrote my English paper as my project (I won, btw #yeet) so there isn't really too much exciting stuff there unless y'all are dying to know what my paper was about. XD On a totally random note, I've been listening to waaay too much Sigrid, ARIZONA, and Banners. What have you been listening to recently?

So I thought it would be a good idea to let y'all know I've still been reading everyone's posts. So here are links to ten posts that helped keep me sane last month:

Good afternoon guys! This post is going to be pretty loose, and I'll tuck in a few life updates either at the beginning or the end of this post, but yay! Both Nicole Dust @Legend of a Writer and Lilian @green tea with books tagged me ages ago for the #CoverLove. Thank you for the tag, girls! :D

So before we jump into that, the content survey for 2019 is still open! If you have not filled it out, please please please take a couple of minutes to do so. The responses I've gotten so far have been super helpful in my planning (thank you guys! <3), but I don't have enough responses yet to get a good grasp on where this blog needs to go. If you have not taken it yet, here is the link:


Or you can go to my previous post through this link and fill it in on the blog. I will also be adding the survey to a separate page for a few weeks until I close it. Your feedback and input is invaluable to me as a writer, and every bit you have to offer will help improve this blog for you.



I've been pretty absent from the blogosphere and Instagram for the past week, and a lot of it is because I haven't had time to sit down and be on the Internet. My brother left on a two-year church mission this week, so I spent a lot of time with my family before he left. On Monday we went to the beach and did family photos, and on Tuesday we went to Orlando for an entire day. Wednesday we had to wake up super early in the morning to drop my brother off at the airport and for the rest of the day we just crashed because we had been up and running like busy-bodies for two days straight and we're all crazy sleep-deprived. :P Honestly I don't remember what we did on Thursday. It's all a blurry memory with pizza being the only clear subject...oh! I spent the afternoon studying for my drivers permit test, which I'm hopefully going to pass take next week if the DMV is open. Yesterday was a whole day of last-minute Christmas shopping. Ugh, I still have to finish my shopping today, so I'm writing this post first thing so I don't forget. #igotyoucovered

I figured with all this stuff going on, I couldn't exactly fit in photo-shoots and blog posts. So the progress for this week? Um, basically it ended at studying the stats on the survey. I have to get some stuff done today and hopefully by next week I will be back to normal, busy life trashing my sister's bedroom with my photography stuff and hogging the family computer to write posts. ;P


So now the tag. Again, thank you Nicole and Lilian! <3

I had a lot of fun with this one. Nicole gave me the option of two different sets of questions and Lillian gave me one set, so I cherry-picked and smashed together the two sets of questions to make one ideal set for myself. Hehe. Also, that way I wouldn't have to write two separate tags. :)

• Thank the blogger who tagged you and link back to their blog.
• Create seven new #CoverLove questions or just use mine.
• Answer the seven questions your nominator gave you. (like I said before,this is a #CoverLove question mashup, but I will put both sets of questions below along with the one I made so y'all have options.)
• Nominate seven other bloggers and let them know they’ve been tagged. (Um, so I suck at nominations, but I'll try. XD)

I literally only checked it out from my library because I fell in love with the cover. I mean, just look at that color scheme!! And the concept!! And just ahhhhh the digital paining is gorgeous!! Unfortunately I didn't finish the book, but the cover is just...*swoons*




Of course I had to stuff an Ally Carter book in this post! I don't remember if I've actually read this one or not, but it is pink and there's nothing in the rules that says you have to have read the books. Also, I'm not usually partial to pink but I do really like this particular shade (there are quite a few pink Gallagher Girls books).



I'm not going to lie—I adore this book. I love it so much that I've read it multiple times and I bought two copies of it because one wasn't enough. But that cover...*facepalm* It's not on my list of aesthetic goals. :/




My childhood is encompassed in this book. I think it was also one of the very first books I ever got that was my own. It's a super cute book, and honestly I still read it sometimes when I need that extra dose of childhood. :P



Okay, so it was either this or An Enchantment of Ravens, but I love the illustration on this and the way the dragon is painted and ahhhhhhhhh!! I'm a sucker for illustrations on YA book. XD



This one always takes me back in time. I don't read it often, but when I do, I notice things that I didn't the first time. I can actually understand things better now that I'm much older, and it's super cool to look back and think about how I perceived it the first time I read it compared to how I perceive it now. I also like to think I grew up alongside Sara Crewe. ;)



Okay, so this particular shade of green is not my favorite, but this cover!! *flails* For some reason I really really really love the color scheme. I just have to wait for forever for my library to finally get the book. DX

So now nominations...I think I'll nominate the first seven commenters who can come up with a good (or bad; perspective is relative XD) book pun. ;)  


And that wraps up this post! I wish you a merry Christmas wherever you are and I hope you get to spend lots of time with your family.Remember the reason for the season and do something special for them. <3





NOTE: I do not own any of the above images. All images to respective owners. Link-backs to sources included.

Have you ever felt like life was swallowing you whole? If you said yes, yay! now we can be buddies! *high five* Unfortunately, being overwhelmed comes with the distinct feeling of wanting to jump through the window the moment life sneak attacks us. And honestly, being overwhelmed is overwhelming, especially if you're someone who likes to have everything under control *cough*like me*cough*. This semester has been crazy—going to my local community college and having deadlines for the first time, college responsibilities and career planning, my brother preparing for a two-year church mission, and me trying to expand my blog—and things...got out of hand. And then for some reason I thought it would be a smart idea to take on NaNoWriMo. So I shouldn't be stumped about why my mood has been "run away" for the past month and a half. XD

We get overwhelmed when we take on too much. I like to have a lot of things going on at the same time because it makes me feel productive, but if I take on too much like I did this semester, then I lose focus and life gets wacky. Thankfully I've had enough sense to do something about it over the last week and a half. XD I thought up an "Operation: get life back on track" emergency plan! It works because I've been feeling waaay more relaxed about life. Hey, I even got up the energy to write this blog post! :D


So first things first, I face the facts. I took on too much and now I have all these random emotions bottled up. To clear up the emotions, I write about them. The rants in my journals read something like "asdfghjkl help I wanna scream," but writing about my emotions helps me sort out what I'm feeling, and once I've spilled, I have a clear enough head to separate myself from the problem and brainstorm  how to move forward.

Next, I make a plan to avoid feeling so overwhelmed again. I really don't like to cut any activities because cutting creative outlets makes me stressed, so I look at different ways to work the problem. I've realized that my biggest problem has consistently been that I suck at time management. Y'all, I think I'm organized but nope! XD Life has this way of constantly surprising us with things about ourselves.

I'm trying to commit myself to using to-do lists everyday to keep me focused. I have an app called To-Do that lets me create different lists for different priorities. Then everything for the day pops up on one big list. By examining how many tasks I actually complete in a day, I get a visual representation of my limits. Using to-do lists also helps me gauge how much time I'm spending on nonsense, like thirty-seven-minute challenge videos on YouTube or repeatedly scrolling through the same photos on my Instagram feed.

Getting things done ahead of time also is also life-saving. I've really had to buckle down and get my act together because I have semester finals coming up and I have to take the ACT that same week, so I'm doing every homework assignment I can before then so I can focus on studying for tests. Hopefully by doing this, the stress I feel will be minimal.*

*HAHAHA dream on, sweetie.

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I also have to make sure that I'm taking care of myself. When I get overwhelmed, I tend to disconnect from social life, which isn't always a good thing. Social media, blogging, and texting make me feel so much pressure to interact with people and I just don't. want. to be. social.** I've noticed that it's not because my social battery is drained, but because communicating with other people takes up too much time that I don't have—remember? I'm overwhelmed. I deal with this by giving myself time to breathe from everything else. I take an hour to focus on people and social stuff, and then I return to getting myself on track.

Other important things are eating whole, nutritious meals, drinking plenty of water, and getting enough sleep. When I do those things, they make a world of difference in how much I feel I can tackle during the day.

**Where's the nearest tower? I'm locking myself inside and not coming out for eighteen years. 


Finally I have to stop myself from making everything a priority; balance is super important! School is a priority, but so is mental health, which includes creative outlets. So I can't exactly cut off all creative outlets if I want to stay sane enough to study. But school is definitely the bigger one. So the solution would be to study and then take a couple of breaks every day to do something fast and fulfilling, like sketching a design, writing story snippets, or spending twenty minutes on the piano (I can't really take much more. XP #tanglyfingers ). I also refrain from starting large projects that take a lot of concentration and time until the higher prioritized task at hand is complete. For example, I want to plan and produce at least half of the content on this blog for the next six months,*** but I'm waiting to start until I'm on my four-week break in December and don't have to focus on classes.

***O_O Yikes that's a massive project, hahaha *sweats nervously* Hey, but it's for you guys (<333) and the survival of my sanity #create #yeet

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I'm trying harder to not to take on more than I can. Sometimes I can't tell what is too much, and that's okay, because I'm still young and I need to learn my limits. But it's nice to have an emergency process to go through when I do get overwhelmed. So now it's your turn. 



I'm not exactly at my normal creative levels yet to bring this blog back to it's usual fun vibrance (guys, I've been away for so long, it makes me sad D'X O.o) but once finals are over, I can finally settle into my old blogging routine and hopefully have posts up every weekend. :)

OH and guess what??!! I finally got an Instagram for my blog! My username is @wildpennings if you're interested in following me. Thank you so much to those who have already followed me there! Your support means so much to me. <333 If you have a blogging Instagram account, drop your username in the comments and I'll check it out!