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Looking Back on 2012

Yes, this is a “reflection post” on the year that was. I know everyone does these and it’s for good reason. Writing goals in a journal is one thing, putting them on the internet for all the world to see and hold you accountable for is another. I wrote a post early this year for what I hoped to achieve in 2012, they were:

1) Read 50 books.
2) Start graduate school
3) Decorate my home
4) Use my camera more
5) Blog more

So how did I do? Overall I think I did pretty good but not as great as I’d hoped.

1) I read a total of 32 books, which is awesome! In 2011 I only read 29, so I made some headway. I could have made 50 if I hadn’t spent time with books I really wasn’t into. I have a hard time giving up on a book, which is silly, but once I start I’m in it for the long haul. One of the books I decided to read, 1Q84, was extremely slow and I never quite got into it… but I kept reading because I felt I had to like it since it was well reviewed. I eventually did stop reading this but not until I wasted a few weeks. This year I vow not to waste my time on things I don’t find interesting! This year my goal is to reach 50 and I WILL do it.

2) Start graduate school. Yeah definitely didn’t do that. I did take the GRE and applied to a graduate program, but I messed up on my application. I did have time to resolve the application issue but I didn’t care to, probably a sign I’m not ready to get back into school. I’m still working out what I really want to do with my life (the most daunting task for every human being) so I’m going to hold off on spending mucho dinero at school until I figure out what that is.

3) Decorate my home. I think Richard and I did a great job on our house this year. My reading nook is complete! I’ll be posting picture soon. We also gave the outside of our house a complete makeover with new siding and painted our guest room. Next up for our little Cape Code: A new front door is being installed in a couple weeks, finishing up our new movie room (my dream!), buying a new couch for our new furniture-less living room, and renovating our upstairs bathroom. Slowly but surely we’re giving our house much needed improvements and making it our own.

4) Use my camera more. Ehhhh, I don’t really feel like I accomplished this. Sure I used my camera when we went on vacation and at Christmas time, but I didn’t complete Project 52, I didn’t go on any photo walks and I haven’t been blown away by any of the pictures I’ve taken. I think I have this fear that I have no “eye” for photography so what’s the point? I’m so negative, it’s unreal. Maybe I don’t have an eye for it and I should be OK with that and just enjoy it anyways. Yes, that’s what I’ll do.

5) Blog more. FAIL! I feel like I rarely have time to blog, but that’s not really true I just don’t make time for it. This is definitely something I must continue to work on as I really enjoy writing and know I have a few loyal blog followers.

Did you accomplish everything you set out for in 2012?

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Sleepyhead: A Review of Philips Wake Up Light.

Like most well adjusted adults, I hate waking up early with a passion. So called “morning people” are just high functioning vitamin D addicts. The idea that people enjoy waking up before, lets say 10 am, is completely mind boggling. What is natural is staying up late reading books or watching movies then sleeping in until your dogs wake you up with their barks of hunger.

If you haven’t caught on yet, I’m not a morning person. True story, when I was little my sister and her friend decided to play a mean trick on me. They came running into my room, proceeded to jump up and down on my bed yelling “FIRE! Amber, get up! The house is on fire!” Any normal child would get up and follow the emergency plan they spent hours practicing with their parents. Come to think of it my parents never had an emergency evacuation plan…. Way to go George and Sheils. Anyways, instead of getting up and crawling to the door to avoid smoke inhalation I told them “Go get Chris first.” Chris is my younger brother who I love very much but I assure you I did not want him to be rescued first out of love, I wanted a few more minutes of sleep.

Why am I sharing all of this? Because I want you to understand before you read the following review how much I hate getting out of bed. I’ve been working a lot of overtime recently, I’m talking 55-60 hour work weeks, and to avoid ruining my weekend I’ve been trying to get up earlier to start my work day by 730am (Don’t laugh, that’s REALLY REALLY early for me). Up until two months ago I’d been using my iPhone as my alarm clock, but it was too easy for me to grab my phone, shut the alarm off, check Twitter for any re-tweets (I’m always disappointed there are none) and go back to bed.

After deciding an iPhone was never going to get me motivated to start my day before the crack of dawn, we bought an old school bell alarm clock aka The Heart-Stopper. I put this thing on my dresser and every morning it would wake me with a heart attack, forcing me to get out of bed to shut it off. It had no snooze feature so Richard would be yelling “Hot shower! Hot shower!” so I wouldn’t get back into bed. For the most part the alarm worked but my sleep started to suffer. In anticipation of the daily 6am heart attack, I started waking up constantly before the alarm.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

My lovely friends recommended I try a dawn simulator. I bought the Philips Wake Up Light from Amazon with birthday money my mom gave me. These things aren’t cheap at a price point of $75-$100 – I better wake up feeling like I slept for hours and hours. Basically, I wanted to look like the lady on the box:

No one wakes up looking like this.

No one wakes up looking like this.

I’ve been using my Dawn Simulator for about a month now and here’s what I have to say about it.

PROS:

  • I wake up every morning slowly and without a heart attack
  • There is a good range of light to choose from and if you have it at the right setting, it really is a pleasure to open your eyes. I have the intensity set to Level 15/20. Any less and it takes me much longer to wake up as the room isn’t bright enough
  • I truly feel better rested even if I am not getting more sleep.
  • The version I bought has a “dusk simulator” which helps people fall asleep… I have no issue falling asleep so this feature is wasted on me.

CONS:

  • Price – it’s expensive and if I hadn’t have been given birthday money to buy it I probably would have returned it, not because I don’t like it but it doesn’t “WOW” me enough for $100. If you can afford it or want to splurge, I think it’s worth it. If you’re on a budget – find other solutions
  • Sometimes it works TOO well. Tuesday of this week I thought I *had* woken up by myself because of the sun. I woke up thinking it could only be Saturday since I didn’t wake up from an alarm. When I realized I did wake up from the Philips alarm and it was in fact 6am not 9am on a Saturday, a part of me died.
  • It needs more sounds to wake up to. You can choose between birds chirping and chimes… For $100 we deserve more sounds. Nay, for $100 I want Ryan Gosling whispering sweet nothings into my ear.

Are you a morning person? Have any tips for a budding morning person like myself?

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Ghosts Aren’t Real, Right You Guys?

The heading of my blog was also a tweet I posted on Thursday night. It was a half joking, half totally serious holy shit there is a ghost in my house kind of tweet. I’ve never been a believer in ghosts or an afterlife but being by myself this weekend had me questioning every single spiritual belief I’ve ever had. I went from “Pfft, how can there be ghosts if souls aren’t real!” to “Dear father, please send the demon back to hell and away from me in this hour of need.”

It’s amazing what being along in an old house will do you to your psyche. Richard was away in California from Thursday to Sunday, so I was forced to see to the well being of my self and our two fur children. Every creak and whoosh of the wind had me whining and posting ridiculous tweets like “Ghosts aren’t real, right you guys?” Richard suggested I have Dexter and Andy be my guard pups, but that idea was doomed from the start. Dexter kept staring at the front door with the most serious look on his face, as if Jason himself was waiting for me on the other side, his machete at the ready. Needless to say my dogs slept with me while Richard was gone. I’d much rather have Dexter jumping off the bed every hour, disturbing my sleep than waking up to find a masked killer or tortured ghost chillin’ at the end of my bed. Watching many episodes of Supernatural probably didn’t help. Sam and Dean are much better at dealing with ghosts than I am. Instead of consulting a cool ghost-book written by my dad, I’d run to the couch and hide under blankets.

My scary weekend culminated with a possible ghost encounter on Saturday night. After celebrating my friend Aparna’s 29th birthday (Happy Birthday, Aparna!), I headed home to watch Supernatural (natch) and after putting my boys in their hoagies to dry off from a rainy backyard romp, I heard someone whisper “HEY!” loudly in my ear. I promptly freaked out and ran to the couch to text Richard and hope Jason didn’t sneak in the back door when I was handling my pups. After checking the closets and running up to my bedroom I was able to calm down but couldn’t shake the feeling that someone, or something, whispered in my ear.

My friend Jordan says this was my first official ghost encounter, I’m reluctant to agree with her. I did a ghost tour of Mansfield Penitentiary in Ohio and didn’t hear any ghosts, why all of a sudden would one whisper “Hey!” in my hear?

So tell me dear readers, ghost aren’t real, right?

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Home Improvement: New Siding!

I am sooo excited to share these pictures. When we bought our house we knew we had to make two improvements to the outside in order for me to be satisfied 1) New windows (which we did right after we moved in) and 2) New siding.

Home Depot came by two weeks ago and installed our siding and it looks ah-mahzing! I was really worried about the colour choices. I knew I wanted lighter colour siding but wasn’t sure about doing the gutters/trim in another colour. The Home Depot salesman ensured me it would look awesome and Richard was confident but I wasn’t so sure. Now that it’s all done I think our little house looks polished and much more inviting.

BEFORE

AFTER

Dormer – BEFORE

Dormer – AFTER

Front – BEFORE

Front – AFTER

Side – BEFORE

Side – AFTER

Back – BEFORE

Back – AFTER

Doesn’t it look great?! Not sure what our next outdoor project will be. I really want to get a patio next spring so our backyard can stop looking like Detroit.

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Help Me Pick New Glasses!

I was so excited when my Warby Parker glasses arrived in the mail. They let you choose 5 frames from their site to try on for 5 days. Um, what a great idea! I am in desparate need of a new pair and want to go with a trendier style without paying a ton of money so Warby Parker was my go-to. Their banner ads are always popping up on my computer and a few friends on Twitter highly recommend them.

Now I need your help – which pair do you like the most?! Leave me a comment or send me a tweet @amberherself : )

I like the lighter color at the bottom.

Love the shape and the tortoise colour.

Not the biggest fan of these but maybe it’s just me. I feel bird-like.

Sleek!

Similar to Winston in shape.

I appreciate all of your feedback!

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Bookworm: 22 Books & What I Want You To Read.

I am KILLING it this year, you guys! On New Years Day I set a book reading goal for myself – a total of 50 books in 2012. 50 was an arbitrary number, especially since I only read 29 books in all of 2011 but I’m proud to say I’m on my way. It seems really nerdy to have a book reading goal, but I’ve always loved to read. I have fond memories bringing home really graphic dinosaur books, the ones with pictures showing a T-Rex ripping apart a smaller dinosaur – from the school library for my mom to read to me. The book I remember reading most as a child was Millicent and the Wind by Robert Munsch. The synopsis: Millicent lives a three-day walk from any other children, so she has no friends. But one day, the wind whispers her name, and Millicent discovers how much fun a friend can be. Totally describes my childhood. Just kidding.

I would have borrowers this one, for sure.

I’ve already read 22 books so far this year : ) I’m a little behind pace to reach 50 (I blame the super intense and LONG Clive Barker book I’m reading now) but I think I can make it. Since the year is almost halfway through I thought I’d share my most favourite books so far with you.

The 22 books I’ve read thus far listed in no particular order:

**The Fault in Our Stars by John Greene**

**Ready Player One by Ernest Cline**

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig

Sleepwalk With Me by Mike Birbiglia

**I Know I Am, But What Are You? by Samantha Bee**

The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

Nerd Do Well by Simon Pegg

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Specials (#3 in the Uglies Series) by Scott Westerfeld

****WARNING–> HERE LIES EMBARRASSING BOOKS***

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

Fifty Shades Darker by E.L. James

Fifty Shades Freed by E.L. James

****END OF WARNING***

Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith

Up in Honey’s Room: A Novel by Elmore Leonard

The Night Eternal (#3 in The Strain Trilogy) by Guillermo Del Toro

The Blood Spilt by Asa Larsson

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Pretties (#2 in the Uglies Series) by Scott Westerfeld

My taste is obviously diverse – from young adult science fiction to celebrity essays to Twilight fan fiction lady porn – it runs the gamut! My top three book recommendations for you dear reader are as follows… 50 Shades of… PSYCHE! I wouldn’t do that to you, even though the books are ridiculously hilarious. I’m recommending “I Know I Am, But What Are You” by Samantha Bee – hilarious! I laughed out loud with each chapter. Samantha has a really unique voice and out of the essay collections I read this year it’s easily my favourite. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline – you don’t have to be a pop culture aficionado to appreciate this brilliant piece of science fiction. The worlds (virtual and our own) created by Cline is so vivid and feels eerily possible given how quickly technology is advancing. Plus it has characters you really want to root for. I’ll definitely be revisiting this one. The Fault in Our Stars by John Greene – this one will definitely make you cry but you won’t care you’re going to keep reading. Pretty sure I cried throughout the entire last half of the book, non-stop. It deals with cancer in such a real way and since cancer touches everyone no reader will be left unaffected.

So there you have it! I hope some of you check out the books that I’ve read…even the 50 Shades of Grey series ;)