January 2019 Recap

Cold. That describes this month. While I'm writing this, it's about 10° outside. Yeah, I know it's probably colder elsewhere, but for Maryland, it's arctic. And I'm already a naturally cold person, so yeah, this is the human Popsicle speaking. (Comment on how cold it is where you are!)

What I Did

• Went to the March for Life. It was cold, but not too cold that day. I don't know how many people attended this year, but there seemed to be a lot. Like always, I marched in hope that next year I won't have to. Although things only seem to be getting worse with the act New York just passed, which is horrible.

• Had a fun New Year's Eve and Day staying up til midnight watching Taylor Swift's Reputation tour on Netflix and doing fondue. We also played Pictionary and my team lost. It was fun, though.

• Listened to lots of Broadway. Cats, Hamilton, Hairspray, and more. It was just one of those months.

• Other than that, I basically worked and was sick for the first few weeks of January. I haven't been the most productive, but it wasn't a terrible month. We also had a big snowstorm with 10" of snow.

Books

I read twelve books this month, which I think is pretty good. Being sick does have that one advantage. I feel like my reads varied between great and mediocre. (Click on the title to be taken to my Goodreads review and see my thoughts.)

Home- Sarah Prineas- 4 stars
Eliza and her Monsters- Francesca Zappia- 4 stars
The Fates Divide- Veronica Roth- 2 stars
Mrs. Smith's Spy School for Girls- Beth McMullen- 3 stars
A Map of Days- Ransom Riggs- 4 stars
Catwoman: Soulstealer- Sarah J. Maas- 4 stars
Entwined- Heather Dixon Wallwork- 3 stars
Watership Down- Richard Adams- 5 stars
Twice Magic- Cressida Cowell- 5 stars
The Initiation- Ridley Pearson- 3 stars
Marvel Rising- Devin Grayson- 3 1/2 stars

Movies

I watched quite a few new movies this month. My siblings were doing a study on Broadway musicals, so we watched a few new ones I'd never seen, which was awesome. I also caught up on a lot of TV shows.

The 'Frisco Kid (Harrison Ford and Gene Wilder in a comedy Western. Very funny and good.)

Ninjago seasons 8 and 9 (Also amazing. I need season ten immediately.)

3 Below season one (Not quite as good as Trollhunters, but still well done and funny.)

Oklahoma (Only could have been better if we could find the Hugh Jackman version.)

Hairspray (The 2016 live version and the 2007 movie. Both were good.)

Cellular (A thriller starring Chris Evans before he was Captain America that was surprisingly good.)

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (One of the best ones I've seen. Also, Jeremy Renner.)

Blog

• I've reached 90 followers on my blog Instagram. Maybe I'll get to one hundred soon?

• My most popular post this month was surprisingly my Q&A and Greatest Showman Book Tag. Probably because TGS is amazing.

Writing

It took me a while, but I finally got New Magic printed out so I can start revisions! I love being able to hold my novel in my hands. So far I've read through about a quarter of it with pencil and red pen in hand. I've also been doing a bit more worldbuilding (since I always run out of time to do that before I start writing.)

Art

• I bought myself a book at the end of 2018 that has a drawing prompt for each day of the year, and a theme for each month to encourage my art practice. I managed to do it most days in January. The nice thing is it only take 15 minutes a day, so you can have time to do other art.

• I completed this painting of a mum field near our house too. It's not quite as good as I would have liked, but I'm still happy with the final result.

February Thoughts

• Hopefully I get more done than I did this month. I know it's okay to have down months, and mine was mostly due to illness, but I want to feel more productive next month.

• I plan on trying to workout every day using a workout calendar from Blogilates. However, if I can't do it daily, it's okay. I just want to challenge myself.

• Finish reading through New Magic and start applying edits. And try to keep myself from writing a new novel.

• Complete a new art project. I'm not sure what I want to do yet, but I'll figure something out. Maybe this year I can draw the Fellowship of the Ring (a project I've wanted to do for a while).

What have you done this month? Watched or read anything good? Did something fun? Tell me in the comments.