Just in case anyone still checks here, I'm happy to send you a Christmas card dear LJ friends!

Just fill out this form please.

Hope you're all doing well this year!

Well as usual I have fallen very behind in attempting to post on LJ. I don't have too much to update on at this point but here are a few things:

I am going to the ATX Television Festival in a month and my hope is I can be part of the Gilmore Girls panel by just being in the room. It's going to be high stakes since I know SO MANY people want to get in.

Pitch Perfect 2 is out this weekend and I cannot wait to see it! I hope it is good. I know sequels can be faulty but if I enjoy myself half as much as I did during the first one, I think I will be happy.

Helga, my dog, is doing well. She had to have 17 teeth removed in April so it was a rough month for her. I'm trying to now brush her teeth two or three times a week in order to help the few teeth she has left. It was a costly experience so I am going to do whatever preventative measures I can to make sure this doesn't happen again if possible. She had really, really bad oral health "care" as a mill dog so please know I did not let my dog's teeth get that bad naturally. I would never do that to an animal.

I am going to San Francisco at the end of June for the American Library Association conference. I am SO EXCITED this year because I have never been to San Francisco. YES, I will be visiting the Full House house. I'm hoping to do a few other touristy things in between my meetings.

My weight loss journey continues. Had a few fails recently unfortunately but I'm trying to get back on track this month. I am truly addicted to sugar and I just don't know how to break that. Giving up soda was like a walk in the park compared to sugar.

In TV news... I am still watching Friends reruns like crazy (though I wish they were the DVD versions on Netflix, alas). I LOVE LOVE LOVE The 100. Teen Wolf, of course! I'm keeping up with Game of Thrones and I am excited for Fear the Walking Dead. I'm NOT sad that the Mindy Project was cancelled and I would be fine if it didn't make a jump to Hulu.

Other than that, it's been a pretty normal year so far. Work annoys me quite a bit and the busy time of year is starting up soon with the arrival of summer reading. I despise summer reading because I am one person doing the job of like 10. Oh well, at least after summer comes fall.

How are you all doing this year?

I'm still around friends, I promise. I know it doesn't seem that way but honestly my life is fairly boring so I don't want to dull you all with what I do after work every day (which is not much, lol).

Some cool happenings for me though:

1. I'm going to New York Comic Con in October! I cannot wait!! It will be my second NYC trip this year. I can't get enough of this city.

2. I saw If/Then and Once when I was in NYC in May and they were spectacular.

3. It has been a fairly cool summer here in Minnesota which has been so wonderful. On July 14, the high was 59!! I am totally in love with summer this year because it's been so much more comfortable.

4. In the "not cool happenings" section, I've had 2 ear infections and a bad case of strep throat this summer however. The strep really knocked me out. I was off for like 2.5 days of work which is a lot (plus the weekend) to recuperate. Let me tell you, strep as an adult is not at all fun, much like it wasn't fun as a kid.

5. Summer has been crazy at work as is usual. Busy, busy. I come home exhausted which unfortunately has me slacking on my exercise.

6. I was in Las Vegas at the end of June for a conference and got to meet cookiekel which was fantastic! I met a lot of other librarian friends too and that was the highlight of Vegas which was TOO HOT (110 most days) and TOO MANY people. Not going back there ever again.

7. I'm now addicted to Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

8. I'm currently re-reading the entire Harry Potter series. I'm on book 3 (Prisoner of Azkaban, my fave!) right now.

I think that's about it. As I said, life is pretty normal for me. No great dramas, just lots of going to work, coming home, rinse and repeat. I'm excited for NY in October though. I have decided I want to travel more and I am thinking of going to Greece next year with two friends. I just need to save up my money.

How are you all doing?

So yeah, I swear I am still alive. First post of 2014 ftw!

I have fallen down the Teen Wolf rabbit hole and that's about all I think of nowadays.

I have rekindled my love for tumblr so feel free to follow me: http://whtabtpineapple.tumblr.com

Um, yeah, not much else going on. I AM however having some moderate success at weight loss so for that, I am happy. Thank you Treadmill and Netflix!

Feel free to message or email me or anything! I swear I will have a more lengthy post coming soon.

Hello dear friends! I promise, I am alive and kicking still. (Do I say that with every entry now??). miss_sarac mentioned I haven't posted in a long time and when I looked at my archives, I was shocked to see I have not posted since July. For shame Sarah!

So, what has been happening you ask? Not too much. I am slowly acclimating to my new house and trying to find cheap but fun ways to decorate it. I will post pictures soon, I promise! I can't find my regular camera still and while my phone takes good pictures, it's not quite the same.

I don't know if I mentioned this here (I've done so on Twitter and Facebook) but I got a new cat in early August. He is a buff colored male cat that I named Arthur Ronald, named after Arthur Weasley (though his middle name is obviously not Ronald). Arthur is a great cat and he gets along pretty well with Stella. They do a lot of play fighting. The only weird thing about him is that he refuses to be held. If I so much as pick him up, he squirms to get down. He loves to cuddle up with me but he so does not want to be held. I hope he grows out of it because I do like to hold my cats once in awhile.

In somewhat sadder pet news, my mom put down my cat Toby (who still lived at her house) this past Thursday. He was 16 years old and not doing very well. My mom had to hook him up to saline every other day in order to get some liquid in his body. His kidneys were not functioning much anymore and he hardly ate or went to the bathroom. He didn't appear to be in pain but he was very, very slow and obviously not doing well. I am fortunate that I was able to say good-bye to him over my birthday weekend. He was a great cat and will definitely be missed.

My birthday was this month and I kind of went incognito and shut down my Facebook and Twitter. I wanted a low-key birthday since I am not exactly thrilled at turning 31. Still no significant other in my life and I am starting to wonder if that will ever happen for me. My low self-esteem and basic distrust of people makes it really difficult to meet men. I am working on this with my therapist still, but it is tough. Plus, I live in a small community which does not help. There is nothing wrong with being single for the rest of my life, I know there is not, but I guess part of me would like to meet someone.

I carved a pumpkin today which I haven't done in years. It was a lot of fun though I didn't exactly have the best knives for doing it. I was careful though because I was kind of afraid of cutting my fingers, lol. You can see it here I think:( Pumpkin carving 101Collapse )

I am getting very excited for Halloween this week though. I am hoping I will get some trick-or-treaters at my new house. I bought a little candy, nothing major because my neighbors are all old but my next door neighbor said she usually gets a few kids. And I'll have my carved pumpkin on my front step. It will be fabulous!

I am of course also excited to start decorating for my absolute favorite holiday, Christmas. I have already started listening to Christmas music like crazy, as per usual for this time of year.

Life as a whole is going fine though. I am in the tough stages of committee work for the Printz committee (through YALSA) and that involves a lot of reading so most of my free time is going towards reading. I cannot wait until I can stop reading YA books for awhile!

I do want to share with you all my absolute favorite book of the year and one I think many of you may enjoy given your connections to fandom. YOU MUST READ Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I'm sure a lot of you have heard of Eleanor & Park by her which is definitely great, but Fangirl is just superb! Ask for it for Christmas! It won't let you down.

I know I don't post nearly enough to Livejournal anymore, which I of course always want to change but never seem to do. But you can find me in several other places: Twitter | Goodreads | Facebook | Instagram (I am definitely most active on Twitter).

I wish I could say I lead a super exciting life but the reality is, I work, come home and read, relax a bit, go to bed, and do it all over again the next day. It's not a bad thing because I like routine. I do have one exciting trip coming up. I am going to Duluth in early December to see a really spectacular village of Christmas lights. This is right up my alley of Christmas awesome so I cannot wait! I am also going to Philadelphia in January for a conference. Traveling to a cold place in winter is not exactly awesome but I am glad to be back on the east coast which I love.

Finally, I am NOT enjoying the last season of How I Met Your Mother which is sad. I had such high hopes.

I hope you are all doing well! I promise if you comment I will actually answer because I miss all of you!

So, I just finished watching the Gossip Girl series finale.

That show. I remember LOVING it in its earliest seasons than eventually losing interest. But just watching it makes me feel younger again. I started watching it right after I graduated from undergrad and was starting my MLIS.

That seems like a lifetime ago now. And I had just visited New York City for the first time when the pilot aired. It just made me happy to be able to see so many of the places I had visited.

I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the series finale. Since I'm not that invested in the show anymore, I just sat back and enjoyed and you know, I was happy for Serena, Blair and company.

Gossip Girl went out with just the bang I needed it to.

XOXO, Gossip Girl

You know, I never, ever gave credence to the whole Mayan end of days thing.

But then today, a madman stepped into an elementary school and killed 27 people, most of those people only young kids.

I guess I believe a little bit more that end of days truly could be here.

Trying to remain hopeful, I'm praying and wishing for change but it gets a bit harder when innocent lives are lost so casually, like they were nothing.

How can I stop her from playing with her water dish and spilling water all over the kitchen EVERY SINGLE DAY???

It's a very heavy water dish too let me just say. I use this big salad bowl because her old water dish was too easy for her to tip over. But now she just finds new ways to get the water out.

She hasn't done this is in over a year so I don't know why she is starting again but it's driving me INSANE.

Any suggestions?

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I like to dissect how horrible the characters are to each other. And hey, I know all the songs by heart!