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crown of midnight

If We Were Having Coffee: Recovering From the Spring 

Hello everyone! I hope you all are having a good day today. I know I haven’t made a coffee post in awhile. I’m sorry about that. I actually got sick so I’ve been doing the best to recover before writing another one of these. I hope all of you are doing well today. 

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve been quite the busy girl before I’d gotten sick. The weekend before I was sick, I went to a park with one of my friends. It was really nice, a perfect day to be outside and walk around. I think we walked two miles or so while we were there and it was a park we hadn’t gone to together before. It was nice though, one of the national parks in our area. I actually took quite a bit of pictures, some of which I’ll include below. 

In this picture, you can see some of the seating areas, along with the tree’s reflection through the water.

This picture is probably one of my favorites of the little stream we passed as we walked. 

I really like this picture because you can see the sun shining through the trees.

When we were there, I was joking with my friend about trying one of these canoes out. But he told me there was no way he was going to get into one of them.  

While these aren’t necessarily all of the pictures I’d taken while we were there, they are some of my best shots that I really enjoyed taking. This park was just such a beautiful sight to see and I can’t wait to go there again and take some more amazing pictures and walk among all the trees. 

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that even though I’ve been sick, I’ve still managed to keep myself busy. I’ve mostly been at work, but when I wasn’t working, I was at home, reading or getting back into watching Criminal Minds again. I also had the amazing opportunity to go to Dave & Buster’s for Valentine’s Day, which was quite a lot of fun.

The books I’ve read since I last did one of these posts are Crown of Midnight, the second book in the Throne of Glass series and The Girl On the Train. I just started reading The Lying Game on Friday, which so far is an okay read. I’ll talk more about it on here once I’ve finished reading it completely.

Other than that, I really haven’t been up to too much. Spring is finally upon us, which is probably why I wasn’t feeling quite so well for the past week. Luckily, I’m doing much better now so I can actually get back to doing some more writing in the near future. Also, this upcoming week is Spring Break at my college, which means I don’t have work this upcoming week! So I’m really excited to have a break from there. Trust me, it’s really much needed. 

Speaking of which, before I end this post, I have something exciting to share with you. One of my friends from college, who also has a WordPress blog I follow, has asked me to write a post for her blog. On her blog, she talks about psychology related stuff, with a focus on mental health. So with the post I’m doing for her blog, I decided to focus on my own mental illness journey and how reading has played an important role in it. With this post, I’ll be talking about a lot of personal stuff that I haven’t shared with any of you, but that has had a major impact on my life. It’s stuff I usually have a hard time talking about, but I’ve lately found myself more open to talk about lately. Anyway, she’s going to be posting it on her blog Tuesday, which when she does I’ll write my own post here about it. But if your curious and want to check out her blog, here is the link to it. She has a lot of good information regarding mental health so I highly recommend checking her out whenever you get the chance. 

Other than that, there really isn’t too much more left for me to say. I just returned home from a baby shower a couple minutes ago. One of my Mom’s friends adopted a baby completely out of the blue so we wanted to be at the shower to congratulate her and wish her well. But that’s petty much it for me. I hope you all are doing well today and having a fabulous weekend so far. I know I’m definitely looking forward to this time off. 

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Book Review: Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass #2) 

Rating: 4 stars

From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul as black as pitch. Assassin Celaena Sardothien won a brutal contest to become his Champion. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown. She hides her secret vigilantly; she knows that the man she serves is bent on evil.

Keeping up the deadly charade becomes increasingly difficult when Celaena realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. As she tries to untangle the mysteries buried deep within the glass castle, her closest relationships suffer. It seems no one is above questioning her allegiances—not the Crown Prince Dorian; not Chaol, the Captain of the Guard; not even her best friend, Nehemia, a foreign princess with a rebel heart.

Then one terrible night, the secrets they have all been keeping lead to an unspeakable tragedy. As Celaena’s world shatters, she will be forced to give up the very thing most precious to her and decide once and for all where her true loyalties lie… and whom she is ultimately willing to fight for.

Like Throne of Glass, I found that I enjoyed reading this book. I found the story to be captivating, wanting to find out what Celaena would do after the competition. She is exactly the same character I remember from this book’s predecessor, except she does go through some development of her own whenever an unfortunate event occurs with one of her dearest friends in the castle. Her development was a shift I never saw coming and made me appreciate her character even more.  

One element of Crown of Midnight I enjoyed was the emotional pull I felt as events unraveled. A lot of things happened in this book. While I sometimes had a hard time keeping track of everything, I felt like there was a lot more deeper emotions in this one than I experienced in Throne of Glass. I think part of it is because as Celaena continues to stay at the castle, she starts becoming closer to the people around her. To the point when something happens to them, she does everything in her power to protect those who she holds dear. 

I also enjoyed seeing the politics at play in this series. Celaena is conflicted throughout about her actions and that the king will find out what she’s done. She’s stuck between making a lot of serious choices, resulting in consequences occurring that shake up her character. In this book, we finally see an emotional side to Celaena that we haven’t experienced before. She feels pain, regret and anger at some of the choices she’s made, but ends up continuing to do everything in her power to fix her wrongs. To the point where some of her serious relationships falter due to the hurt and pain she’s experiencing. 

Another favorite part of this book for me was seeing Dorian’s character continue to grow. He’s the king’s son, yet he’s completely different from his father altogether. The way his development progressed surprised me because Maas changed him in ways I didn’t see coming. But they are changes that made sense to me in the overall story. 

Like with Throne of Glass, so much happens in this book, which I see as both a good and bad thing. It’s good because the story is progressing in ways I didn’t see coming. But it’s bad because it can sometimes make it hard to continue reading, due to the overwhelming amount of information presented. 

I also found myself wondering what the king’s perspective is of everything going on. Yes, I get he’s not heavily involved with some of these events, but they do impact him too. Especially the magical elements that are included in the story. I know he’s technically the villain so he’s not going to have a bigger role in the story arch until things really start rolling, but I think it would’ve been nice to see what his perspective is of what’s going on in his castle. It’s his kingdom so I feel like he’d definitely have some clue as to what’s going on at some point in the story. 

However, Crown of Midnight  was still a fantastic read. I enjoyed all of the fantasy elements in the story and I feel like the characters are continuing to make me invested in what’s going to happen next. I can’t wait to read the next book in this series to see where Celaena’s journey takes her.  

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If We Were Having Coffee: Super Bowl Sunday Weekend 

Hi everyone! I hope you’re having a great weekend so far and that this week hasn’t been too bad for you. 

If we were having coffee, I’d let you know why I haven’t been writing as much on my blog. I’d tell you my laptop is permanently unusable and that I need to get a new one. I’ve been using my tablet for all of my writing needs and will continue to do so until I have enough money saved up to get one. But until then, I’ll continue doing the best I can to bring some fresh content to my blog in the near future. 

I’d also tell you about work. It’s been okay these last couple weeks. I still feel the same way about my job as I did last year. But I’m actually trying the best I can this time around to stay positive and not let all of the negative energy there affect me. Some days it’s easier said than done for me. But the good thing is that the hours have changed to where I’ll be getting off work earlier than I used to. There aren’t as many students here this semester so they’ve been cutting hours. And I also did ask about getting off earlier because it’s easier for Mom and I. It saves her gas money and she doesn’t have to worry about going back and forth to come and get me. Plus, it gives us a couple extra hours to spend together at home. And so far, it’s been a really great change to my schedule. It allows me a little time at home to relax before bed away from work and I don’t have to deal with whatever is going on at work when I’m not there. I also go in earlier too so I’m not hanging around, waiting for my shift to start. 

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I feel like things have been crazy here. Not here as in my life, but in the United States of America. I don’t want to get too political on here, but I do feel like this briefly needs to be addressed. Ever since Trump has been sworn in, I’ve just been feeling a little uneasy. Also more aware of what’s been going on by reading more of the news on a daily basis. I know it’s mostly because I’m not at all a Trump supporter (and probably never will be) and because the things he’s doing aren’t necessarily great or going to really benefit our country in any way. I don’t know what’s going to happen in these next couple years, and I’m trying too hard not to think about what he’s done already. I just know I’m feeling angry about him being our president because of the choices he’s already making and also mentally preparing myself for what’s to come next. I just don’t think he’s going to make a good leader for our country. But unfortunately, we are stuck with him right now. 

Anyway… I’d also want to tell you that I’ve slowly but surely started back to reading again. Just with these new work hours, I haven’t done as much with my free time as I’d have liked. Mostly been watching some of my favorite Youtubers play Undertale. But now I’m continuing to read Crown of Midnight, the second book in the Throne of Glass series I’ve started. I’ve also since this weekend started playing the game Fire Emblem Heroes on my phone. I saw someone I follow on Twitter posting pictures of their team in the game and it intrigued me enough to want to play it too. I also was interested in playing it because I’ve never played any of the Fire Emblem games, but have always wanted to. So that’s something I’m going to do now with this game. Once I’ve played it for a little while, I’ll post my review of it here on my blog for you all to enjoy.

And that’s mostly it. This weekend is also the Super Bowl, which I’m not too excited about because I don’t like football as much as I used to. I do however have family that lives in Boston so I know they will be cheering on the Patriots to win this game. But even though football isn’t really my thing, I hope everyone that does enjoys the game enjoys what’s left of the weekend. 

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