Hello from an absolutely gorgeous day in September! The weather here is beautiful: the sun is shining, there are a few fluffy clouds in the sky, there’s a light breeze, and it’s a perfect 80 degrees. Ah- bliss… Today all of the windows have been thrown open, and my screen doors are free to the world. I am truly enjoying this wonderful day!

With many thanks to Anna Beth and Jill, who brought up 4? boxes of books when they visited that I couldn’t initially bring up myself, I had many more books to fill my bookshelves in my apartment. However, that was not the extent of my full book collection, and when my mom visited in August, she brought up the rest of my books. Now my bookshelves are overflowing!! :)

I’ve taken today to finish organizing my bookshelves, and I thought it’d be fun to share a few of my childhood favorites that I’m re-remembering with you all! I’ve also had a fantastic week with regard to discovering new, fantastically diverse music, so I want to share some of my favorites with you all here too! Without further ado…

• The Scarlet Slipper Mystery –Carolyn Keene
  I loved growing up with the Nancy Drew mystery series! I have so many different release versions of book in the series, and I love them all dearly. Many were passed down to me from family member to family member… I love the classics! This particular mystery was one of my favorites in the later series, purely because of the following passage:
  
  They had not gone far when Nancy asked for an explanation of what he had done.
  “I don’t trust that guy,” Ned replied.
  “But what was the idea of giving him an impression like that?”
  “Impression like what?” Ned asked in some surprise.
  “Anyone who heard you would think we’re husband and wife. Especially a man like Renee.”
  Ned laughed heartily. “Well, someday I hope it’ll be true. And for your information I hope he’ll think we’re married now. If he’s a spy or a kidnapper, as I suspect, he’d better not find out your name is Drew!”
  
  Nancy + Ned = Forever. They truly were my first OTP.
• Into the Wild – Erin Hunter
  This first book of the Warriors series was a reward from Barnes and Noble for completing the library’s summer reading plan! I remember having a shelf of books to choose from and choosing this one about cats, never realizing that it would be the start of an amazing series!! I wish I was in Thunderclan…
• Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
  I “inherited” the unabridged version from random relatives when I was 6 or 7 and loved reading it, even if I didn’t quite understand all of the words. The fantastically clever ending makes me smile every time I read it. :D

To the music!!!

Aaaaaaaaaaand if this blog was too long...

TL;DR: I leave you with this- my favorite new song discovery from the week. It’s a rustic folk classical song by Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile on their album The Goat Rodeo Sessions. This is actually a video of them performing it in a studio- watch and be amazed!!! If you only listen to one of the above songs, LISTEN TO THIS ONE! (/watch too!)

Love you guys!
Amber

“Attaboy” –The Goat Rodeo Sessions

Hello from the land of the WEEKEND, friends! I can't tell you how happy I am that it's the weekend.... Well, on second thought, I can. That's the point of this blog! I missed my first blog since we started this project last Saturday. It wasn't for lack of thinking about blogging, as I remembered to blog about 10 times that day. However, I actually spent 12 hours last Saturday in front of my computer doing work for my job. I then spent another 6 hours on Sunday continuing said work. It was mayhem, but you know- it needed to be done. What's a girl to do with deadlines?! So I presume that's as good of an excuse as ever.
I was quite intrigued that my twin gave us a format for blogging this week! So glad to see you back, friend! Without further ado, my answers:

Q: What is your earliest memory?
A: I have two answers to this. My actual earliest memory is the only memory I have of my grandfather. I was sitting on his lap and and laughing with him and then went over to see one of his beautiful 2 ft hand crafted boats he made. His hobby was to make these elaborate and delicate boats and planes that were exact miniatures of real military boats and planes. They were gorgeous, and after his death, some of them went to a museum in DC.
My other answer is the memory that I always think is my first memory until I remember that being with my grandfather would have had to have been first. It's me at Disney World, riding the pirates ride that existed before the Pirates of the Caribbean series rides were created. :D

Q: Tell me about your most embarrassing haircut (bonus points if you have pictures!).
A: Ugh. I'm pretty sure I've told you guys that when I was little, I had really straight hair. I remember one time when I was 7 or 8 that my mom had me get bangs, even though I absolutely hated them. They looked terrible on me because my face still had child chubbiness... I was so happy to grow them out, but as I was doing so, I had to use these terribly ugly barrettes and clips. I guess this is really a terrible hair experience more than an actually embarrassing haircut, but it was still just terrible.

Q: If you could only eat one fruit for the rest of your life, which would you choose?
A: I almost said oranges, but I'm choosing grapefruits. I love the taste and texture of grapefruit, as well as the sourness of the juice. Yum!

Q: What books have impacted your life and why?
A: Um, all of them? Because I love to read?
Non-cop-out-answer: Seriously, though, every book I have read has impacted my life. Every time you can experience another person's thoughts and dreams is an amazingly precious gift, and it offers you another way to experience the world. That's why I love to read.
Real-non-cop-out-answer: The Bible, as it provides me with the basis I need to live my life and has given me more than I could have ever imagined. At Home in Mitford and the entire Mitford series by Jan Karon, as it reminds about the realness of people and that even weird little problems are still problems that are ok to spend your time solving. The Giver by Lois Lowry, as it gave me my first glimpse into the idea that other people live lives and view the world differently than I do. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, as it shows me what love is and can be. (Also, it's my current (re-)read, so it's impacting my life right now. I really love that whatever I'm currently reading creates such an impact on my day-to-day life.)

Q: If you had to be famous for something, what would it be?
A: Singing. I still want to be a pop singer... or maybe a country singer... or maybe Taylor Swift, since she can't seem to decide which one of those she is. Just saying.
Also, I'd love to be an author, but I'm not sure I'd want to be a famous author. Just best-selling. Assuming it's possible to have one of those without the other?

Q: Name three places you want to go before you die.
A: Indonesia. England. California.

Q: If you got a tattoo, what would it be and where?
A: Ha! So this is my actually embarrassing answer. When I was younger, I really wanted a small butterfly or swirl design or something like that on my lower back... Then I realized they were called tramp stamps. Let's be honest: If they weren't associated with such a negative connotation, I would probably have one now.

Q: Tangled or Frozen?
A: Tangled! :D

Aaaaand I reversed the order of one question to match my favorite part of my blogs:
Q: What's your favorite song at the moment?
A: My favorite song at the moment- and thus, the song of the week- is "Holy Grail" by Justin Timberlake. Actually, I had to go back through my last blogs and make sure I hadn't chosen it before, as it's been my song of the last few months... primarily because of the hook:
And baby, it's amazing I'm in this maze with you
I just can't crack your code
One day you're screaming you love me loud
The next day you're so cold
One day you're here, one day you're there, one day you care
You're so unfair, sipping from your cup 'til it runneth over, Holy Grail

Also, I prefer the version without Jay-Z. Enough said.

Love you guys! I hope to read some awesome blogs this week!
Amber

"Holy Grail" - Justin Timberlake

Saturday!!! ‘Allo, friends! I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling… (Fill in the blank with an appropriate Taylor Swift song that seems to be constantly in my head.) ;) I had a wonderful birthday- thank you all for your sweet birthday wishes! :)

Garden mums, hibiscus, snapdragons, and roses are all growing on my porch now! I decided to celebrate my birthday by purchasing more flowers to brighten up the space and my days. Mark even bought me roses- I have quite the flower-filled apartment! One of my favorite memories from being younger was getting the “discounted” flowers from Lowe's discount racks. They often looked like they were dead, but the majority of the time a lot of water and love helped them come back to full health. I did that with these as well… We’ll see how they do!

Before I forget, I wanted to give a quick update on a post I did a couple of weeks back, where I said I felt really, really tired all of the time and was going to go to the doctor to get blood tests done. It turns out everything is normal- all of my blood work came back fine! I have tried changing my diet a bit recently to add more nutrients and variety of things, so perhaps that is helping. I am feeling better, so that’s a good thing. It’ll be an interesting thing for me to track over the next couple of weeks.

Weekends are great, aren’t they?! I’ve been using this one to catch up on sleep, cleaning, and all of those fun little tasks that keep getting put off during the week, like going to the bank, grocery shopping, organizing my bookshelf, sewing… There’s always time on the weekend to do fun things! I love the relaxed pace of them, but they always seem to be over sooner than I expect. Still, after a long (4 day) week, it’s nice to have more relaxing days.

Reading is a thing! It’s so nice for me to discover books I’ve purchased for $.50 but have never read and get super excited to read them! I’m currently reading (ok, re-reading for the third or fourth time, but the first time for a copy that I own) The Notebook, and it’s even sweeter than the movie. Sometimes you just need a Nicholas Sparks book…

GMAT tutoring: I just started tutoring someone to help them prepare for the quantitative section of the GMAT exam (which is used to get into business school/to get your MBA). Even though I haven’t taken the test, I’m still able to help her prepare for the problems she’ll see on the exam and hopefully give her a few tricks to get back into the swing of things again. The problems are similar to those on the GRE, but there’s an interesting section called “Data Sufficiency,” where the entire point is not to solve the math problem but to weigh facts and see if those facts would make the problem solvable. It’s quite an interesting way to do things! I’m considering going for my MBA in a year or so, so this is good practice for me too. Plus, a little extra spending money never hurt…

‘Till next week my friends! I hope you’re all doing well, and I’m so glad I got to see a couple of you when I was visiting home last weekend. Hopefully I’ll get to see all of you again soon!

We have a Hunger Games song of the week! I didn’t realize this song was from the Catching Fire soundtrack, as I first heard it on Dancing with the Stars. What’s more odd is that the song is apparently on the Assassin’s Creed Unity trailer… (Fun fact- I’m quite a fan of the Assassin’s Creed series, despite never playing anything but the AC Pirates game on my iPad, as they never released a game for the Wii. I did like watching Hank play Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, and I started watching the Assassin’s Creed Revelations playlist a while back but never finished. I need to rent a xbox from my library and play the actual game!!) Anyway, this song actually came out in the 80s by a band called Tears for Fears and keeps popping up. This is a special cover by Lorde that’s been quite successful, to say the least. Enjoy!

“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” – Lorde

Really important PS- Mark wanted to contribute to this blog by giving me the title AND randomly typing scribble words on my blog. I changed his scribble “sgbwrgtwer” by taking the letters and starting each one of my paragraphs with the letter, as you can see above. ;) It was quite a challenge to fit everything as I was writing… but quite fun! I even made the song fit!

Good morning, friends! It's Saturday! Or... At least I think it is. It's much too dark outside for it to be truly considered Saturday, that's for sure. O.o But that's what happens when you book an early morning flight... Back home! :D

I'm quite excited to be returning back home for a lovely long Labor Day weekend! It'll be nice to see my extended family again, especially my relatives that love to get together this weekend. Perhaps I'll even get to see some of you? We shall see if things work out (I really mean it when I say it's a heavy-on-the-family-time weekend!)

Ok- question time. I fly Southwest fairly frequently, and I am a fan of their open seating, but my biggest question comes from their check-in system. I always make it a point to check in immediately... as apparently the rest of the world does as well. When I checked in for my flight, I was about 30 seconds late because of sleepiness, but somehow those 30 seconds were enough to  delay me all the way to B20! So I board after 80 other people... 15 of those people are business select class, and another undistinguished number of people pay for an earlier boarding spot. Did ~65 other people really pay to check in early/wake up super early to check in?! Who knows.......

Time travel! It's now evening- a whopping 17 hours after I woke up this morning, and I'm still going strong! I've gotten to spend some great time with my mom, uncle, and aunt today, and I'd forgotten how nice it is when other people cook for you instead of the other way around! Don't get me wrong- my cooking skills have improved tremendously in the last month thanks to my re-aquaintance with the Food Network (I'm now making an entirely new dish every weekend! :D). Still, there's something quite wonderful about having others love and care for you that much to make you full meals, just because. :)

Also, as I alluded to in the last paragraph, I am slowly but surely becoming a Food Network watcher again... specifically, I wish I knew Alton Brown. He's such a great nerd. He would also be the best mad professor ever. I'm not sure why I get that impression, but I do, and he's fantastic.

The song of the week comes from a band I just got to see play live last night in Columbus! O.A.R. (Of a Revolution) was performing at the Fashion Meets Music Festival (FMMF) on one of the main stages, and I quite enjoyed seeing them live! Believe it or not, the best part of the performance was when they highlighted some of their main (or guest? I'm not sure) members' instrumental talents with small solos, and man can those guys play the sax!! O.A.R. is best known for their song "Shattered (Turn the Car Around)", which I have posted below! Enjoy this trip back to 2008!

Much love,
Amber

"Shattered (Turn the Car Around)" - O.A.R.

This blog, like many great old-school Vlogbrothers videos, comes to you in four parts!

Part 1: We Were Liars. I was planning on doing a book review of E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars today, but thanks to errands and possibly odd internal problems- I’ll discuss more later- I am not motivated to write out the review it so dearly deserves this week. Instead, I’ll just reiterate that OH MY GOODNESS YOU ALL NEED TO READ IT YOU WOULD LOVE IT PLEASE READ IT SO I CAN TALK WITH PEOPLE ABOUT IT OK THANKS BYE.

But seriously. Read it! You won’t regret it! :) To give you just a little sense of why I love it, I recommend reading the 6th chapter of the book. Don’t worry, you won’t have any problems jumping in there, but this chapter actually ends up being one of my favorites in the entire book… and possibly that I’ve read in a long time. LINK HERE. I recommend reading the first 5 chapters if you have the time- again, they’re not long, and you won’t regret it, but the 6th chapter is beautifully written. It just captures the main character’s (Cady’s) emotions so perfectly that it is so easy to understand everything she feels in that moment- and, in a way, we learn a lot more about her than more detailed descriptions ever could.

Part 2: Tiredness. Over the last couple of months, I have noticed myself becoming extremely tired. Typically this has been in the evenings after a long work day, so I had been just chalking it up to that (Isn’t that a great expression? “chalking it up”). However, I have also noticed myself becoming very tired on the weekends- or even on days where I didn’t do much of anything, and adding more sleep into my schedule hasn’t really helped. So more than likely, what’s going on is that my iron levels are low in my body, which is something I have actually noticed once before, in college. I’m going to the doctor this week to get my iron levels checked, so hopefully that’ll be it, and I’ll just start taking an iron vitamin again. :)

Part 3: Blog. So is this now “The Sara-and-Amber Blog”? ;) Lol, I honestly don’t care if you all blog every week or not, but it would be nice to hear from y’all every once in a while :)

Part 4: MUSIC! My goodness, I love music! And I love sharing my favorites from the week with you all. I hope you all enjoy them as much as I do, and I hope you have been discovering new music this way too! The song of the week is quite beautiful- I especially like the lyrics “Is it that it’s over, or do birds still sing for you?” Plus Ed Sheeran’s voice gives me shivers. Enjoy! (The fat cat in the picture is great too!)

Love you guys! Have a great week!

<3,Amber

“Autumn Leaves” – Ed Sheeran