#hairoftheweek: Upside Down French Braid

Happy Chinese New Year! This is always an exciting time of year and it helps me feel closer to my roots. It's fun to come together with family and go through our traditions. This feels like another fresh start -- almost as if January is a free trial and now the new year is truly beginning.

Book Talk: January Uppercase Review

Here we have your regularly scheduled Happy Hub! Wait, that's not it. We've had to switch some things around at the end of this month because my Uppercase Box arrived a day too late but it's all good because you know what they say. Better late than never!

#hairoftheweek: Micro Braidback

Oftentimes I don't care much for trends. I don't detest them, but I just don't see any reason to follow them. Lately, I have been lacking inspiration and it's frustrating when nothing seems to work. In times like these it's trends that are my saving grace. I've seen this week's hairstyle around on people of all ages and I knew just by looking at it that it wouldn't give me much trouble.

Book Talk: 2016 Wrap Up & Top 10 of 2016

When I signed up for Goodreads in May of 2012, I set my reading challenge for 50 books. I figured I was already a quarter of the way through the year so 50 books may be a challenge. Not the case. I demolished that goal. Since then I have been working my way up to my ultimate goal of reading 100 books in a single year. I got really close last year with 92 books, but at that point, I was just worrying about getting past my 90 book goal. It is with great pleasure and sense of accomplishment that I can say 2016 was the year I read 💯 books! Now I have to tackle the real challenge: whittling down the 100 to my top 10 favorite. Oh boy, here we go.

#hairoftheweek: Sleek Headband Braid

I'm stuck in a hair rut. As hard as I try, nothing seems to work and inspiration has been doing everything in its power to evade me. I don't know how to pull myself out of this block but I'll keep practicing and holding on to every sliver of creativity for dear life.

Travelog: Malaysia

I have been pushing this back for so many weeks now that those weeks have accumulated into months. There's only one way to get this ball rolling and that's by jumping right on in. In recent years my family has been doing back-to-back trips. It keeps us on our toes. We only had a day or so after our Norwegian Escape Cruise to touch base with our beloved house before hitting the road again. Our next trip was to Asia -- a week in Malaysia and a week in Vietnam. Grab yourself a light snack and a refreshment because we are about to embark on the first stretch of our trip.

#hairoftheweek: Hoth Leia Crown Braid

Most of the time, the hairstyles I do are just because I think they're pretty or they were the most ready for #hairoftheweek when it came time to choose a hairstyle. Other times, such as this week's, there will be a lengthy thought process and we'll end up with something of a masterpiece. Based on the title of this blog post, you can probably deduce that this is a character-inspired hairstyle, and an iconic one at that.

Book Talk: December Wrap Up

Talk about a fourth quarter comeback! For the past couple months I've been whining about my dismal reading months but I have turned that around so hard I should probably get checked for whiplash. This is the best reading month of my life based on the numbers. Obviously not every book is going to be a home run when you're reading this many, but I really branched out and picked up a lot of different genres, including ones that I don't usually get to amid my fantasy and contemporary reads. I'm forewarning you right now that this is a really long post so I'm going to stop the intro here and let you get on to the books!

Happy Hub: Rogue One, Sing, the Final Burger, & More!

Welcome to 2017! I feel like I've been steamrolled by 2016 but the bright side is at this point the only thing I can do is slowly reinflate. That's how human bodies work, right? While the world has dig itself even deeper into the hole of despair, December has been pretty fun in my personal life. We have a lot of ground to cover to so let's get to it!