Day 5 ended up being way longer than I'd meant it to be. Oops!
Day 4: Learn a new, easy hairstyle
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| The big, chunky Classic buns are my favorite hairstyle. |
Hair is one of my downfalls when it comes to making a polished coordinate. It's the last thing I think about when I'm planning a new outfit, and I often find myself scrambling to come up with something last-minute (especially when the elaborate curly 'do I'd wanted ends up thwarted by my non-curling hair). Normally, I end up doing pigtails, a side-braid, or simple and straight.
I always wanted to try to perfect a cute, simple style that can be found in the Gothic and Lolita Bibles. Because my hair is a little finicky when it comes to what it wants to do on any given day, I decided to choose the bottom left style on this page:
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| Gothic & Lolita Bible vol. 46 -- Winter 2012 |
I've been meaning to trim the fringe for months, and I haven't entirely figured out side-swept bangs, yet, but here's the best I could do!
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| Featuring Angelic Pretty's Twinkle Double Star clip in blue. |
This was a really fast, very simple style to do up! I love wearing my hair in braids, and all I had to do for this was pin them up and decorate them with a cute clip! I think this might be the hair I go with the next time I wear my Sweet Mildred Constellation JSK.
Day 5: Discover a new book to read
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| What I, personally, think every lady should do in her spare time, from childhood to old age. |
I am, and always have been, an avid bookworm. Choosing which books to bring with me during the move to my new apartment was a chore, and because the boxes are so heavy, most of them are still living in my car. I also had to downsize because my beautiful, beast of a bookshelf back home is way too large, heavy, and bulky to get up here without a large truck, or a U-Haul. Even if I can figure out a way to get it up here (and then up two flights of stairs), I don't actually know where I could even put it. So, I'll soon be looking for a new, smaller bookshelf!
Anyway, I did some digging on Thriftbooks (a great website for finding discount books) and found something that sounded like a fun read that I'll really enjoy: The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Historical fiction with a female lead is my favorite.
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| I hope I can find a copy with this cover! |
During the 2013-2014 school year, I ended up purchasing and reading a lot of older children/young adult fiction because I had ample opportunity to leaf through it during work (I used to work in textbooks, and many of the English classes revolved around children's literature). Anything that was under $20 that I liked usually came home with me. What's nice is that the listing I found for this is less than $4! If I end up not liking it, I won't be out much money, and I can keep it back with my other children's books for if and when I have kids of my own. Or maybe I'll give it to my three-year-old cousin when she's older.
Either way it works out, it looks like it'll be a fun read! The reviews look mostly positive.
Need reading suggestions? Here are some of my favorite books!
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| Read it. Live it. Love it. |
- The Wicked Years by Gregory Maquire: Includes Wicked, Son of a Witch, A Lion Among Men, and Out of Oz. Wicked is without a doubt my favorite book in the entire world. The sequels, for me, fell a little flat, but I still ate them up. Gregory Maquire's writing is amazing: he's poetic without being lurid, and his characters are both complex and straightforward. They're very self-aware. This series is based off of the ever-popular Wizard of Oz, and tend to follow the books more than they do the Judy Garland film. Yes, there's a musical based on the novel, but they are worlds away from each other and it's not fair to compare one to the other. Out of Oz, adorably enough, has several little nods to the musical that you might not catch if you don't know the song lyrics very well.
- Literally Anything Else by Gregory Maguire: He really is my favorite author. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (similar to Wicked, in premise, but with Cinderella) was fantastic, Mirror, Mirror (a retelling of Snow White) was very enjoyable, and I look forward to reading Lost at some point.
- The Sight: Written by David Clement-Davies, it's a novel for young adults, and I really enjoyed it. His writing is very serious, but I think that's why I liked it when I first read this book in high school. It's about sentient wolves, I know, but give it a chance. If you want something a little lighter in mood, check out his other works Fire Bringer (which is about deer) or The Telling Pool (which is about a young boy in Great Britain during the reign of Richard the Lionheart, tangled in a war between Morgan le Faye and Merlin).
- The Joy Luck Club and The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan. The Joy Luck Club is, of course, a classic. I had to watch the film version once or twice in school, and I ended up reading the book, and loved both. Years later, while perusing the bargain books at the university bookstore, I found The Valley of Amazement and took it home. While the reviews were largely terrible, I feel like the critics were being grossly unfair to the story. It's sad and bittersweet, and can basically be summed up as "Nothing in life happens the way you plan." Amy Tan is such a great storyteller and creates great, complex characters. You have to read her work at least once in your life.
What are some of your favorite books? And what's your go-to, simple hairstyle for Lolita? Leave me your suggestions in the comments below! I could always use the excuse to visit the library.
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