#MoreHappyThanNot

I was tagged by my super amazing friend Dani of Dani Reviews Things to do the More Happy Than Not tag. The tag was created by Shelumiel @ Bookish and Awesome in response to the “What makes you #MoreHappyThanNot?” question inspired by Adam Silvera’s debut More Happy Than Not.  For the tag, you basically just list things in your live, whether they be big or small, that make you happy.

I AM MORE HAPPY THAN NOT…

Cuddling/playing/talking to dogs, no matter what breed or who they belong to.

Drinking that first cup of tea in the morning.

In that moment when your plane drips over the city you’re going to land in.

Saving Michelle from her late night book almost-buying sprees.

Talking to my dad on the phone. I miss him very, very much.

Seeing the new Terminator posters everywhere. Back home, my dad and I would rewatch the first three movies every month.

Receiving mail. It doesn’t even have to be bookmail, I really love receiving letters and postcards from people. I just love opening things.

Spending time with my great aunt and uncle. They know me so well already. Every morning there’s a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea waiting for me and there’s a stack of Daphne du Maurier books that my great aunt bought into my room yesterday.

Seeing my blogger friends tag each other in things and comment on each other’s blogs. Dani tagged my friend Lori, which just made me infinitely happy. I just want a little blogger squad, okay?

Books, obviously. Everything about books makes me happy. The smell, the texture, the words (most of the time), the covers, even just the idea of books—they just make me so happy.

I don't know who might have already done this, so if you have then I'm sorry! But, I'm tagging these gorgeous people: Val of The Innocent Smiley, Inge of Bookshelf Reflections, Sierra of the Nerdgirl Review and of course, my little wino—Michelle of Lovely Girl Reads.

Beautiful Blogger Award

A few weeks ago, the extremely lovely Dani of Dani Reviews Things tagged me in the Beautiful Blogger Award. I thought I'd wait until now to do it for two reasons. One) this was my next free day in our schedule, Two) in a few hours, I'll actually be traveling up to Oxford to meet Dani for the first time!

So what are the rules of this tag?

1. List seven random facts about yourself

2. Place the badge below on your blog (and no, I couldn’t find a less grainy version…)

3. Nominate seven more beautiful bloggers

MY SEVEN FACTS

1. I really love strawberries. They are my favourite food ever. I could honestly eat my weight in them, and I'm pretty sure I have a few times. I especially like them because they don't have carbs in, making them one of the very few foods I can eat as many of as I want without having to worry about how they are affecting my diabetes.

2. As a child, I was very interested in Ancient Egypt, especially Cleopatra. I remember my older brother was supposed to watch the film with Elizabeth Taylor in for his English class, but I ended up stealing the DVD and giving him a summary afterwards.

3. I have an obsession with journals. Every type of journals—personal, art journals, travel journals, writing journals etc. etc. I spend way too much time looking at beautiful journals online. 

4. I'd never read a fairy tale until this year. I don't even know why, but I was never interested in them when I was younger and for whatever reason, I never had them read to me in school or by my parents.

5. My biggest fear is sharks. When I was younger, I used to be scared of those circle things at the bottom of pools because I thought a shark might come out of one of those.

6. I had speech lessons until I was about five because I refused to speak. I'm still an incredibly quiet person now. In fact, it's pretty much impossible for me to talk to people I don't know.

7. My childhood was mostly filled of soccer (my grandpa played professionally when he was young), toy cars and video games—either war ones or Grand Theft Auto. Can you tell I really liked spending time with my brother?

THE BEAUTIFUL BLOGGERS

I tried to tag a few different people than who I usually go for, so I'm sorry if you've already done this.

1. Krystianna of Downright Dystopian

2. Brit of Crash My Book Party

3. Busy Brunette's Bookshelf

4. Inge of Bookshelf Reflections

5. Kate of Fictional Thoughts

6. Olivia of Olivia's Catastrophe

7. Eugenia of Genie in a Book

Day and Night Book Tag

The other day, the very lovely Dani of Dani Reviews Things tagged me to do the Day and Night Book Tag so that's what we're doing today. The tag was originally created by Readigans and it's just a bunch of questions about books!

D: Do you read more in the morning or at night?

I usually read the most at night, around 6pm until 10/11pm. I try to always read something before I go to bed at night.

A: Are there any books that changed the way you thought about things?

Yes, lots. The one that stands out the most, which I know I talk about a lot, is The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. This book honestly changed my life and just completely ripped out my soul. I respect Anne Frank so much, and she’s definitely someone I look up to—both as a writer and as a human being.

Y: YA or not?

YA, definitely. I love reading other genres and books too, especially classics, but YA is definitely my number one love at the moment.

A: Are there any characters you honestly believe to be real?

Sirius Black is my boyfriend. True story.

N: Nobody borrows my books or I don’t mind lending them out?

I’m very fussy with who I lend my books out to. At the moment, the only person I trust is Michelle because I know she’ll look after them.

D: Do you ever smell your books?

More often that I probably should.

N: Not everyone likes books, is this a positive or a negative?

I think it’s a negative thing. Books are such a central point of my life that I actually find it difficult to talk to people who don’t like to read. What bothers me the most are the people who don’t even try to read. My dad is not a big reader, but he will try and make it through at least one sports biography a year. It’s not the best, but he tries!

I: I keep my books in the best condition or maybe not? Which are you?

Best condition. Oh my god, best condition, you have no idea. I actually cover all of my books with contact because I can’t read anything that isn’t. Okay, I can read other people’s uncovered books but I like my own to be covered and in perfect condition (unless it’s second-hand).

G: Gosh I have too many books! True or False?

Is there such thing as too many books.

H: Have you ever spilled or stained your books before with something, and if so how?

No. Nope. Nopity. They need to be perfect.

T: Toned or untoned while reading? . . or in other words. . .Do you read and workout at the same time?

Haha NO. I don’t workout. I read, I eat and sometimes, I walk. Exercise and I aren’t friends.

There you go, those are my answers! Thank you so much to Dani for tagging me, and I'm going to tag... Rachel of The Very Hungry Bookworm, Lori of Books o' the Wisp, Michelle of LovelyGirlReads and Olivia of Olivia's Catastrophe. Sorry if any of you have already done this, but otherwise I'm looking forward to your answers!

Four of My Favourite Bookish People

I've been really slow on the reading lately so I don't have any reviews or discussions to share with you all. I'm working on that so hopefully I'll have a few bookish thoughts soon. Today I thought I'd share a little bit of blogger love. We don't have a blogroll with everyone's pretty buttons because I have no idea how to do that (any help would be much appreciated), but I wanted to share my top four bookish people.

I have three bloggers and one booktuber, and I kind of cheated because I know all of these people personally but I just adore their blogs/videos and I always read every single one of their posts/watch every video. You've probably seen them all mentioned here before, but I just wanted to share them again in case you aren't already following them.

Number one is Michelle of Lovely Girl Reads on YouTube. If you haven't heard of Michelle before then you must be new to this blog because she is one of my best friends ever and she gets mentioned in a lot of my posts and every single one of my Booktube videos. Not only do we have the exact same taste in books, but we also agree on comics, food and people. She's honestly one of the greatest people I've ever met and you should subscribe to her so you can envy her amazing lipstick colours, her bows and her contemporary YA recommendations. (Also, Michelle, I spy you liking videos about cat socks and I know you totally fangirled. I know.)

Secondly, we've got the lovely Rachel of The Very Hungry Bookworm. Rach is a new blogger, but we've been friends for maybe four or five years. Funny story, Rach used to edit a fan fiction of mine and that's how we became friends. She's an absolute sweetheart, and when we get talking about books together, we'll go on for hours and hours.

Thirdly, we've got Lori of Books o' the Wisp. Lori is relatively new to blogging as well, but her blog is actually one of my most visited sites on Safari. She participated in the Bookentine Read-a-thon that Michelle and I hosted in February and I've been following her blog ever since. She generally reads different books than what I do which is why I love her blog so much—she convinces me to look into books that I never would have looked at otherwise. Also, she just started writing posts about her writing and they are the best thing ever.

Last but not least is the lovely Dani of Dani Reviews Things. She's new too, and I found her through Twitter because we are both attending YALC next month. I really like Dani's blog because it's not all book reviews, and it's nice to see something different on my Bloglovin feed. Also, can we appreciate the fact that I am going to get to meet Dani very soon? Meeting bookish people is my favourite thing.

I thought of so many other people I want to talk about, so I'm going to do another post. Maybe even make this a monthly thing. (And if you're reading this, yes Val, you are on that list).