THE STORY OF CHELY

As you may know, it's our two year blogoversary this month and so all month long we're doing awesome things around here. Today I thought I'd talk about the most important thing about this blog.
Chami and I's friendship.

(Also, Hey everyone! It's Chami interrupting Ely's blog posts again.- Chami)

We've been best friends for about three or so years now, which seems like eternity sometimes and a very short time at other points. I can't tell you what made us add each other on Facebook, but we did and I don't regret it (most days). (Hey? What do you mean by that? I AM ALWAYS LOVED - Chami)

I don't think we've ever mentioned this, but I'm about a year and a half older than Chami. (I'm five, and she's three and a half...mentally (No, Physically as well - Chami), that is). I mention this, because it's means we were a year apart in school. We went to the same school for about two years or something, but we never officially met. I have this one memory of Chami being on stage during 'Performing Arts Week' playing some ridiculously annoying (*amazing - Chami) teenager or something (aka, herself).  I'm actually kind of glad we didn't become friends while we were at the same school because I'm not sure the world could have handled it.

Basically, Chami moved schools before we ever got the chance to cause serious damage to the school together. We became friends early in 2011 through a mutual friend and from then on, there was no turning back. We spent the first six months or so of our friendship speaking mainly in LOLs and smiley faces (Oh gosh, don't even remind me -Chami), which make us severely cringe when we read back on our conversations. (Yup, Yup, Yup - Chami)

Most of our friendship occurs online despite the fact we live nine minutes (in every direction) away from each other. The first time we actually got to meet in person (I think) was when we went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 in cinemas. We had an amazing time, especially Chami who got stuck going down an up escalator for mine and all of our friend's enjoyment. A few months later we got to go and see Maggie Stiefvater together. Chami got way too excited...of course. (I tried to take her hair. In my defence, Ely didn't prevent me - Chami)

We didn't get to see each other for a while after that, as Chami spent my birthday on holidays in China with her family. (How do you even remember this?) We were finally reunited in January of 2012 when we went to see the second Sherlock Holmes movie. We saw each other a few other times between January and about March of 2012 before school got too crazy. During that time, this amazing(ly young) picture of us was taken...

On the 6th of April, 2012, we got Facebook married as it was the popular thing for fifteen year old girls to do in those days (Is that still a thing?) (I don't know. Nope. No clue - Chami) This was probably our craziest, non-book related time. We spent a lot of time talking about cacti and Vampire Diaries and crying about novels we were trying to write but were incredibly terrible. "I don't like this font, I've ruined my novel!" - Chami. (I am OCD about fonts okay?) 
We talked about Russian (?) and the fact the Chami is a midget on Facebook during this time. Sometime during NaNoWriMo, we decided to count our Skype conversations for some reason, we already had 898 pages from less than two years of friendship. We're a little insane...

Then this blog was started on the 12th of July of 2012 and life was never the same again. Our first posts are incredibly embarrassing, in fact they are so bad that they make me want to cry every time I see them. We honestly didn't think this blog would go very far at the beginning and things didn't go wonderfully until December, when Eva Pohler sent us an e-mail asking us to review her books for her. We'd gotten a few review requests before, but Eva was the first one to ever send us paperback copies. (And oh, how we love her - Chami)

By April 2013, the blog had become a normal part of our lives and so it made it into a far number of our Facebook convos. For example, these two lovely examples from Chami: I do think that it was very unwise of you to leave me with the blog. I might go crazy and write Warner posts a couple hundred of times. (It's an obsession.) and So i was just checking out the blog and realised that the Book Discussion had posted and i hadn't finished writing mine, so it was half done. Me: "It's not the 21st-oh f$%#." Can you guess who the crazier of the two of us is? (Points in the direction of Ely - Chami)

My final year of high school kinda took over from April onwards and we didn't get the chance to see each other again before my 18th birthday, which was in October. I can't even begin to describe how much of an amazing time I had. Like I said, we really don't get to see each other very often so when we do...well, we take lots of selfies and hug an awful lot. See this wonderful collage I made for Chami's birthday this year.

(Babe, these pictures are just perfect - Chami)
I've been quoting Chami a lot in this post, so I thought I'd include some of the things I've said to/about Chami lately...
In moments of extreme book depression like this, only your true best friend can understand your pain. Best Friends are when they remember something your grandfather said months ago and use it against you in a normal conversation.
It's always the most awkward moment when people say how beautiful your best friend is, and you just remember that time they dressed up as the personification of Australia. 
HOW DID ALLEGIANT WIN THE GOODREADS AWARD THINGY FOR BEST YA FANTASY?????? AND MORE THAN THAT, HOW DID UNRAVEL ONLY RECEIVE 3,520 VOTES. HOW? ANSWER ME. I'M DYYYYYYYING. (DIES WITH YOU - CHAMI)
Friendship is when you don't even say hello to each other anymore but just start ranting about books straight away. 

Yeah, I'm pretty weird too...

Anyway, I'm sorry this post is really, really long but I thought it would be nice to share this with you guys. The mushy parts will come with the actual 'blogoversary' post. Thank you all for reading this and for sticking by us. Of course, thank you to you Chami for being an amazing and weird best friend/sister, (Thank you for being the world and more. I can never thank you enough for being one of the greatest human beings ever - Chami) I couldn't have done this without you. (Nor I - Chami) Also, don't you dare go adding your own commentary to this post- you go get your own :P ( OMG - OMG I JUST READ THIS AND HOW DID YOU KNOW I WAS GOING TO. GIRL. SEE. EVERYONE LOOK AT THIS. THIS DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE YOU CREEP. STILL LOVE YOU. - CHAMI)