Mariah's Nerdy Notes

Happy New Year, everyone! I can't believe 2019 is already here. This year has been the longest, hardest year of my life, but I learned a lot of things about life, about myself, and about the strength to carry on. My advice to you is this. Take care of yourself first and foremost. No one is going to do it for you, loves. I love all of you and may this year bless you and yours with everything you need and everything that will benefit you in the long run. I read 40 books this year, so that was a great achievement on my part. This year I'm upping the ante and not only am I upping the number of books to read (50 books!), but I'm also participating in the monthly read-a-thons hosted by Books and Munches. January's theme is Jam Jar January, where you put all of the books you wanted to read in 2018 and put them in a jar (or in my case a Harry Potter mug I received as a holiday gift) and pick some out. I picked six and left the rest in the mug in case I finish or DNF the lis

Hey everyone, I know. It's been a while and there's a reason for that. May was busy, but good and full of new adventures. One of these days, I'll be good about posting weekly, I promise. I pinky promise. As for right now, on June 1st, I launched a 101 Goals in 1001 Days project. This project originates with Day Zero and there are posts about it all over the internet. I first learned about it from Sunshine and Stationary on YouTube, and decided I wanted to try something new. After a lot of research and days of brainstorming, I finally have my list. I've broken it down into eight categories. 101 in 1001 Days Start Date: 01 June 2018 End Date: 26 February 2018 House 1. Find and stick to a cleaning routine 2. Fully furnish and decorate house 3. Go meatless one day a week for a month 4. Decorate with the changing of the seasons.  5. Start using a diffuser 6. Whole house clean at the same time 7. Try 2 Pinterest recipes a month 8. Perfect a f

Welcome back, everyone. We're looking at April's wrap up and looking forward to May. It's been a crazy month here. My birthday was the start, a friend visited and went back, then I had a unit test at school. Not to mention everything else going on. Honestly, it hasn't been a bad month. Just super busy. It was a relatively productive month emotionally and health wise, but I'll tell you what. I didn't get nearly as much done as I would have liked to nerdy wise. No new movies. Only four books. And I didn't finish a single project. Very disappointing. The truth of the matter is sometimes that happens. Let's look at the updates! Books: I finished four books this month. Waters Luminous and Deep by Meredith Ann Pierce (5/5 Stars), Lost City of Z by David Grann (4/5 Stars), Dead Until Dark by Charlene Harris (3/5 stars) , and Never Suck a Dead Man's Hand by Dana Kollman (3/5 stars). The stats so far are 15 books this year: 3 nonfiction, 3 fantasy, 3 su

When I last wrote a blog post, I had received some fantastic news as well as some devastating news that I had alluded to. Unfortunately, what was once fantastic news turned into devastating news. Over the past few months, I have been through a very personal hell of loss starting January 12th with the loss of my grandfather. In February, we lost my youngest aunt on my mother's side, a mere ten years older than me. This was followed quickly by my grandmother's hospitalization and the death of my great aunt all before Saint Patrick's day. My very secret news was for me the most traumatic loss as I lost the life I was growing inside of me. I still can't really talk about it and to say that my mental health hasn't been on spot is perhaps the biggest understatement of the year. Which is why I haven't been producing content and why this content is going up on a Sunday instead of the regular Wednesday and Friday.  In books and movies, we try to characterize the slow,

Hey everyone, Sorry for the lack of posts in January. My family was hit with a loss of my grandfather on the 12th followed by some other big news, which I'll announce soon. Overall, January was an okay month. It had its super lows, and its super highs. I was hoping for more progress on my geeky goals, but here we go. Gaming: I didn't get a lot of time to put into gaming, but so far. I have all of the Lorestones and have completed all the areas up to the Plains of Erathell. I've devoted about 30-ish hours to the game and I would like to finish it this month. I would also like to finish Jotun, an amazingly beautiful indie game that I started over the holidays. I also want to complete one, just one, Hearthstone Dungeon Run. Pray to the Hearthstone Gods for me for good card draws. Watching: I'm rewatching the X-Files and I started at Season 1. As I am writing this, I am watching Season 5 Episode 17, so I'm about halfway through the seasons! Podcasts: I r

Hey guys, As most of you know I've been doing my CYOS 2018 Reading Challenge, and one of the first books on my to read list was: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum. Being an avid Julie Gardner fan, I was expecting a nice romp through the land of Oz as Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion. It was supposed to be a relaxing stroll down memory lane and taking a break. This book has some very very dark points, which reminded me of the Disneyfication of other stories. So this week, let's explore the truth behind 5 of my favorite Disney movies. 1) Snow White In the Grimm telling, Snow White's mother was sewing one day when she pricked her finger with a needle. As the blood fell onto the snow below the window, she prayed for a child with lips as red as blood, hair as black as crows, and skin as white as snow. The Queen dies soon after the child is born and the King takes a second wife. The Stepmother becomes the evil queen when her magic mirr

So I've been playing a lot of Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning lately. It's an old game and I'm behind. I am a failure to gamers everywhere. I know. With this small confession aside, here is my list of the most annoying enemies so far. 1. Sprites Allow me to introduce the humble sprite. Kind of cute in a "I'm more likely to eviscerate you and eat your innards than say hi" kind of way. Just me? These annoying little buggers normally come in groups of at least three, and often include Storm, Fire, and Ice Champions. AKA they use magic to wreck your life while their regular buddies (see above), are using their claws and tail to cause an annoying amount of damage. As I've gone farther in the game, the groups get bigger or they randomly spawn...while I'm running away from an Ettin. Not cool. 2. Venom Spitters I hate. HATE. Spiders. I understand they are important to the ecosystem and they can live happily outside my house. Except for these ones and

Happy New Year!!!! Congratulations, my lovelies, you have survived 2017. Good job! I'm so glad you're still here today. May 2018 give you all the blessings you deserve. 2018 potentially holds a lot of big stuff for me, but we will have to see. I was blessed with an awesome holiday season and came out on the other side a few pounds heavier (probably) with new determination and new games/movies/books. :D If you've been following my YouTube channel, then my TBR for January is old news to you, but if you haven't been then what are you waiting for. ;) In January, my TBR is the first five books of the OZ series by L. Frank Baum. I got an awesome omnibus with the first five novels from Barnes and Noble last year for close to $8, and have yet to read it. These will be the first five books and a new level in my Choose Your Own Story challenge. (For more information, check out the blog posts or the video down below.) My sixth book this month will hopefully be How the Irish Sa