November in Review

Tags

blogs, film, food, literature, personal, tv

This month in Instagram, all from left to right:

• My first winter seasonal of the year, perfect avocados for guacamole, & a rainy California morning.
• A visit to an awesome new bookshop: Mysterious Galaxy, sunset from a Palos Verdes cliff, & Redondo Beach from the top of the hill of death.
• The first time I’ve seen 6am in quite a while, a portobello for my vegetarian Thanksgiving dish, & Kimba, of course.

new and/or favorite blogs of the month:

• The Mary Sue: “A Guide to Girl Geek Culture.” They seem to write about anything and everything that can be considered geeky, from comics to Game of Thrones to Wizarding World of Harry Potter, all from the female perspective.
• Girls Read Comics Too: “The Comic World From a Female Point of View.” A similar concept to The Mary Sue, but this one’s focused entirely on comics. One of my favorite things they do is a feature called “Women in Comics” that highlights female authors, artists, etc. in the male-dominated comic world.

October in Review

Tags

bloggers, books, comics, film, Halloween, instagram, Kimba, personal, tv

This month in Instagram, all from left to right:

• First Row: October 1st beach day, rain clouds, & my little Goober.
• Second Row: Elizabeth Taylor’s tiara, my Merlotte’s tee, & Urban Light at LACMA.
• Third Row: Simple Triangle Manicure, Me as Baby Vamp, & a lovely horse named Magic at The Gentle Barn.
• Fourth Row: Kimba in his Halloween/Christmas outfit, a Dave’s Olde Book Shop stop, & my Hello Kitty vampire pumpkin.

Well, October sure went by in a flash! Halloween was a blast and now Thanksgiving and then Christmas are upon us. I’m looking forward to it (confession: I’m watching Elf right now), but let’s look back for a minute.

new and/or favorite blogs of the month:

• One Girl No Diet: I originally discovered Jessica’s blog via Tumblr and she’s primarily moved it over to the site now. She writes about body image, personal style, healthy living, and all sorts of things in her “refreshingly unapologetic” style.
• Green Kitchen Stories: A wonderful vegetarian foodie blog. The pictures and recipes are exquisite and they have a lovely story to accompany each post.

movies and shows I watched & books I read:

• 50/50: What a truly lovely film. There aren’t too many movies that can make me laugh and cry in equal measure, but this is certainly one of them.
• Real Steel: Real Steel was so much better than I anticipated. I saw it after hearing positive things & thoroughly enjoyed myself.
• Spoiled: The first book by my celeb blog favorites forever: The Fug Girls! Their debut young adult novel was an excellent combination of sweetness & snark, just like them.
• Doctor Who & The X-Files: Still working my way through both of these excellent series.

my favorite posts of the month:

Sunday Funday: Quick Outfit Post & Kitties

Outfit Post: Jessica Hamby
Sunday Funday: The Collection of Elizabeth Taylor

New Comic Wednesday: October 26 (I know this hasn’t been my most popular feature, but I’m really enjoying writing up the weekly reviews!)

glorious things that happened and fun things I did in October:

had a start of October beach day complete with Mexican food & margaritas ; went to the Collection of Elizabeth Taylor exhibit with my mom ; went to the Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA again before it ended ; attended two excellent Halloween parties with lovely friends ; officially registered my anikaguldstrand.com domain ; went to The Gentle Barn with my family, which was such a lovely experience & I’ll be making a post about it soon ; spent the day of Halloween with my family carving pumpkins, handing out candy, & watching Rocky Horror

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween and October. Here’s to a fantastic November!

September in Review

Tags

beach, bloggers, comics, family, friends, instagram, month in review, movies, tv

This month in Instagram, all from left to right:

• First Row: hitRECord’s RECollection, a Tokidoki Unicorn, & various Starbucks compilation albums.
• Second Row: “policeman breakfast” aka coffee & a donut, me sporting some earrings I’d forgotten about, & a dandelion lamp at Ikea.
• Third Row: Marmaduke & his buddy Yoshi, me in my new jacket, & my delicious extra dirty martini from happy hour.

Can you believe it’s October already? Holy cow! (Fun fact: I looked back at my August in Review post and I started it the exact same way, but that kind of cracks me up so I’m leaving it). All manner of pumpkin goods are already lining the shelves, Halloween will soon be upon us, and autumn is in the air (as much as it ever is in California). So with that in mind, here’s September in Review:

new and/or favorite blogs of the month:

• Curvy Chica: Rosy (of Accidental Sexiness) started a new blog focused more on fashion & style and I’m loving it!
• Les Paradis Artificiels: I think I originally discovered Marta’s blog quite some time ago through a random image search and recently rediscovered it. It’s fantastic! She’s a fashion industry girl living in Paris and really has some great, original insights.
• The Concerns of Mindy Kaling: Okay, so this one’s only just launched, but I’ve wished Mindy Kaling was my BFF for quite some time, so I’m super excited about it. She’s responsible for some of my favorite episodes of The Office, she consistently cracks me up on Twitter, & she basically just seems like an awesome chick.

my favorite posts of the month (by others):

• Call of the Jungle: Leopard print retrospective for fall!
• A Dang Engagement: Okay, so it’s a video and not a blog post, but my friends Ang & Dave got engaged this month, he caught the whole thing on video, and it’s just about the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. Seriously, go watch.
• 10 Things That Cheer Me Up: I love MaDonna’s idea of sharing things that cheer us up! I’m sure they can help someone else on a bad day.
• Myths and Facts About Paris: A Parisian girl in the know breaks down the fact and fiction anyone visiting the city should know.
• The Mean Girls’ Mirror: How back-handed compliments hold us all back. aka stop looking at the flaws and see what’s beautiful about you!

my favorite posts of the month (of mine):

• Kimba’s Science Corner: Volume 1: Although obviously this is really Kimba’s post.
• An Open Letter to Target or Missoni for Target or Missoni for Ebay?
• Outfit Post: Anniversary Dinner: Yeah, that jacket again!

movies and shows I watched & books I read:

• Our Idiot Brother: I really enjoyed this film! Was is the best I’ve ever seen? No, but I was entertained the entire time and Paul Rudd really got to shine in it. Plus Zooey Deschanel & Rashida Jones play a sort of hipster lesbian couple and that was kind of great.
• The Office (UK): I’d actually seen most of the series before, but when I noticed the whole series was on Netflix, I had to do a rewatch! Ricky Gervais is so brilliant.
• Drive: While Drive was far from a lighthearted film, everyone’s performances were excellent, the pacing was perfect, it took risks, and it left you thinking about it long after you left the theater. Plus the soundtrack is fantastic.
• Paul: I believe we watched this later on the same night we saw Drive in the theater since we were looking for a little comic relief. It certainly did the trick! The story was cute, Simon Pegg’s always great, and I was pleasantly surprised when Kristen Wiig popped up.
• The Lion King: Okay, clearly I had seen The Lion King. But! I hadn’t seen it in 3D and I can’t even remember if I’d seen it in a theater (though I probably did), so it was absolutely a treat.
• The X-Files: Yet another show that popped up on Netflix and I dove right into! I know I saw a few episodes years ago, but I definitely never watched it consistently. I’m actually only in the middle of the third season now, but I’m completely loving it.
• As for books, I stuck to my comics for the most part, though I’m still working through Clash of Kings.

glorious things that happened and fun things I did in September:

• My brother turned 23 and we all went out to The Counter for his birthday. Delicious burgers, good beer, and fun times with the family.
• I went on a super fun friend date with Cassandra to AdJam 2011. What a fun night! Great music, great people, my first time wearing a cute new dress, and a photo booth. What more could you ask for?
• Went to a Batman & Batman Returns double feature at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Those I know I never saw on the big screen and they are still so much fun.
• My nana was in town for about a week around my brother’s birthday, so we all had a lot of fun family time, including going out to dinner for my parents’ 29th wedding anniversary. Gray, Nana, and I also played some excellent games of crazy eights.
• Went to Cinespia’s last screening of the summer: E.T.! Watching on the side of a building drinking beers & eating snacks in the middle of a cemetery surrounded by hundreds of people. Gotta love it.
• Had multiple lovely beach days to enjoy the end of the summer. Also: ate ice cream, drank martinis & margaritas, & treated myself to some Mexican Food every once in a while. <3
• I passed 2500 views on this blog! That’s so fantastic and I can’t thank you all enough for reading.

September was another great month! I’m looking forward to autumn: I’m always happy when the weather cools down a bit. Here’s hoping that October is even better!

August in Review

Tags

beach, beer, cats, family, fitness, friends, instagram, Kimba, Marmaduke, month in review, movies, personal, tv, wedding

This month in Instagram, all from left to right:

• First Row: SDCC swag, view from the house my aunt & uncle rented in San Diego, & a new beer favorite: Firestone’s Solace.
• Second Row: Kimba being lazy, the bike path where I’ve been biking and walking, & Mr. Marmaduke.
• Third Row: Ikea instructions from helping Cassandra build her shelving unit, photo of me from before a first date that went very well, & my friend Kristy’s wedding.
• Fourth Row: A margarita on another date (“When the ice melts, it’s like second drink!”), lamp posts from Urban Light at LACMA, & an avocado I turned into guacamole for taco night.

Can you believe it’s September already? Holy cow! I love how The Dainty Squid does a monthly review so I’m trying one out myself.

new and/or favorite blogs of the month:

• Me! MaDonna!: One of my online BFFs for years – MaDonna recently started a blog filled with all kinds of fun things. She lives in Minnesota, crochets, and loves kitties.
• Melificent: Another of my online BFFs who is now a real life BFF. She writes about “all things fashionable, fun, festive and fangirl” and her blog has been one of my favorites for quite a while!
• New York Angela: My lovely friend Angela recently started a blog about her “life as a new New Yorker.” I’m excited about it!
• The Fashionable Esq: I was introduced to The Fashionable Esq. through Meli! Hers is a great personal style blog filled with fashionable goodies and lovely photos.
• The Inbetween Girls: “I’m Not Skinny But That Doesn’t Mean I’m Fat.” Bianca has that awesome slogan and does some very fun fashion posts.

my favorite posts of the month:

• LACMA Love & Tim Burton: Visit with my family to the Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA, full of fun photos!
• App of the Week: Nike Training Club: My first app review of my favorite workout app! It’s a great tool in my Fit and Fabulous routine.
• Outfit Post: Date Night: Fun outfit & fab date.

movies and shows I watched & books I read:

• Star Trek: The Original Series: I’d seen episodes here and there, but never the entire thing from start to finish! I’m still mid-season 3, but I’m loving the camp and I might have a bit of a crush on Captain Kirk.
• Doctor Who: Another sci-fi series I’ve been meaning to watch forever! Fortunately, someone I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with is willing to re-watch it with me. We’ve finished up the first season with the ninth doctor and have just started up with the tenth doctor. Exciting stuff!
• Crazy, Stupid, Love: I thoroughly enjoyed this movie! The cast was great and Ryan Gosling: where do I get one? Plus Steve Carell = fantastic.
• Fright Night: I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect from this one, but it was quite entertaining. David Tennant was the best part!
• Sidenote: I kind of can’t believe I didn’t finish any books this month! That’s certainly not the norm and I guess I’d better get on it.

glorious things that happened and fun things I did in August:

• Well first of all: I started this blog in earnest! I’d been thinking about it for ages and kept putting it off for various reasons, but I’m so glad I jumped right in. I’m really enjoying putting my posts together and getting your feedback. I’m excited to see where it’ll end up.
  
• Spent fun times with friends: split a very large margarita & saw Crazy, Stupid, Love with Cassandra; had a very fun happy hour in Manhattan Beach with my friend Kim; a beach day with Cassandra including a late lunch at the Urth Caffe where I spotted Danny Pudi aka Abed from Community; and also had another great time with Cassandra when we drank large amounts of wine and built her new Ikea shelving unit!
• Went to San Diego for a couple days with my family since some of our East Coast relatives were in town! Thoroughly enjoyed our time down there and the fantastic view. Played a great game of Taboo.
• Started a real push to get a fitness routine going that I can stick with, which I’m documenting with weekly Fit and Fabulous updates.
• Started dating someone who is pretty great, I must say!
• Kristy got married! The wedding was a fabulous time and she looked so gorgeous. Also, after the actual wedding was over, those of us staying in the hotel next door hit the pool with an 18-pack and wound up at Denny’s afterwards, so good times all around.
• I had another glorious day with my family when we went to LACMA for the Tim Burton exhibit followed by dinner afterwards! That was definitely one of my favorite outings this month.

Overall, I’d say August was excellent! I always enjoy the summertime. There’s something about it, even though I no longer have a real summer vacation. I have a feeling September is going to be fabulous as well.