justafewsimplewords

[justafewsimplewords]

🎃🍁🍎✨Fall Baking!!✨🍎🍁🎃

(Recipes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

[justafewsimplewords]

i know so many of us have been trained since a young age to be so accommodating as to fear ever expressing an opinion, but as we get older we need to understand that being “accommodating” to the point of total indecisiveness is a very uncomfortable way to go through life, for you AND those around you. it’s ok to have an opinion on something. it’s ok to make a decision. your friends won’t hate you if you’re the one to end the “where do you want to eat” “oh anywhere is fine with me” discussion by suggesting a restaurant. you’re not high maintenance if you say, “noon is more convenient for me” when someone asks you what time you want to hang out. make decisions, have opinions, be part of the planning process, understand that you’re not being inconvenient, you’re just contributing. 

[justafewsimplewords]

Happy Bi Visibility Day everyone 💗💜💙

[justafewsimplewords]

[justafewsimplewords]

Happy #BiVisibilityDay Everyone!

To celebrate here is a little book rainbow featuring some of my favourite books with bi characters.

💖💜💙

#SomethingToTalkAbout by Meryl Wilsner is a beautiful romance I recently read. It’s the story of Jo a successful showrunner and her assistant Emma who give the world something to talk about when they accidentally fuel dating rumors.

#RedWhiteandRoyalBlue by Casey McQuiston is the story of Alex, the son of the first female President of the USA, and Henry, the Prince of England who dislike each other immensely (but actually don’t). They cause a scene at the Royal wedding of Henry’s brother and in an attempt to fix the PR nightmare they have caused they are forced to pretend that they are best friends. Fake best friends & enemies to loves. Who could ask for more?

#Autoboyography by Christina Lauren follows Tanner whose family moves from California to Utah and who gets stuck back in the closet as a result. Tanner is convinced by his best friend to take his school’s prestigious writing seminar where students are asked to write a full novel in one semester. And while 4 months to write a book may feel like a long time to Tanner, it only takes him 1 month to fall in love with Sebastian, the Mormon prodigy who sold his novel after last years seminar and who is TAing Tanner’s class.

#LeahOnTheOffbeat by Becky Albertalli follows Leah who is a high school senior just trying make it through her last year. Leah can’t seem to keep up with all the chaos in her home life and her friend group. And figuring out her friendship with Abby - the girl she may have feelings for, who is also her best friend’s girlfriend - may be one of the most complicated parts of Leah’s year.

And finally, #AristotleAndDanteDiscoverTheSecretsOfTheUniverse by Benjamin Alire Saenz is one of my all time favorites. It follows Ari and Dante, loners who become best friends. The novel follows the story of their friendship and the discoveries they made long the way about themselves and each other.

💖💜💙

What are some of your favourite books with Bi characters?

[justafewsimplewords]

July is disability awareness month but a lot of people tend to forget it :/ :/ :/

[justafewsimplewords]

[justafewsimplewords]

when will YA authors realize that the mr. darcy fantasy isn’t “hot rich guy is a huge dick to you” but “hot rich guy fucking respects and listens to you”

[justafewsimplewords]

i want…more fat girls in media

[justafewsimplewords]

you know what my perfect gift would be? an annotated copy of your favourite book. i don’t just mean a couple of tabs, i mean annotated. i mean highlighted to the ends of the earth, pages black with scribbled annotations, entire pages underlined and captioned ‘THIS’. i want to see tear stains on the pages, corners bent from when you threw it across the room, spine broken because you were too absorbed in the story to care. i want paragraphs of you yelling at characters, i want your witty remarks and sarcastic comments, i want your little doodles in the margins. because then you’re not just giving me a book. you’re giving me a little piece of yourself, and i think that’s the best gift you could give.

[justafewsimplewords]

Antique Books.

[justafewsimplewords]

It’s so whimsical and dreamy...

[justafewsimplewords]

Hello friends and folks!

I logged in today for the first time in three years as I forgot I had this account and wasn’t in a very good place mentally. My life looks very different now from when I first started it and I wanted to write a small life update.

I created this account while I was still in high school/near the beginning of university. I didn’t really know how to work tumblr per say. I used it to mostly like and reblog stuff. I was suffering badly with loneliness and depression. I felt stuck. I was facing a number of things personally and I wanted a place where I could look at fandom content and pretty pictures. 

Then I started taking English courses in university (English ended up becoming my minor) and I decided I wanted an outlet and a place to learn how to improve my writing. 

I followed a bunch of writing blogs and wanted to learn more about creative writing. I love reading stories and telling them. Writing is a facet of that and I wanted to learn how to improve my writing, even if I was going to be the only person reading the pieces I wrote.  

I reblogged tips and tricks, writing prompts, advise from other writers. I decided that I would work hard to work on a piece each week in my spare time and potentially share it here. I enjoyed being on tumblr. 

While this was all going on, I had a lot of stress in my personal life. In my fifth year of university (I ended up taking six years to complete my Bachelor’s degree with a double major) I was balancing 4 classes, working 4 part time jobs, and commuting to and from school 5 days a week on the city bus which was an hour and twenty minutes each way. I was not taking care of myself or my mental health and - as is typical when you’re stressed - I stopping doing the things that brought my joy. I stopped giving myself self care time and activities. I stopped this blog and writing among many other things. 

Then in March of 2018 I had a mental break down over an assignment. I had a panic attack that lasted 3 hours. I cried and was frozen in place the entire time. My mom (as I still live with my parents and did so through out school) came home on her lunch to find me curled into a ball sobbing on my bedroom floor. My family and friends didn’t realize the extent of my stress and how bad my mental health had gotten. I didn’t let anyone know. 

My mom ended up getting my off the floor and calmed my down. We ending up talking a lot and she pushed me to get help at school through the counselling we got for free as students (it was included in our tuition). My mom helped me drop the class that was causing me the bulk of my stress that term. It was 2 weeks before the end of my term. It was marked as a WD (for withdrew) and I ‘earned’ 30% in the course, which I later petitioned to have the 30% removed from my transcript and only marked as WD (and I won!)

I ended up needing to take a summer term to try and get all my courses completed in time and to graduate the next year. I knew that I needed to just finish the degree. If I had stopped school, I honestly don’t know if I would have finished it. And I only had 6-8 courses left. It was easier to take things slower and finish without stopping for a term. 

I started counselling through the university with a different therapist than the one I had been previously seeing and it was so helpful. Nothing against the previous one, but the new therapist and I got clicked better and I found it to be more helpful. They helped me find/create the tools I needed to pick myself back up and finish my degree. I also got closer with my friends and let my mom and sister in on what was going on, and I kept them updated. 

I graduated June 2019 with a Bachelor of Arts in History & Sexuality, Marriage, and Family Studies, and English Language and Literature minor with distinction. It took me 6 years, and it was worth it. I enjoyed (for the most part) every moment of being in university. I learned a lot about the subjects I studied and I learned even more about myself. I gained some amazing people as friends and have memories with them that I will always cherish. 

I’m 25 now. On top of graduating, and even more importantly, I learned to be a little kinder to myself and to recognize the signs of my mental health suffering.  2 years later and I still feel the after effects of the burn out and break down, but I am taking it day by day and rebuilding my strength. I make sure I do things weekly to take care of myself and am in the midst of introducing other measures to take care of my physical and spiritual health as well. 

I now have a permanent, full time job, with a company that has moved me to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic and plans to keep us all at home until it is safe to return. I started there in September 2019 on a 8 month contact and was offered a full time permanent position in the department I was helping in Feb 2020 before the end of my contact in the other department. They have been wonderful with safety measures and I have been working from home since March 16 2020 with no current plans to return until it is safe to do so. I have benefits and RRSPs with them!

I have improved my credit score vastly in the last year, and put into works the process of buying my grandmothers house. I had the conversation with her, my aunts and uncles, and my mom and sister. Hopefully in the next year or two I will be able to do so. 

My life looks vastly different than it did it three years ago when I stopped posting. I’m glad for all of it, even if it was hard to handle. And I am glad to be back to myself in come capacity and still discovering the rest. 

I have slowly started reading and writing again too (school took away most of the enjoyment of reading and writing for me). I’ve outlined a number of stories, done some world building, and character development. I honestly don’t know if I would post any of the creative writing I have done on this blog - I can’t predict the future - but it feels good to be back at it. Writing again in some capacity even if no one is going to read it. 

I redid my blog’s theme and plan to login every once and a while, read about how to improve my writing, reblog a few things, and so on. 

Anyway, it’s good to be back. 

[justafewsimplewords]

Be strong enough to let go, and wise enough to wait for what you deserve.

Unknown (via thoughtkick)

[justafewsimplewords]

I won’t link to my other blog often, but I had a lot of fun writing this post and I thought I would share it with you all as well. It addresses questions that I’ve been asked quite a few times here, such as how much to plan, how to plan, and how to begin. 

Happy writing!

[justafewsimplewords]