**This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking through my links.** ModCloth's fabulously fun and unique online fashion shop is headed to the heart of San Francisco from July 30th-August 17th! Explore their colorful collection of dresses, tops, cardis, and more in person, try on exclusive styles, and get sizing and fit help from their terrific team. Drop by and browse their Union Square location, or book a free appointment to skip the lines, guarantee a fitting room, and shop with 1-on-1 assistance from their friendly staff (hurry, spots are limited). ModCloth can't wait to meet you! To book an appointment, visit: http://www.modcloth.com/fitshop-sf Or call us: 1-844-FITSHOP
Lucky ladies in Northern Cali, I hope you take advantage of this opportunity and stop on by to check out all of the cute stuff ModCloth will bringing with them. Let me know if you go and if you buy anything :)
I know it's mid-summer (where did time go?!?!). but I thought I'd share this fun swin-fographic from ModCloth, and some of my favorite bathing suits from their site. You can never have too many swimsuits!! And right now, there's free shipping on orders that are $50 or more (US only and that's on anything, not just swimsuits). Yay!
I could go crazy in ModCloth's swim section, there are so many cute suits! And now is the perfect time to buy them, so many are on sale :) What are your favorite suits from the site? Let me know in the comments below.
**This post contains affiliate links to ModCloth. If you make a purchase after clicking these links, I will make a small comission, at no extra cost to you! Thank you for supporting KMT**
Happy Monday everyone! Something about Maroon 5 just makes me think of summer. It might be that I associate them with summer because I listened to their very first CD a lot after I got my very first car, which was in the summer. Or maybe they just have that perpetual summer vibe. I'm not sure. Anyway, today's Mixtape Monday is all about Maroon 5- enjoy!!
This Summer's Gonna Hurt (Explict)
If I Never See Your Face Again ft Rihanna
Harder to Breathe
One More Night
Here are the rest of my favorite Maroon 5 songs. I figured I wouldn't torture with all videos. And the last one is just Adam Levine with the Lonely Island guys, but I figured I could still slip it in here :)
Since Father's Day is coming up soon, it's only fitting that there is a FFF about our favorite fictional dads! I was raised by just my dad until I was thirteen, so dads hold a super special place in my heart. Here are mine, in no particular order:
1. Red from That 70's Show
There isn't a dad on teevee I love more than Red Forman. He is so sarcastic and rude and I think it's wonderful. And nobody can say dumbass like Red can.
2. Homer Simpson from The Simpsons
Homer is largely a failure as a dad, but sometimes you can really see the sweetness in him. Remember the episode where Mr. Burns puts that horrible plaque in his work station that says "don't forget, you're here forever"and he covers it with pictures of Maggie so it reads, "do it for her"? Homer shows that you don't have to be perfect to be an okay parent.
3. Uncle Phil from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air
So he was mostly known as Uncle Phil, even though Ashley, Carlton and Hilary were his children, so he counts as a dad too. He's one of my favorites because he wasn't like other sitcom dads, all dopey and doing completely ridiculously shtick-y things. He was funny, sarcastic and it was a little bit real too. He took in Will, and became a father to him in a way that Will's dad never did. I think the show celebrated that you don't have to be the bio dad to be a dad. And I have to be honest, when he passed away, I was a little sad.
4. Tim the Tool Man Taylor from Home Improvement
I guess I'm really showing my age with all my favorite fictional dads, but that's okay :) Tim is another one of my favorites because he always tried to be so macho, but most of the time he just jumbled it up so bad. And it was always fun to see him get stuck to things lol. Plus, I had a big crush on Jonathan Taylor Thomas at the time, so of course I watched Home Improvement to see him too.
5. Daniel Hillard/Mrs. Doubtfire from Mrs. Doubtfire
This movie is silly and great and Robin Williams is fabulous. A dad is willing to dress as a lady and become a housekeeper in his ex's house to be closer to his kids? That's a dedicated dad. I mean, of course he was a mess in the first place, which is why they're exes, but he realized that he sucked and tried to fix it. And of course, seeing the dudeness in him come out when he's dressed as the old lady is just hilarious.
Who are your favorite fictional dads? Let me know in the comments! And thanks to Megan and Kristin for coming up with the Five Fandom Friday concept and to Darling Stewie for the new FFF graphic.
Happy Friday! Its time for me to hop back on the FFF train. Today's is all about the fictional characters that I identify with the most, or you know, the ones that just get me :)
1. Harriet the SpyHarriet M Welsch is a nosy girl. She spies on her friends and her neighbors. She has routines, and hates change. Harriet taught me how to people watch, how to use a notebook for more than just a diary, how to accept change after you think your world has shattered. And its just a book for preteens. But as soon as I read it back when I was eleven years old, I felt like she was me, in book form. And I still do. I people watch all the time and have multitudes of notebooks for various things (and yes, I did have a "spy" notebook for a while in jr high) because its cheaper than therapy (although I do that now too lol).
2. and 3.Codex and Clara from The GuildI'm always split with these two because I think I'm more like Clara, but I definitely see myself in Codex too. Clara is the mom that plays too much, and while that's not me, I do identify with her being a mage, doing all the dumb achievements, and wanting to get out of the house (and living it up when I actually can lol. or wanting to anyway. I never do- I'm too socially awkward to pull off a good Clara in that respect.). But I understand Codex too. I constantly feel like my life is falling apart. I'm not anywhere near where I thought I'd be at this age, and I do play to get away sometimes. Well, I used to, when I had a great guild that was the best guild I'd ever been in. When it split up....well, I haven't found a guild since that I've felt at home in, so the game isn't the same anymore. I also get Codex's social awkwardness, because I am incredibly awkward.
Codex
Clara
4. DariaIf I was a cartoon character, Daria would be it. I was all sarcasm and dry wit in my younger days, and if you catch me on a good day now, I still am. I even wear thick glasses like Daria. She's my hero. If I could get away with wearing that hideous orange and green color combo I probably would.
5. Jessica Darling from The Jessica Darling Series by Megan McCafferty. These books are marvelous and Jessica is another book-me, but high school/college aged. She has a love for the 80's, is sarcastic and has a best friend that lives away from her. It was written in the time frame of when I was in high school (which is when I first started reading the series), so everything was very fresh and current and completely relevant. I found myself relating to Jessica so much it felt like Megan McCafferty must've been spying on me. Even reading the books now, it feels like I'm reading my old diaries and yearbooks.
So these are my five, and it was harder than I thought it would be to choose them! Who are your fictional character doppelgangers?
**This post contains affiliate links to Amazon. If you make a purchase after clicking the link, I will receive a tiny commission, at no extra cost to you.Thank you for supporting KMT!**
I haven't done one of these in a while, so what better way to jump back in then to review a movie that I had seriously hoped to love?
Did you catch that? I said hoped, but that doesn't mean that I completely hated the movie. I still had all the feels for it, but there were a lot of things that I felt fell flat with this sequel. So, at this point in the post let me just say.....this will contain spoilers. If you have yet to watch Pitch Perfect 2 and plan to, and you don't want to know what happens before you see it, then I suggest you stop reading now and come back once you've experienced the movie. There, now that that's out of the way, let's get reviewing.
We find our Bellas on a victory tour, having won three Collegiate championships. They look like singing colorguard girls, all sparkles and props, while they're serenading the President and the First Lady at the Kennedy Center. Then all of the sudden, Fat Amy comes in like a wrecking ball, flashes her vajayjay to the President, et all, and the Bellas are off their tour, lost the privilege of auditioning new members and are possibly off the a capella scene for good until the Worlds come into play. If they can win the Worlds, they can win back the right to compete at the collegiate level again, and hold auditions again.
The Worlds bring in an interesting dynamic because there is the potential for all these great groups from around the world to be seen. Of course, the team to beat is the German team, Das Sound Machine, who happen to be the team that the Bellas victory tour is handed off to. They are everything you'd expect a stereotypical German anything to be: sleek, stylish, strong....almost like a Volkswagen. So its only fitting that the Bellas first meet their rivals at an auto show. While the rivalry was a good one (And that German team was amazing), the focus on the Bellas and Das Sound Machine left no room for anyone else talent-wise. The Treblemakers were terribly underused in this movie. Skylar Astin has an amazing voice, and you only got to hear it like twice.
The movie had a lot of things going on, but at the same time it felt like there were a lot of things that should have been going on that weren't. Beca gets an internship at a recording studio, signaling that shes's thinking about her life after college. That was interesting, and the song she did with Snoop Dogg will probably be on a lot of Christmas playlists this year (I know it will be on mine). But at the same time, it seemed like it detracted from the movie as a whole, if that makes sense. And then you have Chloe, who purposely failed a class three times so she could stay a senior to keep being a Bella because she was scared of life after the Bellas. I think their strife was supposed to show how the Bellas as a whole had all lost their way (remember how I said they looked like singing colorguard members, all props and shimmery outfits), and that's what the movie was really about. Them coming back together. But there was just so many fragments of stories that it was just kinda messy.
Like I mentioned above, The Treblemakers should have been used a lot more. And Jesse and Beca should have been used a lot more as well. Their relationship was what everyone was rooting for in the last movie, and in this one, they're barely together. And when they are, its like watching a brother and sister, not boyfriend and girlfriend. One might argue that its just a time thing, in case you missed all the references to the fact that three years has spanned since we last saw our Bellas, so maybe they're in that auto pilot relationship mode. But I'm more inclined to think that their romance was toned down because of the real life romance between Anna Camp (who plays Aubrey) and Skylar Astin. And if that's the case, shame on the writers! Beca and Jesse were the cutest in the first movie.
And for the whole legacy story line involving new girl Emily, that sucked. I get that they needed a new singer, but legacies are nothing original. And having all the old Bellas sing at the Worlds was disappointing, I would have much rather have seen the Treblemakers back them up. Also, why did Pentatonix (they played the Canadian team) and the Filharmonics (the "ladyboys" from the Philippines, as the announcer called them) only get like, two seconds of screen time? I was looking forward to seeing them in the movie, and they barely got any play.
The Filharmonics- Flashlight (Jessie J/Barden Bellas)
For all my bitching though, I did still like the movie. The riff off was fun, there's still all the humor from the first one that is silly (and sometimes inappropriate) and I had to go buy the soundtrack immediately so I can listen to it over and over like the first one :)
Have you seen Pitch Perfect 2 yet? What are your thoughts on it?
I've gone back and forth about writing this, because I never know how personal is too personal. But I figured this might be better than a "sorry, I've just been so busy!" post. I'm not even sure how many readers I have left, that's how long I've been gone. Or it feels that way, anyway. And May is Mental Health Month, so this seems appropriate.
Back at the end of February, I went to see a psychiatrist. I was referred there by my neurologist, who just couldn't figure out why I have the most debilitating headaches ever. All my scans and tests came back fine, which was a huge relief. But it was also a tiny bit frustrating, because it gave my doctors nothing to work with, and the word hypochondriac was becoming more and more used. So the psychiatrist was a last resort, because everyone seemed to think that if I wasn't making it up, then stress just had to be the cause. So I went, and was told I had severe major depression. I was given some pills called Viibryd, and told to start seeing a therapist immediately, because it was clear that I needed someone to talk to. Well, immediately in that office means end of May. I still haven't seen the therapist yet, but will be soon.
As for the pills, I have yet to take them. The most commonly occurring side effects with this pill are nausea/vomiting, diarrhea and weight gain. Knowing how messed up my gastrointestinals are, I figured the likelihood of experiencing those were extremely high. I made a lot of excuses for not taking them. March was our birthday month, I didn't want to be sick for that. April was busy and I would be traveling a lot, and I didn't want to have all those symptoms while going to all the conventions. And now we're here in May, and I still haven't started. Its my son's last month of school, and I have a lot of PTA stuff to finish. Plus, the stomach flu is currently making it's way through my house, and I have to take care of my family. Those all sound like really good reasons, right? But they're also really good masks. After trying Zoloft and reacting to it like I did, I'm scared to try something else. And for the weight thing, its shallow, but I'm already on a few medicines that are making me gain weight, I can't gain anymore. To put that in perspective, when I was pregnant with my daughter, I hit 200lbs. She was a big baby, but I did gain a good amount overall with her for some reason. Anyway, currently, sans baby, I am just a few pounds shy of that weight. That is the most I've ever weighed in my whole life and it is embarrassing.
Depression is an ugly thing though, and its gotten bad enough that I can see it having harmful effects on my life. My marriage is suffering. That's a hard thing to type, but it is. My moodiness and paranoia has put a big strain on our relationship. He's not completely blameless though, sometimes he does things to purposely provoke it. But a lot of it is me. My blog life has suffered too. I haven't felt like writing much, its too much effort to sit here and pretend that things are okay when they're not. And I found that blogs I was usually loving were making me angry. I was jealous that they were more successful than mine, and I knew that was a problem for me. And I needed desperately to sell ads to pay for my pharmacy tech license renewal, but nobody was buying. In fact, I couldn't give my ad space away (and trust me, I tried). I suspect the desperation was seeping through, and that's another reason why I took a step back. I even got into an argument with another mom in the PTA. Shes annoying anyway, I don't like her on days that I feel normal. But she started in on me for no reason, and I let her get to me. She made me cry, and I went the immature route and called her names, because I didn't know what else to do. If I was me, normal me, I would've handled that situation completely different, and I never would've cried in public about it.
I am still not feeling one hundred percent myself (partially because I think I'm getting the stomach flu that everyone in my house has), but I will be starting to blog again. I have a ton of blog posts in my drafts, so I will be completing them and finally posting them. Lots of backdated posts from April will be popping up in your feeds over the next few weeks.
Thanks for letting me ramble on. I really do appreciate it.
Harriet M Welsch is a nosy girl. She spies on her friends and her neighbors. She has routines, and hates change. Harriet taught me how to people watch, how to use a notebook for more than just a diary, how to accept change after you think your world has shattered. And its just a book for preteens. But as soon as I read it back when I was eleven years old, I felt like she was me, in book form. And I still do. I people watch all the time and have multitudes of notebooks for various things (and yes, I did have a "spy" notebook for a while in jr high) because its cheaper than therapy (although I do that now too lol).
