friday link love | 14.

James Kay speaking on illustrating the Harry Potter series.
THIS ON REPEAT FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.
What happens when nerdy technology becomes R (not really) rated.
I am a huge fan of contemporary dances, and this routine to James Bay's "Let It Go" broke me.
If Harry Potter characters had instagram — a must read.
The Yankees may not be in the World Series, but McCann killed it this year.
I love honest humor, and this animated first date story is definitely just that.
I. NEED. ONE. OF. THESE. PUPPIES.
I wish I thought of this (as do my HP lovin' coworkers).
This twitter account absolutely kills me.
Gems from my coworkers: this adorable 911 call, and your new instagram obsession.
From me: why you're pooping wrong, the best campbell's commercial ever, and the absolute sweetest thing you'll ever see.

april - october playlist.

I haven't done a playlist in a while — which caused me to combine my april/may/june/july playlist, and then an august/september playlist in a panic — so I decided I'd combine all of the songs I've been obsessed with since april until now (however, I'm not doing that on my spotify, because I get too attached to playlists the way they are, so you can listen to april/may/june/july here, august/september here, and october here).

The above songs are the ones I haven't stopped listening to for six months, and are, as usual, a mix of all genres. Follow me on spotify for more monthly playlists.

*Note: Tim Atlas's song is called "Ten Goodbyes," but because there's no spellcheck on photoshop and I'm so quick to not save the .psd files of things, it makes me look like I can't spell. Ah well.

26 things: half year (and a bit) update.

For my birthday this year, I made a list of 26 things that I wanted to accomplish in my 26th year, and now that I'm half (okay, just over half) of the way through the year, I wanted to catch-up with how I'm doing and figure out what I still need to accomplish before I turn 26 next March.

11 out of the 26 items have been crossed off so far, seven things are in progress, and eight things are completely unfinished. On the list of completed items, I've traveled to a new place (Portland, ME), gone to four concerts (Ed Sheeran, again), I moved out, got a new job, and went back to California (twice!).

Of the seven things in progress, I've mostly kept up with the month-by-month ones — writing a handwritten letter/note every month, and buying myself flowers — though, I've forgotten most months about the polaroid photos. I've been cooking for myself a lot, and trying to come up with a bunch of staple dishes to make all the time and get really good at (I set the goal at five staple dishes, though I can already make way more things, so it's kind of (?) completed).

Of the things that are unfinished, I either know I'll likely get around to it — like taking some sort of class, maybe calligraphy or copy editing — or unless I really dedicate some time, I probably won't — like brewing beer, or knitting something. The reality of the things that are unfinished is that since moving out and starting my new job (which requires me to write for 40 hours a week), hobbies — including this blog — have hit the back-burner kind of hard. I've tried and tried to keep up with project life, picking up new hobbies, and blogging, but the fact of the matter is, I'm loving life right now, and spending most of my free time with my roommates, seeing friends, going to events for work, and exploring my new town; so I'm not completely mad at myself for having so many things unfinished with my birthday just over four months away.

As with last year's birthday project — 25 things — I have adapted over the course of the year and reevaluated the things that I want to really do. And as with last year, I'm okay with that. I do want to get back to blogging more regularly, and have been saying it for the past six months, but it'll be a slow burn. So I'm not quite close to accomplishing all 26 things yet, but I do feel alright about it all, which is fine by me for now.

project life 2015 // weeks 17 - 22.

April 13 - May 17.What went on during these weeks: I started my new job in NYC, caught up with some BuzzFeed friends, moved into a new apartment with my friends Katherine and Meagan (which we call the East MAK Inn), celebrated Max's fourth birthday, and had a housewarming BBQ with all of our friends. Details + interesting tidbits: Each week was a little bit different, but since I'm in beast mode trying to get everything up-to-date, things were kept simple. Most weeks in this grouping had a few less photos than normal because while I was starting up at the new job and moving into my apartment, photo-taking started to go by the wayside. I used extra 6x4 cards and a bunch of see-through pockets — I actually kind of liked how it looked most of the time.Photo Breakdown: W17: phone photos: 7 // DSLR photos: 0 // polaroid photos: 0. W18: phone photos: 11 // DSLR photos: 0 // polaroid photos: 0. W19: phone photos: 7 // DSLR photos: 1 (sky photo credit)  // polaroid photos: 0. W20: phone photos: 10 // DSLR photos: 0 // polaroid photos: 0. W21: phone photos: 6 // DSLR photos: 0 // polaroid photos: 0. W22: phone photos: 10 // DSLR photos: 0 // polaroid photos: 0. | Taken by me, the self-timer, and shutter remotes.Materials Used: PL Core Kits: midnight edition & seafoam edition, PL Add-On Kits: heidi swapp foil kit, Studio Calico PL kits, smash date stamp, fiskars corner rounder, fiskars paper trimmer, staz-on jet black ink, zig photo signature pen in black (on photos), zig writer marker in black (on journal cards), canon selphy wireless printer, canon selphy ink + paper kit.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Project Life is a simplified solution to scrapbooking created by Becky Higgins that helps you record everyday memories. Document your story either physically or digitally along with me and so many others. Find out more here, how to start here, & see all of my PL 2014 posts here, and 2015 here. Some links may be affiliate links.

easy DIY pumpkin with gold lettering.

This literally isn't even worth a post, but for anyone looking for the ultimate last-minute DIY pumpkin decorating idea, this is it.I used a craftsmart gold paint marker to hand-letter "happy halloween" onto a small pumpkin. It took about five minutes, if that. And boom goes the dynamite.

project life 2015 // week sixteen.

April 6 - April 12.What went on this week: This was my first week at Popsugar in NYC, and it was an awesome first week. I started up #alessiacommutes again, and started making plans for moving at the end of the month.Details + interesting tidbits: Not many photos this week, so I used a bunch of black, white, and gold cards on the righthand side.Photo Breakdown: phone photos: 9 // DSLR photos: 0 // polaroid photos: 0. Taken by me, the self-timer, and shutter remotes.

Materials Used: PL Core Kits: midnight edition ("hello there" card), PL Add-On Kits: heidi swapp foil kit (love, polka dots), Studio Calico PL kits: galileo (week card); fairground ("loving it" card); lisse street ("you can do this" card), heidi swapp date stamp, fiskars corner rounder, fiskars paper trimmer, staz-on jet black ink, zig photo signature pen in black (on photos), zig writer marker in black (on journal cards), canon selphy wireless printer, canon selphy ink + paper kit.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Project Life is a simplified solution to scrapbooking created by Becky Higgins that helps you record everyday memories. Document your story either physically or digitally along with me and so many others. Find out more here, how to start here, & see all of my PL 2014 posts here, and 2015 here. Some links may be affiliate links.

september book report.

The Invisibles. I read this for book club, and liked it despite hating the main character, Nora. Actually, I didn't really love any of the characters, but the storyline was interesting, and the "secret" that they allude to throughout the entire book definitely tripped me up. It's not what I was expecting, and I was a little bit disappointed, but now thinking back, the author does a good job fooling you, so touché.

Luckiest Girl Alive. I heard mixed things about this book before I started it, but I'm glad I read it. It's a million kinds of effed up, as the main character Ani is a psycho, but I was completely intrigued the entire time. The ending was kind of one of those where all of a sudden a trigger is pulled and then the book ends shortly after, which I can't stand, but overall it was a good book. I wouldn't call it the next Gone Girl, which is what some people are saying, as it was nowhere near as addictive, but it's worth a read for something different.

The Girl on the Train. I haven't been as into a book as much as I was this one in a while — couldn't put it down. It's a whodunnit that is extremely hard to figure out, as the author throws a million and one misleading clues around, but even though I didn't figure it out, it was still amazing. The main character Rachel is an alcoholic, so you kind of have to work with her memory lapses and blackouts, combined with the other two characters that have partial narration to figure out what's going on. It was a fun read because of that.

27/25 of my yearly reading goal — wayyyy ahead of the curve on that one. Gonna have to increase that for next year.