Tag: August

July & August Playlist

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hello!

Does anyone get to the middle of a month and suddenly forget you haven’t switched to the next? I was so confused a couple of weeks ago, I almost gave you the Summer 2024 playlist. We even moved my calendar closer so I could get a feeling to blog and map out the scheduling and I still didn’t realize it. For some clarification, II do not publish until summer is officially over, which will happen on September 22nd, for any of my autumnal folks out there!

For today, I thought I would do what I did back in May and give you August’s top 20 and July, because since we went up north, we were all forced to listen to my sister’s music. She has pretty good music, but she likes the skip button just as much as I do! The thing was, every once in a while, we had to listen Cocomelon’s nursery rhymes for a good twenty minutes for Kimber… Thankfully, it wasn’t Blippi. I hated that guy when Nolan was her age. Now Nolan loves BMTH!

Anyways, here is what I was into for July. If you’d like to listen to the full playlist on Spotify, click here.

Sweet Escape by Alesso featuring Tove Lo
Body Say by Demi Lovato
Who’s Laughing Now by Ava Max
Tough by Lana Del Rey featuring Quavo
DUN DUN by EVERGLOW
Clarity by ENMY
Sinner by Of Virtue
Justice by Dreamcatcher
Me and My House by Brantley Gilbert featuring Struggle Jennings and Demun Jones
Please Please Please by Sabrina Carpenter
Houdini by Eminem
AmEN! by Bring Me The Horizon featuring Lil Uzi Vert and Daryl Palumbo
Sun To Me by MGK
He Knows by Camila Cabello featuring Lil Nas X
Chk Chk Boom by Stray Kids
Can U See Me In The Dark by Halestom x I Prevail
I Will Not Bow by Breaking Benjamin
Unfolding by Luca Fogale
Deal With It by Ashnikko featuring Kelis
Hurricane by BADVILLAIN

Whenever we start on another year or slide into August, I tend to dive into the nostalgic pool for a while. In the last couple of years, I have found a way out of this habit and exchange it with the current aesthetic playlists I’m creating for a certain book. I’ve finally stopped with The Empyrean by Rebecca Yarros. I’m still in the process of reading the novellas Victoria Aveyard wrote with the rest of the Red Queen series, but I’m slowing down on it, so that’s good.

I know you’re probably over me talking about the aesthetic playlists, so I’ll just tell you my Top 20 for this month. Again, if you’d like to hear the rest of the songs, you can click here too.

How Did You Love by Shinedown
Possession by Jen Janet
GODDESS by Written By Wolves
Immortals by Fall Out Boy
Light Up The Sky – Reimagined by Thousand Foot Krutch featuring Icon For Hire
Unraveling Madness by Ghostwriter
Resilience by Mattia Turzo
See What I’ve Become by Zack Hemsey
Unholy by Sam Smith featuring Kim Petras
Raise Your Flag by Hidden Citizens
The Reckoning by Daughtry
Leave A Light On (Talk Away The Dark) by Papa Roach featuring Carrie Underwood
Bring Me Down by Point North
Bullet by Rain Paris
Walk On Water by 30 Seconds To Mars
Alive by Tigress
Dark Horse by Power-Haus x Berlin Aires
Be Your Ghost by ATLeins featuring Roniit
The Fold by Wickerbird
Part Goddess Part Gangster by Madalen Duke
Super Villain by Stileto featuring Silent Child x Kendyle Paige

Okay, well that is it for me. I have one other post going out on Wednesday, but I hope you have a good week ahead and maybe these playlists will help you along the way.

What were you listening to?

snowflake

Book Review: “We’ll Always Have Summer” by Jenny Han

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hi.

It took me eight months, but I finally completed a whole book series. I did not think it would be the “Summer” series by Jenny Han, but it was nice while it lasted.

When I was getting down to the wire with the audiobook, I so wanted to let it go for another day, but at that point I had about 14 chapters left and in the back of my mind, I knew I would finish it that day. I had to tell my dad that I was going to take a nap while he was outside so I wouldn’t be disturbed or most likely, made fun of for choosing to read those sad books. He makes fun of mom and I when we watch sad movies, TV shows, etc. It could be worse though. It could have been smut…

Anyways, I may have some spoilers down below, so if you have not read this book yet, you may want to skip the review altogether. Since season two of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” just came out, they haven’t updated the cover for this book, so I had to go looking on Pinterest for something similar to go with the others.

Can Belly make a final choice between Jeremiah and Conrad? Find out in the conclusion of the New York Times bestselling The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy from the author of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (now a major motion picture!).

Belly has only ever been in love with two boys, both with the last name Fisher. And after being with Jeremiah for the last two years, she’s almost positive he is her soul mate. Almost. While Conrad has not gotten over the mistake of letting Belly go, Jeremiah has always known that Belly is the girl for him. So when Belly and Jeremiah decide to make things forever, Conrad realizes that it’s now or never—tell Belly he loves her, or lose her for good.

Belly will have to confront her feelings for Jeremiah and Conrad and face the inevitable: She will have to break one of their hearts.

taken from Goodreads.

The story’s timeline has shifted a couple of years in the future. Steven and Conrad are heading into their middle-ish 20’s, whereas Jeremiah is 20 and Belly is almost 19 years old. She has completed her first year at college and she’s patiently waiting for summer to begin. However, at this point she has decided to become an adult and use her actual name Isabel. She’s back to being friends with Taylor, but she has other friends like Anika and her roommate Jillian, and most importantly, she’s been in a relationship with Jeremiah for two years.

Everything seems to be going good until Belly hears about what happened during spring break, and everything takes an odd turn, because you’re really not expecting this to happen, lest of all Jeremiah being the one to do it in the first place. Belly and I basically had the same reaction, and then in a way to attempt to fix the damage, he asks her to marry him, and this is the plot for these three characters. Belly, Jeremiah and Conrad.

Belly. Take this however you want to take it, okay? I have five words for you. Are you ready?” I opened my eyes and nodded. Very solemnly he said, “Go big or go home.”

When you read the second book, It’s Not Summer Without You, you are given two point-of-views Belly and Jeremiah, which I thought was interesting, but in this one you get to hear Conrad’s and since I’ve experienced a first love that never turned out to be anything more than a great friendship, I really fell hard for Conrad. I thought he was an absolute asshole in the second book, but to learn why he had to do it, made me forgive him and see how much he does love Belly.

The last 10 chapters (and I’m not kidding you!) were the worst to get through because I was crying. Anytime anybody brought up Susannah, I’d bawl, when Conrad and Jeremiah were arguing, it would happen again. I was like a nonstop fountain just spilling all over my face and pillow. By the time I got to the scene where Belly and Taylor are sitting on the floor of her room at the summer house, and her brother Steven comes in and tries to give some sibling advice and pulls out the “go big or go home” I couldn’t stop laughing. I had to rewind that scene three times because I was laughing as hard as they were like they were in front of me. I thoroughly enjoyed this little sweet moment before going out with even more tears.

There are moments in every girl’s life that are bigger than we know at the time. When you look back, you say, That was one of those life-changing, fork-in-the-road moments and I didn’t even see it coming.

Lastly, I was really surprised on how much I liked this series. The “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before” will always have a special place in my heart as it was the first series I ever completed; these books will also have a special meaning as well as they were the first for this year.

I remember thinking about the similarities of characters and general storyline between them and I still believe the “Summer” series to be more mature in nature compared to the other. I think it’s because of the fact that Lara Jean and Peter are in high school and the interact with characters at their school through much of the books, whereas Belly is separated from her friends, and she’s basically living a double life everytime she would go to Cousins and the summer house.

I definitely can’t pick out which is better; in the beginning, I thought I would, but there were things in all six books that made me love it, but also irritated me too. Neither one is a perfect insight to a romance of today that I do know, however, I liked the plot and obviously they emotionally destroyed me, so there’s that.

Have you finished the third and final book, “We’ll Always Have Summer” by Jenny Han yet? What were your thoughts on the love triangle between Belly, Jeremiah and Conrad? Which team were you on the most?

snowflake

August Playlist

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hi there,

Summer is still alive, with its hurricanes, wildfires and everything else.

There are a lot of good things about this season, our gardens are blooming, and my parents are reaping their rewards in abundance. I can’t tell you how many times I hear “we’re not going to buy that many tomato plants next year” and then it happens anyway. This isn’t my mother’s issue, it is actually my dad, and he can get very obsessive about how he wants his garden in the springtime.

This year, my disgust of this season started early, as the fires were engulfing the southern parts Canada and the bigger cities on the East Coast were polluted with orange smoke that was barely visible to everyone. And then our weather will change almost hourly as we start to feel the roaring hurricanes. We may be in the upper part of the country, but it doesn’t mean it’s not going to affect us.

I hope everywhere you are in the world you are safe and sound.

Stronger Woman by Jewel
Bacon by Nick Jonas featuring Ty Dolla $ign
Invisible Hand by Crosses
New Heaven by Conquer Divide
Cheerleader by Ashinikko
Call My Name by Beyond The Black
Pink Venom by BLACKPINK
Chokehold by Sleep Token
Legs Crossed by Whissell
Kiss My (Uh Oh) by Anne-Marie featuring Little Mix
Sweet Dreams by Clovet Mae
Go Down Deh by Spice featuring Sean Paul and Shaggy
Six Feet Deep by Royale Lynn
Self-Destruction by I Prevail
Alive by The Scarlet Opera
Human by Christina Perri
Time To Go To War by Manafest x UNSECRET
I Feel Like I’m Drowning by Two Feet
Lock Me Up by Marisa Maino
Darkside by Neoni

I really debated whether I wanted to talk about the Doja Cat drama on here. I rarely discuss things such as this, mainly because I don’t want to be attacked; I have done nothing but think about it, so I figured I needed to get it out on here.

How does a person become noticed by others? It usually goes in order of importance, family, best friends, and if you want to grow out of your comfort zone, you need to network and engage with random people and if they enjoy your art, they will continue to stretch out like a tree and suddenly, you have a fanbase or audience. It’s at this stage that you either feel egotistical or loved by all of these people giving you the feedback you deserve as an artist.

The phrase “overnight celebrity” doesn’t always happen, it takes work for it to get everything to go in the right direction. It will never be a simple sprint by any standards. These people–majority of them you’ve never met–are doing a lot for you, to get you noticed by the right people and for your career/hobby to blossom. If it wasn’t for their support, you’d have nothing, it’s as simple as that honestly.

As an independent music blogger, I have the option to talk about what I like and discuss them with you guys. I have been asked to review in the past and for most, they’re new artists trying to find their footing (odd pun for me, right?) in the music world, I mean, they’re sending me emails to request–not their management teams or publisher–in order to grow as an artist and honestly you need to forage that bond as it could benefit both parties as well. I don’t do many reviews anymore, but I still support the artists I have worked with and enjoy seeing how far they have come since then.

So, for Doja Cat to say they don’t love their fans, really made me angry, and I’m sure it made a lot of people feel the same way. They might have multiple fans who struggle to make friends, or you may be all that they have right now, and your music is the cure to their sadness, and you might have just fucked it all up for them.

I’m going to end this post here, and I thank you for allowing me to speak out for a moment. If you’d like to check out the full playlist, click here. I know I didn’t post anything for July, so I’m leaving you with that link as well. Don’t forget, next month you will be getting TWO playlists. the regular monthly playlist and then the Summer playlist, and I am making arrangements for it as we speak.

What were you listening in July AND August? What are your thoughts on the Dja Cat and her fans drama? Leave everything in the comments below.

snowflake

Book Review: “999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz” by Heather Dune Macadam

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hello!

For the past three years, I’ve always ended my reading challenges with a book about the Holocaust. Of course, they were mostly fictionized, but they echo the stories of fellow inmates and survivors of the most infamous camp, Auschwitz. This time I managed to find a book that was on my Goodreads TBR (to be read) and it was free with Kindle Unlimited.

I knew what was getting myself into before I did the one click thingy, but I am never prepared to what would be in front of me with every page. I am always drawn to read about these awful years towards the end of each of my reading challenges. I doubt I’ll ever understand it, but here we are anyways.

WARNING: There are spoilers down below, so you might want to ignore this review today!

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A PEN America Literary Award Finalist
A Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee
An Amazon Best of the Year Selection

The untold story of some of WW2’s most hidden figures and the heartbreaking tragedy that unites them all. Readers of Born Survivors and A Train Near Magdeburg will devour the tragic tale of the first 999 women in Auschwitz concentration camp. This is the hauntingly resonant true story that everyone should know.

On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women, many of them teenagers, boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service and left their parents’ homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Instead, the young women were sent to Auschwitz. Only a few would survive. Now acclaimed author Heather Dune Macadam reveals their stories, drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, and consulting with historians, witnesses, and relatives of those first deportees to create an important addition to Holocaust literature and women’s history.

taken from Goodreads.

Despite the evil of it all, this book was really interesting!

“We were nice girls from good families trying to learn how to steal from other nice girls from good families. This was not human. They dehumanized us.”

The author Heather Dune Macadam focuses on the original girls who were taken to Auschwitz in 1942. There are a lot of names and numbers to remember throughout the entire book, but I find it important that you mostly hear these heartbreaking stories from these lovely ladies. These were innocent girls expecting to work for the government (even though it was them who took practically their jobs and everything else before whole families were rounded up!) and end up in hell on Earth in a form of a new camp for anyone and everybody who was an enemy to the Nazis.

The conditions at the camps were downright awful! Each girl and woman was forced to strip their Sunday best, shave their heads, and get tattoos on their arms of their numbers the officers gave them. However, as you go on and learn about the jobs the prisoners vied for on a daily basis, and it wasn’t just the Nazi officers giving orders, it was fellow inmates too. They were offered a series of jobs in Auschwitz, none of them were ideal, some were downright dangerous like dig ditches and lakes in all seasons and temperatures! The women were being fed little unkosher meals, like soup made out of horsemeat and a piece of beard no bigger than a fist. And if that wasn’t enough, they also had to deal with diseases like typhus and sleep in places that were covered in fleas and lice!

And yet, we have survivors….

“Genocide does not simply go away. Just as it can continue to haunt the survivors, it shapes the lives of those who live with and love those survivors.”

As I see what is going on with the world nowadays, seeing Israel and what they are doing to their Palestine communities is another example of the Holocaust, as the Jewish were also kicked out of their homes and made to live in a one room with other families in the ghettos. Israel is an unique country with three main religions: Christians, Judaism and Islam. I used to think this was amazing until I saw what they don’t put on the mainstream news. I wonder how many Jewish people who were in these cocreation camps would support this violence. I think it would be a very low number. And then, we have what is going on with Russia and Ukraine, and you have the same exact story. History is just going to continue to repeat itself over and over again until we find out how to respect each other in our differences, and as much as I’d like to see that happen someday, I doubt it’ll happen in my lifetime and that’s the sad truth to it.

Have you read Heather’s “999: The Extraordinary Young Women in the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz” yet? Do you find yourself interested in books like this one? How do you deal with the sadness they tend to bring us readers?

snowflake

August Playlist

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hello my friends!

August hasn’t been one of the friendliest months; lots have happened, but as long as my niece decides to keep inside her cave just a tad bit longer, we’ll deal with it.

Speaking of her though, we had a nice baby shower for her, and we all had an excuse to dress up, Blondie wore a rose-pink dress, kind of fitting considering she wore a bright ocean blue for Nolan’s shower! Originally, I wasn’t going to want to wear a dress, I tried to talk my mom into getting a jumpsuit or romper, but she talked me out of it, and I found a nice olive-green Maxi dress instead. I’ve been really obsessed with my clothes in the color green these past two years and I have yet to figure out the reason for it! I was going to leave the leggings at home but even I saw right through that idea! Whenever I wear dresses, I tend to wear shorts underneath so I can talk verbally and physically with my legs without flashing the poor people in front of me. I have done this on accident in the past, so it is just better to wear leggings or something.

Anyways, we had a great time, celebrating my sister and my little niece. Nolan had a blast too! He absolutely adores baby socks and the “bow ties” (which are the hair bands!), hearing him “ohh” and “awe” over the gifts was so sweet! He is thoroughly excited about his baby sister, and I am thinking of placing bets amongst family members to see how long it lasts because he does not have the patience for things, so a lot of us know it’ll be an interesting adventure for him.

A week later, my little dude decided to grow up and start preschool!

The first day was a bit odd, he didn’t want Blondie to leave him, but it seems after she left, he had a great time! He came home with first crafts he had made in class, and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing bits and pieces of his morning activities because he was playing with his toys in the living room. We’re all still trying to wrap our brains around the fact that he’s even old enough to attend “big kid” school, but nothing really prepared us for it like the second day, he pretty much told his mommy to go away as he walked up to his teachers and new friends. The other day they came over and brought his Spidey backpack inside to show us some of his assignments and a fairly large magazine full of book fair goodies! I definitely don’t remember this in my preschool days, but since with COVID, they just send home these catalogs for each student and my dad and I went through that whole thing on our own because that was our favorite thing about school, although I never bought books home, so to see Nolan point out certain books or magazines was very touching to me! He loves his books like his mimi and mommy!

And then all hell broke loose, my mom came home from work a week later not really feeling well, and as she tried to start her second shift on Sunday, she was sent home with COVID within half an hour later.

As much as we tried to quarantine in our house, it didn’t really shield us well enough, especially when one of us is like me and needs assistance on a daily basis. I had some sickly symptoms the same day she was tested but I didn’t voice it until that Monday because I was utterly terrified to say anything to my folks, they are both vaccinated but I chose to not get it. I am not one for needles/shots, but I also didn’t know what kind of side effects would present itself later on in life, so I just chose to forgo it entirely and my parents were very aware of my feelings toward it on both reasons, and they haven’t said anything about it. I know it contradicts my thoughts I wrote about in the post I wrote back when this mess started but even then, I still knew I wasn’t getting the vaccine.

My symptoms were mild in comparison to my folks, the one thing we all had was the disgusting taste in our mouths, and we found out it was caused by our medicine, and what seemed to make it disappear were fruity candies, especially Life Savers. I would keep them on my bookshelf so I can chew/suck on it for a bit of time and it would help so much for us! My dad was the last in the household to get it and he used those cinnamon candies and I remember thinking, “why torture yourself like that?!” and my mom would actually eat butter scotches and they worked, but I liked the fruity flavors to keep me occupied for probably 15-20 minutes. We were all thrilled to be done with everything and Blondie and Nolan were allowed to come over again. It was pure torture to be separated from him for basically two weeks, and as he started school too.

All right, so everything aside, this month’s music has been somewhat interesting. In the beginning, I was trying to keep up with the newest releases and the first Monday afterwards, I went through my Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify, and I proceeded to put every song onto the main playlist. I ended up listening to three albums, the first was Hollywood Undead’s “Hotel Kalifornia” which came out a couple of weeks ago. I loved it! I have like eight or nine favorites on it, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, you need to! The second was found by accident and it is called, “Aventine” by Agnes Obel. This was also great but very different compared to HU though! And the final was Demi Lovato’s “HOLY FVCK” and I surprised myself with this because I did not think I would enjoy it, but I was wrong and it’s probably one of her best releases in a while.

Here is my Top 20 songs for August! If you would like to check out the entire playlist, click here.

Meteorite by BANKS
Hands of Gold by Delain
Weight of Everything by Ill Factor featuring Katie Garfield
Blow by Eva Under Fire featuring Spencer Charnas
Every Man Is A Warrior by Lena Fayre
The Promise by In This Moment
Valiant by Nightcity.
Thunder by Imagine Dragons
Cake By The Ocean by DNCE
How Soon Is Now by AG featuring Dresage
Dorian by Agnes Obel
This Is What I Live For by Graffiti Ghosts
Kings & Queens by Ava Max
The Champion by Carrie Underwood featuring Ludacris
Let You Down by Sleeping With Sirens featuring Charlotte Sunds
Crazy Train by Joseph William Morgan
100 Little Deaths by Lilith Czar
Pink Venom by BLACKPINK
Happy When I Die by Hollywood Undead
Sound of War by Tommee Profitt x Fluerie

What were you listening to this month?

snowflake