Super Important PSAs // As in Snapchat and Link-ups

Disclaimer: the following post is going to be kind of advertisey BUT the good news is that the stuff it's being advertisey about is probably exciting and cool and stuff that you can participate on, so read on and try not to be too annoyed by my 4838 mentions of allie.reckless.

I have an immensely important announcement today.  For me, it's kind of life changing. 

Reckless got a Snapchat! (It's allie.reckless.) I am so excited about it.  See?

Before you tell me that blogs aren't supposed to snap (like I did to myself the first several times this idea crosses my mind) let's talk about it.

I love pictures, and so Instagram is naturally my favorite social media invention.  I've been posting pictures a little differently on my Instagram account lately - I'm being a little more artsy, and that's fun for me.  However, I realize that my account has become less personal because of that.  One of my favorite things about being able to follow bloggers on Instagram is that it lets me see a little bit of what their daily life is like.  I want to do fun, artsy things on Instagram, but I don't want to lose the personal connection it gives me to you all!  Enter Snapchat (allie.reckless).  It's like Instagram's lower-maintenance cousin.  I can post pictures really easily while I'm doing things, which makes it more personal than Instagram and a lot easier.  Instagram for trying to be artsy and cool, Snapchat at allie.reckless for having friends. 

"But wait!" you say.  "If I follow your account, allie.reckless, you can send me eleventy billion ugly selfies whenever you want, right?"  The answer to that is, yes, yes I can.  But I won't.  I don't want you to see an astronomical number of variations of my triple chin face any more than you want to see them.  In fact, I won't send you anything at all, ever.  I'll just update my story so that you can ignore or look at my pictures at your discretion. 

Speaking of PSAs and new things starting, how about that link up on Tuesday? The "It's A Fine, Fine Life" link up is happening, here, every Tuesday.  It's a chance for you to share what's great about life with a bunch of other bloggers doing the same thing.  The topic's intentionally vague to allow you plenty of creative freedom. Just link back to your host (that's me!) and make sure to show your fellow link-uppers some love! 

Okay, that's probably enough excitement for today, right?  Go back to your sleeping in or your exremely busy day (Saturdays always seem to go one of those ways or the other, don't they?)  Enjoy, and I'lI see you next week!

Cheers!

Allie

How Many Michael Scott Quotes? // Liebster Award

Guess what? Hump day!  

Never gets old. 

These last couple days have been a little bit of an emotional roller coaster, partly because I inflicted myself with finally watching the last two episodes of The Office twice in twenty - four hours.  I'd been avoiding finishing the series on Netflix for weeks because I just couldn't bear the thought of the show being over, but I finally broke down and did it.  And then tore my heart out again the next day because I had to watch them again.  I mean, that's like having your fish die twice or breaking your leg twice or going through a break up twice.  (At least, I imagine that's what it's like.)  It was rough.  

In other news, my friend and the blogger behind Just Another Girl nominated me for the Liebster Award, and that's gone a long way in brightening up my Office-less life.  (No, I'm not overreacting, thanks.) The Liebster Award is a way for new bloggers to get to know each other and to being attention to blogs that they think are worth a look - it's really cool!  Because I'm not over The Office yet and I love doing Liebster-y things, alllll of it is here for your enjoyment today. 

1 // What's your favourite season? My instinct is to say spring, but think that's just the cabin fever talking because, nine times out of ten, I'd say fall.  These below-zero temps and ceaseless snow have me wishing for that first day of spring something fierce, I must say.  Honestly, once it hits 30 I'll be pretty happy. 

2 // If you could go to any concert/festival for free which one would you go to?
TSwift.  Sue me. 

I want to dance to Shake If Off and belt Blank Space and jam to all of the old country Taylor and I mean meeting her would be okay.  Plus, front row seats to this would cost in the nieghborhood of millions of dollars normally, so I think this is a good use of my free concert pass.

3 // If you could only live with one make up for the rest of your life which one would you choose?
That's be my foundation, because sometimes my skin decides to mutiny and it's not pretty, and some people just don't understand. 

4 // Whats your most precious item? and how did you get it?
Because I'm a very deep human being with my priorities in order, I tend to like people and memories more than things. 

 Or maybe I just don't really have nice things.  Whatever the reason, it basically comes down the the fact that my most precious item is probably this giant box full of old stuff that I have in my room - things like old movie tickets and notes and art projects that I've kept over the years, because I'm a hoarder. That's a huge cop out because it has a lot of smaller things in it, but it's true. 

5 // What's the one thing you regret doing/look back and cringe at? 
OH BOY.  Since I like the way life is right now, there's not really much that I regret having happen to me. But cringe? How about every day of my life from age 12-14?  (I.e., this post)  I used to do a lot of talking without thinking, and that made me say a lot of really horrible, insensitive things.  Example: one time I told a girl that the guy who'd asked her to a dance had been planning on asking me first.  Which was true, but didn't need to be said.  And I wasn't even trying to be an awful jerk - I just started making conversation and that's where it went. 

6 // What's your favourite part of your body?
I am not good at being serious when complimenting myself or anyone, so here goes nothing.  Deep breath. My legs are my favorite because they're disproportionately long compared to my body which is really convenient for sports things like running. And there it is.

7 // If your life was a movie who would you want to play you/your family?
Zac Efron is my favorite, but I don't think him playing me would work out that well because we're different genders, but I think he could play my dad or something.  I'd play myself, of course, and then we'd become acting buddies and it would be amazing.

8 // Favourite quote? I've got kind of a ridiculous amount of favorite quotes, but one I've been thinking about a lot lately comes from a conversation I had with my grandpa when he came to town a few weeks ago.  He's a psychology major and a PhD and did his dissertation on Family Systems, so he knows a lot of things about people and he told me this:

"You can't blame people or get mad at them for their actions.  People do the best they have with what they know."

And then I wrote this about it. 

(Also, this one.)

9 // If you could star in any movie(new or old) which movie would you like to be in?

Ask anyone who has tried to talk to me about movies and you'll quickly find that I am not good at movies.  In fact, the fact that I've now had to answer two movie-related questions is kind of giving me anxiety.  But, since I have to choose let's say Grease because I've been obsessed lately.  And any movie that Molly Ringwald was in in the 80s, tbh. 

10 // Where do you think the most beautiful place in the world is?

This is so tough!  I think the most beautiful place I've been is either the ocean or a farm in the mountains, but every time I see pictures from rice paddies in China or cliffs in Iceland or those colorful towns on hillsides in Greece, my heart freaks out a little.  Is all the places an okay answer? Because I feel like that's actually the right answer. 

11 // Your dream job as a child and your dream job now?

When I was really little, I think I always assumed I'd be a pastor, like my dad.  He always  wore this cool dress (or robe - I called it a dress) on Sundays, and I was so excited to grow up and wear one just like his someday.  Now, I think it would be really cool to do something that involves psychology and writing and traveling, so if anyone knows of a job like that, let me know please try and convince them to hold it for me for about eight years. Thanks!


The Liebster Award gets passed around by nomination, so now it's my turn to nominate some of my favorite bloggers.  I'm going to do something a little different with this, though.  Instead of writing questions all of the bloggers to answer, I'm going to host a link up right here next Friday so that they can link up one of their most recent posts to share with you all!  That way, you can get a taste of what their blogs are like and what they usually write!

Carolyn from Carolyn's Simple Life

Live from Healthy Liv

Eden from edenroses

Kiera from Narwhal Knits

Viviane from Barely Adult

Danielle from Truly Scrumptious Cakes And Bakes

Rosie and Lydia from Two Little Pigs Down Under

Katelyn Polich from Coffee and a MacBook

Emma from A Child Found

Make sure to be back next Friday to read alllll the posts - they're going to be great!

Allie

P.S. I'm linking up with Nicole at Treasure Tromp, and I recommend it because you can link up whatever the heck you want and Nicole's lovely.

I Am Committing a Faux Post // Blogger Appreciation Day

FAUX PAS ALERT FAUX PAS ALERT FAUX PAS ALERT FAUUUUUXXXX PAS A. LERT.

I'm bringing up the topic of blogging today.  Here.  On a blog.  And while I don't personally have a problem with blog posts about blogging, word on the street is that it's a sin on the same plane as wearing your 100% Target-bought outfit to Target.  Or maybe wearing your Target outfit in front of a friend who doesn't have Target where she lives? 

 Something like that.  Come to think of it, I don't really have a problem with doing those things, either.  Clearly I have no sense of propriety, but that's okay because it allows me the freedom to charge right into the faux pas at hand and enjoy it thoroughly.  If ignorance is bliss, knowing and not caring is a close second.  

Remember that next time you go clicking around the internet, looking for things that you're not completely sure you want.  Before you Google, "free ebooks about blogging." Because you will find free ebooks and you will find them by the zillions, and they will all be filled with invaluable information presented by the 10,000 brightest minds in all of the blogosphere.  And then . . . 

Just kidding, it doesn't work that way.  While you don't stand any danger of getting chlamydia from blogger pro tips, you do run the risk of thinking that you need to not only read them all, but commit them to memory and adopt them as your life's mantra.  That's what just happened to me, and it kind of messed with me.  By the time I clicked the last red x on the last of the "10 Free Blogging EBooks You Must Read" I had no idea what in the world I was supposed to write a post about.  I'm supposed to be controversial enough to spark conversation, but respectfully controversial - I don't want to offend anyone, because blog readers these days are just waiting to close out the window and make my words disappear as soon as they don't like them.  Which begs the question:  What am I writing for?  Am I writing to spread ideas to the entire internet-using world, or do I just want to tell a couple close friends about my SAT experience? (Not that I'd probably do that anyway, because the only notable thing that happened was me not being able to find the room.)  Do I even care if people close out my window? 

 Should I? 

On top of that, there's all of that technical, computery stuff that my brain is just not good at.  I don't know if the concept of RSS feeds is supposed to be simple, but trying to grasp what exactly they are and how they affect my blog made my head hurt.  Learning HTML is like learning some dead ancient language from a Mandarin-speaking teacher: just about as foreign and out-of-reach as it gets.  (Background information: I speak neither dead ancient nor Mandarin.)  And all of these blog-analyzing websites and hosts?  What even is Alexa?  And how do I convert people?  Blogging is sooooo not just about writing.  

I'm not telling you about all of the blogging things that I'm bad at to gain sympathy. (Although if you're feeling compassionate, chocolate might be a nice pick-me-up.)  I'd just like to share my amazement that there are actually people out there who are good at this stuff.  Like, really good.  And after learning what a huge blogging world  it is out there, I think they deserve some recognition. 

My hat's off to you, HTML interpreters and page view converters.  May your fingers never grow tired of HTML coding things and your conversion rate never slip below 95%.  GIF masters and RSS feed-ers, you rock.  May your GIFS run smoothly and your RSS feed do exactly what RSS feeds are meant to do, whatever unfathomable thing that might be.  (If you know things about RSS feeds and want to tell me, I'd owe ya one forever.)  Most Popular Bloggers - may your thousands of readers grow to become hundreds of thousands, your hundreds of thousands become millions, until everyone who speaks your language reads your blog.  May the demand to read your blog be so great that you have to hire a guy to translate it into other languages, including, but not limited to, dead ancient ones and Mandarin Chinese.  May your posts look really, really cool in Mandarin Chinese.  

May you have the balance to effectively walk the line between consistency and boredom, boldness and jerkiness, honesty and way-too-much-honesty.  May your blog posts never be too long or too short.  May you always create content that is useful and interesting.  May you write promotion posts that people actually enjoy. 

MAY YOU - ahem.  I don't know where this turned into some kind of blogger blessing, but it happened so let's just hope that it comes true and not let it weird us out, okay? Because apparently "weirding-out" is something that can cause people to sentence me to the red x, and while I'm still a little unclear on whether I'm supposed to care about that or not, I'd like to keep my options open.  After all, blogging is hard, and I can use all the help I can get.  Especially with that dang RSS feed. 

Allie

I Am Not a Morning Person // Up North Day 2

One of my favorite ways to spend time is to sit around with my friends, swapping stories about our most awkward moments and laughing until we cry.  I'm going to tell you that it's mostly good entertainment, but I think that deep down, on some weird psychological level, I need these conversations to assure me that I'm not alone.  That there are other people who are as awkward as me awkward, too.  So, because everyone likes to say the blogging is cheaper than real psychiatric help (it is), and I know a bargain when I see it,  I'm going to take this opportunity to get my latest awkward moment off my chest, for freeee! Please enjoy.

Let me just preface this story by reminding you of how awkward I can be.  I don't mind it that much, which is good because now that I think about it, That Awkward Moment could easily be a weekly segment for me from now until blogs become obsolete or I die.  Daily, maybe.  Like that time that I returned a sweatshirt to a boy I didn't like anymore while he was in conversation with a girl who actually did like him.  And also happened to be one of my best friends. Uhh.  And that time I got caught car dancing really impressively at the longest red light in the world. So. Cool.  Stay tuned, because there is so much more where that came from.

I spent my Labor Day weekend with eleven people in a cottage with one bathroom.  Ya heard me! One. In other words,  we all spent a considerable amount of time trying to control our bladders while waiting for someone else to get out of the shower or do their hair or back up and plunge the toilet not like I did that, ew. We all learned to brush our teeth using any source of moving water available. The bathroom trash can filled up really fast.  And whenever you were in there with all of your clothes on, you could pretty much count on someone else showing up to pluck an eyebrow or wash fish guts off of their hands or something.  It was a growing experience.

The first few underbathroomed hours were smooth sailing.  I didn't get walked in on or walk in on anyone or anything.  And then it happened.  Elise and I were innocently starting out what was soon to be a long lasting Donkey Kong addiction when one of the house owners showed up AT HIS OWN HOUSE. The NERVE!  Normally I wouldn't take issue with someone showing up at their place of residence, but this particular person happens to be pretty attractive.  As in, he was a senior when I was a freshman and he was my senior crush - that was the extent of our relationship. Normally, I wouldn't take issue with sharing a house with an attractive boy, but unfortunately attractive boys tend to bring out my awkward like freckles in the sun.  Really huge, noticeable freckles. And not the cute kind.

It happened on Saturday morning.  At around nine, the sun started shining in my eyes really brightly and the birds were yelling at me to get up, so up I got.  I managed to roll out of my cot, grab my toothbrush, unzip the tent, and emerge from it without clotheslining myself on one of the ropes anchoring it to the ground, all with my eyes still mostly closed.  I stumbled over and under the three other anchor ropes like some kind of sleepy ninja and dragged my feet through the wet lawn, up a wooden step, and onto the deck, where I took a moment to assess my next action and force my eyelids up a little higher.  Right, the door.  Open the door.  I opened the creaky screen door and the considerably less creaky, but harder to open, wood one.  Through the open door, I could see that the bathroom was, miraculously, unoccupied, so I made a beeline for it with the kind of focus only observed in those who aren't fully conscious.

Once inside, I handled the toothpaste bottle with dexterity.  (See also: dropping it four or five times before succeeding to land some Crest on my toothbrush.)  I glanced in the mirror and was surprised by two things:  my ratchet very beautiful morning hair and face and the reflection of Senor Crush standing behind me.  No, I wasn't dreaming.  I think.  My first reaction was blind panic, closely followed by "Oh, I guess he thinks now would be a good time to confess his undying love to me."  So, with that in mind, I decided that it would be best to start brushing my teeth until he had worked up the courage to voice his feelings.  He was apparently really nervous, because he came into the bathroom, standing next to me, still without saying a word.  I patiently waited.  He could take his time. And then, just as I was leaning over the sink to spit out my toothpaste, he made his move.  He reached right across the sink to where his own toothbrush was, narrowly avoiding a mouthful of morning-breath tinged water, saliva, and Crest.  Well, that was unexpected. Our conversation went something like this.

Me: Oh.

Him. Uh.

Me: Um.

Him: Sorry.

Me: Yeah.

I was a little embarrassed, but I assumed he was done there, and my teeth weren't clean yet.  So I kept brushing, monopolizing the sink because HE HAD OBVIOUSLY SEEN THAT ANY ATTEMPTS AT GRABBING HIS TOOTHBRUSH RIGHT NOW WERE FUTILE and also I was still mostly asleep and didn't really understand what he was trying to do.  Except he still wasn't leaving, so my hope that he had something really important to tell me was renewed.  This continued, with him collecting his thoughts and me brushing, for a good thirty to forty-five seconds.  Finally, he broke the silence. "Can I just grab my toothpaste really quick?" No confession of love.

It looked like unexpected plot twists were going to be the theme of the day.

I woke up a little bit at that point  And then I realized that, in spite of my attempts, the awkward bathroom encounter had happened.  (We'll save the story of how I single handedly backed up - and fixed. AND FIXED, mind you, the toilet for another time.)  Also, the shocking reality that Senor Crush was not, in fact, in love with me, came crashing down on my head.  It was a rough way to wake up.  Please do not think any less of me based on the actions of my barely - awake self. Thanks.

Awkwardly yours,

Allie

Time to Refocus // Turning This Blog Around

Friends are great.  I mean like really, really great.  The very best kinds of friends are the ones who, among other things, get you to leave your comfort zone from time to time, whether it's riding the stupid Power Tower at Cedar Point that I'd sworn off for life, meeting new people, or running when you haven't run in seventy billion years and are proportionately out of shape. For better or for worse (looking at you, 240-foot drop), I've got several friends like that, and so yesterday I grabbed my prehistoric running shoes and headed to a lake to meet one of my friends who is weirdly in love with cross country.  Like, in love enough that's it's been three years and she hasn't quit.  I know.

So, we met at the lake as planned and I got my legs to start doing something resembling a running motion.  Kind of like this, but slightly less adorable.

Running like a baby duckling apparently uses up A LOT of oxygen, because I started to do my favorite really horribly, ugly sounding running breathing about thirty seconds in.  You know, where you suck in air like you haven't breathed in a year and exhale even more forcefully, all while clearing your throat, spitting and hoping it doesn't fly back and hit you, and crying? That.  I really like talking when I run so I can try to ignore the fact that I'm running, but that just really wasn't happening yesterday, so I let Ms. Cross Country run her mouth bestow some wisdom on me.

The conversation monologue eventually found its way to blogging, something that both of us really enjoy.  She said something like "I finally posted for the first time in like two months today!" and I was able to get out something like "Yeah - inhale -I've - exhale - missed - lots of quick breaths - you!"  She went on to talk about how she had started out her blog for one reason and that what she wrote about on it now had changed  from what she originally wanted and how she wasn't sure if she should keep doing it, as well as a bunch of other stuff because I think she was sick of me trying to talk and the resulting disgusting noises and loud breathing.

All the stuff she said got me thinking, though.  I had started my blog with a vision that it doesn't really resemble at all anymore, too.  Originally, I wanted a blog where I could document how I was loving people and living recklessly for God.  God would be the big picture, and this blog would be a place for me to talk him up.  That's so not how it is right now - not in my life, not here.  The side show got a little too much attention and started taking over the main act; this place that I created to only glorify God has gotten big enough to block my view of him.  Is that a problem? Uh, yeah.  Refocus.

We ran on, stopping for a halfway point walking break and finishing near this mile marker that makes it appear as if we ran 5.25 miles, which we did not.

The sun going down had everything looking so pretty just as we finished up, so we took some pictures of lake water and sky.

And then I was unsatisfied and got fancy (THERE IS AN ANALOGY IN THIS SO PAY ATTENTION) so I made us walk down the lake coast to where the boats are docked.  I was kind of disappointed when the picture wasn't that pretty.

Ta-da. 

In a last-ditch effort to save my idea, I tilted my camera up a little bit, away from the little things on my ground and up to the huge, blue sky. 

Oh, there it is!  Much better.  Like my life, the big picture of the sky and the waves and the sunset got cluttered when I tried to do my own thing with it.  At the same time, it became significantly less beautiful.  I had to look at the big picture to get the beauty. Refocus!

Refocusing is what's going to be going on around here in the next week or so.  I'm going to do everything I can to get back to why I started, which would be to blog about what God's doing in my life.  That means that, as of next Friday, I'm going to take my blog off of Bloglovin, turn off comments, and delete my separate blog Instagram account - anything that could cause me to focus on feedback from readers instead of what God wants me to do. (The only reason I'm not doing that right now is so, if you're so inclined, you can read along some other way.  I'D BE ELATED! But I won't have any way of knowing, nothing will be held against you.)  I'm going to post, but it'll be about God and honest life stuff instead of whatever might bring in a page view or two, and it won't be allowed to get in the way of my relationship with God, because that's idolatry and we don't do that.  Reckless is going back to its roots, and I'm so excited.  This time, with a clear view.  Refocused.

Allie

P.S.  This is what I look like after I run. You're welcome.

Blog So Hard // And Link Sharing

Considering the topic of this post, that title came out sounding kind of caveman-esque.  "I no want blog today. Blog so hard!"

WAIT.

Okay, so I'm going to get a little mushayyy.  Today feels kind of like the last day of summer camp or something, because, if you've also been blogging everyday in July with Juliette, Faith, and Allie, we've been linking to the same link up for A MONTH! And as excited as I am to do recipe posts and Jesus posts and workout posts and whatever the heck I want to write about that day posts, I'm going to miss being able to easily read what everyone else who's been linking up for July has to say.  It's sad.  Sooo . . . ta-da! Yet another link up. It's the virtual equivalent of lining up our dairies on the cabin floor and writing our phone numbers down in each one.  Here's how it works:

1.  Add links to your Twitter, Instagram, Bloglovin, and one other social media account at most. That's four total . . . sorry, we just can't have like 23483 accounts per person flying around all willy nilly.

2.  Enter your links like I did.  The URL to your social media account goes where the URL to your blog post would normally go.  For your name, enter as so:  Name @ Blog Name - Social Media Platform. I'm not tech saavy, so you have to enter each link separately. #SorryNotSorry . . . oh, wait.  That was yesterday, wasn't it?

3.  Click around to some of your fellow link-uppers' accounts! I mean, just click all the links if you have time! This link up is way more fun if everybody gets clicking, so please don't link up unless you plan to spread the social media love!

4.  Thanks for linking up!  Hopefully, this will help all of us who have been participating in the Blog Everyday in July Challenge to stay connected once July is over and we're no longer being challenged to blog every single day.

5.  The  "add link" button is really far away, at the bottom of the page.  Go find that button!

Aight, lets get down to business (til the Hunnsss ariiiiive, thanks Mulan / Ping.)  The topic on this last day of July is "Why Blogging is Hard."  I don't really want to talk about why blogging is hard . . . I feel like if I do that, I'm going to get really discouraged and have a breakdown and never ever finish this post.  We don't want that.  So, I'm going to try to talk about why blogging isn't hard, but in sarcastic terms so that I can still name this post "blog so hard."

Blogging is hard because . . .

| I get to write about whatever I want, whenever I want.  Granted, this can make blogging really, non-sarcastically hard sometimes.  Some days my brain doesn't want to come up with original, interesting content and I just kind of wish that there was someone blog guru somewhere giving me topics and forcing me to meet deadlines.  The majority of the time, though, I'm so thankful that I get to blog about what I'm excited about at any time of the day, including when I'm lying in bed (shout out to the Blogger app.)

| There is already a great community of bloggers out there to tap into.  Once again,  there's a side to that that creates actual difficulty - it can be hard to create a concept, title, and even a URL that hasn't already been done.  However, it's really great on the support side of things.  As a new-ish blogger, I haven't had to look too hard to find people who are willing to help me, link-ups to join, and archives upon archives of posts that inspire me and help me to to grow as a writer.  Yay!

| I don't even have to know how to HTML or anything to do it.  Because you can bet that if I did have to know anything techy in order to blog,  I'd be out of here waaaaay faster than my normal walking pace.

|  My family and friends support - and occasionally read - what I put on my area of the internet.  Originally, my blog was my best-kept secret, mostly because I was afraid that it would be a complete failure (how is that even possible?)  Lately, I'm slowly becoming more and more open about what I've been doing.  It's like an AA meeting or something.  "Hi, I'm Allie, and I've been blogging for a month and a half." "Hiiii Allie."  Anyway.  They're great.

| It gives me something productive to do with my time.  Well, I personally find blogging to be a tiny bit more productive than endless hours of 2048 (not that I've stopped doing that.)  It's also become a great replacement for boredom eating, which is fantastic because  boredom eating left some big pants shoes to fill in the comfort / entertainment department.

| Reading blogs is fun.  I really, really like reading blogs.  It's just so fun! And those last two sentences were completely unnecessary.  I realize that I could have deleted them, but I wanted to show you how I just wrote two intensely not necessary sentences.  Back to the blogs.  It's really cool to (virtually) get to know people who seem to be my separated at birth twin as well as those who couldn't be more different than me, especially because we tend to put a lot of work into our blogs.  Getting the chance to see a part of someone's life that they have poured their heart into is something that doesn't just happen every day.

Alright, so that's why blogging is hard.  And as much as I tried to pretend it was a piece of cake up there for my own sake, it really can be difficult sometimes all the time - snaps to all you bloggers out there! You're awesome! Now go give me your social media info so that we can stalk each other stay friends! Thanks!

Love,
Allie

GIFs // No, Not Like The Nut Butter

This is going to be pretty sick.  As in, a serious case of word vomit.  Well, more like the kind of word vomit that would happen if I had also consumed, along with the words, a large side order of GIFs.   I'm not sure who coined the term "word vomit", but I like it.  Also, I feel like it's not completely accurate because regular vomiting is not fun and word vomiting is.  Additionally, sometimes word vomiting can be a nice break from the norm, whereas regular vomiting is a break from the norm but rarely nice.  

So, when I found out that we had to do GIFs today (as a part of the Blog Everyday in July challenge) I was like:

(source)

because I had never used a GIF in a blog post ever and so obviously they were really, really hard to use.  And unfortunately some of us don't have a source of unlimited free GIFs that we can use without even naming names, so where was I even supposed to find GIFs that I could use without being arrested if the police ever read my blog? 

I was having a tough time (understandably so, considering the circumstances), so I ate, duh. 

(source) 

Which made the situation a lot better.  

Then I Googled "How to Use a GIF/Image" and apparently it's easier than it sounds.  So I gave it a shot. And I successfully added this GIF to my post. 

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Isn't it so cute? Why doesn't my cat do this? I'm getting a new cat.  Bye, Si/Pepper.  And that is how I discovered that GIFs are a wonderful thing. 

As you can imagine, I was feeling kind of like this ish after that little win. 

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You know, fabulous.  So I thought, "You know what would be really cool? If I MADE MY OWN GIFs for this post! It would literally be my day in GIFs! Why didn't I do that? I should totally do that!" 

Yeah. And then I was like, "Great idea Miss I-Just-Learned-How-To-Use-A-GIF."

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But, I mean, it was kind of a fun idea.  

Then, my dad went to bed and I was left basically alone in the house at night and lonely, and so I turned on the TV and was really really reallllllly hoping that Friends would be on.  

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But I knew I had about as big of a chance of watching Friends tonight as Andy up there probably does of getting whatever he wants.  

If you don't watch The Office, you may think that that's a good thing.  I'm here to tell you it's not.  What Andy wants rarely happens, which is why The Office is funny and I was so sad. 

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But I scrolled through the channels even though I knew it wasn't happening. And guess what? 

IT WAS ON!!!!

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Which means that, obviously, all the Friends celebrated with me. 

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And that is how, thanks to Juliette, Faith, and Allie, I overcame my fear of GIFs. 

Oh! And you know what I just realized? JK Rowling totally invented GIFs! Remember these? 

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Yep.  Before it was cool. 

Anyway, from here on out, I can tell that there will probably be a lot more GIF vomit.  And if anyone asks who coined the term GIF vomit, that was me. 

Love, 

Allie