There are very few pop culture phenomenons that I miss out on. I am usually right there in the center with bells on -- I love being part of a community, to be united by a common interest is one of life's greatest joys. Though, there are always exceptions to that rule of mine, and for the past few years, the rule was Fourth Wing.

Aside from Harry Potter and Twilight, I'm not big into fantasy genres. I've read ACTOAR and didn't love it, and have never found myself super interested in anything else that becomes popular. 

I've seen Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros around the block and knew everyone goes feral for it, but it never sparked my interest. I thought reading about a war college with dragons was too complicated and felt I was better off staying in my own lane.

That is, until I had a near nervous breakdown a few weeks ago and needed something to sink my teeth into to distract myself from the hellscape that was unfolding around me. I wanted to lose myself in a book, to really immerse myself in the world, in the characters and become one with the words I was reading. 

With Onyx Storm just being released and everyone very much in Fourth Wing mode, I decided to try my hand at it.

Well, I simply have no words.

I finished both Fourth Wing and Iron Flame within 4 days, and then took my time with Onyx Storm which I finished this past weekend...my life will never be the same.

This won't be my traditional book review, and I already talked about my obsessive personality and how it relates to Fourth Wing on Substack , so we're just going to chat about the entire series. 

This past fall I got hooked on gel manicures because of their long lasting nature and how shiny & chic they looked. What I didn't love was the cost, sitting in the manicure chair and how I felt entrapped by the color for at least two weeks. I also have realized that I suffer from sensory issues and sometimes the feeling of thick nail polish on fingers sent shivers down my spine.

How could I mitigate the cons and still keep the pros? It was like Olive & June heard my prayers and answered them in quick succession.

Right before Christmas, my favorite nail polish brand released their at home gel manicure system and I don't know the last time I pressed checkout so fast. I bought the full gel system with 6 colors-- all which I have the regular polishes for too which made it easy to choose. 

This week seemed better than the past few, didn't it? There were lots of protests, lots of slamming President Musk in court and I stayed off social media, so I kept my sanity. I weirdly cried a lot and was overly emotional about a lot of things but it felt net positive.

After a really busy, and incredible Thursday at work where we hosted a bunch of influencers, I'm looking forward to staying home all weekend. I want to relax, read, watching television and snuggle under a blanket. I want to be present and calm, but that's really all I ever want.

I also want to gear up for another really busy week at work because I have a video shoot with more influencers, which is going to be so fun but very stressful. Then, lots of social events are planned for the coming months so I want to try to be as present in my mind and body as possible. 

Let's get into the roundup!

If you're anything like me, there have been books on your TBR (to be read) list for years. I think I've had some books on my TBR for over a decade, which is slightly embarrassing. There are just some books that I've always wanted to read but never got around to it, mostly because something shiny and new comes along that distracts me. 

To me, it's always more fun to read something that just hit shelves than to read something that has been sitting on your list for a while. Perhaps there is a reason for keeping books on the shelf...maybe it's the fact that if you wanted to read them, you would. If something else is able to take your attention away, perhaps it wasn't worth having your attention at all.

Or maybe, you just love books so much that it's hard to control yourself and you want to read everything. 

I think I fall somewhere in-between...which leads me to today's post. At the start of the year, I wrote out a list of all the books I need to read this year; books that are half read, or have been sitting on my list for a while and I just never got around to it; books that I've been saving for a rainy day. The time is now.

 Well, that was quite a month wasn't it? It'll go down as one of the worst Januarys known to man, rivaling only January 2020 which doesn't feel like a good omen.

But hey, at least it snowed a ton in New York! I cannot stress enough how happy the snow in January made me. It was a bright spot amidst all the chaos and soothed my soul for a bit. 

January was a low-buy month for me and I succeeded. There were minimal unnecessary purchases and it felt really good to not get anything new. There were times when I desperately wanted to press 'place order' but I didn't, which made me really proud. It's the first time in a while I was very intentional with spending, even going as far as to keep track of every single place my money went during the month.

I'm planning on keeping that up as we head into February, and maybe try to add on another task to help improve my life. I'll do just about anything to try to calm my nervous system and new habits, holding myself accountable and being confident in myself is a good place to start. 

Even though January was a low-buy month, I still have a few favorites, most of which were purchased before January 1st. You'll notice a pattern in the items I've chosen, and that's that they help me stay sane and organized. 

I don't understand how it's still January, I don't understand how so much has happened in 31 days the past two weeks. This is a bad dream I want to wake up from.

Besides the world falling down around us, my head has been spinning in every direction. I have not felt connected to my body, I feel like I'm floating and just unable to keep up with everything going on. I was doing good, and then I slipped, letting my guard down and letting myself get sucked back into the digital void. 

It doesn't help that I started reading Fourth Wing over the weekend and am already almost halfway through Onyx Storm, so my sense of reality is all screwed up. I always tend to have a little bit of an outer body experience when I get sucked into a good book series, and this is no different.

I was busy all last weekend (with all positive things) and the same goes for this weekend. Work has been insane and we have a really intense two weeks coming up; I am just racing to the finish line and I feel like I can't breathe. I feel like I'm not living, I'm just going through the motions, checking items off a to-do list and crossing days off the calendar. I hate that feeling and I vowed that 2025 would be different...but that's really difficult when you're in fight or flight mode at all hours of the day because your world is evaporating before your eyes.

That's why I haven't blogged, why I haven't written any of my book draft, why a YouTube video sits half edited in my iMovie queue and why I can't even find it in me to press post on a TikTok video. I am frozen and I don't know how to unfreeze myself.

That was a lot, and I apologize but I just needed to get it all out.

I'm hoping that a really nice weekend with family and friends will do my body, mind and spirit better so we will see. Let's get into the roundup.

 It is January 80th. No one is sane. Half of the country is frozen, the other is still burning. We live in hell. Why is it that 4 day work weeks are always longer than 5 day weeks? I don't understand how we still have an entire week left of January...it doesn't make any sense. 

This was a very hard week, with a lot of news flying at us and truly, in the blink of an eye, our entire world changed. It's horrible but please take care of yourself, your loved ones and stay off social media. I might do an entire post either here or on Substack about social media and the state of the world. 

Speaking of social media, TikTok went away for only 14 hours this weekend and it nearly caused me to have a heart attack. I could not handle the uncertainty that came along with it, and all the implications that came along with it. The doomsday narratives, the doomscrolling, it was all too much for me which is why I'm happy to say that I have spent minimal time on TikTok since it was brought back.

And it feels good.

But more on that later, let's get into the roundup.

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