Randomosity on Fridays: Pre-Holiday Friday 5

It's been a while since we did a Friday 5, especially since I'm all about the What's Up Wednesday meme these days. But the Friday 5 is an oldie but a goodie, and it's helpful for random announcements.

So here we go!

1. During all the Black Friday/ Cyber Monday sales, the Sister and I managed to buy a bunch of Christmas presents for friends, family, and ourselves. Specifically, we snagged some coveted BlackMilk items, and I bought some Shadowplaynyc dresses I've been eye-ing for a long time.

Blackmilk AT-AT dress for the Sister; Hamlet leggings for me!

Shadowplaynyc Crimson Galaxy Dress for me; Stardust Galaxy dress for the Sister.

2. It has been freaking COLD here, which I know isn't that cold all things considered. But I am a Californian born and bred, which means I am so weak to coldness, haha. But the coldness has given us quite beautiful, clear and crisp skies.

3. The Sister bought Loki a new toy. It's a red dragon, and it's pretty tough (or so we thought)! Naturally, we named it Benedict Cumbersmaug.

Loki looks cute here, but he is actually chewing off CBSmaug's arm with his back teeth. We stopped
him before he managed to get all he way through the arm.

Speaking of Loki and that Loki poster in the background, Alz noted that the sheer size of the display is not obvious from pictures alone. One of my friends thought we'd taken puppy!Loki out somewhere and took a pic of him in front of a Loki display.

Nope, this giant cardboard side of a display is in my house. Here is a picture of the Sister standing in front of the fully unfolded Loki side.

The top is scraping the ceiling of this room.

4. Last weekend, the Sister and I pulled out my books and built a book tree. We made one last year and wanted to make another one this year. We even bought more lights for it!

Progress shots of the book tree. We wore holiday socks until the Sister
changed into her shark onesie, complete with shark feet. 

There are Capt America & Spiderman ornaments in there, but since this pic was taken
Lokis have taken over. They're currently at the top of the tree.

5. Need gift ideas and general holiday amusement? The Sister and I wrote some helpful Buzzfeed articles!

From me: Affordable And Clever Gifts For Your Writer And Bibliophile Friends.

From the Sister: 15 Travel Themed Gifts To Give Your Favorite Globetrotter

Also from the Sister (and it's really funny): 6 Studly Fabrics To Gift Those On Your Naughty List. Yeah, it's surprising what you can find at craft stores...


Oh and finally, almost all next week from Dec 16-19 is the YA Superlatives Blogfest. It's a great way to see what people read over the year and to add new books to your TBR lists. It's super fun and is seriously my favorite blogging event every year. I do hope you'll join for some of the days if not all of them! We'll be trying to participate every day! Click on the banner below for more info.

Q4U: Can you believe it's already the 2nd week of December? Will you be seeing The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug?

Name That Character Answers!

It's that time again, by which I mean that time to post the answers to Friday's Name That Character post.  Here we go!

1. Karou from Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor.

Her blue hair! Her sketch pad and pencil! I was going to draw

her necklace/bracelet of scuppies but it ended up looking

like she was wearing Lisa Simpson's pearls so I left them out.

2. Ismae from Grave Mercy by R. L. LaFevers.

Behold her extra special hairnet of poisoned pearls, AKA cool-sounding

but kind of impractical and not-utilized-to-its-fullest-extent plot device!

Also, featuring Ismae's miniature hideable-under-a-skirtable collapsible crossbow.

3. Katsa from Graceling by Kristin Cashore.

It's kind of hard to see, but she does have a green eye and a blue eye.

Unfortunately, I don't know if I put them on the correct sides.

4. Fat Princess Elisa from The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson.

Okay, I admit it. I just like drawing Elisa as a fat happy princess regardless of context.

This time though she has her sparkly blue bellybutton-Godstone!

5. Katniss from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Braid! Bow and arrow! Mockingjay pin! Expressionless face!

How well did you fare in this round of Name That Character?  Next time, I'll have to try one that's all dudes and another that's all supporting characters.

As an aside, I've been stuck reading Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas for weeks now and finally had to return Krispy's library book since she couldn't renew it for me anymore.  I just couldn't force my way through it but I still feel obligated to do so since I read the first one and got a decent chunk into this one.  Krispy has been dying to tell me All the Things and I have been putting her off spoiling me--but should I let her?  Tell me!  (You can imagine the latter in a Loki voice.  TELL MEEEEEEE!)

P.S. If any of you are still looking for holiday presents for your loved ones, check out these helpful Buzzfeed lists written by our very own Krispy and the Sister.

For those with a case of wanderlust, 15 Travel Themed Gifts to Give Your Favorite Globetrotter by the Sister.

For writers and bookworms, Affordable and Clever Gifts for Your Writer and Bibliophile Friends by Krispy.

Name That Character!

Howdy and happy Friday!  To celebrate the end of the week, how about a rousing game of Name That Character?  Here are five characters (all ladies, by sheerest coincidence, next time we play, we shall have a very manly game) from assorted YA series.  In this case, they also happen to all be protagonists.  Let's get to it, shall we?

1. The final book of this fantasy trilogy comes out next year.

2. That's supposed to be a hairnet of pearls. Special pearls.

3. This protagonist kicks a lot of figurative and literal ass.

4. I really hated the first book, was impressed by the improvement in the second,
and have plans to read the third, which has been out for a while.

5. Do I even have to say anything in this caption?

Answers next week.  In the meantime, happy guessing and make sure to kick back and enjoy the weekend!

What's Up Wednesday (22)

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme geared toward readers and writers, so we can check in with each other. To join, just check out Jaime Morrow or Erin Funk's blogs for the link widget and sign up!

I'm excited to use this beautiful, NEW winter banner by Jaime. It's more appropriate now too since it's actually kind of cold in California now (cold for us, anyway).


WHAT I'M READING

ALLEGIANT. The holidays and turkeys got me. Lots of eating, not so much reading. I did start JUST ONE YEAR though! It's Gayle Forman's follow-up companion to JUST ONE DAY, which I reviewed for YA Book Club last year.


WHAT I'M WRITING

Nothing really this week. It was Thanksgiving last week and then ALL THE SHOPPING. So as I said, the turkey (and apple pie) got to me.


WHAT INSPIRES ME RIGHT NOW

Random things. For example, we had a spectacular sunset in LA the other day.

[Photo/ the Sister]

WHAT ELSE I'VE BEEN UP TO

Over Thanksgiving, the Sister and I went to see Disney's new animated feature, FROZEN. Loved it. Like Pixar's BRAVE, the focus was on female and family relationships and like Disney's last one TANGLED, FROZEN was full of beautiful animation and clever quips. Oh, and I loved the short that went before. Such a perfect blend of combining the old and the new styles of animation. Classic and new. Definitely recommended.

Cool stand-up display with pop-out shield for Captain America: TWS at the theater.

The other reason we were at the theater was because... The Sister and I entered a raffle at the theater for something THOR related when we went to see THOR: THE DARK WORLD. It was unclear what the raffle was for, though we thought it might be for those cardboard movie stand-ups/displays you see in the theater. Well, right before Thanksgiving Thursday, I got a call that basically said I'd won the Loki stand up.

So we picked him up on Thanksgiving, and um, he is now taking up A LOT OF SPACE in the pool house. I didn't know it would be so big...and it's kind of creepy.

That is our Loki sitting in front of Loki display, which is folded in half. Our dog from head to tail is
like the breadth of display!Loki's shoulders. See, he's kind of creepy.

Then there was Thanksgiving, which was food food food and then shopping (online for me since I had to work on Friday after). I scored some good deals for people's Christmas presents (and okay a few for me too).

The Sister's food creations. I loved the peppermint chocolate chip loaf.

It's finally looking like fall in SoCal. Apple pie made from scratch by my cousin.

We also saw Michael Bublé at the Staples Center on Friday! It was lovely. His voice is smooth like butter, and he was freaking hilarious.

The Sister and I participated in a month-long challenge called #Nerdvember where we tried to incorporate something geeky/nerdy into our look every day. You can see our attempts at our instagrams here: akangaru (me) and catherine (sister)

Here are some of my favorites (and you can see me go from blonde-ish to red-haired by the end):







What's up with you?

What's Up Wednesday (21)

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme geared toward readers and writers, so we can check in with each other. To join, just check out Jaime Morrow or Erin Funk's blogs for the link widget and sign up!


WHAT I'M READING

Still ALLEGIANT. Yeah, nothing to see here. I'm in a reading funk, so everything is going slowly.


WHAT I'M WRITING

Still NaNo-ing, but I was somewhat distracted and also started writing a short story. We'll see how that plans out as I am notoriously bad at short stories. I am enjoying myself though since it's wintry and creepy.


WHAT INSPIRES ME RIGHT NOW

The holiday spirit! And there's nothing like Disneyland to get me in the holiday spirit.

WHAT ELSE I'VE BEEN UP TO

Well, I re-dyed my hair, so I'm less blond and more red-haired now. AND though it's ridiculously expensive, my friends and I gritted our teeth and decided to go to Disneyland.

It was SUPER FUN TIMES, especially because we were separately surprised to meet Thor.

Our first stop was to see the Treasures of Asgard exhibit. This featured weaponry of Asgardian guards and the Warriors Three, as well as the book about Dark Elves. Of course, we were most excited to see Loki's helmet (shackles and frost dagger too)!

So the above images were actually taken at night because in the morning, we were herded into the room with Loki's helmet and shut in. The lights went off and Odin spoke to us about the Bifrost and allowing humans to visit Asgard, and then there were flashing lights (aka the Bifrost) and then these doors opened to reveal Odin's Throne Room and THOR! He welcomed us to Asgard.

Then we were literally locked in that room to meet/greet/take pictures with him before we could leave. The Sister and I were like WHAT IS HAPPENING?! But it was super cute to see the kids interacting with him, and Thor was very in-character and had the Hemsworth-Thor accent down.

And then it was our turn, and Thor noticed the design on the Sister's shirt and asked what it was. It was Loki's helmet, and the Sister showed him my Loki key chain, and then Thor was like "...I see." Needless to say, he was not thrilled, but it was funny and he kept asking us questions before concluding that we had been "befuddled by [my] brother's magic and mischief."

"I see we have some admirers of my brother's here." Yes, Thor.  Yes, you do.

I tried to assuage him by saying we love him too (we do...we're just in Loki's army, sorry bro), and then he asked us what kind of picture we wanted and suggested we do this:

Yep, we are so fierce. Thor kept insisting we be fiercer like shield maidens of Asgard...or something?

Our friends, who had gone in to see Thor 2 groups ahead of us told us they were just as surprised by the meet & greet. So surprised in fact that they said "Oh sh*t, it's Thor" loud enough to make the people around them laugh. After we left Asgard, we went to see the Stark Industries IRON MAN Hall of Armor.

The rest of the day was more along the lines of regular fun Disney stuff.

Mad Tea Party: No spinning!

The Haunted Mansion decked out Nightmare Before Christmas style!
The Sister loves the wreath monster.

I was the rebel spy! Apparently, I look super shady. At least, I did in the pic that droid took.

And finally, this doesn't have to do with me, but it's almost time for one of my favorite annual blogfests: the YA Superlatives blogfest! For more info, click on the banner below. I hope you all will participate! That said, I need to get reading!!!

What's up with you?


P.S. We're probably not going to blog on Friday since it is the day after Thanksgiving. To all our U.S. friends, HAPPY THANKSGIVING! To everyone else, happy weekend!