2018 Wrap-Up

2018 has been a crazy year full of big and exciting new adventures. Mr. Moth and I went home hunting and moved into our first house together, we both applied for/received promotions at our jobs, and we did a lot of work around the house/yard in our first year of home-ownership. During this time I also worked on my resolutions for 2018 and I’m pleased to report that I didn’t do too shabby. 😉

Concerning my READING GOALS for 2018: I completed my GR reading challenge goal of 50, and I explored reading more poetry like I hoped to do as well. My only reading goal I messed up on was that I still didn’t read all the neglected, unread books already sitting on my shelves. Sigh . . . I suppose that’s the curse of any lover of books, though, isn’t it? We always wanna obtain more books even before we’ve finished all the ones we already have at home.

Some of my reading highlights of the year included discovering a new author I really enjoyed in V.E. Schwab. I’ve only read her book A Darker Shade of Magic so far, but I will definitely be checking out more of her work in the future. 🙂 I’d say all in all, my top 2 favorite novels I read this year were Strange the Dreamer and The Great Alone.

Concerning my CREATIVE GOALS for 2018: I had sort of an iffy year in the creative department. I did more writing and drawing like I intended to do, but with everything going on I just never seemed to make it as far as I wanted to with my creative goals this year.

I participated in Inktober and Women’s History Month by producing multiple new ink drawings, as well as experimented with some new watercolor pens during Shark Week to produce a new whale shark illustration.

EPSON MFP image

EPSON MFP image

EPSON MFP image

As for writing, I did more of that and am really excited about my current writing project. I recently shared the currently-private details with my BFF, the lovely Cupcakes & Machetes and she shared in this excitement, making me that much more motivated to not be the notorious project hopper that I am and see this one through. I participated in NaNoWriMo and although I didn’t make the full 50,000 word count I’d hoped for that month, I didn’t give up and got some good writing in which I’m pleased about. 🙂

I did try a new creative thing this year that I hadn’t even been planning on, and that was face painting. Mr. Moth and I both required skull makeup for the Halloween event we attended this year, so I gave it a shot and was totally thrilled with the results.

Concerning my HEALTH/FITNESS GOALS for 2018: This was another set of goals that I worked on but would have liked to have been able to push myself further with. I did make a few gym buddies, I took some different classes at the gym and tried lots of new things there, pushing myself out of my comfort zone quite a bit. Me being my very introverted self, I’ve always preferred working out at home to going to an actual gym, but I think that really changed this year. I wanted to try hitting the trampoline park again and finding new active hobbies like that, but the gym was pretty much my go-to in that department this year. Maybe next year?

All in all, it was a pretty damn good year for me as far as milestones and working on goals. Any growth and development one can make to oneself is always a plus, right? I know I have lots of exciting new things I want to work on in 2019, but we’ll save all that for my upcoming New Year’s Resolution post. 😉

TOP MOVIES I WATCHED IN 2018:

Deadpool 2

Black Panther

Avengers: Infinity War

Fantastic Beasts 2

The Incredibles 2

Game Night

Coco

TOP SHOWS I WATCHED IN 2018:

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Attack on Titan

American Ninja Warrior (and it’s other counterparts)

Channel Zero (I didn’t really care for this show previously, but this season was much better!)

The Jim Jefferies Show

American Horror Story

Insatiable (this show got a lot of hate for not being PC but it’s a dark comedy. The characters are supposed to be flawed, messed up people with flawed, messed up views. I binge-watched the hell out of this.)

Riverdale (Okay, first of all, WTF is going on with the writing this season, also I can’t pull myself away.)

Anywhoooooo, I hope you guys had a productive year working on your goals and that you made lots of amazing memories in 2018. Here’s to everyone having a fantastic New Year! ❤ Best of luck to all of you with your New Year’s Resolutions and let’s make 2019 the best it can be! 😀

And, just for funsies, here’s a picture of Bailey taking a nap. Something I’m sure we’ve all been ready to participate in after all the recent holiday chaos. 😛

 

Ignited Birthday Moth!

Woo! It’s my burfdayyyyy! 😀 Time for a birthday-cake-fueled-sugar-high that results in the mass murder of countless Piñatas, opening my presents to discover that I FINALLY got that pony I’ve been asking for all these years, and of course an obnoxious amount of confetti and glitter.

Psh, I wish. 😛 Nah, I’ll actually be going to work today like some lame ass adult. (When you work a Monday through Friday job, partying is reserved for the weekends.) 😉 This past weekend my boyfriend took me out for some birthday adventures including exploring some really cool shops, going to a fantastic Irish pub for dinner and drinks, and spoiling me with prezzies and the most amazing peanut butter cheesecake with dark chocolate ganache. Yum! (Not to mention the birthday dinner and delicious homemade pistachio cake topped with pistachio mousse my family made me on Sunday.) Sooo good! I’m sorry, but eating healthy just isn’t an option when birthdays are involved.

Going into this new year of my life, I’m feeling really good. 🙂 I have so many things to be thankful for and excited about, and I’ve got some truly amazing people in my life. ❤ Here’s to making this year just as good as last year!

 

A Look at Low, Volumes 1 through 4

Sebastian the Crab was dead wrong when he said everything was better under the sea. It’s not a bunch of dancing fish and singing crustaceans like Disney would like for you to believe.

No, it’s nothing quite so nice as all that. It’s more like hordes of deep sea pirates out for your blood, aquatic abominations that want to eat your face, and corrupt leaders who want to keep hope and morale, well, “low”. (You just knew that pun was gonna be used somewhere in this review. May as well get it out of the way now.) 😉

So, for something a wee bit different, I’ve decided to go ahead and review the first 4 volumes of Low in this one post, rather than review them each separately. The main reason for this, is that I experienced very mixed feelings while reading this series. As I’ve mentioned before, Low wasn’t one of those reads that I was head-over-heels in love with upon finishing the first volume. In fact, if my boyfriend hadn’t already bought the three other volumes, I probably would have ceased reading this series altogether. I hate to say that because I had really been looking forward to reading it and I enjoyed the overall concept, just not the execution, I suppose. It’s always a bummer when you feel like you wanted to like something so much more than you actually did, and that’s exactly how I was left feeling. Fortunately, this series improved dramatically as I continued reading it. Volume 1 may have been a rough start, and definitely my least favorite of the four volumes, but I’m glad I carried on and continued reading the story.

Low, Vol. 1: The Delirium of Hope introduces us to a grim future for humankind where, due to the sun’s lethal radiation, humans have been forced to live in the dark abyss of the world’s oceans. It’s been a very long time since humans left the surface behind, and resources are dwindling to the point of no return as we meet our central characters, the Caine family. This is a very busy volume with a LOT going on, and also the longest of the four installments. So, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of it and talk pros and cons regarding this particular volume.

PROS:

• A really cool concept. The whole post-apocalyptic science fiction set in the deep, dark vastness of our oceans had me completely psyched to read this.
• The artwork and colors are lovely. Greg Tocchini (the artist) and Dave McCaig (the colorist) do a good job bringing to life the beauty and oftentimes horror of the world and characters that Rick Remender (the writer) has created.

CONS:

• This series does have some decent character development overall, but I wasn’t feeling it whatsoever in this first volume. One character in particular has a complete moral shift in gears and character change over the course of a time hop so we’re given like no actual evidence of him growing or changing, he just does so between his last appearance and the next, and it’s honestly quite jarring.
• Okay, I’m certainly no prude, I’ve generally got no issues with sex and nudity, but this was just . . . a bit much. Tons of female nudity and abuse, women being used for sex and then having extreme violence inflicted on them immediately after, orgies everywhere, etc. A lot of the outfits the female characters wear seem like they were designed that way simply because “tits” and “ass”. Again, this complaint is coming from someone who doesn’t typically shy away from mature content, but the male gaze was sooo prevalent in this one.
• There’s an overall “always have hope” message in Low, and it felt especially preachy in this volume. It left me feeling like I’d had it hammered in my face over and over and over again. I get that it’s a good message to put out there, but the sheer repetitiveness of it was maddening at times.

Low, Vol. 2: Before the Dawn Burns Us is where the series begins to get get a little better, in my opinion. In this installment, we see some of the bigger complaints I had with the start of Low slowly begin to simmer down. I also began feeling more invested in the characters and what was going on. The stakes are getting higher, and we get to learn more about different characters and different places with their own big bads. I found myself going from not liking Low by the end of the first volume, to liking it by the end of this one. Was I in love with the series at this point? No, but I did like it.

Low, Vol. 3: Shore of the Dying Light is, without a doubt, the volume that I liked the most. Tensions are on the rise and there’s a lot at risk in this installment. Also, it is hands down the volume with the least blatant overuse of pointless female nudity which, I’m sorry, has been a real issue for me through this series. You can tell the intentions are for several of the characters to be represented as strong female characters, but I can’t help but feel that it is a little undermined when you randomly have one of those characters in a fight scene in volume 2 where she’s suddenly totally topless because reasons. I mean, come the hell on. Volume 3 was a nice reprieve from this sort of thing.

Low, Vol. 4: Outer Aspects of Inner Attitudes takes us back to some of the events that went down in volume 1 and reveals something pretty interesting and story-changing events that unfolded. There’s plenty of action in this one and some trickery and surprises. It leaves off on a point that has me curious to see where the story will go when volume 5 comes out. It’s not going to kill me to wait for it like it does with some other stories from Image.

All in all, this series grew on me the more I read of it. I was curious to see what others were thinking of Low overall, so I looked up other reviews and they really varied. Some people loved volume 1 the most and felt it never really reached that high again, but I felt volume 1 was the worst of the lot and that it only improved from there. A lot of people felt the same way I did about all the gratuitous female nudity. Yes, there was some male nudity as well, but it was like a light breeze compared to a hurricane. Most people, like myself, were fans of the artwork, but some found it muddy and hard to follow at points. So, it seems this series is a real mixed bag for people. Have you read Low? Do you have plans to read the series? I’d absolutely love to see what you think of it. 🙂

If I had to give a star rating for each volume of this series it would go as such:

Volume 1: The Delirium of Hope: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Volume 2: Before the Dawn Burns Us: 3 out of 5 stars

Volume 3: Shore of the Dying Light: 4 out of 5 stars

Volume 4: Outer Aspects of Inner Attitudes: 3 out of 5 stars