Catching Fire

Oh. My. Hunger Games. 

I have been in love with the series since I read the manuscript in fifth grade. One of the coolest perks of my aunt working at Scholastic is getting to read advance copies sometimes!

Another amazing perk was getting to go to a special screening of Catching Fire this past Wednesday!

I loved the first movie, but I have to say... Catching Fire really takes the cake. It was INCREDIBLE!

I've seen it twice now--not enough! 

It just broke the record for November films in its box office report--wow.

The director, Francis Lawrence, made so many really intelligent decisions and the pacing of the movie was just right.

The acting of course was impeccable  Jennifer Lawrence is flawless and so are Josh Hutcherson and the rest of the cast.

If you haven't already seen it, you must! Just be sure to bring some tissues.

{via}

RSC's Twelfth Night

One of my favorite Shakespeare plays to see performed will always be Twelfth Night. The first time I ever saw it performed was when I was about 10 and I just thought it was the funniest and saddest thing rolled into one, and I thought that was so cool. Plus, seeing family friends who are professional actors act as silly old men in yellow stockings and cross-gartered (ahem, Malvolio) as a little kid..priceless moment.

For part of my mom's birthday celebration extravaganza, we went to see Twelfth Night on Broadway with Mark Rylance as Olivia and Stephen Fry as Malvolio... This production came from the Royal Shakespeare Company. They do things the old fashioned way, men play women's roles and all! To add to the specialness of this performance, we had seats on the stage. So cool! Also, the actors put on their costumes and makeup on stage before the performance... it was such a cool experience. Obviously I couldn't take pictures of the show, but needless to say, it was brilliant. You should definitely see it if you have a chance. (Tickets and info)

Excited for the show to start!

It seems Sarah from Note to Self was there the same evening and snapped a picture... look how cool it is! I was literally two feet to the left of this photo.

{via instagram}

We took a lovely walk around outside afterwards. Perfect city weather.

{taken by me}

This also helped me work on two items on my 101 in 1001 list: the play was part of celebrating my mom's "big year" birthday as well as seeing at least one production of every Shakespeare play!

Halloween Recap

Obviously it's past Halloween and everyone's mind is onto the next holidays... Thanksgiving is near! Starbucks has its holiday cups out! And Christmas music is beginning to play, yikes. But this year's Halloween was too good to ignore as we move on through the next two months that are jam-packed with holidays and events. (Especially after Halloween was cancelled the past two years in a row...2013 was a treat.)

'Twas the Night Before Halloween... October 30th

This year I helped to organize a haunted house in our school's library! Little kids came early for the haunted house maze (we made it a little less scary for them, but they were still pretty spooked and had fun) and a whole slew of activities. There was pre-Halloween trick or treating, lots of crafts, Halloween tattoos and accessories, a polaroid photo booth (I had so much fun explaining how polaroids worked to the little ones...it was like magic to them!), and a ghost story time around the fire place ... it was perfect and they were all so cute in their costumes! The later part of the evening for high schoolers had food and a truly terrifying haunted house... even though I helped to set it up, when I went through at the end I almost cried. I have a pretty low tolerance for anything scary sometimes...

Once the event was over and before we began the cleanup process,
we decided to enjoy some of the Halloween spirit tattoos!
{photo creds to a friend}

Halloween Day, October 31st

A group of 5 or so of my friends and I dressed up for school as cats and mice. Not very creative, but super cute!

"Duh, I'm a mouse!"
{photo creds to a friend}

Sleepy Hollow, November 2

Who says Halloween fun must stop once October ends? Two of my friends and I headed to Sleepy Hollow for the annual Great Jack-O-Lantern Blaze (article with pictures here)! It was spectacular. All of the work that goes into carving what must be a million pumpkins is incredible! They had stacks of pumpkins carved into sunflowers, dinosaurs, witches, and so much more. Plus, there's nothing like warm apple cider on a crisp November night.

{all photos below taken by me}

in the garden! sunflowers and mushrooms.

frankenstein & friends

pumpkin graveyard

it's the great pumpkin!... i wish.
jack (o lantern) in a box

witches from macbeth

how awesome is this?!

Can't wait for next year!

How did you celebrate Halloween? Any cute or creepy costumes?

xo

love, emma 

NaNoWriMo: the greatest novel writing challenge you will ever face

I am so excited to begin NaNoWriMo for the first time ever! NaNo is National Novel Writing Month (November). 

The challenge? Write a 50,000 word (or more) novel in 30 days!

One of the items on my 101 in 1001 list is to attempt a NaNoWriMo! I hope I can finish it... 50,000 may be too ambitious for me, but I'm hoping for maybe at least 10,000 my first time around!

This weekend has been so crazy (posts to come on Friday night's Shakespeare on Broadway and yesterday's Sleepy Hollow excursion!) so I haven't begun my writing yet... but later tonight I will hopefully have all of my characters and plot worked out!

Go sign up! 

They have awesome pep talks and meet ups with people in your area... all the different types of motivation you might need to reach your word goal.

This will be a crazy month, but hopefully some cool writing will come from it!

xo

love, emma