Hi! I am April. I'm 31 years old and my pronouns are she/her. I live in BC, Canada! I'm most often on my 'traumasurvivors' blog or āBorderlineRemindersā but this is my personal blog, and the one I follow from. You will see a bunch of random things here.
I love my dog with my entire soul and heart. Her name is Kumi and she is a Japanese Mastiff.
I love reading. It's pretty much all I do in my spare time. My bookstagram, PageBound, and StoryGraph are aprilthebookqueen. I'm neurodivergent and disabled
About this Blog:
A chaotic mess of things I like such as fandom stuff, posts that resonate with me, aesthetics... Probably book stuff.
DMs are open for casual/friendly conversation
Asks are open, though I ask that advice asks for BPD or Trauma be sent to the relevant blogs
This is the blog I follow from, you can look down to see my others blogs
Other Blogs & Projects:
Trauma Survivors Blog: @traumasurvivors
BPD Blog: @borderlinereminders (Post general communication and emotional regulation advice too)
(It's my handle on a lot of book social media sites, and I'm just honestly so into reading and would like to maybe post more reading related stuff here!)
I spent way too many hours making a reading challenge spreadsheet for myself, so I figured I'd share it in case anyone else thinks it sounds fun.
I wanted a reading challenge that would take me a really long time to finish. Like, realistically, probably years if I ever decide to go for full completion.
The idea started with a simple question:
What if an alphabet challenge wasn't just one book per letter?
Instead of reading one book for A and moving on, you can keep working on A by finding books with different cover colours.
Maybe your first A book has a red cover. Then later you find a blue one. Then a green one.
The challenge combines an alphabet challenge with a cover colour challenge. Every letter has 12 colour prompts, so you can keep working on a letter instead of immediately moving on to the next one. Or you can jump all around. Whatever you want! There are different achievements and 'tiers' so you can still get them even if you don't complete letters! I did make the rules a bit lax for the letter part to make it more reader friendly. It can come from the title or the author name.
You can play casually and just fill in a few colours here and there, or go completely overboard and try to complete every colour for every letter.
Naturally, I went completely overboard and built a spreadsheet for it.
The spreadsheet includes:
-Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum tiers for every letter
-28 achievements (these will fill in automatically if you tick in the tracker)
-Automatic progress tracking
-Reading statistics
-A book log
-Achievement tracking
My favourite part is probably the achievement system. It gives the challenge a bit of a game-like feel and breaks things up with goals beyond simply filling in boxes.
I had a lot of fun putting this together, and I'm excited to start using it myself. If it sounds like your kind of thing, feel free to check it out!
Rainbow ABC's Challenge Spreadsheet
Feel free to come back to this post and share when you get achievements or tiers! Iād so love to cheer you on!
Also donāt hesitate to let me know if something doesnāt work! I did my best to test every formula but I could have missed something.
You're not a bad person for wasting food because you forgot to eat it or left it out or didn't have the time/energy/executive function to prepare it or didn't have an appetite or whatever. Unlearn the guilt your parents taught you.
Yes if it's an option offer your unused food to someone else who can benefit from it, but you're not responsible for the whole world and forcing yourself to eat something won't save someone else from hunger.
People are adding to this post with tips on how to not waste food, and while I appreciate the good intentions you are all missing the point. The point isn't to get better at saving food, it's to let go of food-related guilt and realize that you're not personally responsible for using every bit of food. The world isn't in a crisis because you didn't eat your leftovers.
I feel like people have this misconception that friends always agree with you. This is incorrect; A true friend will disagree with you, and even call you out on your bullshit, and still be your friend.
I definitely make a point of reminding them that I love them after, but absolutely will call them out (privately) and I appreciate the same. Usually āhey, so that wasnāt okay. You were wrong. I still love you though.ā
Sometimes depending what it is, I check in more out of concern for sudden behavioural changes.
caring about stuff and being passionate about it is not and should not be seen as embarrassing. itās heckinā great. good for you, out there loving something.
Thank god soulmates (one person destined for you that you will never be happy without) aren't real but soulmates (people you understand and connect with on a special level, multiple, some of which you havent met yet) are real
i like the phrases "it's not for me," "it's not my thing," and "i'm not the target audience" because they're the most concise way to express "this thing that you enjoy has merits but idgaf about it" without being aggressive
My number one relationship tip is use two blankets. You get the blanket that best suits you and they get the blanket that best suits them, and theres nothing stopping you from coming under their blanket too to cuddle if yall want.
I think this philosophy applies to more than just bedding too.
My husband and I have never shared a blanket. He runs hotter than I do usually, and also it's just uncomfortable.
We've never had to fight over blanket, or accidentally pull it off each other while we slept.
And it is so beautiful and wonderful. We each have our own weighted blanket, our own heating blanket, and our own regular blankets and we can decide which is best for ourselves each night.
I wanted to give a couple more suggestions of fantasy books that aren't spicy since I don't really enjoy reading that either
the Emily Wilde series by Heather Fawcett is lovely. follows an expert on faeries on an academic trip who is then joined by her colleague/friend who is totally chaotic and not bothered about academic rigour and is keeping something secret from her. there are 3 books in the series written in journal format. there is brief and mild spice in book 2 it's not very detailed or anything
The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst. is about a librarian who flees the city during a violent coup to go back to her hometown. she takes several books with her to save them from the fires and wants to use them to help the town but this could get her in trouble so she sets up a jam shop as a front. it's very sweet. her best friend is a sentient spider plant
the Regency Faerie Tales series by Olivia Atwater. again there's 3 of these but not sure if more to come. I've only read 2. the first one is my favourite it's about a woman who had half her soul taken by a faerie so she can't feel emotions very strongly. she goes to London with her cousin to help her find a husband and she meets the kings magician who is very surly but also has a very strong moral compass. the second is about a maid who unknowingly tells a faerie her name and her desire to marry a well-to-do man she's fallen in love with, and his misguided attempts to help her
Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy is the first in a trilogy (the other two haven't been released yet) about a guy who is studying to be a scriver (someone who writes spells) who accidentally gets a spell on him that forces him to obey his rival's every command and to stay near him. they both set off to find a way to break the curse. there was no spice here but I could see there maybe being something in a future book
Thank you!
I have not heard of most of them but I have to excitedly share that I got to meet Heather Fawcett and get my books signed by her at a book signing and get a picture with her. (She is so nice.)
I was so stoked because I didn't realize she lived on Vancouver Island so I was so excited for the opportunity.
I'll check out the other ones! I'm such a fan of sentient things like plants, houses, or anything so the Spellshop sounds like one for me for sure.
Also ayyy late congratulations on getting married (lmao gay)
Thank you!
Not super relevant to your ask but the āgayā part makes me think about how my ex girlfriend was my maid of honour and I was at hers and it felt like such gay culture to me š
Does stormlight follow on from the mistborn stuff? I keep meaning to get into brando sando
Theyāre technically in the same āuniverseā but I havenāt really noticed the connections honestly.
I think (I donāt know a whole lot about the cosmere), theyāre considered to be on separate worlds. And thereās a character that shows up in multiple series/books in the cosmere. I didnāt notice because his name changes but other people have really analyzed it and figured it out š I put in research to look up a Cosmere reading order and I havenāt noticed a single thing about why the order is the order lol.
I read Mistborn first. The original trilogy and loved it. But then I ended up liking the Stormlight Archives better. Different vibes. I love them both though!
Trying to speed run the Stormlight Archives so that I can engage with the community without being spoiled. Itās like trying to watch a movie trilogy but every movie is 69 hours long with 15 bazillion things I have to pause and google.
