Back At It Again: Weekly VLOGS?

Happy Sunday Everyone!

I hope you all enjoyed football Sunday, whether your favorite teams won or lost, I hope you spent the day enjoying the game, the food and the time with family and friends!

I'm here to quickly announce a change to the blogging schedule.

As I mentioned earlier, my goal is to blog Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. (With a little bit of forgiveness, depending on school and exams.) I didn't really mention too much about what is being posted, or specifying what day something is going up, simply because I don't want to limit myself. I want Turning Pages to be my place of self expression, without any limits.

But as the week have gone on, I found myself having a hard time posting something on Sundays. I don't whether it is because I spend the whole day watching football, doing homework and cleaning up after the weekend (who am I kidding?!), or what. I'm just struggling to find myself on my blog, getting creative.

I've always enjoyed vlogging, and sharing my daily life with you all, but have never truly pursued it. I either just couldn't find a schedule I liked, or had the ability to do it.

Daily vlogging is just taking it to the extreme, is definitely not the place I should start, due to the amount of time and effort it takes, and that I don't have that much going on daily.

So I decided I'm going to vlog throughout the week, and post a video on Sundays. That way I'm "daily" vlogging, but not really. AND I'm getting something up on Sundays, that I can prepare and complete before Sunday.

Today marks the first day of vlogs. This vlog is pretty long, much longer than I would like it to be. Also it isn't edited to the standards I wish it were, but those are all things I'm still working towards.

Vlog Sundays is the plan for right now. I hope you enjoy it. If you have any suggestions for vlogging or editing, I would very much appreciate them!

Why I've Gotten Rid of Half of My Books

Hi Everyone! Happy Monday!

The title may be a little overkill, I don't think I've gotten rid of half of my books, but I have gotten rid of a good chunk of them. My bookshelf is nowhere near empty, but it isn't as crammed full of books as it once was.

There are quite a few reasons why I purged so many of them. Not reading anymore or that I hate reading, aren't in that list (thankfully), but the list is longer than one might expect.

I'm currently 21 years old, soon turning 22. I'm at a point in my life where I'm finishing up school, searching for a career, and hoping to move out within the next 9-10 months. I'm almost a completely different person, than I was when I started Turning Pages. Being only 16 at the time, a lot of my interests have changed and a lot of my opinions as well.

Going through my books recently, I realized I wasn't interested or excited about reading many of them. Some just were too young for me, some had content in them that I would have enjoyed a few years, and some I just never got around to, simply because they didn't excite me as much as other books did.

I'm also hoping to move out with the next year, meaning I won't be able to bring all these books with me. I don't even think I would want to. I think it would be overwhelming to take the entire bookshelf crammed with books to my new place.

Besides growing out of books, I was also running out of room. I didn't want my bookshelf to be crammed, nor did I want books to be toppling onto the floor. It just didn't look very neat, and it was also hard to keep up with the dusting. If you wanted to dust, you would have to take them all out of the shelves, which takes forever. And if you didn't dust frequently enough, everything would be covered in a layer of dust.

So where did they GOOO?!?

They were evenly dispersed between friends, Half Price Books (in exchange for my textbooks), and Goodwill.

Am I getting rid of more?!

Again...YES!

I still have a lot of books left. Most of which I'm dying to read, while some of which I know I can give away. I do want to read a lot of them, so I won't be getting rid of them immediately, but over time.

What about your book buying habits?

My buying habits aren't at the same point they were a few months ago or even years ago. I'm spending a lot of money on other essential things in life and college, and I also don't have as much time to read at the moment. 

Once I have a full time career, and have settled into a daily life routine, I will have more time to read, and enjoy picking up a new book or two every once in a while. 

Until then I'm restricting myself to the books I have, and get through those one at a time.

This was something that's been on my mind for a while now. Having so many books that are unread, is a lot of pressure. You spend so much money on these books, and they're just sitting there, waiting for someone to crack them open.

While I do still feel some of that pressure now, with almost having a deadline to read them all, I feel a lot better than I did before. I shouldn't be forcing myself to read books I bought years ago, that I know I won't enjoy. Or prevent myself from buying books, just because I have unread books from three years ago.

Have you gotten rid of any books lately? What were your reasons behind doing so?

Shifting Graduation Date & Changing Classes...Along with Some Advice

Happy Monday Everyone!

I've been thinking about this long and hard, and I've finally made the decision to go for it. I figured I'm only a senior once in college, I still have my whole life ahead of me...and I'm deciding to change my major...

The accounting internship was just too much, too stressful and gave me too much anxiety...


JUST KIDDING!

I hope there was no way you would believe that "I'm just a senior once in my life", what the heck? "Change my major"? After EVERYTHING I've gone through and accomplished so far, HELL NO!

But plans have changed a bit, nothing as drastic as changing my major though.

After taking my GMAT exam, I was recommended to retake it. Not necessarily because I failed the score, but just because my score was close to the cut off line, I didn't want my GMAT to risk me getting into the Masters Program.

The new plan for that is to retake it sometime during my winter break, preferably before Christmas. So I can spend Christmas enjoying the holiday with friends and family.

The next change comes along with a stupid mistake I made in my scheduling for these "last two quarters". For some reason I didn't make the connection that one of my classes is a prerequisite for another class, and that "NO Lisa, you cannot take them in the same quarter."

Sadly there was only one class time left, which didn't fit into my current schedule, due to other required classes that aren't available other times of the year.

The new plan for that is to graduate with the rest of my class in June, instead of early in March. Which also means I won't be able to start the Masters Program at the end of March, but instead at the beginning of the new school year in September.

It's crazy to think about how this one dumb little mistake, where I thought I was being smart about class scheduling, changes and shifts your plans six months down the road...trust me I've beat myself up about this...

There are a lot of positives that do come with this though, which I'm very excited for.

• The first one being that I was able to drop one of the four classes I was taking this quarter, to lighten my load. (You have to take a certain number of credits for financial aid to go through, and to not over pay for classes.) I will be taking this class in the Spring quarter instead. 
• I will also be able to take part in an accounting internship class, where I will be lined up to help report and file peoples taxes. (I'm trying to get into the tax field, so this will be my first real life taste of that.) I wouldn't have been able to take part in this if I was planning to graduate in March due to credits and scheduling.
• I have also be offered a job opportunity with a small business where I would be doing some of their bookkeeping and accounting from home. I don't know too much about this, and nothing is final yet, but be able to do something in the accounting field, being able to do it while I'm attending school, and being able to work from home whenever I'm available is AMAZING!
• And finally, I would have been able to walk across the stage with my friends at graduation anyways, but now one of my friends will be attending the Masters Program at the same time I am! So I won't be completely alone! YAY!

Ultimately I'm writing this post to speak to those of you who are feeling down about college, or classes, or test scores. Time schedules, tests, and classes may not always work out the way you planned to. Not everything aligns perfectly every time, not in school and not in life.

College is difficult. Which is why not everyone attends. And I, of all people, know how easy it is to overlook that fact, when you're sitting in a room full of smart people, in a room full of people who seem to know everything they want in life, and where they want to be. 

...but you're one of those people in that room too. You took the SAT and ACT just like those people did. You applied and were accepted to the same university as those people were. You took the prerequisites to the class you're sitting and passed them, just like those people did. You are one of those people, and while everyone around you seems to know just what they want, they are probably feeling the same stress and anxiety as you. You aren't alone. 

So don't compare yourself to those people in that room. Maybe they are just better at hiding the stress and anxiety. Don't beat yourself up about a little mistake. Remind yourself of who you are, where you come from, and what you've achieved so far in life..and then retake that GMAT, retake that class, extend your schedule, keep chugging along, until you get to where you are going.

I hope this helped some of you out. I've been feeling a bit down with the start of the school, and with all of this news being thrown at me in such a short amount of time. If you've been struggling with the same thing, or have overcome something similar, please feel free to leave a comment down below discussing your situation.

Thank you!

New Turning Pages Co Merchandise

Happy Friday!

First things first, I want to announce that Turning Pages Co has reached 100 orders just a few days ago!

I'm incredibly grateful and can't wait to see what the future holds for Turning Pages Co.

Tomorrow is officially the first day of October, which means the holiday season has finally arrived! I love this time of year, with the chilly weather, the warm drinks, and all of the things happening throughout the next couple of months.

I've been dying to add Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas merchandise to Turning Pages Co for the last couple of weeks...and I'm truly excited to announce now is finally that time!!

Halloween:

Christmas:

I also want to add some more general fall and winter merchandise, and well as other holidays and events. Its only the beginning of October, meaning there is still plenty of time to add more!

Renewed Items:

If you have any questions or suggestions please feel free to leave them in the comments below. Thank you so much for stopping by!