Sunday, August 2, 2015

July // Cake + Crime Scenes





~WELL. July was OVERFLOWING WITH JOY AND FUN.
SUCH a good month for me. I went beaching with friends, ate chocolate cake on my sister's birthday, and made things glow in organic chemistry lab. My sister made her own birthday cake and it was delicious and rich and chocolatey - and it didn't have any wheat or sugar in it! My sister is a magic paleo sorceress who makes good things out of ingredients that shouldn't make good things.

~ALSO this month I met up with Skylar from Life of a Random! I've never met up with a blogging friend in real life, so this was quite exciting. And it wasn't as awkward as we both expected it to be - three cheers for socially-adept introverts!


~As I mentioned above, I did make something glow in chemistry lab. It was a substance called luminol and is used in crime scenes to detect blood. It glows an eerie sort of blue. Here is an image I found on the internet  of a crime scene where someone was obviously murdered in the bathtub:

In our lab, it just looked more like this:

Weirdly enough, when I was in London, my sister and I went to an exhibit on forensics where they talked about luminol as a blood-detector, and I actually made a note about it in my phone. I didn't realize that we would be actually MAKING THE STUFF in organic chem lab until last week when I finally read the procedure. HA. Now I know all about it for future novels. (Obviously I took organic chemistry lab as research just so I can write about magic potions in my novels. And now crime scenes.*)

*It was actually a prerequisite for medical school. But that just sounds boring.


LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS THIS MONTH

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First off, I won the June NovlBox, and it arrived this month! Look at all the books I got from it:

The Prince of Venice Beach by Blake Nelson
Illusive by Emily Lloyd-Jones
Roomies by Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando
Six Impossible Things by Fiona Wood (ARC!)
Those Girls by Lauren Saft
Rules of Summer by Johanna Philbin

Then, my uncle stopped by to drop off Island of the World by Michael D. O'Brien, which is huge and intimidating. My uncle said it's like Tolkien and Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and CS Lewis all wrapped into one, which kind of creates GIGANORMOUS expectations. Just a bit. 

I also went to the library to get Days of Blood and Starlight and Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor because I am an unapologetic binge reader. Yup. 



Click on the photos to go to their instagram versions.

 
 


Katie from Spiral-Bound introduced us to Riley, a character from her current WIP. Basically, because I'm lazy and never got around to writing a Beautiful People post in the last two months, I'm sending you to read hers, because it's awesome and Riley is badass.

Skylar from Life of a Random posted pictures from our meetup this month! Go check them out!

Cait from Paper Fury asked: why do we unfollow blogs? It's sad, but we do. It's a necessary evil.



{Skylar from Life of a Random and I talk about what to expect when you meet up in person with someone you've only known online}

{This review is basically lots of Scarlet Pimpernel gifs}

{This is obviously not up-to-date anymore!}


How was your July? Did you learn any secret spy skills like I did? (If you ever find yourself in need of a blood-stain detector, hit me up.) And which of my new books should I read first?

11 comments:

  1. Congrats on making things glow!! And all the forensics aspects are so cool. Somewhat recently I decided to go through my blogroll and weed out the ones I didn't read anymore or ones that just posted cover reveals etc. etc. I feel bad about it because I would hate to lose any followers but if I'm not enjoying it or even actually reading it anymore there's no use in following.

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    1. Yeah I'm going to have to do the same thing soon. I've found that I'm following some blogs that I haven't even read - I just followed for giveaway reasons and then promptly forgot. Whoops. Bad Sophia. :-/

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  2. Luminol cool, I think I saw them use something like that on CSI or something.
    All those book covers are simply gorgeous.
    Sounds like you had a good month.

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    1. It's true, the book covers were quite good from my haul this month! :-)

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  3. Blogging meet-ups are so exciting! :D Hooray for the internet! And love your fancy wrap-up format :) I might have to find you on instagram... Here's my July post if you're interested! :) Happy reading (and chemistry-ing)!

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    1. The internet makes everything better :-)
      This is my second time using this fancy wrap up and I am super happy with it. :-) Glad you liked it!
      Definitely find me on instagram! I will follow you back! @literaryrambles

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  4. It's so cool that you got to meet up with a blogging friend!

    Oh, I just got an instagram! I'll have to follow you!

    Also, I'm currently reading The Scarlet Pimpernel :D

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    1. Oh yay I'm following you back! :-)

      Oooh ooh how do you like it?

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  5. Omg, the blood-detector was pretty wonderfully amazing. I AM IN AWE. Of course you were doing it so you could maybe one day be useful at a crime scene. *nods* I shall be in contact presently.
    BHAHAHA JUST KIDDING. I SWEAR I'M A NORMAL NICE PERSON WHO IS WEIRDLY INTERESTED IN FORSENICS. I actually borrowed a whole stack of murder books from the library and felt so awkward getting them out. I think I threw on an origami book to make myself look less malicious, but...um...it probably didn't help. >_>
    ANYWAY.
    So cool you met up with a blogger! And I loved Six Impossible Things! :D It's Australian (!!) and it's been out here for absolutely years.
    Also paleo cake can be ABSOlutelY SCRUMPTIOUS. It's the only kind I eat too. ;-)

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    1. Oh I am so interested in forensics too. My sister and I got (suspiciously) excited when we found out there was a free exhibit on forensics in London when we were there. It was right next to a free exhibit on the science of sex, which I'm sure more people find interesting, but we went straight for the crime scenes.
      (Now that I think about it, this museum had cool but messed up exhibit themes.)

      Yay for paleo! I'm the only normal eater in my family so I get to be the taste tester for everything my sister makes and determine if it tastes like it's non-paleo counterpart. It's a lovely duty.

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  6. My organic chemistry labs weren't as interesting! Except for that one time when we made cinnamaldehyde, which is cinnamon essence. It was heaven.

    Glad to know you had a good month :)

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