June Days & What I’ve Been Watching

Pexels

Summertime reminds me of hope. Maybe it’s the trees voluminous with dark green, all freshly adorned after winter’s chill. Maybe it’s because of memories from when I was younger. Maybe it’s cause it reminds me of my favorite movies. A lot of them take place in summer or spring. 

Mostly though, I think it's because of all the summer propaganda haha. Whether it's our music or books or films or commercials, everyone everywhere seems obsessed with it, but if I'm honest, I don't particularly like the season. There are wasps and bees and other horrid bugs. (I hear ticks are supposed to be quite bad this year. Ugh!) I prefer winter. Glorious winter, with its snow and music and sweaters and food and drinks and holidays.

But I do concede that, subtracting the bugs, summer is quite beautiful. The sun is bright outside my window for longer hours than usual, the trees do look just gorgeous, and I love the excitement that comes with watching lots of movies and working on various projects. The world is awake and alive, and that energy can be infectious.

I'm in a really exciting place with my writing right now. I'm working on a project I've been brainstorming and outlining since 2017, so nine years ago now. Almost every evening, I sit down with my laptop and type out a minimum of 200 words. It's been fun, and I'm learning how to fall in love with writing again. 

Before too much writing advice confused me, every time I wrote it was a fun little adventure because I was a total pantser and rarely knew what I was going to write when I began a session. My writing philosophy was that I just tagged along with my characters on their adventures, a notebook and pen in hand, writing down what they got up to. I had a general idea of where we needed to go and specific scenes I wanted to happen, but the characters got to make most of the decisions regarding what happened in the in-between bits.

Like many people lately, I've been coming back to the way I used to do things when I was younger, and it has been quite the challenge to readopt this philosophy again and write each night not knowing what's going to happen before I begin.

But I think it's been good for me to do this, to go back to this old way. For me, I'm just not going to have as much fun if I know everything that's coming. Plus, my brain struggles to create every single detail all at once. When I first begin a project, I really only get general vibes, some songs and scenes, a small collection of lines and dialogue, and a character or two. From there, I get to figure out how the puzzle pieces fit together as I go. Already I've started to see the fruit of returning to writing like this. I feel my writing growing stronger and my characters becoming more distinct as people. Both results I'm super happy about.

I'm about 170 pages into the project, and I'm going to set a crazy goal of finishing it before the year is up. I tend to set creative goals higher than I think I can hit on purpose. Because while I don't actually think I'll hit the goal, the work I put in to hit it always ends up catapulting me farther than what my realistic expectations were. So I end up happy no matter what! :)

Pexels

I've watched several good movies and shows so far this year. It's always surprising to me how many hidden gems there are out there in the world. I just love movies and shows. <3 They're one of the great, simple pleasures in life.
(Just a heads up, I don't do in-depth content warnings on this blog, but unless it's obviously a children's film, most of the media below will be tv-14 and higher.) 

- The First Frost (2025).  This one actually needs a trigger warning as it deals with some pretty intense themes. Despite the themes though, somehow it was still so beautiful and comforting. I think it's probably the best, most beautiful show I've watched in years. 

- Zootopia 2 (2025). Watched this for the SKZ easter eggs, but can only confidently say that I saw one, which was kind of disappointing. Beyond that though, it was hilarious and a super enjoyable ride! I was dying laughing at that scene with the two goats on the mountain side! XD

- Twenty-five Twenty-one (2022). This one was also really comforting. And I adored the energy of the main character. Such a wild child! XD 

- Pursuit of Jade (2026).This show. Oh my goodness. The first, what was it? I think, 25 episodes, are my favorite episodes of a show of all time. They hit all the tropes and story notes that I just completely adore. But very sadly, after those episodes they lost me from episode 26 to the end. I went from enjoying myself immensely to just wanting it to be over lol.

- The Secret Life of Pets (2016 + a rewatch). I hadn't seen this film since it came out 10 years ago and I didn't remember anything, so I randomly gave it a rewatch. And It. Was. Hilarious! 

- Drifting Home (2022). Also so sweet and comforting. 🥹 I loved the concept and the themes. 

-To the Bone (2017 + a rewatch). This one also needs a trigger warning. I don't remember how many years it's been since I've watched this, but I decided to watch it again and it's just so good. There's a lot of difficult and heavy content, mind you, but I really enjoyed the themes and the broader picture of the story. Also, I adore the end credit song, "Follow the Sun".

Next up, I want to rewatch Avatar: the Last Airbender and The Fault in our Stars. I saw a really beautiful edit of Zuko's arc a week or so ago and I was like, wowzers, that show was incredible, I need to rewatch it. The themes and concepts they tackled were just so deep and powerful. And I don't remember when I last saw the show in its entirety, so I'm thinking it's been a while. And for The Fault in our Stars, it meant so much to me when I first watched it in 2020. And so I'm hoping it still holds up and I love it as much as I did back then.

I can't believe we're halfway through the year. My apologies, I know everyone says that literally every year, but it's still crazy that we are! XD

I'm excited for the rest of the year. There's a lot I'm praying for that I really hope comes to pass. All of these fresh, new days before us. Anything could happen. The bad, yes. But also... Also the good. :)

~ ~ ~

Thank you for reading my blog today!

I hope you're having an amazing Summer so far!

"All of the stars". Ed Sheeran