Monthly Recap: January 2016

This is my second monthly recap post (you can read the previous one here). Here's what I got up to this month.

January 2016

Places I Went

Reykyavik, Iceland
North Berwick, Scotland

Books I Read

Yes Please by Amy Poehler
This was a pretty good and easy read. I was a little disappointed that I didn't like it as much as Bossypants by Tina Fey, but I still enjoyed reading it. It was really interesting learning more about Amy Poehler's life - the good and the bad.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo - I was a little hesitant about reading this, because I knew I wasn't going to be 100% on board with some of her methods (namely talking to my belongings), but I did find it interesting and helpful.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
I really liked this book. I think Mindy is really relatable in the book. I also found it really interesting to hear about her life and career before and after getting a job on the Office.

The Miracle Morning: the 6 Habits That Will Transform Your Life Before 8AM by Hal Elrod
I found this book to be really motivating. I haven't been doing the miracle morning the way Hal recommends, but I have taken aspects of it and applied it to my own life. I've been getting up a lot earlier and have been getting a lot more done in the mornings.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
Like the Miracle Morning, I have taken the parts of this book that I need and am applying that to my own life. I don't have the perseverance to actively work on happiness for a whole year, but I have taken some of the lessons Gretchen learned and am hoping to incorporate those into my life.

Best on the Blog

Iceland - this is the overview post I wrote about my trip to Iceland at the beginning of the month. I completely loved Iceland and I hope to go back soon (maybe in summer this time).

Best on Instagram

I've known all month that this would be the most-liked photo I posed on Instagram. It was definitely one of the coolest and bucket-list worthy things I did this month.

Inspirations and Favorites

Honestly, one of my favorites this month has been my friends. It was emotionally a bit of a rough month, so I was really glad to get to spend a lot of time with my friends this month doing lots of fun things and also just talking for hours.

Media-wise, I've really been enjoying Thomas Heaton's videos on YouTube about landscape photography. He's on Instagram at @heatonthomas. If you want to learn more about landscape photography - anything from equipment, camera settings, composition, where to go, post-production - his channel is really helpful. It's really motivating to watch someone do something you really want to do. I'm hopefully going to get more into my DSLR, because I am getting really excited about learning more about photography.

Highlights of the Month

One big highlight was that my high school best friend MK moved to Glasgow for the semester. She's already visited Edinburgh twice and hopefully I'll be going to Glasgow soon to visit her. It's really nice getting to see her more and also getting to explore and travel with her.

Another exciting thing this month was that Edinburgh finally got some snow!

I will say, it made going to the gym a little more difficult the other day!

The last big highlight of the month was that I saw a record number of sunrises and sunsets in such a short period of time. I watched many sunrises from the library in the past couple of weeks. I also watched a few sunsets. It turns out the Edinburgh University main library has a perfect view of sunrise and sunset in Edinburgh during winter! I even got a few (bad) pictures of some of the good sunrises.