5 Bookish Hashtags to Explore on Instagram

It's no secret that I love Instagram. Lately, I've been spending a lot of time exploring the community, and my favorite posts are definitely travel photos and bookstagrams. Today I'm sharing five hashtags that I particularly enjoy exploring on any given day. :)

photo via @megtristao

1. #currentlyreading | This was the first "bookish" hashtag I discovered on Instagram. It gets a lot of use, so there are always new photos to scroll through.

6 Ways to Make Your Mornings More Productive

Morning is an important time. It sets the tone for your entire day, and it's home to the best meal ever (see #5 below). Since I went back to school and changed jobs last year, I've been spending a lot of time at home, so a morning routine has become more important than ever to start my day off right. Today, I'm sharing five six easy tips to help make your mornings more productive as well!



1. Don't use the snooze button. Pretty self explanatory, right? Does anyone really feel better after getting 15 extra minutes of half-sleep in the morning? I know I don't.

I like my Instagram feed pretty and filtered.

Good morning, my name is Megan, and I'm addicted to Instagram.



But really.

I love Instagram. I love looking at the gorgeous book flatlays created by Instartists like Ursula and Andie. I love adding to my never-ending wanderlust list when I see where Christie and Jenna have traveled lately. I love learning fun facts from the National Archives and American History Museum, among others. I love keeping up with friends from college through filtered and perfectly cropped squares, and I love seeing the final results of 'grammers taking 23 pictures of their lattes to make sure they captured the foam just right.



I know there has been a lot of buzz—especially in the blogosphere—about Instagram putting pressure on people to have "perfect lives," but I don't feel that way at all. Yes, sometimes when I see the vibrant colors on Melyssa's account or the crisp white stills from Helene, I wish I had fun little office accessories to photograph. But to be completely honest, if someone were to share unfiltered photos of boring, everyday things, or used Instagram to complain about what was going wrong in his/her life, I probably wouldn't follow that user. I like my Instagram feed to be full of positive, beautiful things. Is that so bad? I agree those photos shouldn't be at the expense of honesty, but I don't see why those two ideas have to be mutually exclusive.



Are you an Instagram user? What are your thoughts?

Linking up with Kenzie and Angie for their August 12x30 Challenge: photo a day! All photos in this post are my Instagram photos for the challenge.

My Top 10 Most-Read Authors

It's been a while since I've done a Top 10 Tuesday post with The Broke and the Bookish, and Goodreads makes today's theme so easy! So here are the 10 authors I've read the most books from (since 2008, when I started using Goodreads, unless the book was one of my favorites so I added it anyway, e.g. Harry Potter or The Bridge to Terabithia):

The Top 10 Books on my Summer TBR List

Ahhhh, summer! Although it is actually my least favorite season, now that I'm back in school, summer means way more time for reading, so it can't be all bad. :) I'm hoping to read a LOT this summer to make progress on my reading challenges (and this fun read-a-thon I found on Instagram yesterday). Here are the 10 books (adult and YA) I most want to check off my extensive TBR list before fall comes around:

Currently: making "wedding guest" my part-time job.

photo via Instagram

playing | Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! on my Podcasts app. I haven't been listening to my favorite podcasts as often as I would have liked over the past few months, but I've been trying to catch up on old episodes! Plus, it's good motivation to go running or cycling because I can listen while I exercise. :)

going | to all the weddings! As you may know, I married my high school sweetheart last fall, and since then I have attended the weddings of four high school classmates and will be celebrating yet another Class of 2008 wedding next weekend. How crazy is that?? Even crazier: Three of these newlywed couples are also high school sweethearts. I swear, there is something wrong abnormally romantic about my high school class.... :)

wearing | these pants from Anthropologie as often as more often than is acceptable. They were a splurge (actually, not for me—thanks, Mom!) but sooooo comfortable. I need to get a few more colors when they go on sale. They are perfect for all the squatting, crawling and general shenanigans I do at the library each day.

sipping | water, mostly! Trying to stay hydrated as the weather heats up in California.

reading | the fabulous young adult novel I'll Give You the Sun. Noah's voice is five stars on its own. I'm not loving Jude's storyline as much though, so we'll see how the novel ends up for me.

What are you up to currently?

Linking up with Anne and Jenna for Currently, and Becky for her Currently link-up.

More & Less in February

Is it just me, or is "February" one of the weirdest words in the English language? I did spell it correctly in the graphic, right?? Anyway, I received pretty positive feedback on my "more and less" New Year's Resolutions last month, and I thought it would be a good way to outline my monthly goals for the rest of the year! Here's what I hope to do more and less of in February:

Baanchang Elephant Park: Chiang Mai, Thailand

I still have plenty more pictures to share from our time in Cambodia, but this week I thought I would take a break and fast-forward to the next destination of our honeymoon: Chiang Mai, Thailand! Specifically, the Baanchang Elephant Park north of the city.



As I mentioned before, when Jonathan said he wanted to ride elephants during our honeymoon, I was concerned with the ethical issues around animal tourism. So, I Googled "ethical elephant riding in Thailand" and found several possibilities, including Baanchang Elephant Park. I then looked each of the locations up on Trip Advisor to seek corroboration of their claims of ethical treatment. Several of the parks had reviews noting visible animal cruelty or otherwise unpleasant experiences by the visitors, but Baanchang's reviews were positive overall, and many users noted the respect between the mahouts and the elephants at this park. So, Baanchang it was!



Riding elephants was part of the package, but the focus was on elephant education. We learned about the various circuses and cities the elephants had been rescued from, which unfortunately included some pretty horrific stories about the abuse the elephants had endured. :( We also spent quite a bit of time feeding the elephants, which was amazingly fun! The park buys all their produce from local villages to help support the local economy, which I thought was pretty neat.

The First Ten Things to do After Getting Engaged

Obviously, you'll want to complete this checklist before starting any items in this post (or even before getting engaged, if possible!). But after the question has been popped, there are some things you should get started on fairly early if you want to have a stress-free planning process.

I've labeled this the "9-16 Months" checklist because I read somewhere the average engagement is 16 months long, but I know not everyone has the benefit (or curse, depending on your perspective) of a long engagement. Ultimately, I think these are the 10 wedding-planning items you should do first to avoid scheduling conflicts, set clear expectations and reduce stress, regardless of the length of your engagement.



1. Figure out your budget. Everything else on this list pretty much depends on this biggie: How much money do you have for your wedding? More importantly, how much do you want to spend? Now is also the time to figure out how much money (if any) your parents or other parties are planning to contribute, so you can all have the same expectations heading into the planning process.

My Week with Girl Gone International

Last week, I got a very exciting email from Bonnie Rose asking me to guest post for Girl Gone International's Instagram account. How could I say no to that?! I loved the user engagement on the account (people actually answered the questions I posed in my captions!), and I found a lot of great new wanderlust accounts to add to my personal feed. For today's Travel Tuesday post, I wanted to share with you my posts at @girlgoneinternational from the past week:

I believe ...

Welcome! I hope you are all ready to share what you believe today for this exciting one-time link-up. :) Thanks to the wonderful, hilarious Amanda of The Lady Okie for co-hosting with me today; we can't wait to read all your posts. Remember: Your post can be silly, serious or anywhere in between. The limit does not exist! Without further ado ...



I believe there should always be an answer to the question, "What are you reading?"

5 Books to Read in 2015

Last year, I was super excited to surpass my goal of reading 30 books: I read 40! This year, because of my transition from full-time to part-time work, I set a pretty lofty goal of reading 52 books. I'm also a graduate student, so I don't have unlimited time to read for pleasure, but I'm hoping my spring and summer breaks will be filled with lots of reading. :) It was pretty hard to narrow down my TBR list to only five books for this post, but here are the five books I most want to read in 2015. (Right after I finish the #SCWBC14, of course.)

Never have I ever ...

When I saw one of my favorite bloggers, Amanda from The Lady Okie, was co-hosting a link-up today called "Never Have I Ever," I just knew I had to play along. How fun is that??

Sunset at Railay Beach, Krabi, Thailand

>> been to South America. Or Australia. Or Antarctica.

5 Must-Have iPhone Apps

Just one day before leaving on my honeymoon, I upgraded to an iPhone 5S. Woohoo! My previous phone was an iPhone 4, and though it worked fine (if fine = randomly shutting off, the battery icon being stuck at 19 percent, and all the apps wonking out because of the iPhone 6 updates), I was excited to finally get a phone with a nicer camera (8 megapixels vs. 5, if you were wondering) right before my big trip. Anyway, the point is: obviously I had to download some apps the minute I walked out of the store. I have been making a conscious effort not to clog up my phone with unnecessary apps to help preserve its efficiency, but here are five apps I would rather not live without. (And the best part is: They're all free! I don't pay for apps. Pssh....)



Instagram | Duh. I am addicted to Instagram, as my almost-daily posts probably illustrate. And the only reason I don't post more is because I don't want to scare away potential followers (and because I like to think I hold my Instagram photos to a pretty high standard). If you like photos of beautiful books, cozy coffee cups and pretty places, you should definitely follow me! :)

The Best of 2014: Read

I'm a little nervous to post my top 10 books of the year today because I just picked up Leaving Time from the library yesterday, and we all know how much I love Jodi Picoult. But, The Broke and the Bookish is hosting a Top Ten Tuesday about the best books we read in 2014, and I just had to join in on the fun! So, pending any amazing books I may read in the next two weeks, here are my ten favorite books I read this year (all title links go to my Goodreads review):



My Name is Memory, Ann Brashares | This is my go-to book when people ask me for recommendations now. A must-read for anyone who enjoys time travel books and/or is looking for a good love story.

Weekly Wishes: End-of-Year Edition

What better time than the end of the year to set some organization goals for myself, amiright? Why wait until January when I have 23 days of this month left at my disposal?! That being said, here are five things I hope to accomplish this week. (Because after this week, I'll be visiting San Diego and then my brother will be visiting and then it will be Christmas and then it will be New Year's and then my family will be visiting for a belated Christmas ... sheesh! Basically, I need to get shiz done this week or it's not happening at all haha.)

1. Address, stamp and send all holiday cards and wedding thank you notes! We're sending them together in one envelope to save on postage, but I'm still sending separate cards for each occasion because I just love writing cards. :)

5 Best (Complete) Television Series on Netflix

I used to watch a lot of Netflix. (And let's face it—the only reason I don't watch as much now is because I actually have cable and can DVR current shows.) Today, I bring you the top five complete television series available on Netflix for your viewing pleasure!

(Note: This does not include shows that are still on air, such as Law & Order: SVU, Criminal Minds, Parenthood, or several other fabulous shows you can find on Netflix. Heck, I guess I'll have to do a separate post about those next week!)

The Top 10 Books on my Fall TBR List

Are you looking for a good read to curl up with this fall as the nights get cooler and the drinks get yummier? Look no further! I've compiled a list of ten books I hope to read this fall, along with reasons you might want to read them, too. I acknowledge ten might be a little ambitious, considering I don't read ten books per season now and I'm starting grad school today (!!!), but if I did read ten books from now until December, these wouldn't be bad picks. :)

Something to celebrate your freedom to read. Between Banned Books Week and the start of the school year, September is the perfect time to pick up that challenged book you've been wondering about for years. Currently, the top of my list includes Their Eyes Were Watching God, Lolita, Catch-22 and A Clockwork Orange.  (Psst .... you should also join my #bookphotoaday challenge if you haven't already!)

Weekly Wishes: Back-to-Blogging Edition

photo & design by Megan

As I am sure most of you have also discovered, sharing personal goals in a public forum helps keep us accountable and motivates us to complete our goals on-time. Therefore, what better way is there to celebrate my return to (regular) blogging than by participating in Melyssa's Weekly Wishes link-up? I'll keep it short and sweet this week (I don't want to overcommit myself too early and get frustrated), but I do plan to check back in at least monthly and continuing setting new goals for myself and Semi-Charmed Kind of Life. Here is what I want to focus on for this week (and the rest of September):

1. Draft an editorial calendar. I don't plan on posting more than 3-4 times a week, but even so I think it will be very helpful to plan out my posts so I have a good balance of content (link-ups vs. original topics, books vs. travel, photo-heavy vs. text-heavy, etc.).
2. Organize my Bloglovin' feed. One of my favorite parts of blogging is reading all your blogs. That being said, I have gotten dreadfully behind on my feed. It's time to rearrange my folders, remove those blogs that are no longer active and maybe even add some new reads if I'm feeling adventurous. :)
3. Develop a social media strategy for my Facebook page. My Facebook page for Semi-Charmed Kind of Life is grossly underutilized. Sometimes I consider deleting it altogether because I think it's worse to have an inactive social media account than not have one at all. Do any of you with Facebook pages have any "best practices" you could share with me??

Of course there are plenty more projects/improvements I want to work on, but this seems like a good start for this week. What goals are you currently working on?

P.S. — If you're stopping by from the link-up, be sure to check out my photo challenge to celebrate Banned Books Week, going on now!

Linking up with Melyssa for Weekly Wishes.

New Book on the Shelf! (Summer Book Swap)

Hosting reading challenges attracts a lot of book-loving bloggers to my little corner of the Internet. One of these bloggers is Carly from Carly Blogs Here, and when I heard she was co-hosting a summer book swap with Tiffany, Emily and Lauren, I knew I had to participate. What's better than getting a book in the mail?? (Getting a book paw-delivered to you by a corgi, of course. Sorry, I've just been on a huge corgi kick lately....)

Anyway, I was so excited to be paired with Sara from Life & Leopard—she's a fellow Literary Junkie, so it was fun to have a familiar name to swap with. And when she emailed me her favorite authors, I just knew I'd found my reading soulmate. So of course I was confident I would receive an awesome book from her, but I didn't expect her to know me quite so well.