Words of February

I always think that February is only a bit short but it feels much shorter when the month ends. I calculate for 30 days in mind and those 2 missing days mess up my calculations enough that I feel the short month.

Despite all that, I enjoyed February. It was a fun month. I made a concentrated effort to do what I'm currently in the mood for and planned my days more loosely. That small change of being a bit more flexible and indulgent made a big difference.

Grab your favourite drink and settle down, let's catch up ☕️

books

There was a huge difference in my reading in February. It sounds a bit wacky that I chose the "month of love" to stay away from romance books, but I want to stop reading romance by default and get to the other books on my TBR. Some of my reading goals this year are to read more intentionally, read more fantasy, and more series. I stayed true to the goals last month.

I read 9 books in February which is a tad lesser than usual but I'm super happy with what I read. For the first time in I don't know how long, ebooks were the minority of my reading! I read 4 paperbacks, 3 audiobooks and 2 ebooks. I'm quite proud of myself haha. 2 books were 500+ pages. 5 books were fantasy. 4 books were from my TBR.

The increase in paperback reading is due to the new library membership I got in January and because I borrowed a couple of books from a friend which I want to return soon. The increase in audiobooks is because I like listening to them while knitting and I started listening to them during breakfast sometimes too.

I spoke about reading House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas in my January wrap-up. I was unsure of whether I'd finish the book in time to return it to the library because my reading was slow-ish. But once I crossed the 60% mark, I breezed through the book. So much was happening and I couldn't tear myself away. I read the last 30% or so in one sitting. I love dramatic and powerful reveals of game-changing secrets and this book delivered a great one. It was foreshadowed so I expected something along those lines but the way it was revealed made it amazing.

My friend told me that it's suggested to read A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J Maas before reading Crescent City book 2. I enjoyed CC book 1 and I didn't enjoy ACOTAR book 3 and 3.5 (4?) so I wasn't glad about having to read ACOTAR book 4 first. I gave it a shot anyway because the stories apparently intersect in CC book 2 or 3. It was... annoying. I hated the book until 40%. Nesta and Cassian are insufferable characters. I hated that their only 2 modes were wallowing in self-pity or lusting after each other. Thankfully, the book had got better after 40%. The plot picked up and there was actual character growth. I loved that the book centred on Nesta's physical, mental, and social journey instead of being about her romance with Cassian. If all the parts with Cassian were removed, it would have been a much more enjoyable book. It took me 16 days to read the first 42% and 2 days to read the rest lol.

While I was waiting to borrow CC book 2 until I finished ACOSF, I borrowed Jasmine Days by Benyamin from the library. I gave it a shot by reading for a while in the library and it was good so I brought it home. It's set in an unnamed city in the Middle East during the beginning of a rebellion. When the book begins, the characters are having a good and normal life. Then we see how slowly a rebellion begins and the on-the-ground impressions of it throughout. It becomes very sad and chaotic at the end. Interestingly, it ends as if it's memoir and I actually believed it so much that I looked it up haha.

Since I wanted something fun and fantasy-ish without being too serious to listen to while reading the above books, I listened to The House Saphir by Marissa Meyer. This was pretty good. I liked the main character. She was snarky, impulsive, and fun. It was just fun to read from her POV. I liked that it was a ghost story with just the right amount of creepy and a low dose of romance. The plot picked up towards the end and I ended up doing nothing but listen to finish it. It was entertaining.

I borrowed First-Time Caller by B. K. Borison from a friend a while ago so I decided to finish it so that I can return it the next time I meet her. I heard a few bad reviews of it but I found it cute! I really liked how comforting it was. I liked that the characters liked love in different ways and yet were lonely people. They found home in each other so slowly and cutely. I loved how they became the person for each other. I liked how normal it was and yet how lovely. It was cute <3 I want to read the next book soon.

I had also borrowed Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir from her so I read that too. It was SO GOOD. 5/5 stars. I read it in one day. I couldn't stop reading it. It made me feel so smart although I didn't really understand most of it, and a lot of it was fiction anyway so I didn't bother to understand more. It was amazing. I loved the plot. I loved the character arc. I loved how humanity, the essence of beings, was shown. I loved how it ended. I loved it so much I read the last couple of chapters again the next day. It put me in a book hangover. I am excited for the movie. If you haven't read this yet, READ IT.

The 2nd audiobook I listened to was Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult. I liked My Sister's Keeper so I picked it up. I regretted it. The book is about the pandemic. I didn't read the blurb before picking it up. The author's writing style is haunting and amazing but the topic is the pandemic in detail. It begins when the pandemic just started and the main character is stranded alone in a remote island during the lockdown and intermittently communicating with her resident-in-training boyfriend who's working with COVID patients. I remember the pandemic in enough detail that listening to this wasn't new. It would be good for people reading it much into the future to understand what it was like but it's like a recap for us who went through it. I don't know why I stuck with it. I finished it and I liked the ending a bit but I didn't like most of the book, just because it's too current.

Making progress on my read-more-fantasy goal, I listened to A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer. This has been on my TBR for a long time so I nabbed the audiobook when it was available on Libro.fm. It's so perfectly in the old YA fantasy books bucket. I missed reading books like this. It has young characters who act young and foolish. The characters think have crushes a bit but mostly about their problems. It's a retelling of The Beauty and the Beast fairytale. I liked all the characters, mostly Grey. Grey was too nice.

I continued the series on ebook. A Heart So Fierce and Broken by Brigid Kemmerer. This was disappointing. They introduced a new character Liva Mara and we get a POV from Grey too, totalling to 4 POVs now. This book changed the initial 3 characters so much—it changed everything I liked about them. I didn't like any of them in this book. They "matured"/grew up so fast, it was weird. Grey and Liva Mara have such a quick romance that I couldn't accept it, especially since I shipped Harper and Grey. I will finish the series because I want to know how it ends but I'm not enjoying it much right now.

I'm aiming to finish A Curse So Broken and Lonely and Crescent City series. I borrowed a couple of books from another friend so I'll try to read those too. Maybe a book from my owned physical TBR too?

movies & tv shows

I watched a LOT of media in February. I won't go into detail because then we'd be here all day, but I do want to quickly mention everything and quick thoughts.

• It Takes Two. The old movie starring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. I used to love their movies and tv shows when I was a pre-teen haha. Watching this was so nostalgic.
• The Princess Diaries 1 & 2. I was totally on the nostalgia train at this point. My mom watched them with me too.
• Ella Enchanted. Another nostalgic movie. I want to reread the book someday, the movie is a significantly watered-down version.
• The Devil Wears Prada. After the announcement of the new movie, of course I made my way to the iconic original for a rewatch.
• Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses. The main tune of this movie is in my blood. As soon as it began on YouTube, I felt like dropping everything and dancing like the characters. How simple and lovely the movies from my childhood were.
• Enchanted starring Amy Adams. Another whimsical charming movie from the old days.
• Crazy Rich Asians. I didn't finish it the first time I tried watching it so watched it now. It was good. I want to learn to play mahjong now lol.
• Groundhog Day. After hearing so much praise, I finally watched it. I appreciate the reason for the repeated day. I appreciate the character growth. I liked that he got out of the loop only by becoming a better person.
• Even If This Love Disappears Tonight. This was a SAD Korean movie. It reminded me of 20th Century Girl. I cried.
• Easy A. It was fun enough.
• Interior Design Masters. Rewatch because it was entertaining. I wish the other seasons were on Netflix.
• Next in Fashion. This was so interesting! I loved the first season—such interesting designs and great vibes from every person on the show, zero pettiness or drama. Season 2 sucked in comparison. They learnt from S1 and changed some things but it was not good. Most of the judges were not designers. I don't understand why they had any say. They added unnecessary drama too. The only thing I liked was that the contestants were each on a good level so it was truly hard to say who'd win/lose every episode.
• Bridgerton season 4 part 2. Binged it on the day it released. Nice ending to the Cinderella trope. Francesca's arc was highlighted a lot considering it's not her season but I liked it a lot, especially towards the end. The acting was great, especially of grief. I love how the family came together. I loved the Queen and Lady Danbury's cackling scene at the end. It made me so happy to see friends having so much fun and laughing with abandonment together. I liked Kate's return with vibrant sarees. She looked amazing in them all. All-in-all, solid season. Not my favourite, but not bad.

blog

I took the goal to blog lesser to heart in February. I honestly forgot about the blog for a while there. I had fun with other things. I don't want to abandon the blog, of course, but I need some distance from it more often. This way I can come back with new things to talk about too haha.

My only 2 posts in February were Words of January and My 2025 Blog Stats. Let's see if I write more or less in March. This wrap-up is already late-ish so who knows haha.

As I stayed out of blogging, I barely read others' posts too. I've to catch up again. One stood out from the beginning of the month which was linked in another blogger's post: 2025 Reading Google Map: Books I Read in 2025. This is such a cool concept! I'd love to do it but it directly contradicts my goal to read more fantasy haha.

hobbies & social life

Not a social life update but I got a new phone! I swapped my iPhone 13 for the iPhone 17 in Sage colour. I've only had pink or white phones so the green colour is a huge change for me. It doesn't really match my outfits or "my style" but I love the colour. It's a lovely shade of green which I've been drawn to lately (evidenced by the fact that my scrunchie and pyjamas are of the same shade at the moment). I had planned to change phones last year actually and kept volleying between whether I should do it or not until now haha.

Getting the new phone inspired me to try creating with a camera again. I didn't feel like making full vlogs so I decided to try out making reels/shorts. Since I'm not on Instagram and I don't want to post on it, YouTube was the only avenue. After years of abandonment, I revived my YouTube channel for a brief period to try Shorts. My first Short was like the vlogs I used to make. After that, I looked up other Shorts for inspiration and realised that the shooting and editing of Shorts to make it appealing is very different. So I tried again. The most popular one was a bookish Short with Opalite as background music which was trending at the time. I totally posted 3 Shorts before abandoning YouTube again. Listen, I'm just not a video girlie. I also am not in the mood to "create" with my life, I want to live it in the moment.

I went to a reader meetup arranged via a city-specific Instagram account similar to Bangalore's @cubbonreads. I had moderate success with the Bangalore one and made a few friends so I hoped for the best and set out to meet people. It was pretty crowded and I did a lot of socialising. I spoke to around 10 people before getting exhausted enough that I had to leave. It was fun, though! I hope to meet people multiple times and make new friends. I'm finally putting in effort to create a social life here a whole year after moving haha.

Speaking of social life, I went to Bangalore for a 4-day weekend and it was so nice. I stayed with friends the whole time and I travelled around the city to meet different friends. I visited a really lovely café called Beku which has been on my list for a while. I stayed up late every night, just hanging out with people. I missed my people <3

I sketched for the first time in years. I only made one drawing but it felt great. It was a random evening after work and I just... felt like drawing. So I brought out a small notebook and dug out my old pencil. I drew my bedroom's window with an imaginary view out of it. It's a very simple drawing but it made me happy. It felt amazing to have the time to follow what I want to do at the moment. I wouldn't have done it if I had to write a blog post every week, lol.

Similarly, on a weekend, I felt like being crafty so I decided to do it. I postponed my tasks planned and brought out my stuff. I have a Traveler's Notebook insert whose paper is made of matcha tea leaf. I didn't know what to do with it so I just kept it unused. That day, I picked it up and figured out what to do with it in a flash. It would make me happy to keep the insert completely matcha-themed and matcha drinks from my Bangalore weekend were on the top of my mind. So, I started writing matcha reviews in the notebook! I started writing without overthinking it. I had a matching green highlighter which was perfect. I figured out the layout and what I wanted to record as I went. Then I decided to add pictures when the ink ghosted on the other side.

(the photos are a bit blurry because I resized them to be much smaller to upload on the blog. I'm obligated to defend my phone's camera lol.)

I spent more time on it than I expected, grabbing all the free time in the day to work on it. It was so much fun to just do something without an aim for it. There's literally no use of this except being a fun way to remember things. I didn't write my memories associated with them but the photos add some of it. It was fun to decide the photos, print them, and stick them. It had been so long since I spent time being crafty for no reason and it made me immeasurably happy. I love how the pages turned out. I can't wait to do more with this notebook.

Speaking of, the Traveler's Notebook is my new obsession. I browsed its subreddit and saw a bunch of videos on YouTube. It's so cool how people around the world use these notebooks. There are so many ways to use it and even more ways to personalise it. I love that people have made it their book of treasures and many carry it daily. I love how it patinas over time. I want to use my TN to the fullest too. I bought a few things like a kraft folder, more inserts, and cute paperclips. I want to buy a few more things which are currently not available anywhere. I want to make my TN amazing and full of life too. I really regret not researching completely before going to Japan, I'd have bought much more in the store haha. Maybe I'll make a post on my TN setup? It's not yet "there" but I would love to document the beginnings of it and eventually see how I used it over time 🤔

Getting into TN has made me inspired to start a commonplace book again. I've been thinking about starting one for probably over a year but I haven't yet because I'm still unsure what information I would collect in it. I understand the point of it and I found a really cool way to maintain it too. The only thing is that I'm currently not on social media and I keep my consumption to a minimum. What should I learn and write? I don't know yet! I have a few ideas. I have to spend time to actively learn about stuff and write it in the book. I have a few possible notebooks in mind—TN insert that I bought recently, Midori MD notebook, and cloth notebook (the latter 2 shown in my Japan haul post). I have to decide which to go with yet.

There's so much that I want to do. Keeping time for whimsies in my schedule is making me excited about daily life again.

chat with me!

How was your February? Did you do anything fun recently? What's your latest obsession? Do you maintain a commonplace book?