Thank you to Ella of Today Tomorrow Forever Ella not only for nominating me for this award, but for being an amazing person and blogger! I'm sure she would love for you to have a look at her blog and she definitely is worth subscribing to! As I've said before, I love these types of community awards because they really give smaller blogs more recognition for such hard work, especially since a lot of us put just as much effort in as the more well-known bloggers out there. I'm so glad to be able to contribute to this wonderful community!

Under my bed, you will find two long boxes full of stuff. Nothing particularly remarkable, just a whole bunch of stuff. Half-filled notebooks from elementary school, maybe a few books, a couple certificates of achievement, art projects that I have no recollection of making... that's the gist of it. It was worse a few years ago. I had an entire dresser with drawers full of board games and those little beads you can make bracelets out of. Each corner of the dresser, you would find random objects and photo frames that were strategically placed in an attempt to make it look less cluttered.

The iconic cookie is special in every way: its name, the way you eat it, the way it's sandwiched...... you can't go anywhere that doesn't have Oreos or at least some generic version of the creme-filled, chocolate biscuit sandwiches. They've been stunning people with their simple cookie innovation for generations. Oreos are the biscuit legend, and with all the different versions they've made now, you won't find one person who doesn't enjoy Oreos. 

When I was younger, I used to read all the time, about anything, and it was unbelievably fun. I read dystopian novels and fantasy novels and all those books where a misunderstood main character unexpectedly gets chosen by a prophecy to save the world from destruction and with some magical friends along the way, he/she obliterates the bad guy off the face of the Earth (or whatever make-believe planet they're on). I would be sitting on the couch looking at ink on a paper and yet, at the same time, I was looking in on this shattered world from the outside. I lived vicariously through books!

The reigning symbol of love and emotion has always been the heart, with it's rich crimson hue representing the passion of all feelings. The symbol that decorates sweet greeting cards and shapes chocolate boxes during Valentine's Day is supposed to be the same as the organ that beats in our chest and provides us with the energy and vitality to live our everyday lives. So why is it that they've come to look so different? One with it's simple triangular shape and a small arch in the middle (♥), and one with visible veins and arteries that seem so much less dainty and so much more aggressive. I tried finding the answer, and it really isn't as clear as you'd think. 

Banff National Park is Canada's most visited National Park, and for good reasons. I visited Banff and nearby town Jasper in the Summer of 2014, and it was stunning. It has something for everybody: vibrant blue lakes, snow-peaked mountains, waterfalls, glaciers... you really can't go wrong as a tourist in Banff. If you're planning a vacation, keep Banff on the list!
*note: all pictures are mine!

Unlike the colorful bills of other countries, the United States has the same green bills for all values of it's currency, and there are a lot of different denominations: $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100. But whatever happened to the $2 bill? It existed more famously at some point, but is a rare sight nowadays, although still legal to use. I still think it would be useful to have a $2 bill, so why aren't they ever used?

Welcome to the first post of 2018! Get ready for a year of awesome posts!

I've recently discovered that the blogging community has a number of awards to recognize small bloggers and help them gain exposure to interested readers. A fellow blogger, Hannah Pasquet, recently reached out to me to tell me that she enjoyed reading the blog and would like to give me the Liebster Award! These small stamps of approval are extremely helpful in making bloggers feel good about their little contributions to the world, and I'm grateful to be apart of all this.