Hello all! Welcome to my blog, Read It and Weep. This is where I will share my love of reading with all of you and hopefully inspire others to dive into the joy of reading! So thank you for all of your support! This first entry will be my introduction so that you can learn a little more about me!
My name is Olivia. I’m 19 years old and I live in the state of New York. I graduated high school a year early, and am about to start my sophomore year in college studying Human Services. After that, I plan on transferring to a four year college to earn my bachelors in Social Work. My long term goal is to become a trauma counselor.
Some of my hobbies include reading, singing, watching TV and movies, and spending time with my friends and family. Some of my favorite TV shows include: The Vampire Diaries, Heartland, and Grey’s Anatomy. My favorite movie is Titanic (1997), but I also love A Walk to Remember, Grown Ups, and Five Feet Apart. Nicholas Sparks is my favorite author, and I am obsessed with Jenny Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy. I love country music and showtunes, with a mix of rock and pop songs that I love as well. My favorite holiday is Christmas, and if I could celebrate it year round I would! I love Halloween as well, but if I had to pick only one to celebrate forever, it would definitely be Christmas! I’m a Hallmark Christmas movie fanatic, and patiently wait each year for Hallmark’s Christmas Countdown.
Something I love to collect is Titanic memorabilia. Not only do I 100% adore James Cameron's 1997 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, but I love the history as well.
Something else I love is horses. They are my favorite animal, and I think they are so incredibly beautiful! I love going to my local annual rodeo each year.
I have chickens, two cats, and a dog, Kenzie! I absolutely love her to pieces! And she’s adorable!
I love musicals, and singing showtunes is something I love to do! My favorite Broadway musical is Wicked, and I’ve had the privilege of seeing it live on Broadway! A few other musicals that I love are Spring Awakening, Rent, and Mamma Mia!
I am part of a blended family, which means I have a full sister, two step-sisters, and a half sister. Because my step-dad raised me since I was four, I just call him “dad” and therefore, call my ‘step-sisters’ my “sisters.”
My sisters mean the world to me. Even though we fight and argue like nobody’s business, I know life wouldn’t be the same without them. Jennifer, who is 29, is the oldest. Even though we are 10 years apart, she’s one of my best friends! She is currently working as a pharmacy tech, which means she works behind the pharmacy filling prescriptions. Biologically, Jennifer is my step-sister, but growing up with her has shown me that blood doesn’t make a family, love does. We’ve made so many memories together, and my family sometimes jokes that we are ‘joined at the hip.’ Even though we don’t see each other every day, I know that I can always count on her to be there when I need her!
Grace is the second oldest (22) sister in the family. Grace has an office job which she loves a lot, and she just graduated with her bachelors degree. Out of all of my sisters, I would say that Grace and I fight the most. But, I would also say that we have the strongest bond. Being only 3 years apart, we’ve spent 19 years together and have built an incredibly strong connection. Sharing our love for music and musical theater, we have built a relationship on a foundation of singing our hearts out together, always coming up with new songs to sing with each other. Two of our favorites to sing are Kelly Clarkson’s Because of You and Take Me or Leave Me from the Broadway musical Rent. Even though these are our “go to” songs to sing with each other, we will sing anything we can whenever we can. Nothing can stop us from singing a song together, except maybe our dad! (I would also like to take this time to thank Grace for agreeing to be my editor for all of my blog posts. Grace is an incredible writer and I feel honored to have her on my team during this process. You can find and purchase her collection of poetry on LuLu under the title Writing in the Dark. Thank you Grace!)
Christa (19) is only 18 days older than me. She is the second of my “step-sisters” and one of my absolute best friends in this world. The summer after our 7th grade year, Christa and her mom moved out of state when her mother got remarried. Even though I only see her a few times a year, whenever we get together is as if we never spent any time apart. Christa is currently a student in college looking to pursue a degree in nursing with a long term goal of becoming a pediatric nurse. We are both so similar but different at the same time, which only brings us closer. Life would be so different without her!
Adeline is the youngest (13) of my siblings. She’s about to start 8th grade! I was 6 years old when Adeline was born, so it’s kind of like we grew up together. Despite the fact that she’s still “growing up” and I’m about to turn 20, we have a unique connection that I don’t share with any of my other sisters. When I spend time with Adeline, I can completely let my mature guard down and act 100% silly. I can do this with all of my siblings, but with Adeline it just seems different somehow. She and I share a lot of the same interests, like playing Minecraft on the Xbox 360 and spending time outside with our chickens. [Even though Adeline gets on my nerves (probably the most out of all my sisters) she means the absolute world to me and I would do anything for her!]
I have two best friends that I love dearly. One of them, Alayna (19), is basically me in another body. We are so alike, it’s scary! Alayna and I met in chorus while we were in middle school and we’ve been friends ever since. We both love to sing, participated in our school’s musicals and drama productions, and played the violin in our high school’s orchestra. We even go to the same college! I graduated a year before Alayna because my high school practically forced me to graduate a year early. Had it not been for Alayna and her family letting me move in with them for a year, I wouldn’t have been able to graduate from the district I grew up in. I trust Alayna with my life, and am so grateful for all she’s done for me. She truly is the perfect best friend!
Danielle (24) is my other best friend. She and I met through a job we both had. We’ve only known each other for about a year and a half but have already made so many memories. We see each other every day, because she lives about 30 seconds from me and comes over to my house every single day. We like to do this thing where we say “Remember when…” and fill in the blank with a memory we’ve made or something we’ve done together. For example, one common “Remember when…” that we say is, “Remember when you/I fell in the crick?” This is about a time when she and I went walking in the crick around the corner from our house and I slipped and fell. The part that she likes to leave out is that I had already made it out of the water safely, but I turned around to go back in and help her get to dry land. On my way back to her, I slipped and fell on a rock covered in moss. Basically, I sacrificed myself for her. (You’re welcome, Danielle). She and I clicked immediately, and without her my life would be incredibly boring. Life is amazing having her as a best friend!
If you’ve made it this far, I’d like to say thank you! I’m not much of a writer, so I appreciate all of you who have taken the time to check out my blog. I’m looking forward to this journey and to where it will lead in the future. But for now, Read It and Weep!
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