Music

While I listen to a lot of different types of music, my favorite genres are classic rock, folk, indie rock, and musicals.When I was in high school I used to be the type of person who thought that only rock/classic rock was "real music" and that everyone was dumb for listening to pop/rap/hip-hop. While I still mainly prefer my listed genres, I thankfully don't think like that anymore lol.

Some of my favorite artists include:

• Classic Rock: The Beatles, David Bowie, Elton John, Velvet Underground
• Folk: Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkle, Kimiya Dawson, The Mountain Goats,Bright Eyes
• Indie Rock: They Might Be Giants, The Front Bottoms,Neutral Milk Hotel, and AJJ (those last two might fit into folk though)

• Musicals: Little Shop of Horrors, Into the Woods, Book of Mormon, A Chorus Line, Heathers (off broadway version ONLY), Urinetown, and Avenue Q

I've also been to a lot of concerts and seen some musicals live. I used to be in theater in high school, so thats why my list of favorite musicals might seem really random, because I was introduced to most of those when we did productions of them in school.

Sometimes I like to write music, and one day I'd like to record what I've written. My style is similar to Kimiya Dawson. I play guitar, but I'm much better at ukulele and piano. My dream instrument which I will one day own has to be the omnichord, but they are expensive, so I will have to get a job first.

Web Design/Coding

This is my newest hobby, as I just started learning HTML/CSS in April. I knew a bit of python and R before that, but those weren't really transferrable skills. To get started in HTML this is what I did:

1. I First completed ALL of Codeacademy's courses on HTML and CSS. Yes, this did take a long time. However, I really think it was worth it. It gave me a broad understanding of how the code works. I HIGHLY recommend doing this BEFORE you try and use any template or layout builder, because if you don't understand what's going on in your layout it will be much harder to edit/personalize/debug anything
2. Next, I used Sadgirl's Layout Builder. However,since I was already accustomed to coding, I was able to personalize it a lot more and understand how it works so that I could get things looking exactly the way I wanted.
3. Unfortunately, I do use google chrome as my browser. But I'm sure that this will work in any browser: INSPECT ELEMENT!!! Opening up this panel lets you look at the HTML and CSS on anyone else's webpage, so I was able to use my knowledge of CSS to poke around and understand how certain styling was done. It can also help when formatting your own website, as you can use the selection tool to look at how the margins/padding/alignment are applied to any element on your page.
4. Finally, and most importantly, making a website is a gradual process. Over time, as you explore other sites, you will think of ideas to add to yours. But if you go in expecting your website to look like MelonKing right away, you WILL be disappointed. Take breaks frequently, and don't be afraid to scrap everything and start completely anew! That's what I did 😄

Knitting/Fiber Arts

I have been knitting and crocheting for about 10 years, and consider myself almost an expert. I've made blankets,sweaters,hats,stuffed animals,summer crop tops, and SOCKS! Lots of socks. I'm kind of a sock addict. Currently, I'm working on a pair of simple socks for my grandfather! I get most of my patterns from ravlery or knit picks, but I also just bought "The Nordic Knitting Primer" by Kristin Drysdale, and I'm excited to start working on some more fair isle projects.

Here are some of my favorite things I've knitted:

Television

As someone who grew up in the rapidly changing time between blockbuster and binge watching, I have seen a LOT of television in my day. Our family loves to watch TV together to spend time together, and we love to talk throughout and comment on whatever we are watching. Nightly TV watching was a tradition during the school year, and each day of the week was dedicated to something different. Here are some of the shows I enjoyed most during my teen years:

• Modern Family
• New Girl
• How I Met Your Mother
• Survivor

• Amazing Race
• Lost

• Community
• Game of Thrones
• Futurama

As you can see, there is quite a variety! I mostly enjoy comedies (without a laugh track), but I also like some reality TV. These are also just the shows that we would watch weekly. I've also done my fair share of binge-watching and enjoyed these series (sometimes in an embarrassingly short amount of time):

• Breaking Bad

• Gilmore Girls
• Dexter
• Scrubs
• The Office

And all of these barley touch on my obsession with teen dramas, which you can read more about on my thoughts page! I know you probably think my family and I are mega-weird couch potatoes for watching all this TV but I assure you we all have other hobbies too. It was just the best way to sit down together at the end of the day and relax. We even had 'TV Free' summers growing up to encourage us to do other things with our time. I still do like to check out new shows, so if you have a suggestion for me you can leave it in my guestbook!