Casstegories
Bibliove
A word derived from biblio, meaning books, and love, meaning I love them. I love books and I love book things and I love talking / writing about books and that’s really all that needs to be said about this category, isn’t it?
-
That’s right. You never thought you’d see this day, did you? 2021, otherwise known as The Year Without A Gimmick ...
-
Learn a Book! – 20[20 From To-Be-Read]
Another year, another witty gimmick gone half-made. Last year apparently I promised to read 30 books and then proceeded to ... -
Recent Reads – Halloween Edition 2019
So, you’re telling me the season for spook is over? Think again, buddies. Some people leave Christmas decorations up until ... -
Learn a Book! – 30 in 2019
We’re going (going) back (back) to simple (simple). Look. The past few years I’ve been all talk, no read. I ... -
Learn a Book! – 20[18 Authors]
2018 is the year of the people… who wrote books. Believe it or not, I came up with the idea for ... -
Recent Reads – Halloween Edition 2017
Bookstores should offer human horse blinders at the front door, right next to the plastic shopping baskets. We’re all either ... -
Learn a Book! – 20[Seven Teen Series]
One of these years I’m going to run out of gimmicks. This is not that year. ... -
Voyages: Into Twilight [@ForksWA]
About three things I was absolutely positive. And “I love Forks” was every single one of them. ... -
Recent Reads – July 2016
A week or so prior to moving, my mother instituted a ban on my buying any more books until after my ... -
Books I Brought Abroad [@WestCorkIRL]
Travel Tip: figure out if your hosts used to own a bookshop in London and therefore have MASSES of reading ... -
Learn a Book! – 20[16k]
“Seize the moments of happiness, make them love you, fall in love yourself! That is the only real thing in ... -
Learn a Book! – 30 in 2015
Remember the good ol’ elementary school days where you had to read 25 books over the course of a school ...
Follies & Fixations
Basically: my favorites! I want to share these with you all on a monthly basis and hopefully you find something you want to try out too. Be it experiences, products, songs, movies, books, thoughts, whatever! Yes, the entire point of these posts will be personal opinions. Feel free to completely ignore them, I won’t be offended.
-
Follies & Fixations: July 2017
Yikes, when was the last time we did a Follies & Fixations around here? Unfortunately for all of us, I’ve ... -
Follies & Fixations: May 2016
“The Kingkiller Chronicles” by Patrick Rothfuss… on second thought, also just Patrick Rothfuss Raise your hand if you’re over A ... -
Follies & Fixations: January 2016
“Cassie” for every day, “My Pearl” for Sundays, and “Cross-stitching Goddess Divine” but only on very special occasions. Mama Bear’s ... -
Follies & Fixations: November 2015
Ceramic Hedgehog Pals Technically it’s a salt and pepper shaker but I named mine Autumn and she sits as a ... -
Follies & Fixations: September 2015
Basically: my favorites! I want to share these with you all on a monthly basis and hopefully you find something ...
Learn Stuff
Every now and then I get this crazy idea to learn something and then after what is likely hours of frustration over how complicated learning that thing was, I attempt to simplify it. I’ll do my best to share those simplifications.
-
-
Learn Stuff: My First Mile In A While
So… let’s take a moment to be very real with each other. I’m not physically fit. Once I hit 22 ... -
Learn Stuff: Luke’s (Chicory Nutmeg) Coffee
Lorelai: Mmm. Luke, that is an exceptionally good batch of coffee.Luke: Year?Lorelai: Hello!Luke: I added a little nutmeg. There aren’t ... -
Learn Stuff: The Attention Span Experiment
With finals week looming around the corner, I’ve been trying out any and all ways of improving my ability to ...
Lists Happen
Big fan of lists. Not a single day goes by where I don’t make a list about something or other in my life. Or a really terrible, crash-and-burn attempt at a pun. Includes collections of things that go in themed buckets.
-
29 Tunes to 29
29. What a feeling. That phrase has been with me in a lot of different ways in the run-up to ... -
Learn a Book! – 202[1 Year Without A Gimmick]
That’s right. You never thought you’d see this day, did you? 2021, otherwise known as The Year Without A Gimmick ... -
28 Practices of Patience at 28
Even if I have it now, doesn’t mean I’ll have it alwaysPatience is a funny noun, it’ll keep you waiting ... -
Learn a Book! – 20[20 From To-Be-Read]
Another year, another witty gimmick gone half-made. Last year apparently I promised to read 30 books and then proceeded to ... -
27 Delays To 27
There was an idea for this year’s post in my annual birthday series that wasn’t what this post is now. ... -
Recent Reads – Halloween Edition 2019
So, you’re telling me the season for spook is over? Think again, buddies. Some people leave Christmas decorations up until ... -
Learn a Book! – 30 in 2019
We’re going (going) back (back) to simple (simple). Look. The past few years I’ve been all talk, no read. I ... -
26 Places to Commemorate 26
I wanted to kick this off with the phrase “another year around the moon” but then I got really stressed ... -
9 Lessons to Lead Through 2019
Hello, friends. Have you missed me? Okay, very well. But have you missed me like I’ve missed me? Doubtful. I ... -
3 years to 50!?
I’ve had many words to say about inconsequential things, and inconsequential words to say about many things. Somehow that got ... -
25 Wants From Life After 25
25 is a moment. It took me quite a few moons to get to this age. This is the first birthday ... -
Learn a Book! – 20[18 Authors]
2018 is the year of the people… who wrote books. Believe it or not, I came up with the idea for ... -
Recent Reads – Halloween Edition 2017
Bookstores should offer human horse blinders at the front door, right next to the plastic shopping baskets. We’re all either ... -
Learn a Book! – 20[Seven Teen Series]
One of these years I’m going to run out of gimmicks. This is not that year. ... -
24 Lessons Learned To Get To 24
New year, new… just about nothing else. The planets have been a-turning and once again, I’m faced with the internal ... -
6-in-6: My Halfway Bucket List
My beginning half of 2016 was pretty action packed, but as I settle into a new home and a more ... -
Inch by Inch, Row by Row: Life Lessons from the Garden
Almost 2 months ago when I told my family I would be leaving to go work outside on an estate ... -
A List of Cooking Tips For A Novice Like Me [@WestCorkIRL]
Go ahead and ask anyone who knows me and they’ll happily laugh in your face if you ask them about ... -
23 Thoughts On Turning 23
Thanks for having me, 23. I’m super excited to be here. 1) Stop rounding up your age before you get ... -
Learn a Book! – 20[16k]
“Seize the moments of happiness, make them love you, fall in love yourself! That is the only real thing in ... -
Forewarn the Madness: A Look Back @ 2015
Mid-December. The point in time where we, as a collective society, begin drafting up our resolutions for the coming new year. ... -
My Senior Semester Beantown Bucket List [@BostonMA]
The Ell Hall Husky @ Northeastern University I’ve spent the last 4+ years of my life working towards one of ... -
Learn a Book! – 30 in 2015
Remember the good ol’ elementary school days where you had to read 25 books over the course of a school ...
Real Moments
Sometimes I want to take a second to share what’s going on in my life. Thoughts, reflections, events, whatever the heck I want, etc.
-
Why Am I Still Doing This?
Why hello again, dear reader. It’s so good to see you back. Or, perhaps, I am mistaken, and you’re new ... -
A Farewell Fit For A Queen (City) [@CharlotteNC]
Surely, dear reader, you know by now what it is that I am about to tell you. If not from ... -
Real Moments: The Speed of Time
“But I also learned that it’s possible to go on, no matter how impossible it seems, and that in time, ... -
Real Moments: Growing On Without You
Editor’s Note: This was written to be published last year but, alas, it was not. The why is because many ... -
Real Moments: Three Dreams
730 days without you, at the date. An eerie parallel to your age. ... -
Real Moments: Lost
“Are you okay, Cassie? You look a little lost.” These are actual words that someone spoke to me just a ... -
Real Moments: On Remembrance
First and foremost, this is for you. Not for them. I don’t need to tell you that I miss ... -
Real Moments: Tales Turns One!
It’s been one whole year since I started Tales of Casstastrophe and look how far we’ve come! From the bottom ... -
Real Moments: From Gardening to Glasgow to Graduation!
The most perfect of white camellias – which I cannot take the credit for finding. Tony, the head gardener at ... -
Real Moments: Shipping Up to… Ireland!
My Essentials: new Helly Hansen jacket & Timberland hiking boots (thanks Mama!), more heavy sweaters than anyone really needs, the ... -
Real Moments: “To Everything Its Proper Time And Place And Turn.”
“The very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.” Life events are difficult. When I was a ... -
Why Am I Doing This?
In this post I am not going to go on about being a millennial. Or about what it means to grow ...
Rhythm & Syntax
All things writing – both the process and the products. Experimentations in poetry, short prose, long-form anything, and much more abound. The only space less real life than the rest.
-
NaSenWriMo
On a daily basis throughout the month of May, I decided to focus on some concept, word, song, movie, visual, ... -
Introducing: Rhythm & Syntax
Hello, friends. I have something new for you. Before we get to it, though, allow me a moment or two ...
Travel
Anything that happens when I’m not at home. And given that most of my life is spent in other places, I’m realizing that this makes up a decent chunk of my content. Consider this a broader category which can involve literally anything.
-
Time Log of a Travel Monday
This one goes out to all the people who know that I travel a lot for work but don’t really ... -
Windy City Doughnut Crawl [@ChicagoIL]
Well, friends. It’s happened. We knew it wouldn’t last forever. We had to lose the alliteration some day, I just ... -
Voyages: Blue Ridge Parkway [@NorthCarolina]
What’s that? She hadn’t posted any Voyages since New York City in 2017, and now we have two in the ... -
Voyages: Biltmore Estate [@NorthCarolina]
Over four years of living down here in North Carolina, and I finally made the trip out west to visit ... -
Queen City Caffeine Crawl [@CharlotteNC]
I’ve done it before and I’m doing it again – this time on the opposite side of the Atlantic, and ... -
Voyages: New York City [@NYNY]
Remember when my Voyages used to feature little-to-no words? Yeah, me neither. Work commitments recently packed me up and sent ... -
Voyages: Into Twilight [@ForksWA]
About three things I was absolutely positive. And “I love Forks” was every single one of them. ... -
Voyages: The Emerald City [@SeattleWA]
Baby’s first trip out West! That’s right. Until this year, the furthest west I had ever been in my life ... -
Voyages: Hickory & Blowing Rock [@NorthCarolina]
Last weekend I had a hankering to get away from the city. My usual preference would be to go to ... -
Voyages: The French Quarter [@NewOrleansLA]
This was an adventure literally 5 years in the making. Since we met, my best friend Robin and I have ... -
Real Moments: From Gardening to Glasgow to Graduation!
The most perfect of white camellias – which I cannot take the credit for finding. Tony, the head gardener at ... -
Inch by Inch, Row by Row: Life Lessons from the Garden
Almost 2 months ago when I told my family I would be leaving to go work outside on an estate ... -
Books I Brought Abroad [@WestCorkIRL]
Travel Tip: figure out if your hosts used to own a bookshop in London and therefore have MASSES of reading ... -
Voyages: Welcome to Inish Beg! – Part II [@WestCorkIRL]
The local West Corkonians joke about how everyone is always ready to talk about the weather here, but I love ... -
Café Cake Crawl – Skibbereen Edition [@WestCorkIRL]
We all know how a bar / pub crawl works. It’s a feat of stamina, of endurance, and in the end ... -
Voyages: Skibbereen & Baltimore [@WestCorkIRL]
The streets of Skibbereen were bustling on Saturday morning, with locals milling about the farmers market and meeting up with ... -
A List of Cooking Tips For A Novice Like Me [@WestCorkIRL]
Go ahead and ask anyone who knows me and they’ll happily laugh in your face if you ask them about ... -
Voyages: Welcome to Inish Beg! – Part I [@WestCorkIRL]
Apparently the Wild Atlantic Way is a 2,500 km drive along Ireland’s West Coast and these signs mark popular spots ... -
Real Moments: Shipping Up to… Ireland!
My Essentials: new Helly Hansen jacket & Timberland hiking boots (thanks Mama!), more heavy sweaters than anyone really needs, the ... -
A Hometown Holiday [@NewportRI]
Iconic Giraffe Tree Makes Fashion Statement – Newport Daily News headline, probably Sitting by the fire playing board games. Curled ... -
Voyages: Kancamagus Highway [@NewHampshire]
It was Christmas Day. 2006. I unwrapped a gift from a dear aunt of mine and found a framed picture ... -
To England, With Love: A Send-Off To Summer [@CambridgeUK]
“And then she recalled weeks that had flown past and afternoons that had lasted for ever. Some minutes had lasted ... -
Voyages: Scotland’s National Book Town [@WigtownUK]
One evening in the beginning of the summer, on a bus back from London, I got into a conversation with ... -
Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, And An English Barrister Walk Into A Bar… [@CambridgeUK]
A beautiful stained glass window in the Museum of London. “Dieu et Mon Droit” is the motto of the United ... -
Voyages: Anglesey Abbey [@CambridgeUK]
I formally declare myself lovingly obsessed with Anglesey Abbey. On Saturday I took a trip with a small group of darlings ... -
£5 Worth of Local Drinking Tips [@CambridgeUK]
Last weekend I went to London and I paid £5 for a nothing-special beer, which hurt my heart. Granted, now ...
Voyages
These will double up with the Travel category from time to time. The main difference comes down to first experiences or when I go somewhere for the explicit reason of documenting it with pictures instead of my usual overly wordy cleverness.
-
Voyages: Blue Ridge Parkway [@NorthCarolina]
What’s that? She hadn’t posted any Voyages since New York City in 2017, and now we have two in the ... -
Voyages: Biltmore Estate [@NorthCarolina]
Over four years of living down here in North Carolina, and I finally made the trip out west to visit ... -
Voyages: New York City [@NYNY]
Remember when my Voyages used to feature little-to-no words? Yeah, me neither. Work commitments recently packed me up and sent ... -
Voyages: Into Twilight [@ForksWA]
About three things I was absolutely positive. And “I love Forks” was every single one of them. ... -
Voyages: The Emerald City [@SeattleWA]
Baby’s first trip out West! That’s right. Until this year, the furthest west I had ever been in my life ... -
Voyages: Hickory & Blowing Rock [@NorthCarolina]
Last weekend I had a hankering to get away from the city. My usual preference would be to go to ... -
Voyages: The French Quarter [@NewOrleansLA]
This was an adventure literally 5 years in the making. Since we met, my best friend Robin and I have ... -
Voyages: Welcome to Inish Beg! – Part II [@WestCorkIRL]
The local West Corkonians joke about how everyone is always ready to talk about the weather here, but I love ... -
Voyages: Skibbereen & Baltimore [@WestCorkIRL]
The streets of Skibbereen were bustling on Saturday morning, with locals milling about the farmers market and meeting up with ... -
Voyages: Welcome to Inish Beg! – Part I [@WestCorkIRL]
Apparently the Wild Atlantic Way is a 2,500 km drive along Ireland’s West Coast and these signs mark popular spots ... -
Voyages: Kancamagus Highway [@NewHampshire]
It was Christmas Day. 2006. I unwrapped a gift from a dear aunt of mine and found a framed picture ... -
Voyages: Scotland’s National Book Town [@WigtownUK]
One evening in the beginning of the summer, on a bus back from London, I got into a conversation with ... -
Voyages: Pembroke and King’s Colleges [@CambridgeUK]
I didn’t intend for this blog to be as photo-heavy as I feel like it’s becoming, but unfortunately I can’t ... -
Voyages: Anglesey Abbey [@CambridgeUK]
I formally declare myself lovingly obsessed with Anglesey Abbey. On Saturday I took a trip with a small group of darlings ...