Happy 3rd Birthday to DHTBB!

Hello readers!

Today Don't Hit the Backspace Button turns three! It is so incredible to see how far this blog has come. Although it's not a crazy popular phenomenon, it has grown so much in three years, and I am so proud of what it has become. I started with just posting about random life events and now have different series such as #BookWorm, Wifey Wednesday, DIY, and My Random Addictions. If you have just recently started reading DHTBB, thank you for checking it out! If you have been a loyal fan since 2012, thank you for your dedication! I truly enjoy sharing my thoughts with everyone, and hope that you all enjoy it too! Any suggestions for topics or anything at all, let me know. I love to hear feedback, and I LOVE when I see people and they tell me "I read your blog about such and such and I made my own thing" or even just telling me you read it and like it. It really means the world to me. So happy third birthday DHTBB, I can't wait for the years to come!

Thanks for reading over the years and for years to come,
- Olivia :)

#BookWorm: Devoted + True

Hello fellow readers!

And just like that, two more books checked off the list for the year! I have been loving this series by Hilary Duff as I just completed reading the last two books of her Elixir trilogy: Devoted and True. This series has been so much different than I expected. There is definitely a Twilight supernatural feel to it. If you haven't read Elixir skip over to the next bonded area! 

***ELIXIR SPOILERS ELIXIR SPOILERS ELIXIR SPOILERS ELIXIR SPOILERS***

Devoted starts off with Clea coming back after Sage was captured by the Saviors and she is trying to do everything she can to find him. While talking to her Dad at his grave she comes across a family of spirits that warn her to stay away from Sage. The rest of the book is finding out what happened to the family and the perspective goes back and forth between Clea and the ghost daughter Amelia. Clea finds out about the Cursed Vengeance and why the want Sage so badly.  

Skip to the bold if you haven't read Devoted. True starts out after Sage's soul was released from his body and put into Rayna's boyfriend Nico. The only difference in Nico's new appearance is his eyes. Sage starts having a weird reaction to taking over Nico's body and has random outbursts where he gets angry and can't remember past events. The story follows the group as they try to figure out how to get Sage's soul to take over the body without these crazy side effects. 

*** SPOILERS COMPLETE SPOILERS COMPLETE SPOILERS COMPLETE***

Overall this series was very intriguing. It definitely kept me reading but got a little weird at times. If you are into shows like Supernatural you would love this book series. I like that show, but I am not super into magical and demonic books, however this one was tame enough that it kept my attention. I would rate Devoted and True both an 8/10. Definitely a good read but not INCREDIBLE. 

So have you ever read this series? Any thoughts as you came to the closing of it? I am hoping this may become a movie too! (Come on Hilary Duff). Let me just say that I have been LOVING the library here. So far I have only gone to the main library downtown on Roxboro street, and it isn't the nicest place ever, but just being around libraries again makes me happy. I know so sad I am such a nerd, I admit it. I really have been having a blast and now with technology advances I can go online, search for a book I might want to check out and place a hold on it if it is available or for when it becomes available at whichever location next! It truly makes me giddy just typing it because I have saved money on ordering books and still get to hold an actual book in my hand when I read. If you haven't ever been to your local library and are looking for a way to save money and still enjoy reading, go take a trip and visit! If you have kids a library is the best place to take them so they can pick out books they want to read on what interest them. I remember taking my niece to the library when she was only three and half to pick out books and she LOVED it. For some reason she had a fascination with bugs at the time (literally one of the smartest kids you will ever meet) and it was so fun watching her face as she picked out a new bug book she hadn't read yet. It's awesome. Anyways enough on my rant about reading ;). In other news I also started working now! Woohoo! Yay for paychecks and not being completely poor!

Thanks for reading with me,
- Olivia

Wifey Wednesday: How to Save a Quick Dollar Part II

Hello fellow savers,

Happy Wednesday fellow and future wifey-s (wifies? not sure, anyways...) ! Since my last post I have been finding other ways to save money pretty easily. I got some opinions from my friends and found some things on my own and wanted to share them with you! None of them will make you incredibly rich, but an extra $5-20/month never hurt anyone!

1) Swagbucks
This is an app for your phone and also you can use your laptop to earn more money. There are several different ways to earn money on it. You can watch videos, answer polls, discover things online, or even through online shopping. 1 Swagbuck = 1 penny, so 100 SB = $1! There are also goals so if your daily goal is 30SB and you hit it for a week then you get a bonus of 25SB. This can be time consuming if you sit on it all day, but you can quickly earn your daily goal and move on. If you earned 30SB/day for a month that is $9/month just for doing the minimum! Almost every day they send out a SwagCode that all you have to do is type in the code on your phone app and it gives you 2-6SB. Or answering the daily poll = 1SB. Super easy. So far I have earned upwards of $35 this month and I just do it when I am sitting down watching TV. Minimum cashout for this app can be as little a $3 to Amazon.com! They also have a deal right now where your first $25 giftcard each month is only 2200 SwagBucks instead of 2500! And if you shop online they give a lot of perks such as tonight I bought a plane ticket on Travelocity and got 8SB/1$ that I spent! Totally worth it :).

2) Perk Points
This one is a little less rewarding as 1 Perk Point = 1/10 of a cent. You can download their many apps to earn points and they have trivia games, scratch offs (that are free you just play for perk points), or Perk TV. You can literally leave Perk TV running and every two hours it will ask if you are still watching. I have only earned $5/month on this one and it feels like it takes a while but I don't spend every waking hour running this app or playing the games. On the scratch and win app you can do bidding for giftcards or Perk Points with coins (earned from games) and I have one 500 Perk Points on that before. Minimum cashout with this app is actually only $0.25 cents for an Amazon giftcard, but the more points you save the more you get for your points.

3) Ibotta
This app is bomb. My friend Summer told me about it and when I downloaded it I noticed a lot of people have used it before. It is a rebate app, but has a lot of general items such as "any gallon of milk" instead of specific brands. Some items have huge rebates while most are about 20 cents, but it adds up quickly and there are quite a few bonuses and such to gain more money back such as redeem three rebates for greater than 20 cents and get $3! So far since I started I have made $15 this month! Minimum cashout with this app is $10 to PayPal or select gift cards.

4) Panel Apps: Media Insiders and Nielsen
The last set of money earners I am going to talk about are Media Insiders and Nielsen Mobile Rewards. Nielsen is a panel app that looks at everything you do on your phone and uses it to better gauge which apps are popular right now etc. Same thing goes for Media Insiders except with this one you have to download it and do a couple steps to get it working. Both of them you literally just open and browse your phone as you do daily. Nielsen I have earned about $3-5/month and Media Insiders is about the same. For literally doing nothing you can make an extra $120 a year with both of these. So why not?

There you have it, just a few more ways to save a pretty precious penny. I am looking forward to seeing how my earnings on these apps change once I am working full time for a while, but with most of them being hassle free, it is easy to keep saving! Overall this month I have gotten giftcards/saved in total $60 from just these apps mentioned alone! To read my previous post for tips on other ways to save click this hyperlink!

Thanks for saving with me,
- Olivia

#BookWorm: Elixir

Hello fellow readers!

I recently finished reading the book Elixir. It's a Young Adult Mystery New York Times Bestseller written by one of my favorite people ever, Hilary Duff. The book is about a young girl named Clea, who's parents are both world known. It starts out like a normal romance novel, but takes a twist when Clea is developing pictures from a recent trip to Europe and notices a strange man in every single photo who she has never seen before but feels a connection to him. Clea and her friends Ben and Rayna start to discover other odd occurrences around Clea's house revolving around the disappearance of her father. Ben and Clea head to Rio on a photography assignment and happen to see the man that has been appearing in her photographs. The book is a thrilling adventure that I thoroughly enjoyed. It does veer from normal and go into supernatural which was unexpected, but I was really impressed with the writing. In the first parts of the book I was so drawn in that Madi had to actually tap my leg to get my attention!

If you like books like Twilight, this book has a similar supernatural twist but in a fascinating way. I would give it an 8.5/10. As I said, the writing is phenomenal and really makes you feel like you are in the book. Scared when the character is scared, happy when the character is happy. It's great. There were a few parts that I had to figure out she was dreaming, since the paragraphs have no separation from reality it could be hard to keep track of. Overall I liked the book a lot and am currently digging into the second part of the series: Devoted.

Since Madi and I are trying to save some extra bucks, I decided to get a library card at Durham County Library and check out the last two books of this series instead of waiting to buy them. I am excited to go back into libraries again since I am such a book lover and go through them so quickly. So have you read Elixir? What did you think?

Thanks for reading with me,
- Olivia

Wifey Wednesday: Popping the Question to Your Girls

Hey everyone!

Happy Wednesday! Halfway through the week :)! This week I wanted to share how I asked my closest friends to be my bridesmaids! We got engaged over a year and a half before our wedding, 19 months to be exact, and so we wanted our bridesmaids to know we wanted them at our big day ahead of time! Especially since almost half of our bridal party was from out of state. The day we got engaged, I called my friends and told them that we were getting married and that we wanted them to be apart of our day, but I still wanted to officially "pop the question" to my girls. I made boxes for each one of them with their name on the front and the question on the inside. Here's how I did it!

What you'll need
- Wooden Cigar Box
- White Paint
- Wedding Color Paint
- Black Paint
- Paint Brushes and Sponge Brush

Step One: Paint the cigar box white with 2-3 coats (or whatever color you want) and let dry over night

Step Two: Cut out a design of your choice where eventually your words will go and trace around it in the lid of the box

Step Three: Paint the outside portion your primary wedding color two coats and let dry over night

Step Four: Paint the inside with your question and the outside with the names. You can do this by using transfer paper or projecting the words with a projector and painting over them. If you're a boss like my mom, you can freehand. Which is what she did. (Thanks Mom!)

And that's it! I also added a little bit of information about each girl and how I met them into the box as well as information about our day. Another thing I did was add a paint swatch of the color we wanted to be our primary color. And finally I added pearl necklaces and earrings for them to wear on the big day. They turned out adorable! And no one forgot their jewelry on the big day either ;). Of course I got this idea from Pinterest, but tweaked it to make it personal and my own!

TIP: Make sure you confirm with everyone that they are willing and able to be a part of your big day. Someone could have the best intentions, but may be scared to tell you that they can't make it or can't afford it. Have the realistic conversation about money early. Things add up. Dresses, bachelorette party, bridal shower, wedding weekend. It's a lot, and if you have the conversation early you will avoid problems later. Let your bridesmaids know you want them there on your day and to talk to you about any issues so you can figure them out way in advance. It happens a lot that people drop out of weddings way after you ask them because  they are  too scared to talk about it when all the excitement is happening, it happened to us with a girl and a guy! Just prepare yourself in advance that some people might not be able to commit to the time and/or expense of your day.

So how did you pop the question to your bridesmaids? Have you seen other super cute ideas? Share them, I would love to hear!

Thanks for reading!
- Olivia

#BookWorm: The Testing

Hello fellow readers!

Last week I finished reading a new book called The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau. It is dystopian novel similar to The Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Divergent, and The Giver in my opinion. The premise of the book is about a girl named Cia who lives in a colony called Five Lakes, a small colony formed after the Seven Stages of War occurred. The colony's families have one goal: get your child to be chosen for The Testing so they may have entrance into The University to study and help repair the broken world around them. The Testing consists of four sections: written, problem solving, teamwork, and physical travel. Those who make it through all four stages are interviewed and if they pass the interview, they can study at the prestigious University. Cia's father was chosen for the testing, and so Cia has always dreamed of proving to her family that she can change the world, since her four other brothers did not get chosen. Well, Cia does get chosen for The Testing, however before she leaves on her big adventure her father warns her about the dangers of Tosu City and The Testing that he experienced many years ago.

This book was incredible. Yes, I said incredible. Although I have read all of The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Maze Runner books and recognized similar themes to those books in The Testing, this book stands on its own. It has a good plot line, a lead character you love, and great supporting characters as well as important themes. Overall I would give it a 9/10. It isn't quite up to Divergent or The Hunger Games, both series I would overall rank a 9.5/10 overall. However, it is pretty dang close. Another thanks Amazon.com suggested reads for this page turner! I can definitely see this book turning into a movie in the next few years. I would hope producers would give it the same chance they gave these other dystopian, post apocalyptic series because I think it would be a hit. I have the other two books of the series on my Amazon wishlist and am hoping to purchase them in the next months!

I have one final book to read from my massive stack that I got over this year, isn't that crazy! The book is Elixir by the one and only Hilary Duff! My middle school role model. Okay and still is basically. I love her. Anyways, I am going to have to have my mom bring me some books from Florida to keep myself busy until I can afford to do an Amazon order ;). My friends have made comments about the mass amount of books I have been going through, however take a book loving girl who has worked two jobs the past five years and give her four weeks of free time and a fresh stack of new reads and this is what you get: lots of #BookWorm posts :). Once I am back to work in a week and a half, my reading will slow down I am sure! So send some suggestions that I can add to my Amazon wishlist as the holidays are just around the corner! Have any of you heard of the book The Testing? If so and you have read it, what did you think? Do you feel it could stand on its own in the blockbuster world with the rest of the similar series? Voice your opinion! I would love to hear!

Thanks for reading with me,
- Olivia :)