Since it’s a new year and I’m trying to get back on track, why not start the year off with some goals or plans? I’m not going to be super strict on myself, but as mentioned in a previous post I do want to get back to posting daily if I can. That’s the major goal for the blog.
In regards to reading, I would definitely like to finish more series (I finally finished Kamisama Kiss in 2023, I don’t know why I dragged my feet on it so much, but it’s done!). The major ones I have on the agenda right now are finishing Fruits Basket and Fables, since they have been in progress for so long. I also want to get caught up on the TBR Card Challenge books I have held over from previous months. I made myself a spreadsheet so I can keep track, so fingers crossed.
Another big goal is that I’m still working on my Nancy Drew reread, I’m about halfway through the original 56, so I’d like to finish those at least, but we shall see how far I make it.
Beyond that the only goal I’ve really set is my Goodreads goal of 200, which really is just because I hope to be back where I was. With my mental and physical health in a better place I hope that it can happen. Again, not going to be super upset if it doesn’t, but it’s something I’d like to reach for.
All in all I’m hoping for a lot of reading and staying on track with the blog. Not much to ask for, right?
Hey all – as it is the end of the year I figured it would be a good time to talk about 2023 as well as talk about some of my plans for 2024.
As some of you may have noticed, 2023 was not as consistent as the last couple years when it came to me posting on the blog. It wasn’t planned to be that way and I certainly didn’t like that I wasn’t posting as frequently, but things happen. I received a new medical diagnosis at the end of 2022 that is very life impacting and I thought I was doing ok coming to grips with it but in the last month or so I realized it really messed with my mental health more than I realized. I’m not going to go into details because for the most part I try to keep talk of my conditions off of my blog but be assured that I am ok, I’ve got some great doctors and after some trial and error with medications am in a far better place than I was when it was diagnosed.
The blog wasn’t the only thing impacted unfortunately, my reading also took a hit. For the most part I made sure my obligations were covered, but beyond that it was a struggle. Safe to say I had some of my lowest reading months in history, but as I said…I was having a really hard time adjusting/coming to terms with the new diagnosis.
So where are we for 2024? I’m happy to say that once I figured out what was really impacting me, I did a much better job of processing it/coming to terms with it. No guarantees it won’t rear its head again, but in the last month I definitely feel more like myself. December has been my best reading month this year and I actually already have my 2024 journal pages and January pages done (there were some months this year I didn’t get done until 1.5 months after they were done, it was sad). I’m feeling like my enjoyment/passion is back and feel like getting back on my schedule of posting every day. Who am I right now? Haha.
Though I don’t talk a lot about challenges or readathons I do, I have a plan to do more of them in 2024. Rich helped me revamp my TBR game, and we also added some more challenges that he helped with. I may talk about them in a future post, but right now I’m fine with them just living in my journal and being something purely for fun.
What else is on deck for 2024 that is not blog related? Our wedding! We are currently in the middle of planning, but thankfully the big things are locked in, so we took a little break from planning for the holiday season. I both can’t wait for it and am terrified it’s going to come entirely too soon, I imagine that’s pretty normal.
I can’t guarantee I will always post every single day, but I’m hoping to get back to a place where I’m doing that. What would you all like to see in 2024?
Hey everyone! Since we’re still in January I thought it might be a good time to talk a little bit about the challenges I’m planning on doing this year.
As I said previously I am pretty being soft in the goals department for 2023 but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to set some challenges or participate in some things.
First things first, even though I haven’t done a post on it in a while, I am still doing my TBR card game, it’s just something that Rich and I do every month, and I’m trying to catch up by taking care of previous picks.
I’m of course participating in BooksandLaLa’s Buzzwordathon, I’ve already finished my pick for January so we are off to a good start.
Also because I enjoy making him participate, Rich picked out 25 books off my TBR shelves to go into a jar. I’ll pick one a month at least and try to get it off the TBR. He also picked me 23 to read in 23 just for fun. Again, it’s not a hard goal or anything, but it will be fun to look at the list at the end of the year to see how many I completed.
Other than that I may participate loosely in some readathons, but nothing is going to be set in stone until I see how I’m feeling at that time. I want to enjoy my reading this year and be kind to myself when I maybe don’t feel as well.
Though I’m not technically doing 12 picked by 12 friends, feel free to leave me a comment with a recommendation!
Hey everyone, I’m just going to get into it right away – 2022 was not my year and things kind of went off the rails for me. This was especially true for the last few months of the year. For the first time in years I didn’t hit my reading goal and it was purely because everything that happened destroyed my mental health and sent me into a slump. I’m not going to get deep into it, but a new diagnosis of another auto immune condition was added to my list – at this point I have multiple autoimmune bingos and would prefer no more. I also spent 2 months fighting with insurance to try and get the medication I needed and Calypso had another December health scare (she’s fine! thankfully we just needed to run some more intensive tests to make sure she was good). Those are just the most intensive of the issues I dealt with in the last few months.
So what about 2023? Well I’m really hoping to get back on track and definitely doing some catch up here in January. I’m probably not going to set any super hard goals for myself and simply work on finding my healthy place mental health wise. There’s going to be a little more mood reading happening until I’m completely back in my groove and mostly I’m going to try to just enjoy what I’m doing. 🙂
As for writing, of course I’m going to do Camp NaNoWrimo and NaNoWrimo, but I’m also not going to set hard goals there and just enjoy the process.
I’m really hoping that 2023 is a year of healing and adjusting for me, there are definitely some lifestyle adjustments with my new diagnosis. I set my reading goal at 200 like I have the last couple years and I feel positive about it but won’t be upset with myself if life happens and I don’t reach it.
Hey everyone! I figured it might be time for a little life update. It’s a pretty big one.
Last week was me and my SO’s anniversary. Eleven years of being together as a couple, a lot of that was long distance, but we’ve lived together for the last four years.
So on our anniversary…he proposed! There were a lot of emotions and a hard adrenaline crash later, to be honest I’m still emotionally processing in some ways.
So that’s the update – I promise I’ll be back to regular content tomorrow, but had to share.
Hey everyone! I figured it might be good to do a general update since I haven’t done one in a while.
First and foremost, for anyone who saw my post last week about taking Calypso to the ER vet, she is fine! The vet suspected she had a bought of gastritis as xrays and bloodwork were all clear. She took a few days to get back to normal and she’s still a bit skittish (she has as much anxiety as I do, I swear) but she’s feeling a lot better.
Here’s some floof tax to show how much better she feels:
As to what else is going on with me, I’m trying to find my equilibrium in some ways. For months, the last couple years even, I’ve bottled some stuff up without realizing I was doing it. I’ve ignored grieving after losing two members of my family because I just had to move on. I won’t lie, within the last couple months things have definitely come to a head and I’ve had to let myself accept the grief, stress and anxiety. So now I’m working on getting back to where I need to be.
I am looking forward to Camp Nanowrimo in April, I’m hoping that will be a nice refresher for me. Other than that I plan on getting back on my usual reading pace and really work on mental health and self care.
Hey everyone! I just wanted to take the time today to wish everyone a happy new year!
I had a quiet new year’s eve, spent most of it consoling my anxiety filled cat since all of our neighbors were setting off fireworks while also taking it easy and playing a game. We’re not much into reveling for new years in our house, but we celebrate in our own way.
I have no way to know how 2022 is going to go and after bad 2021 was I don’t want to jinx anything by hoping or assuming. Let’s just say we’re going into this with caution.
So what can you expect from the blog this coming year? I’ll be back to posting every day after my few holiday absences the last couple weeks and I’m hoping to be able to bring you even more reviews. I’d love to look into posting some more fun posts, so feel free to comment if you have any post types you’d like to see here!
Hey everyone. I’m sure some have noticed that not as many reviews have been going up as I usually post and there is a reason for that. In my everyday life I deal with a lot of things, my job is very stressful and busy and I have a number of autoimmune/invisible illnesses. I don’t talk about this a lot as it’s just not something I like to get into. That being said, that’s some of what I deal with on a daily basis and I do my best to maintain.
On top of all this I recently had a death in the family that was a big blow. It was a diagnosis that came on fast and was unexpected, and was found too late to really combat. My family is hurting right now and I’m doing my best to keep those closest to me on a somewhat even keel. So…while I’ve still been posting daily, I haven’t been finishing a ton of books. I’m in the middle of multiple books that I’m working hard to finish, but maintaining the normal things I’m juggling and then experiencing this has really knocked me down.
I debated even making this post as I don’t share a ton of my personal life on here, but wanted to explain and say that more reviews are on the way as well as other fun posts. I very much try to keep a happy face on for you guys and want to keep that content coming.
Yes, I’m still doing nanowrimo, but will have a lot of catching up to do at the end of the month. Once I’m a bit more centered I will do a post to update on that front as well.
Here’s a picture of Calypso saying hi to hold everyone over.
Hey everyone! I know this is a new concept here on the blog but since we’re heading towards the end of the year and the last almost two years have been so outside of normal, I felt like thinking about some last quarter goals wasn’t a bad thing.
I of course have my usual TBR books that I want to get through, but I would like to get caught up on past TBRs and make up some ground on review books that I still have. I hate to admit it but I have some back titles on Netgalley that I need to get taken care of.
I’d also like to go back to the goals I made at the beginning of the year and see what series I need to finish, I know Fruits Basket was on that list and I’m only halfway through the manga series. I would also like to finish Kamisama Kiss since I’m almost done with that one, I think I have 6 or 7 volumes left.
Then there’s my Nancy Drew re-read – I’m still doing it, but not at the rate I had originally planned. Honestly other things are the priority right now, so while I’ll still read them as I can, they are not at the top of the pile.
Finally, as I stated earlier I am planning on doing Nanowrimo again this year. I’m going to try and be laid back about it, do the bulk of my writing on the weekends, but I’m also not going to punish myself if it is slow going.
Let’s be honest, my mental health has been severely affected through the last almost two years, so if anything I need to be kind to myself, but I also want to get things done before the end of the year so I can start 2022 with a clean slate.
Anyone else setting goals for themselves for the last quarter of 2021?
Hey everyone! I know a lot of people have recently been getting into watching Asian dramas as of late, especially Kdramas (Korean dramas), especially with the selection that Netflix has had and been adding. Here’s a little secret – though I’m not Korean or Asian, I have been watching them for years. Part of this is because my partner is Korean (and his mom likes to sometimes recommend some) and part of it is because I’ve always been interested in Asian cultures. Plus, Hulu used to have a massive catalog of Kdramas and was always spamming me with ads for Boys Over Flowers – so I fully fell down the rabbit hole. I have come nowhere near to watching a huge amount of dramas, but I like to think I’ve watched some really good ones. There are definitely some genres or types that I feel line up well with book tropes and book genres, so here are some fun recommendations that I have.
Do you love Paranormal books? Anything featuring monsters or ghosts? There are a lot of Korean movies or dramas that take on the zombie genre, but if you’re looking for something other than zombies I would recommend Goblin: The Great and Lonely God, Black or Scholar Who Walks the Night. If you want a paranormal drama with a comedy twist then go for any version of Oh My Ghostess. Another great one that is darker but definitely has a lot of comedy thrown in is The Master’s Sun.
Do you like books that have gaming or the gaming/tech industry in it? I have a couple Chinese dramas for you! They both have a lot of romantic comedy aspect to them, but Love O2O tackles other issues as well, such as how female gamers are viewed (especially if they excel at the game). Another great one is Go Go Squid! which had me laughing and crying at the same time way too many times!
Ok, so I know that contemporary romance, especially romantic comedy is a huge genre when it comes to books, so I would be remiss if I didn’t cover some dramas that were great romantic comedies to dive into. This one is going to require a list!
What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim?
Cinderella and the Four Knights
Strong Woman Do Bong-Soon
I Hear You
1% of Something
I just know some people are waiting for me to get to historical fantasy shows and there are definitely some great ones. If you want a Korean fantasy that is reminiscent of Game of Thrones in it’s political scheming then check out Arthdal Chronicles – I haven’t finished this one yet, but what I’ve seen of it so far has me hooked. I would also recommend Gu Family Book (also known as Kangchi: The Beginning) and Eternal Love (also known as Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms).
There are tons more that I could talk about, but I think that’s all I’m going to include in today’s post. If you’re wondering where you can watch Asian dramas Netflix does have a great selection. Another option and where I watch a lot of the dramas I watch is Viki.com – they have a huge catalog of shows from multiple countries as well as movies and are constantly adding new content.
Let me know if you’d like to know about more Asian dramas in the future and thanks for letting me indulge in a fun post today. 🙂
The Wandering Wordsmith 