Tag: goals

2024 – Goals, Plans and Wishful Thinking?

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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?

Happy reading!

End of the Year Update | Reflecting on 2023+2024 Plans

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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?

Happy reading!

Check-in | Series I Want to Finish in 2022

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Hey everyone! Since it’s the beginning of the year I’ve been thinking about goals and things I want to accomplish in 2022 and one of the things I wanted to touch on was the series I would really like to check off my list this year – some of them are carry overs from last year, I won’t lie. Let’s get into it!

Fruits Basket – I meant to finish this one up in 2021 but it just didn’t happen, I’m currently on volume six out of twelve.

Kamisama Kiss – This is another one I was hoping to complete in 2021 and I almost did it, but not quite. I’m currently reading volume 20 of 25.

Nancy Drew Reread – I’m currently on book 20 of my reread of this series, there isn’t really a defined time period on this one as it’s purely for enjoyment, but I would like to read more of them this year than I did last year.

Krewe of Hunters series – I’ve been reading this series by Heather Graham for a while but I am behind by quite a few books. I would ideally like to get caught up on this series this year.

Those are the specific series I’d like to work on this year, but there are always trilogies and such that I would like to complete. We’ll see how I do!

Happy reading!

2021 Goals – Revisit

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Hey everyone! I figured it would be good to revisit my 2021 goals since we are at the end of the year, so let’s take a look.

In regards to reading over 200 books, I have definitely accomplished that this year. I have one more day and there are a couple books/stories I’d like to finish by the end of tomorrow, but as of right now I am sitting at 243.

I did get to more of my backlist and have enjoyed my TBR game, but I wouldn’t call this one a pass or fail. I didn’t do as much as I wanted, but I did make progress. Also, in regarding to blogging, I did blog almost every day this year. The only days I didn’t post a blog were Christmas Eve and Christmas, so to me that is a win.

Now onto writing…oh boy. I did participate in both Camp Nanowrimo’s and Nanowrimo, but I didn’t reach my goals in any of them. I had high hopes for 2021, but alas, it was almost as bad if not worse than 2020. I’m not even going to say anything about 2022 because I’m having a hard time finding hope for how it will go. I think a lot of us are going into the year with the mentality of no sudden movements.

So in all I think I did pretty good, especially with the year I had. Let’s see what 2022 has in store.

Happy reading!

2022 Goals

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Hey everyone! I decided to take a couple days off blogging so I could focus on spending the holiday with my family, and I’m glad I did. I wanted to come back and talk about the goals I have for next year. Most of these are pretty broad and definitely achievable, but as this year proved those are famous last words. Let’s go over them!

  • 200+ books read
  • Get caught up on Netgalley
  • Get caught up on my TBR Challenge books
  • More audiobooks! (since working from home I have been listening to less, but would like to ramp this up again).
  • Finish at least 2 manga series
  • Participate in the Buzzword Readathon (created by BooksandLaLa on youtube).

So far that’s what I have and I think I’m going to probably leave it here. I want them to be something I can actually achieve since I’m trying to be nice to myself.

What are some of your goals? Do you think I should add any other goals?

Happy reading!

2021 | Q4 Goals

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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?

Happy reading!

Series I Want to Finish in 2021

DeAnne4 Comments

I’m pretty sure we’ve all been guilty of starting series and then letting them sit on our shelves waiting for us to pick them up again. I decided to pick a few series that I will try to finish this year and we’ll just see how we go.

Locke and Key – I’ve heard the entire story through audiobook, but I would like to read it in its original format. This one I’m actually almost done with as I’m currently working on volume 5 – so I’m pretty confident I’ll be able to knock this one out.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians – This one I’m a little more behind on, I’ve read through book three. I know that outing myself as being way behind on such a popular series is dangerous, but it’s one of those series I have and I told myself I would always get around to – so now I’d really like to.

Fruits Basket – I’ve been collecting the collector’s editions of this manga and so far have read through volume four. This is another one that is going to be easy to complete, I just have to buckle down and do it. I really have no excuse since manga tend to be such a quick read.

The Kane Chronicles – This one is right up there with Percy Jackson, as in I should have read it by now, especially since it all ties into that universe. I’ve read the first book and have the audiobook of the second, so if I can just devote some time to it, then I shouldn’t have an issue.

So there you have it, those are the four series I’m setting a goal of finishing by the end of the year. Hopefully when I revisit this in a year I’ll be able to say that I completely most if not all of them and be able to pick another group to finish.

Happy reading!

2021 Goals | Reading and Writing

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Well, I don’t know about all of you, but I am glad 2020 is going to be in the rear view soon (I’m sure most of you agree). I’m hoping that things will start improving soon as this year comes to a close and we hopefully have somewhat of a clean slate. Hey, I can hope, right?

So since we are at the end of the year I have started thinking of what goals I want to have in 2021 regarding my reading and writing.

Reading Amount – This year my reading goal was set at 200 books, though I was anticipating something similar to last year where I hit 301 books (I listen to a lot of audio books when I’m in the office). While I have hit (so far) 242 books and I’m super happy with that, my audiobook listening took a steep decline when I started working from home in April (please don’t take this as me complaining about this, I’m forever grateful to my employer that they have allowed me to WFH). I would definitely like to read at least 200 books in 2021 to keep the streak going and would like to get back to listening to more audiobooks.

Reading Content – Next year I do want to do even better at getting more to my backlist of physical books and hopefully the TBR game I made for myself will help with that. Except for a couple prompts regarding NetGalley or Kindle books everything on my board is geared towards reading backlist physical books.

Blogging – I’ve had a pretty good streak going of posting something every single day and I want to keep that going. It’s been a good benchmark to hit even if some days I had to work to think of what I would post. I would like to succeed in getting more things pre-scheduled though.

Writing – I again want to participate in NaNoWriMo as well as the two Camp sessions in April and July. I’m not going to set a hard goal for myself (other than the 50k words in November) and just want to enjoy writing more. Maybe I will actually wrap up a story and consider it complete? I don’t know, but I definitely want to write just as much or more.

So what are some of your goals for 2021? Are you just as happy that 2020 is finally drawing to a close? I feel like this year both took an eternity and went by fast, it’s a weird feeling.

Happy reading!

2020 Reading Goals

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Even thought 2019 isn’t over yet, I have a lot going on in the last couple weeks of the year so I don’t know exactly how much reading I’ll get done other than review books. Saying that, I’m going to go ahead and get to work on setting my goals for 2020.

This year I set a goal to read 175 books and so far I’m at 293. I don’t know that I’ll up my goal for next year, but probably try to aim for the same kinds of results.

I would definitely like to whittle down my backlist. I have a lot of physical books that I haven’t read. Thankfully audiobooks help a lot with taking care of that, so I will strive to keep that up.

I’ve been trying to stick to posting everyday here on the blog and I definitely want to keep that up, I’d love to network more and be able to bring more exciting content.

There are a lot of series that I’m in the middle of, so another goal is to try and complete more series. I was able to take a few off of my list this year, but not nearly enough to make me happy.

I’m also carrying over my goal to bring in less books than I read each month. I have succeeded every month except for November this year and that really made me feel better about my book buying.

What are some of the goals you want to accomplish next year? Happy reading!

Bookish Goals for 2019

DeAnne1 Comment

I don’t know about everyone else, but 2018 went by super fast for me.  I felt like I accomplished a lot regarding reading and writing, but it was also a whirlwind.  This year and some of 2017 really felt like the first years I was back to being myself reading wise since my father died in 2013.

I ended 2018 with a total of 283 books read.  They were a balance between audio books and physical/e-books and I won’t deny that the ability to listen to audio books at work really allowed me to listen to more.

While I would like to read that amount or more in 2019 and really tackle my TBR, I’ve set my Goodreads goal to 100. I have some other goals that I am setting for myself with books in mind.

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  1. Make decent headway on the physical books on my TBR – currently my physical TBR is, shall we say, a tad out of control.  I have 1.5 bookcases in my bedroom that purely contain unread books, plus a couple stacks.  I have made some progress on some of those far down on my TBR by listening to their audiobooks, but I need to concentrate more on this backlist more than I have been.  Last year only 58 of the 283 books I read were books that I already had a physical copy of, which is 20%.  If I truly want to bring down my physical TBR I need to up this percentage.
  2. Finish some of the series I have started – I have a good amount of duologies/series which I have started, but haven’t completed and in many cases I do own the other books. I’m going to strive to finish 5 of these active series in 2019.
  3. Continue to keep track of my books added to my TBR, books read and other stats in my bullet journal – this was the first year I tried out a bullet journal and I kept it very simple.  I had a page for books read, books added, and number of books per month as well as a couple other small graphs.  This really helped me curb my buying as I had a physical representation of just how much I was bringing in.  I made a goal to not add more books in a month than I read and I only failed that twice (one of which was my birthday month so…).
  4. Ahem, be better about posting here – this blog is new for me but I am really enjoying it; however, with a full time job that requires a lot of my mental energy, it can sometimes be hard to get myself to do anything on my time off.  I’m really going to make an effort to post more and be more regular about the content here.

And a bonus writing goal – I hope to once again participate in Nanowrimo in November.  I did it this year for the 2nd time and while I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did in 2017, I made a lot of progress and reached my goal.  I’m hoping to continue the trend for a 3rd time in a row.

So far that’s the main goals I have planned for myself and I will be more than happy if I can accomplish them.  What are some of your goals for 2019?

Happy reading!