2017 Reading Goals: Keeping it Simple

I have gone through major life changes in the past year. As a result, my blog has fallen to the wayside. While I do enjoy blogging, I think I have come to regard it somewhat as a chore. So, rather than obligating myself to blog about every book I read, I'm going to keep things very simple going forward.

This year I plan to focus less on blogging and reviews, and more on simply reading to enjoy books again. I will share reviews here from time to time, but I think this year I may start to add more random, personal posts, about whatever strikes my fancy.

That being said, I do have some reading goals in mind for this year. If I make them, great, if I don't, it's not the end of the world.

I've set both reading and life goals in a list. For now, I'll just share my reading goals, but I may share my other goals at some point later on.

2017 Reading Goals

-To read at least 100 books

- To read 30 minutes a night or more, at least 3 nights per week

- To read 17,000 pages

- Read at least 15 of the unread books on my bookshelf this year.

- Check out at least 15 books (and read them) from the library this year

What are your reading (or life) goals this year?

2016 Reading Challenges

Happy New year everyone!

I hope everyone had a nice time ringing in the new year. I was asleep when the clock struck 12, since I had to be at work at 6 am this morning.

I didn't feel I should do a 2015 recap post since my reading was pretty sparse last year. But, I did update my reading challenges page to include my progress with last years goals, so you can check out those updates if you're interested.

If I'm honest with myself, this years reading will probably not be all that much better, since I'm planning to make a major move within the next six months, so that my husband and I can finally (!) start our lives together. That will take a ton of time and planning to get that all done. Which means a lot less time for reading. But, I'm going to set some simple goals and see what I can accomplish.

This year my reading/blogging goals are:

• To read 75 books
• To read a total of 16,000 pages
• To write and post 1 review or general post a week on the blog
• To send some of my books off to new homes before I move with some "if it fits it ships giveaways." For these giveaways I will be compiling a list of the books that I have to give away and letting my blog readers select the books from the list they are interested in. However many can fit in whatever box I have will be the number of books the winner will get.

What are your reading/blogging goals for this year?

2015 Reading Challenges

I decided not to do a 2014 recap post, since my reading in 2014 was pretty lackluster.

If you'd like to check out those lackluster results you can take a look at my Past Reading Challenges page

I'm keeping this year's goals simple again.

• Continue with my goal of reading 1,000,000 pages in my lifetime:  Currently 93,022 pages
• Read 115 Books
• Read 15,000 pages
• Witches and Witchcraft Reading Challenge (Detailed post on this coming soon)

What are your reading goals this year?

Checking in Again

Hello to anyone who might actually see this.

I know it's been almost three months since my last post. So I figured I'd check in again. I'm reading, albeit very slowly.

Life is just too hectic right now to put the time into reading or blogging the way I want to. Work is always busy, and so is life. I feel bad that this blog has been abandoned the way it has, but something had to give, and unfortunately this was it.

I'm hoping that with New Year's coming up it will inspire me to set some blogging, reading, and life goals and stick to them. Unfortunately my reading goals for this year are going to fall woefully short. I was going to try to get 75 books read this year. Between work, and wedding planning, and everything else, I have only managed to read 18 books this year. More than the average person might read, but painfully few books for me. I'm thinking that I'll get at least one more book in before the end of the year, possibly two. We'll see. I'm still not sure where I'm going to set next year's reading goals at either.

One thing I am sure of at the moment is that tomorrow on the blog I will be giving my readers a bit of a glimpse into my personal life. My blog description states that this is mostly about books, but that I like to throw in the occasional personal post and tomorrow I'll be doing just that.

Since I've been married almost 4 months already, I'd say it's about time that I got to writing reviews for some of the people that helped out in the process and one of them was our officiant Barbara. Tomorrow on the blog I will be featuring a review of our ceremony, so come by and take a look!

I hope everyone is well, and that you are all in the middle of reading excellent books at the moment.

Happy reading!

2014 Bookish Goals

Since I know I have limited time for reading and blogging alike, I'm going to keep my 2014 reading and blogging goals short and simple.

Blogging Goals:

1. Try to post something at least once a week

2. Participate in 1-2 tours a month

3. Participate in a weekly meme? I'm a little hesitant on this, because I'm not sure which one to do. I'm open to suggestions. 

Update my Review Archive once a month

Reading Goals

1. Read for at least a half hour a day 

Last year my goal was an hour a day and I almost never made it, at least not on a consistent basis, so I'm starting smaller this year.

2. Read 75 Books

I'm hoping to go above and beyond this goal

3.Read 14,000 pages 

Another goal I'm hoping to reach and go past.

Continue on my journey to read 1 million pages in my lifetime.

That's it for me. What are your reading goals for the new year?

March Reading Recap

March didn't really seem to fly by, but I definitely didn't get as much reading done as I would have liked. This trend of reading less might continue since I'm going to be starting a new job this week, but maybe I'll read more than I expect. I hope so, I've really gotten behind on some of my reading goals and need to catch up. Here's the recap for March (links go to reviews):

Books Read:

A Part To Play by Jennifer L. Fry 3 Stars

Money and Teens: Savvy Money Skills by Darby and Wes Karchut 5 Stars

Godspeed: A Love Story by Dan Chabot 5 Stars

Ramblings in Ireland by Kerry Dwyer 4 Stars

Strike: Dawn of the Daybreaker by Charlie M. Wood 3 Stars

Dearest by Carole Marshall 1 Star

Stats:

Books Read: 6

Average Rating of Books Read in March: 3.5 Stars

Average Rating of Books Read in 2013: 3.45 Stars

Favorite Book: Godspeed: A Love Story

Least Favorite Book: Dearest

Female vs. Male Authors Read: 4/3 (counting the Karchuts separately)

Total Pages Read This Month: 1314

Total Pages Read in 2013: 4582

Review Books Read: 6

Longest Book: Godspeed: A Love Story 306 pages

Shortest Book: Dearest 167 pages

And that's it for March for me. Have any of you read any of these books? Let me know!

February Book Recap

February flew by. I feel like I went through a bit of a reading slump this month because I didn't read nearly as much as I wanted to. And I'm seriously behind in my page count challenge that I have going for myself so I really need to step it up big time. Here's what I read in February:

Books Read:

Rally Round The Corpse by Hy Conrad 4 Stars

Deep Connections by Rebecca Graf 2 Stars

Scammed by Art Maines 3 Stars

Before You Say I Do Again: A Buyer's Beware Guide to Remarriage by Benjamin Berkley 4 Stars

The Eighth Wonder by Kimberly S. Young 4 Stars

The Adventures of Stanley Delacourt by Ilana Waters 4 Stars

Writing Great Emails Is Not Art: 9 Ways To Get There by Gisela Hausmann 3 Stars

Some Stats:

Total Books Read: 7

Average Rating of Books Read in February: 3.42 Stars

Average Rating of Books Read in 2013: 3.43 Stars

Favorite Book: Tie between Rally Round the Corpse and The Adventures of Stanley Delacourt

Least Favorite Book: Deep Connections

Female vs. Male Authors Read: 4/3

Total Pages Read This Month: 1558

Total Pages Read in 2013: 3268

Review Books Read: 1

Books Read For Blog Tours: 5

Longest Book Read: Rally Round the Corpse at 337 Pages

Shortest Book Read: Writing Great Emails is Not Art at 16 pages

So that was February. I really need to step it up in March so that I can catch up with my page count goal. And I'm also falling a bit behind on my GR reading goal as well, so all the more reason to read more! How about you? Did you read as much as you wanted to in February? Have you read any of these books, or are you planning to?

2013 Reading Challenges

Another new year is here and it's time for me to set some new challenges for myself. These will just be personal reading challenges for now. I'm still trying to decide which official challenges to join if any, so you may see a few signup posts related to those as well if there are any I decide to join.

Personal Reading Challenges for 2013:

• Continuing on my journey to read 1 million pages in my lifetime: Currently: 72,348 pages
• Read for 1 hour each day: I may keep a log of minutes read and report it in my Sunday posts to keep myself accountable.
• Read 105 books. I'm really hoping for more than this, but I'll start out small and increase the goal if I go over it.
• Read at least 30,000 pages this year.

Group Reading Challenges:

Last year I signed up to do a 12X12 challenge on Goodreads. The idea was to read 12 different books in 12 different categories. Since I only read 104 books I didn't make it, but I figured I'd try again this year, but the GR group I'm in One Million Pages Per Lifetime  is letting us choose the number of categories we want to do. We have to read 13 books in each category: Right now I'm planning to do 10 categories

My Categories:

Author Review Requests
First in Series
Further in Series
Biography/Memoir/Autobiography
Paranormal Creatures-Witches
Romance
E-books
Books won from Giveaways
Non-Fiction
Food and Drink

My progress will be updated on my 2013 Reading Challenges page on a weekly basis. I'm thinking I'll update the page on Saturdays or Sundays.


What reading challenges have you joined or what reading goals have you set for yourself this year?