A Time For Everything

Image courtesy of Goodreads.

My Year in Books via Goodreads!

At the beginning of 2024, I pledged to read fifty-five books in the Goodreads Challenge. I'd completed fifty-eight books or 105% when Goodreads decided to send my Year in Books Review & graphics to go with.

The above graphic was one of the graphics and I was curious as to what that actually meant, so I Googled it. :0) There were multiple ways to qualify, but I knew exactly how I made the cut:

"High Review Volume: You consistently review a large number of books across various genres."

Now, to be honest, I don't write reviews but I do give them all a star rating.

In addition to those fifty-nine books, I read a boat-load of hockey articles.

Now, if you go look at my Goodreads Challenge Book List, be aware that I did not actually read all of the titles listed. That's not to say I didn't read fifty-eight (or more) books. I know I've mentioned this in previous years, but I read a lot of fan fiction. So some of the titles listed, like Gone With the Wind, are placeholders for a piece of fan fiction. I try to choose place-holder books that have roughly the same amount of pages/words as a given piece of fanfic. I'm not reading a 500-word fic and then using GWTW as the place-holder.

* * * * *

The New Guy

Is working out great. He's smart and he learns quickly, which has been awesome. So a month + in and we're still very happy with our choice.

* * * * *

Pain Management

I have good news and bad news.

Good News: I finally had my appointment with the rheumatologist.

Good Bad News: I don't have rheumatoid arthritis requiring life-long medicating. What I do have is osteo-arthritis--which the rheumatologist said just means "I'm feeling my age." (boooo!)

Good News: My primary care doctor put me on some pain meds back in October for the right hip / bursitis I can't seem to heal.

Bad News: the meds didn't seem to help

Good News: according to the rheumatologist, the meds I was given are very slow acting, so they should start to work any time now (thank goodness, lol)

Good News: this pain med is also a mild anti-depressant, so I've been a little more upbeat even though the pain hasn't quite been eliminated.

I also had a bone-density scan done to check on...well...my bone density and take corrective action if needed. I'll meet with the rheumatologist again at the beginning of January to go over all the results.

* * * * *

Image courtesy of IMGBIN.

Book Binge

So I've started another book binge. I didn't mean to do it, but one thing led to another and, well, here we are. :0)

I've dipped my toe into some genres outside my usual purview of romance such as a police procedural, a cozy mystery series, some general fiction, and some self-help.

Didn't pay full price for any of it.

I suppose, as an author myself, I shouldn't be so pleased about that, but between the online library and some recent sales, and books just offered at $0, I'm set for books for at least a good month.

I'm currently reading a fictionalized version of Julia's Child's early career working for the government.

I've developed an appreciation of Mrs. Child after watching the dramedy "Julia" on HBO, which, sadly, was canceled after two seasons.

* * * * *

Well, friends--this is it until the new year. Hope your holidays are filled with family, friends, food, and fun.

See you in 2025.

Image courtesy IMGBIN.

Hey there! Hope you're well. As you can probably tell--blog post title anyone? lol--it's time for my quarterly check-in.

The third quarter was a bit rough for several weeks as the anniversary of Mom's death in August hit me a little harder than I expected--which is to say I didn't expect it to hit me hard at all. Add to that the triple digit temperatures we'd been dealing with for weeks and weeks (and weeks) on end as well as "the turn" I mentioned in my last post.

So all that to say that I probably didn't do very well with my goals since the whole year hasn't really gone the way I anticipated. So, without further ado, let's dive in.

1) Send a postcard to my Grandma in Denmark monthly: I've been keeping up with this. August was Grandma's birthday and she got her usual flower delivery along with a letter.

2) Finish & publish Finders Keepers: not done; not gonna get done although I do want to finish it some day. Whether that actually comes to pass is hard to say. Just want to be realistic...

3) Exercise minimum 3X per week: I fell of that wagon. Grief and heat took its toll. I need to get back to doing my Hinge Health exercises if nothing else.

4) Read 52 books, including 6 non-fiction: I've read 49 books this year so far, ten ahead of schedule according to Goodreads. Six non-fiction books done and dusted. I've read seven so far, with one more waiting in my Kindle. One book tends to lead to the next, so I imagine another one or two will appear before the year is over.

5) Keep up my writers group duties on a weekly basis: I'm caught up as of this post but I wasn't very diligent about keeping up weekly. Mostly monthly, but summer is slow... And maybe I need to take a lesson from my history and reassess my plans going forward.

6) Add one non-hockey pattern per quarter to Etsy shop: Didn't happen. My plan became to have my own store and leave minimal patterns on Etsy, but due to a factor beyond my control, that project is currently stalled.

7) Self care: working on it. Sorta. I think. I think I need to do better.

8) Complete a home improvement project or two: Didn't happen; isn't gonna happen.

9) Read / listen to / watch my writers education items: Didn't happen; isn't gonna happen.

10) Continue to cook /eat healthy / adhere to a food plan: let's just say...I could be doing much better.

11) Stay on track with / up my game with the housekeeping: fell off the wagon here, but trying--albeit not very hard--to hop back on.

12) Keep blogging: I addressed that a couple of weeks ago. :0)

13) Write articles for my writers group newsletter: fell off the wagon here too and with everything else going on in my brain, I just haven't had a whole lot of inspiration. I have an article in progress, but it definitely needs some adjustments.

14) Finally study the Personality Strengths in depth: you know it's been three years and I'm pretty sure this isn't going to happen this year...

15) Get through the Bible in one year: totally on track here. And I've already decided that next year I want to go through the Bible in chronological order.

16) Keep up with / solidify my Goodreads habit: did pretty good until a month or two ago and other than tracking my book reading challenge, I couldn't care less about it any longer. So...we're done with that.

I've given myself grades in the past, but that's not where I'm at right now. Life has reached a crossroads and some of these goals no longer serve me. And that's fine. That's life, right? As the fourth quarter progresses and I assess where I am and where I want to go, I imagine that many of next year's goals are going to have a different look and feel to them.

I hope you're all well dear followers.

See you in a couple of weeks.

Mark your calendars for a week from tomorrow--September 6th--and pick out a shiny new book. Or maybe you'd rather settle in with an old favorite.

Either way, spend the day, if you can, reading. If you can't take the whole day off--they should make this a mandatory event across the nation, don't you think??--they spend some time (thirty minutes, an hour) with your nose in a book.

Now, I read all the time. You all should know this by now. :0) In the morning, in the evening, sometimes during the day when I get my steps in (which is a thing I have gotten back to).

This year, after a long hiatus, I signed up for the Goodreads Challenge, which is nothing more than a pledge to read a certain number of books during the calendar year. I ended up at 72. I'd originally challenged myself to read 106 books, and if you're not a math wizard, that equates to two per week. But once things happened with Mom, I wasn't sure I'd make that particular goal, so I adjusted slightly lower.

As it stands, I'm seven books ahead of schedule. Here are a few of the books I've read so far:

Ms. Easton and Ms. North are my absolute faves and I've read several of their books this year, but I did branch out into a few other genres as you can see, although I still primarily read romance.

I did have to fudge the truth on Goodreads a little-- I still read A LOT of fan fiction. Individual stories, of course, aren't going to be listed as books. So I spent some time looking up the approximate word counts of a few classics. Moby Dick, To Kill a Mockingbird, Anna Karenina, etc, so that I could use them as proxies for the fan fic I read. I want credit for those words, dang it!

Now, unlike the woman in the image at the top of this post, I don't actually read physical books anymore. Once in a great while for reasons, but mostly I like that I can amass vast amount of books but not have them piled all over my house. My e-reader of choice is my phone, using the Kindle app for commercial fiction, and the plain old browser to access my favorite fan fiction repository.

What about you--are you a reader? Physical books or e-books? Fiction or non-fiction?

Hope you have a great week!!