I always do a mid-year wrap-up to check on my progress for challenges and goals, but sometimes things just HIT ME when it gets this late in the year that I really don’t have that much time to get all my shit done. I made some gooood progress by the middle of the year but my reading since then has definitely declined. June and July were tough reading months since we were gearing up to move and then actually moving and enjoying our new city. We’ve spent a lot of time being lazy in the last few weeks because of Chris’s surgery, but we’re mostly watching TV shows and movies together. I work during the day while Chris watches his stuff and does homework, then we start watching our shows from 5 PM until bedtime. It’s a lazy life right now and I enjoy it most of the time, but I’m definitely grateful that he’ll be out and about more as time goes on and he gets used to the walking boot. Sometimes a quick trip to a little grocery store/restaurant or Target makes things better! I hope to get more reading in as the weather gets colder and I can be cozy in my bed. On that note…
Books and Goals So Far
Books read: 116 / 150
{Ahead of my Goodreads challenge}
Click for a bigger image to see my reading year so far, thanks to my favorite spreadsheet ever…
Challenges
Contemporary Romance Challenge: 52 / 21 ✔️
Flights of Fantasy Challenge: 25 / 30
Series Enders Challenge: 15 / 15 ✔️
Rock my TBR Challenge: 15 / 10 ✔️
Goals
Read less, focus on other hobbies ✔️
Reinvigorate the Nostalgia Project, reread more ✔️
Read owned books
Expand out of contemporary romance ✔️
Crank out shows from my watch list
Be spontaneous but also make plans ✔️
Figure out the possibility of going back to school
Save up money, pay down debt ✔️
Stick to a blogging schedule with less posts ✔️
Develop long-range bookish and blog goals ✔️
Link up with challenges
Coming Up Next
1. Fall-themed posts and more personal stuff
As I mentioned recently, I sort of revamped the blog a little so the focus is A LITTLE more on the personal stuff. You’ll still see reviews and bookish posts the vast majority of the time, but I love too many other things in my life right now to stay away from the personal stuff. Between exploring Portland, watching TV/movies, listening to podcasts, and getting a bit more into clothes/makeup, I want the blog to reflect all areas of my life. My Goodreads goal decreases each year to allow for more activities and less reading time, so I think my blog will continue to show that balance.
2. Seasonal / holiday reads and recaps
You’ve probably come to recognize that the month of December is one of my favorites. If September is the best month, December is the second best. I’ve celebrated the holidays each year so far on the blog (2014 2015 2016) and definitely will not be stopping anytime soon. I love some of the holiday features and guest posts that other bloggers do and I don’t plan on duplicating any of that, but I’m hoping for some holiday buddy reads or engagement from friends during December.
3. End of year wrap-ups and surveys
I think you guys also know I’m alllll about the wrap-ups. My favorite posts are those at the end of the year involving favorite books, fun surveys, and LOOK HOW MUCH I READ wrap-up posts. My end-of-December is always full of those fun posts so you know I’m already prepping all the things. I hope to have more personal wrap-ups on the year too!
I honestly cannot believe how close it is to the end of the year. How did it come up so fast? And you’ve read 116 books! That’s a lot! And I love how you keep track of all your book stats. It all looks really detailed, like PB/HB/and ebook, and then longest and shortest books. I just rely on GR for my yearly stats haha!
You’re killing your reading challenges for the year! That’s amazing!! And I hope Chris recovers quickly! My husband also recently had surgery so I can totally relate to the lazy life- until this past week when I had NYCC and book events and basically did more in a week than I have in the past two months lol!
You are doing amazing. I’m really pushing to finish my reading challenges before the end of the year.
I love how your feeling of “being behind on reading” is literally double the amount of books I read every year, lol! I actually hit my Goodreads goal on October 1st, but I’m really behind on entering all of the books I’ve read into my spreadsheet….so I need to get around to that when I have some free time to get a more accurate view of my stats!
I LOVE this time of year for blogging because it’s so much easier to come up with content for blogging because of all of the end of the year wrap ups lol