Category: Wrap-Ups

Lauren Lately | December 2019 – January 2020

Posted January 10, 2020 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 8 Comments

You can read my monthly Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups to learn about the bookish and blog-related things I’ve accomplished. Lauren Lately was created to highlight all of the personal happenings in my life: events, activities, shows I’m addicted to, things I’m obsessing over, recipes I’ve loved, and goals. Ummm you know it’s been a while when you need to include TWO months in your recap post title! I usually try to do this post or a Five on Friday every week but clearly the holiday season derailed that quite a bit. Here’s a big ol recap of my life. What I’ve Been Up To I usually go weekend by weekend but simultaneously a lot has happened and not a lot, so I’ll do some categorizing instead through the holiday season! Jonas Brothers concert • I went to see the Jonas Brothers concert with Chris’s sister and mom way back before Thanksgiving. We had some annoying people around us (that’s my life, every time I go anywhere) but the show itself was WONDERFUL. The next day, Jen and I grabbed lunch at our favorite spot. Thanksgiving • We always do a fun, comfy Thanksgiving at Chris’s parents house, so this year was no exception. We did onesies! I had a nice day at my nana’s house in the morning before heading to their house after. We made apple cider mimosas. My favorite part of Thanksgiving though? The post-Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches with everything on it. Breweries and brunch • Chris and I have been […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | December 2019

Posted January 2, 2020 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 6 Comments

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin wraps up the last month in reading and what was on the blog, as well as what’s coming up next. You can check out my book haul, books read, posts shared, challenge updates, etc. You can read past bulletins here. If you’re looking for more personal updates, you can check out my Lauren Lately feature; it highlights my life events and non-bookish fun from the previous 30 days. December involved just enough reading to satisfy my Goodreads Challenge, as well as my Christmas-loving heart. I managed to finish 8 Christmas books (I started 2 more but DNFed them, unfortunately)! It was so nice to just get lost in the holiday feels over the month and not worry about the challenges I decided not to finish for the year. All of the books from this month: Check out my 2019 challenge sign-up post for more details, goals, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge 0 read this month | 38 read total | 95% complete Monthly Motif Challenge 2 read this month | 28 read total This month: Last chance Retellings Reading Challenge 0 read this month | 7 read total | 70% complete Picky Pledge My goal is to work on Alexa and Hannah’s Picky Pledge, reading one book from my shelves per month that fits a category on this TBR idea list. (I may read more each month but I’ll just highlight one book and category.) This month: None [/one_half_last] Breakdown: 1 bought | 0 borrowed | 0 free/gifted | 4 […]

2019 Reflection / Wrap-Up

Posted January 1, 2020 / Features, Wrap-Ups / 2 Comments

I usually do a few end-of-year bookish surveys to mark the end of another reading year, but I decided to swap one of those out, keep Jamie’s EOY survey, and do something different. I’ll share stats and highs/lows from both my reading year. I participated in the Statistics Survey in years past (2014, 2015, and 2016), created and hosted by Brittany and Andi, two of my all-time favorite bloggers and friends. They didn’t move forward with hosting it for this year and I decided to make some adjustments to their questions for my own purposes. I always share stats and EOY information at this time anyways, but there are bits and pieces sprinkled in from their survey as well! Monthly Reads and Stats, Book Buying Habits Average book rating for 2019: 3.8 stars Average number of pages per month: 3,757 pages Average books acquired per month: 11.3 books Most books/pages read in a month: March, July – 14 books (5,568 pages, 4,422 pages) Least books/pages read in a month: September – 7 books (2,562 pages) I usually read the most in January because I tend to get reinvigorated by a new reading year. I like being able to get ahead of my challenge early. However, this year’s biggest reading months were March and July! Looking back at my monthly recap, it seems like I was just excited to read in March for some reason. I got into a groove, listened to a lot of audiobooks, and enjoyed my reading. July was another solid reading month where I met […]

Lauren Lately | Nov-Dec 2019

Posted December 7, 2019 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 1 Comment

You can read my monthly Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups to learn about the bookish and blog-related things I’ve accomplished. Lauren Lately was created to highlight all of the personal happenings in my life: events, activities, shows I’m addicted to, things I’m obsessing over, recipes I’ve loved, and goals. What I’ve Been Up To Since my last post in mid-November, I had brunch with Chris’s sister, her husband, and Chris. We were supposed to try this place with bottomless mimosas but they had some weird reason for shutting down. Instead, we went to one of my favorite places and there was an amazing buffet. I drove myself over to An Unlikely Story for the QUEEN OF NOTHING release event (which I’ve already posted about) and took the following day off from work. I had some amazing wings for dinner with my friends, who I’ve been trying to see monthly. Right before Thanksgiving was the Jonas Brothers concert with Chris’s sister and mom! It was so fun despite the issues we had with the people who were sitting near us. The next morning, Jen and I got lunch at our favorite spot… and yes we ordered the exact same meal. Thanksgiving followed shortly after. We did my Nana’s house in the morning with my family and then went over to Chris’s parents’ house in the afternoon. We made it into a comfy/onesie-themed event. I wore a deer onesie, his sister was a koala, brother-in-law was a monkey, and Chris was Snorlax. We […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | November 2019

Posted December 2, 2019 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 1 Comment

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin wraps up the last month in reading and what was on the blog, as well as what’s coming up next. You can check out my book haul, books read, posts shared, challenge updates, etc. You can read past bulletins here. If you’re looking for more personal updates, you can check out my Lauren Lately feature; it highlights my life events and non-bookish fun from the previous 30 days. Woof, the end of the month totally snuck up on me! I know it had to do with Thanksgiving being so late, but for some reason I was convinced that Monday was the first instead of Sunday. I therefore ended up finishing less books in November than expected. I had hoped to squeeze in two more but my reading was weird throughout the month. Oh well! On to a lot of Christmas books in December! All of the books from this month: Check out my 2019 challenge sign-up post for more details, goals, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge 2 read this month | 38 read total | 95% complete Monthly Motif Challenge 2 read this month | 26 read total This month: Seasons, elements, weather Retellings Reading Challenge 0 read this month | 7 read total | 70% complete Picky Pledge My goal is to work on Alexa and Hannah’s Picky Pledge, reading one book from my shelves per month that fits a category on this TBR idea list. (I may read more each month but I’ll just highlight one book […]

Lauren Lately | November 2019

Posted November 15, 2019 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments

You can read my monthly Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups to learn about the bookish and blog-related things I’ve accomplished. Lauren Lately was created to highlight all of the personal happenings in my life: events, activities, shows I’m addicted to, things I’m obsessing over, recipes I’ve loved, and goals. What I’ve Been Up To Chris’s birthday was in mid-October, so we had some fun celebrations with our friends and his family. We went to an Escape Room followed by dinner and hanging out at an arcade. The next day, we went to the local Apple Festival for some solid fair food and browsing the craft shops. I went to a focus group with my friend and then I got dismissed (they had too many people), so I took a solo trip to the bar next door, got some charcuterie and beer, and read my book until she was done! I also went to a wedding dress appointment for that friend, then we got some Mexican food afterwards! Chris’s family usually gets together around November to celebrate the fall birthdays, so we went to a local seafood restaurant – it was so good and they gave us free cake! We had dinner for my step-grandma’s 80th birthday and then hit a local brewery with Chris’s friends afterwards. We celebrated his sister’s birthday with some Korean hotpot the following week too. More dining out adventures: a delicious taco restaurant with our friends one weekend and a pretzel-based bar/restaurant before some friends came over […]

September-October Bookish Bullet Journal

Posted November 6, 2019 / Features, Goals & Planning, Personal / Information / Etc., Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments

When I mentioned the idea of sharing layouts from my reading-related bullet journal on the blog, most of you seemed interested to read about it! I can’t justify making one post each month dedicated to the 3-4 bujo pages I make during that month, so I thought doing a little bullet journal update every two months would be fun instead! In these posts you will see all of the new pages I added during the past two months. September new releases and review copies: Big release month in September, apparently! I’m not super surprised now that I look at this. September TBR: LOL this is a sad wrap-up. I didn’t read a lot in September because it’s always super busy, between alllll the things in my life happening at once. Anniversary, birthday, football, etc… all the good things I love! I don’t read as much during the month and clearly the books I DID read weren’t on my original TBR. September reading tracker: It took me a super long time to read one of my books and others were pretty long as well. Usually I don’t take an entire week to read a book – especially a contemporary romance – but that happened a lot here. Fall bingo card: I didn’t get my shit together on fall bingo until after I did some September spreads when usually I’d prefer to have that at the front of the season. Oh well. This is fairly accurate but I believe I finished a few more off after […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | October 2019

Posted November 1, 2019 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 3 Comments

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin wraps up the last month in reading and what was on the blog, as well as what’s coming up next. You can check out my book haul, books read, posts shared, challenge updates, etc. You can read past bulletins here. If you’re looking for more personal updates, you can check out my Lauren Lately feature; it highlights my life events and non-bookish fun from the previous 30 days. Back on track, baby! I talked about my weird reading schedule (basically structured every book like a readalong where I had a set start date and end date with page goals) for October and that really helped me. I don’t think I’ll do it all the time but just for a few months when I’m feeling like I need the motivation. This will probably be true for November, TBH. Anyways, I did a good job reading in October (including my focus on “heavier” fall books, aka non-contemporaries). All of the books from this month: Check out my 2019 challenge sign-up post for more details, goals, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge 2 read this month | 37 read total | 93% complete Monthly Motif Challenge 2 read this month | 24 read total This month: Tricks and trades Retellings Reading Challenge 2 read this month | 7 read total | 70% complete Picky Pledge My goal is to work on Alexa and Hannah’s Picky Pledge, reading one book from my shelves per month that fits a category on this TBR idea […]

Lauren Lately | October 2019

Posted October 18, 2019 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 2 Comments

You can read my monthly Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups to learn about the bookish and blog-related things I’ve accomplished. Lauren Lately was created to highlight all of the personal happenings in my life: events, activities, shows I’m addicted to, things I’m obsessing over, recipes I’ve loved, and goals. What I’ve Been Up To Connecticut Renaissance Faire | I’ve always wanted to attend a ren faire and this was further proven when I read WELL MET recently! Chris has always wanted to go as well and we got super lucky – the CT ren faire was happening in Sept-Oct and it’s only 20 minutes from our house. We enjoyed the day but ran out of things to do and see pretty quickly. We ate some food, watched jousting and a parade, then basically went home. It was also super hot for late September! Wedding and Maine family weekend | I had a morning wedding in late September, so Chris scooped me from the wedding and we continued up to Maine for the weekend. It was family weekend at my sister’s college. We checked out the school, walked around campus, and went for a sunset walk on the beach near my Grammie’s house. On the way home the next day, we obviously had to stop for Henry VIII sandwiches! AEW Dynamite Boston | The newest wrestling company to compete with WWE is pretty much all I’ve ever wanted? We got super lucky and got tickets to the second-ever television taping for Wednesday night Dynamite. […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | September 2019

Posted October 2, 2019 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin wraps up the last month in reading and what was on the blog, as well as what’s coming up next. You can check out my book haul, books read, posts shared, challenge updates, etc. You can read past bulletins here. If you’re looking for more personal updates, you can check out my Lauren Lately feature; it highlights my life events and non-bookish fun from the previous 30 days. I was sure keep up the general butt-ness of my reading life in September. I do *know* that this happens in September because I typically spend more time out and about, with friends and family, and taking trips to celebrate all the good things September brings for me. Not mad about it! Because of Contemporary-a-thon though, I WAS able to make a good push right at the end of the month to ensure I didn’t totally blow it. I technically only finished one book during the readathon, but I started two others and actually finished them both the day after the readathon, aka the last day of the month! All of the books from this month: Check out my 2019 challenge sign-up post for more details, goals, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge 0 read this month | 35 read total | 88% complete None this month Monthly Motif Challenge 2 read this month | 22 read total This month: Animal, number, color, name Retellings Reading Challenge 0 read this month | 5 read total | 50% complete None this month […]