Category: Wrap-Ups

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | February 2018

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | February 2018

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. February is/was a weird month. January felt like it took ten years to be over, but February was over in a blink. I know it’s partly because there are only 28 days. I read a few very large books that took me a while, but it’s mostly because I had to pause books to read other ones I didn’t give myself enough time for. I was reading MY PLAIN JANE when I got a book from an ARC tour, so I had to pause it. I went back to MPJ for a couple of days before realizing I had less than a week to read the 500+ page behemoth RENEGADES for my book club meeting, so I had to pause MPJ again. Trying to read those books took me most of the month because of start-stop-start-stop. I also made the mistake of randomly starting an ebook in between even though I didn’t really have time for it. Sigh. My reading has been all over the place this month. I slightly changed and simplified my BL Bulletin posts, in case you’re noticing […]

Lauren Lately | February 2018

Posted February 15, 2018 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments
Lauren Lately | February 2018

Because my Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups got out of hand, I wanted to break up my monthly wrap-ups into two posts: one personal and one bookish/bloggy. I created Lauren Lately here 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 for the next month. I decided to space them out so this wrap-up happens around the mid-point of the month and the bookish one happens at the end of the month. ✨ Check out my most recent bookish and bloggy wrap-up HERE ✨     Thompson’s Point | I’d always heard about this little neighborhood in Portland and had been planning a trip there for a while. It’s this little strip of land that juts out into the ocean and is currently being developed still. They’re going to add some apartments and hotels to make it an actual neighborhood. Anyways, there’s currently a bunch of stuff to do there for a day: brewery, ice skating, fried chicken and waffles restaurant, distillery, paint your own pottery, and a cryptozoology museum. We decided to hit most of those one Saturday afternoon! We got chicken and waffles first, then went to the museum, then went to a yurt near the ice skating for beers (the brewery was way too busy), and then painted pottery. Biddeford / Elements | In an effort to keep exploring the surrounding area, I spent some time one Friday researching local bookstores. I came across a really cool […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | January 2018

Posted February 1, 2018 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 2 Comments
Bookmark Lit Bulletin | January 2018

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin was created to wrap up each month and prepare for the next. I share my book haul, books I read and reviewed, posts I shared, challenge updates, and more from the previous month. I also let you know what may be coming up on the blog in the coming month. You can read past bulletins here. I recently split out my personal posts into the Lauren Lately feature, so this is a bit shorter! I love kicking off the year with a solid reading month because it just gives me some breathing room. Even though my goal is much lower this year, I still have been in the mood to read like a crazy person. I did read a few books in one day or over the course of two sittings. Snow days and skiing lead to a lot of audiobook listening and/or reading, depending. I’m starting to get a littleee stir crazy though, so hopefully we can pull together some activities for the rest of the winter. Average rating for books read this month: 3.8 stars Highlights & Lowlights This month’s books: Year-Long Netgalley/Edelweiss Challenge 4 this month | 4 read total | Current NG ratio: 73% Popsugar Reading Challenge 10 this month | 10 read total | 25% complete   Prompts from L-R: Next book in started series, book set in fascinating country, book with a time of day in the title, book with an LGBTQ+ protagonist, book is also a stage play/musical, book with […]

Lauren Lately | January 2018

Posted January 15, 2018 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 3 Comments
Lauren Lately | January 2018

Because my Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups got out of hand, I wanted to break up my monthly wrap-ups into two posts: one personal and one bookish/bloggy. I created Lauren Lately here 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 for the next month. I decided to space them out so this wrap-up happens around the mid-point of the month and the bookish one happens at the end of the month. ✨ Check out my most recent bookish and bloggy wrap-up HERE ✨ Christmassy trip to Freeport and holiday things | The middle of December involved a quick visit to Freeport, ME. It’s the home of the LL Bean flagship store, plus a cute holiday market they put together in the middle of their “campus.” We walked around the town, got dinner at Linda Bean’s, and shopped for final Christmas gifts. It had exactly the kind of Maine Christmas vibes I was looking for this holiday season. We did a LOT of holiday movie-watching this year. We saw Daddy’s Home 2 in theaters and watched countless movies at home as well. I did a few round-up posts for movies if you’re curious. WWE Live event | The same weekend we went to Freeport on Friday, we went to a WWE Live event in downtown Portland. These are non-televised WWE shows and they’re pretty fun. Unfortunately we went to the last Live event before a PPV, so it was a little […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | December 2017 + End of Year

Posted January 1, 2018 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 14 Comments
Bookmark Lit Bulletin | December 2017 + End of Year

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin was created to wrap up each month and prepare for the next. I share my book haul, books I read and reviewed, posts I shared, challenge updates, and more from the previous month. I also let you know what may be coming up on the blog in the coming month. You can read past bulletins here. I recently split out my personal posts into the Lauren Lately feature, so this is a bit shorter! As usual I wish I could go back in time to the holiday season again! ? I read so many cute holiday books and novellas in December that I would have loved to continue into January. They’re so easy and cozy to read. Anyways, I easily met my goal with plenty of time to spare and stopped myself when I hit exactly 150 books for my goal. I don’t like going over unless it’s to a rounder number, like 155 or 160. I feel weird about reading like 151 or 152 books, which are numbers I was likely to hit. So, it was nice to have some wiggle room to fill out the end of year surveys early! Yearly Wrap-Up of Statistics I wanted to keep these graphs in a scroll box because they get a little intense and fill so much space. If you’re curious about my bookish breakdown for 2017, take a look below! Average rating for books read in December: 3.75 stars Highlights & Lowlights This month’s books: Year-Long Contemporary Romance Challenge […]

Lauren Lately | December 2017

Posted December 14, 2017 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 9 Comments
Lauren Lately | December 2017

Because my Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups got out of hand, I wanted to break up my monthly wrap-ups into two posts: one personal and one bookish/bloggy. I created Lauren Lately here 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 for the next month. I decided to space them out so this wrap-up happens around the mid-point of the month and the bookish one happens at the end of the month. ✨ Check out my most recent bookish and bloggy wrap-up HERE ✨   Home for Thanksgiving {Lego meeting, hotel stay} | Even though the last recap was basically right after we came home at the end of October / early November, we had to come home again a few weeks later for Thanksgiving. We really didn’t do anything in between the two trips home, honestly. So! We we were able to come home a few days before Thanksgiving to go to our Lego club’s holiday meeting, which was a blast. We got sooo much free Lego. That night, we actually got a hotel room in a little CT town that we’re considering living in after we leave Maine. We enjoyed a nice dinner out and walking around in the rain, then ended our night in the hotel by the fire with drinks. We did some exploring the next day before heading to my dad’s house for football. I worked in the office in the days leading […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | November 2017

Posted December 1, 2017 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 7 Comments
Bookmark Lit Bulletin | November 2017

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin was created to wrap up each month and prepare for the next. I share my book haul, books I read and reviewed, posts I shared, challenge updates, and more from the previous month. I also let you know what may be coming up on the blog in the coming month. You can read past bulletins here. I recently split out my personal posts into the Lauren Lately feature, so this is a bit shorter! Not a great reading month for me, unfortunately. I was really pushing myself to finish a few more books within the last week of the month. It helped that I started to get into the Christmas books because those tend to be addicting for me. There were two books that bugged me all month that I was never in the mood to read, which definitely added some stress. The week we were home for Thanksgiving involved almost zero reading too. Oh well. It’ll be a big push to finish the reading year strong and luckily that means a lot of Christmas books. ?  Average rating for books read in Octber: 3.9 stars Highlights & Lowlights This month’s books: Year-Long Contemporary Romance Challenge 6 this month | 61 read total | 610% complete Flights of Fantasy Challenge 4 this month | 26 read total | 87% complete NONE Rock My TBR Challenge 0 this month | 15 read total | 100% complete NONE Series Enders Challenge 1 this month | 16 read total | 160% complete Fall Bingo Challenge Book […]

Lauren Lately | November 2017

Posted November 15, 2017 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 4 Comments
Lauren Lately | November 2017

Because my Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups got out of hand, I wanted to break up my monthly wrap-ups into two posts: one personal and one bookish/bloggy. I created Lauren Lately here 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 for the next month. I decided to space them out so this wrap-up happens around the mid-point of the month and the bookish one happens at the end of the month. ✨ Check out my most recent bookish and bloggy wrap-up HERE ✨    Apple and pumpkin picking day | We decided to hit up three different orchards last month, just to get out and about. Like I’ve said before, Chris’s foot surgery definitely has led to major laziness… so this was a great way to get out of the house. We had some long, scenic drives and then checked out pumpkins, apples, ice cream, and cider donuts at each stop. It was a really great day to be outside.   Chris’s birthday | We weren’t sure what we were doing to do on his birthday because of the boot situation (last year we went for an intense hike…), but we made the most of it for sure! We started out by attempting to go to this restaurant downtown, but it was utterly packed. We decided to regroup on the Eastern Prom and check out the boats. We ended up choosing a nice waterfront restaurant north of Portland, […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | October 2017

Posted November 1, 2017 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 3 Comments
Bookmark Lit Bulletin | October 2017

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin was created to wrap up each month and prepare for the next. I share my book haul, books I read and reviewed, posts I shared, challenge updates, and more from the previous month. I also let you know what may be coming up on the blog in the coming month. You can read past bulletins here. I recently split out my personal posts into the Lauren Lately feature, so this is a bit shorter! Weeee finally! I had an odd reading month but it definitely worked out in the end. I would do a lot of binge reading (seriously, there are at least 3-5 books that I sat down and read from cover to cover in one day), and then not pick anything up for a couple of days. I had 2 books from last month hanging around that I finished quickly at the beginning of this month. It was nice to get ahead on my challenge again. I’m 2 books ahead on Goodreads, I believe. It’s hard to read when I’m home in CT because I get so booked up, but I’m finding the time right now to get through one library book before I leave. Average rating for books read in Octber: 3.92 stars Highlights & Lowlights This month’s books:   Year-Long Contemporary Romance Challenge 3 this month | 55 read total | 550% complete Flights of Fantasy Challenge 4 this month | 26 read total | 87% complete   Rock My TBR Challenge 0 this month | 15 […]

Lauren Lately | October 2017

Posted October 16, 2017 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 2 Comments
Lauren Lately | October 2017

Because my Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups got out of hand, I wanted to break up my monthly wrap-ups into two posts: one personal and one bookish/bloggy. I created Lauren Lately here 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 for the next month. I decided to space them out so this wrap-up happens around the mid-point of the month and the bookish one happens at the end of the month. ✨ Check out my most recent bookish and bloggy wrap-up HERE ✨ September week home | We ended up coming home for a little over a week in September. We wanted to help Jen out around the house while Chris’s parents were in Vietnam. We also had a wedding that corresponded well with the trip, so we decided to make a week of it. It was a very stressful but productive week home. I saw a lot of people and really kind of wore myself out. I think it’s partly because Chris and I really don’t see anyone but each other when we’re up in Maine. When we’re home, we see EVERYONE. I won’t bore you with the millions of errands I ran, but there are a few photos above – Abby on her throne, some delicious pho and Vietnamese iced coffee, and a wedding selfie of us. Chris’s surgery and laziness | So I honestly don’t have much to report since our week home. Chris got […]