Search Results for: spreadsheet

2016 End of Year and Statistics Surveys

Posted December 30, 2016 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 11 Comments

Happy end of the year! I am usually very strict about completing these surveys once the year is 100% over and the reading is completely done. This year, I ended up achieving my Goodreads goal and stopping dead in my reading tracks for the next day or so. I didn’t want to go over, so I could give myself time to relax without reading-related pressure! I love filling out these two surveys each year and this year is no exception. Off you go! I loved filling out Jamie’s survey last year and the year before, so it (again) was a no-brainer that I would join this year! This is the 6th time she’s hosted this little survey and it’s so fun to see what everyone chooses for the categories. Last year, I didn’t allow myself any duplicates. I’m going to try to keep them to a minimum for this survey, but it feels impossible. I’ll need to have a few. To learn more about it and see a blank set of questions, check here! It was so fun to reread my answers for last year, since I copied that survey here to clean out and fill out. What a year 2015 was, eh? 180 books! Number of Books You Read: 160 Number of Re-Reads: 16 (including the Series of Unfortunate Events) Genre You Read The Most From: Contemporary/Romance 1. Best Book You Read In 2015? Totally cheating and adding multiple categories! (Not including rereads.) Best of the best: After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid (she […]

Lauren Lately | December 2016

Posted December 15, 2016 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 15 Comments

I always get annoyed with myself that my Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups are too long and that no one wants to read that much. I get carried away on all sides – the bookish and the personal. So! My solution was to create Lauren Lately to highlight all of the personal happenings in my life: events, activities, shows I’m addicted to, things I’m obsessing over, and goals for the next month. I decided to space them out so this wrap-up happens around the mid-point and the bookish one happens at the end of the month. (After all, I base all of my book stats around the month ending anyways and my personal life is more flexible 😉 ) ✨ Check out my most recent bookish and bloggy wrap-up HERE ✨ Thanksgiving was another busy holiday for Chris and me. Unlike Christmas, we only had to hit up two houses that day. As long as I’ve been alive we’ve had Thanksgiving in the morning/early afternoon with my family. My mom is a Cowboys fan and they always play at 4:30, so we’d have to get our asses home in time for the game. It works out perfectly because Chris’s family tends to do things later in the day. We went to my Nana’s house at noon and had Thanksgiving with them, then we went to Chris’s parents house at 4:00 for the second meal. I loved all the food – as usual – and it was great to see everyone! The long weekend […]

Mid-Year Blogging Update and Goals

Posted July 2, 2016 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 11 Comments

HOW????? Seriously this year has flown by. I can’t believe we’re already in the warm months, let alone being halfway done with 2016. I feel like we all say this all the time, but it’s so true – where does the time go? I love doing recaps because I’m lame, so obviously I’m here to sum up my 2016 reading life so far! I also will revisit some of the bloggy goals I created and catch up on progress. As you see in my monthly wrap-ups, I keep my stats updated each time. The spreadsheet I use is definitely the reason for my organization. I use this time of year (in addition to the end of the year) to REALLY go all-out with my stats. It also helps me create new goals or update existing ones. I may decide I really should read more fantasy or more books from my own shelves. I’ll highlight all of the books I’ve read so far in general too. All of the Books Read So Far Random Fun Smallest book read: We Should All Be Feminists (49 pages) Largest book read: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (759 pages) Most read author: Lemony Snicket (13) Books read 300 pages or under: 28% Books read over 300 pages: 72% Most pages / books in a month: 7108 pages / 23 books in April Least pages / books in a month: 4271 pages / 12 books in May I always wish there was some master list of my favorite blog posts from each year […]

TBR Planning Issues and Required Reading

Posted March 25, 2016 / Discussions, Features / 23 Comments

I always have a very, very general idea of what books I want to read within the upcoming weeks. There are definitely times where I’m like “wait… what the hell should I read next?!” … but those times are few and far between lately. And usually, when those moments happen, it’s just because I can’t decide which books out of a certain ~group~ of books I want to read NEXT. I always have some idea. This is especially true for the different “required reading” books I have each month. My problem though is spacing out books correctly and WHEN to read certain things. Each month, there are a few bookish events that I take part in. They always require reading a book by a certain time or within a certain timeframe. These ones are usually able to be planned for with my TBR but sometimes things get in the way (like ARC tour books – they always surprise me…) The books I know I will have to read by certain dates include: Last Wednesday of the month: Book Buddies Review book selection Mid-to-late-month (dates often change): Book club (IRL) book selection Whenever they come in, within a week: ARC tour books Whenever I have them planned: Blog tour review books / posts So each month, by the middle or end of the month, I have 2 books to read – one for book club and one for Book Buddies. My issue is that I usually don’t start reading them until the week before (or a […]

Adjusting My Blog Post Schedule

Posted March 9, 2016 / Discussions, Features / 22 Comments

Many moons ago, I wrote a post about my blogging schedule. At that point, I had just started up the blog and had maybe a little too much time on my hands. I was incredibly specific about when I posted certain things and making sure I had 15 book reviews up per month. This was in addition to participating in 4 memes per week and posting 2 “random” things (like recommendation lists or discussions). I’d also post sign-ups for readathons and both mid-month AND end-of-month wrap-ups. You can do the math: that means that most days of the month had 2 posts. I even said, “I really try not to bombard people with any more than 2 posts per day!” SO EXCESSIVE. I mean, I’m glad I dove into this hobby headfirst… but good lord, woman. I can’t lie though, I definitely blog a bit too much still. I love signing up for readathons, participating in tags, and writing so many posts that I’m scheduled out until next year. (Slight exaggeration, but not that much. I’m insane.) I LOVE making lists and TBRs even if I know I’m never going to follow them. I love making graphics and messing around with layouts for my posts. I CAN’T STOP. I’ve changed my organization methods SO many times and I feel like I’m finally getting used to my latest plan. Today I’ll share my new blog schedule and talk about how I organize and plan… everything.Do you have a planned schedule for your […]

2016 Love-a-Thon Mini Challenge: Mix and Match

Posted February 20, 2016 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 28 Comments

If you aren’t familiar with the Love-a-Thon, check out the the sign-up post! Mini Challenge: Mix and Match Objective: We all love books, but there are other things we’re passionate about too! Mash-up a non-bookish hobby/passion/talent/fandom with your bookish life. Do it through photos, art, videos, etc. Get as creative as you’d like! One of my goals for 2016 was to actually read less. I am somewhat succeeding with this so far. Instead of reading nonstop, I take breaks to binge shows and re-watch the Marvel movies with Chris, decorate my planner, start a bullet journal, and get back into Lego. I’ll be highlighting all of these fandoms, hobbies, and passions below… and connecting them to books! One of my bigger hobbies (and I mean this just by sheer volume of Lego bricks within my apartment) is Lego. My boyfriend, Chris, and I collect sets, come up with our own creations (the Lego term for this is “MOC,” or “my own creation”), and build together. Here’s one project I worked on completely by myself: a Disney Princess apartment building. The pictures are terrible, so I apologize, but hopefully you see the idea. Lego has Princess sets out right now, so I took some of mine and reworked a lot of the elements. I made the entire building myself. It has three floors and contains beds for multiple princesses: Rapunzel, Cinderella, Ariel, Jasmine, Aurora, Elsa, and Anna. Each of their rooms and beds are reminiscent of the characters themselves and feature pieces from their Lego sets… but […]

Five on Fridays #18

Posted January 15, 2016 / Five on Fridays, Weekly Memes / 8 Comments

Five on Friday displays the the top five things that have been on my mind this week! It could be book-related, but it may be music, movies, TV, personal life, food, etc. Previous posts can be found here! As usual, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve had anything worthy of sharing for Five on Friday. I’ve also been on a big blogging kick lately where I have so many posts and nowhere to put them. I don’t even give myself a chance to fit in a Five on Friday! I’m hoping to start combining review posts a little better to free up my weeks, because I have a lot of more fun ideas. ANYWAYS, here’s what’s been going on in my life!YES. The biggest reason for this post is that I had the pleasure of heading to ALA Midwinter up in Boston last weekend. Because I live only about an hour and a half away from the city, I was able to take a quick day trip to meet up with everyone there. It was a lot of fun. The day started at 9:00 when I got into the city and to the convention center. I met up with Brittany, Amy, and Alyssa and we killed it on the exhibit floor for about an hour and a half. We got so many books in a very short time period! We were hot and exhausted so we sat outside for a bit, then hung around in their hotel room. We went down […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #71: 2016 Resolutions

Posted January 5, 2016 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 28 Comments

Bookish and Personal Resolutions for 2016 Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I’m not a huge fan of celebrating New Years and making resolutions. I like staying up and spending time with friends, but the idea of a new year as a fresh start just doesn’t resonate with me. Maybe I’m just cynical or something, but it’s just how I feel! I’m not knocking it if you put stock in it – believe me! I like the idea of setting goals in January because it gives you a concrete timeline of when to finish them. So with that in mind, here are some things I hope to do or maintain in 2016! Check back tomorrow to see some reading challenge-related goals! Read less… and give myself time to focus on other hobbies /// Not a lot of people have “read less” as a goal for the upcoming year, but I do. I would love to read the same amount because I WANT to read, and because I feel a balance between my other hobbies and reading. I know that if I make the same goal as 2015 (which was 175 books, and I got to 180), I’ll feel the same pressure to read nonstop. I set my goal […]

2015 Statistics Survey

Posted January 1, 2016 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 2 Comments

I had so much fun participating in the Statistics Survey last year, so I knew I needed to join in again this year. I have an obsession with end-of-year surveys and this one focuses on fun statistics about books read during the year. Using Crini’s amazing book spreadsheet has made this whole endeavor a LOT easier this year. Without further ado, here are my stats! Number of books read… Under 250 pages (not including novellas): 16 Between 400-449 pages: 22 Between 450-499 pages: 2 Over 500 pages: 6 Over 1000 pages: 0 Number of… Audiobooks: 40 Re-reads: 10 DNFs (did not finish): 4 Number of books rated… Five Stars: 25 One/Two Stars: 12 (including 2.5 stars) Number of authors met in 2015: One! I met Leigh Bardugo at BEA in May. Number of book events attended in 2015: Just BEA again. Number of books you read in one day: 18 (some are novellas!) Number of books that made you cry: 4 Number of 2016 books you have on pre-order: 2 Book read furthest away from home (vacation reads?): The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly by Stephanie Oakes was read while I was in Charlotte, Even in Paradise was read in Chicago! Lots of pages in those were also read waaaay above the sky on an airplane. Book that took you the longest to read: I’d have to say Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. It basically took me from September to October, because I was reading it occasionally through September, took a break, and then started the audio in October after it was released. Book that you […]

Nearing the End of 2015…

Posted November 7, 2015 / Book Challenges, Features / 9 Comments

It started to hit me today that 2015 is coming to an end VERY, very soon. That means that the aggressive amount of challenges I’ve signed up for are also ending within the next two months. I set goals for myself at the beginning of the year too. I wanted to revisit some of my challenges again now that it’s really crunch time. Let’s see if I can get going on finishing them up and meeting my other goals! Click here to see all of my challenge tracking specifics. 105 Challenge – 87% complete Goal: Read 105 books in 2015, with allocations for each genre or topic. (Example: read 14 new releases, 13 young adult contemporary, etc. down to 1 book in the final category) Current status: Read 95 books so far and completed 8 out of the 14 the categories. Still need to work on: I have 6 categories that still need to be completed before the end of 2015: → 10 new adult books – 5 more to read → 8 already owned Kindle books – 4 more to read → 6 nonfiction/memoir books – 3 more to read → 5 parallel universe and/or time-bending books – 1 more to read → 4 non-audio rereads – 1 more to read → 3 books owned before college – 2 more to read Fairytale Challenge – 60-90% complete Goal: Read 10-15 books that are classified as fairy tales and/or fairy tale retellings. Current status: Read 9 books so far. Still need to work on: I technically only have one more to […]