It’s been awhile…

HEY!!

I have not posted since February. 😔 Huge fail on my part, I’m sorry. I had posts that I wanted to do about the books that I read last year and never got around to them. I missed all my monthly wrap ups and book hauls for this year too, sigh. No gold stars for me when it comes to blogging this year. I’ve just been busy with life and stuff, I guess. I also haven’t been reading that much this year, not like I normally would. A lot has to do with work because I used to be able to listen to audiobooks while I work, but not that’s harder to do since I’m on the phone a lot with work now, which I HATE. That’s about the only thing I don’t like about my job, the phone calls.

I’ve been traveling a lot more this year though, so that’s kept me busy too. I’ve gone to Georgia and I’m going again next month. I’ve gone to Illinois and I’m going again next month. I’ve also gone to Colorado this year too. It’s been fun getting out of Florida for a little while. I’ve been able to check out a bunch of bookstores on my travels and get new books from them. That’s been super cool. I love checking out bookstores when I travel to places. It’s one of the first things I look up to do in new places lol. Picture below that I took on the way to Colorado. You can check out my Instagram account to see more pictures from my travels! 😊 I may or may not do a post on the blog at some point. My Instagram is: heyyitsashley

---

I mentioned at the start of this post that I haven’t been reading much. Some months are good and I read a decent amount then others I read one book, sigh. I have only read 24 books so far this year and that seems like such a small number to me, but realistically I know it’s not that bad since the year is only half over! I think I’m just being too hard on myself. I am bummed that I have yet to read a five star book too! Have I become too picky in what I give five stars too? lol. I have no idea, but yep…out of the 24 books that I’ve read, there have been no five stars! Lots of four starts though and that’s still really good! Next I’ll do a mini book update of the last book I read and the book I’m currently reading.

First book pictured is the last book that I read, which was The Last Word by Taylor Adams. I got it as one of my BOTM picks for May, I believe. It was actually really good and I had a lot of fun reading it. I flew through it! I gave it four stars. I liked it so much that in my June BOTM box, I decided to add his other book they had as a previous years choice, No Exit and I’m excited to read it. I am currently reading The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. I bought this book back in 2021 and never got around to reading it, so I decided to finally do it. I am about 40% into it and so far I really like it! I am glad I finally picked it up and I’m sure I’ll want to read Ali’s other books too.

I can’t promise that I’ll be around a lot the rest of the year year, because clearly I haven’t been so far. I do hop on from time to time though, I just haven’t written any posts. I do attempt to do one and then I never finish it and it sits in my drafts, sigh. I’ll try to do a post once in a while though. Maybe little updates like this until I know I can come back like normal again. I think I’ll work on a post for the end of the month of all the books that I’ve read so far this year since I haven’t done my monthly wrap ups aside for my January wrap up. That way you can see what I’ve been reading this year! 😊

I think that’s all for this little update. I need to start getting read for work. I’m just glad it’s Friday! I’m so read for the weekend. It’s been a stressful week and I get to visit my mom for the weekend, so that’s cool.

I hope you have a great Friday and weekend!

2023 Reading Goals.

Hey!

I hope you’re having a great start to the new year. I can’t believe the first month of the new year is almost over! I thought I would once again post my reading/blogging goals for the year. I know this post is so late though, oops. 😛 Some of these goals may be repeats or similar from last year, because I really want to continue to stick to those goals this year as well or finally accomplish them if I haven’t in past years. I’m keeping my goals list short this year, because 2022 was a really difficult year as far as reading and blogging go and I don’t want to overwhelm or stress myself out this year.

2023 Goodreads Challenge. My Goodreads challenge goal for this year is to read 25 books. I lowered from 50 to 25 this year because last year I didn’t complete the challenge and my reading habits have changed quite a bit over the last couple of years to where I am not reading as much as I was before. I figured a smaller goal of 25 books would be good for me. I don’t have to stress too much and it’s more attainable. I am already doing REALLY well this month with reading, so I’m hopeful I’ll complete this goal this year. *knock on wood* 😛

Read 10 of my older books. I have so many books that I own and a lot of them are unread, sadly. I buy more books than I read as I’m sure a lot of us bookworms do. I want to read at least 10 of my older books this year. I almost completed this goal last year of reading 20 of my older books, but since I was barely reading at all I didn’t complete this challenge. I’m lowering the number this year since I lowered my Goodreads challenge. I am hopeful that I can accomplish reading 10 of my older books this year! For this reading goal, they have to be books that I bought in previous years. So, books that I buy this year do not count toward this.

Finish at least two book series. I’ve started quite a few books series that I never got around to finishing over the years. This year I want to put a little more focus into doing just that! So, I think I’ll start with a goal of finishing at least two of those series. At this point I am not sure which ones yet, but I’ll keep you post!

Declutter bookshelves & Kindle. I own A LOT of books. There are books on my shelves and my Kindle that I probably will never get around to reading, lost interest in reading, and books that I didn’t like. There’s a local bookstore that I can donate them to for store credit, which is nice. There’s a lot a couple Free Little Libraries around town that I can share there too. I  think doing this will make me feel a little less guilty or stressed that I have so many unread books. This will also give me the chance to reorganize my bookshelves, because I’ve been wanting to do that.

Be more active. I really want to try this year to be active more on my blog with posting more and coming up with new content to post. I also want to connect with you more again! I know I haven’t been around much over the last few years and last year was REALLY bad with being here. Hoping to be more present. 🤞🏼 I really enjoy blogging and have met so many amazing friends in the book community, so I am hoping that I can get back into the swing of things again. I miss you guys! 🖤 I’ll try to hop on once a week if I can to catch up with you. Of course I hope to be on more than just once a week, but starting slow and hopefully my spark for blogging with come back.

There may be new or smaller goals that pop up throughout the year and that’s fine. This is just a list of the main goals that I really hope to stick to and achieve for 2023. Reminder to myself: no pressure if you don’t, it’s okay!

What are some goals you have for this year? Feel free to link me to your posts if you have one!

I need to work on my January wrap up, January book haul, and a couple blog posts about the books that I read in 2022. So, you’ll definitely see more from me on the blog soon. 🙂

I’ll end this post with a couple pictures. My husband and I went to Savannah, GA to visit a week ago and I stopped at a couple bookstores (of course). One of the bookstores I went to was called A Book Lady Bookstore. It was pretty cute and so many books! Here are a couple of pictures I took at that bookstore.

In case you missed it;
2022 Year in Books.

I hope you have a great day and weekend! 🙂

Random|| Life Update.

Hey!

This is just a random little life update, because I don’t have any book related posts that I want to write right now and it’s been a while since I’ve done a post like this. Sorry in advance if this post is all over the place and completely random.

So, for the last two or three years I haven’t been counting audiobooks toward my Goodreads challenge goal, because I wanted to challenge myself to see how many books that I could read on my own. I had that goal at the start of 2020 too, BUT…you guys already know this has been a crazy damn year! With that being said, I decided that I would start counting audiobooks toward my reading challenge for this year. The thought of not completing my Goodreads challenge would have just brought me down even more than I am already feeling. Since I decided to do that, I am only 1 or 2 books behind schedule and I’m sure I’ll be caught up soon! I’ve been listening to books while I do my diamond paintings and it’s been nice! Below is the most recent diamond painting I completed. Also, check out this new blood spatter bookmark I got from The Bookables on Etsy! It gives me so many Dexter vibes.

I got back into playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons more. Currently, I have been working on redoing the interior of my house and making it more homey. I’ve focused a lot of my main room and my basement. Next up will probably be the bathroom. And then I need to do some serious work on my island itself. I have way too many flowers and they just need to go. I’m not seeing the real potential for my island, because it’s buried under hundreds of dang flowers! It’s a long process getting rid of so many flowers though, which is why I haven’t touched them. But that needs to change A.S.A.P. lol. 😛 Do you play Animal Crossing? Let’s be friends!

The husband and I watched both seasons of Cobra Kai on Netflix and OMG….the feels! We both love The Karate Kid sooo much, especially me. Cobra Kai was AMAZING and I am dying for the third season. I can’t even count how many times I cried or got goosebumps. The episode that made me cry the most was episode five of season one though. I’m talking tears streaming down my face and me yelling that I can’t take this show anymore, LOL. We got so obsessed with Cobra Kai that for the last week we’ve been going around the house pretending to do karate moves on each other when we pass by each other.

I put up some Halloween decorations around my house! I still need like A LOT more, but I am happy with the little bit of Halloween touch I’ve been adding around the house. I also put out a jar of my favorite Halloween candy, because I love them so much and also because it makes for a good Halloween decoration as well….as long as I don’t eat them all lol. 😛

Speaking of Halloween, I’m in the process of creating my Halloweenie TBR that I do every year. I like to try to read as many spooky/Halloween vibe books throughout October. I’m not entirely sure what books I will be adding to the list yet, but we’ll see how that goes. I am excited to go through my bookshelves and my Kindle shelf to see what books I may want to read in October! As long as I can actually read, still battling a reading slump. I have been reading the same book for 18 days and only on page 120, UGH. I guess that’s where audiobooks come in. If I can’t read myself, at least I have them.

I’ve been struggling a lot with anxiety as you already know and maybe even some depression (or sadness if it’s not depression). My sleep schedule has been really bad, which I think I’ve also talked about here. Sometimes I don’t go to sleep until 5 or 6am. I function day to day on only 3-5 hours of sleep a day. This week I’ve been challenging myself to go to sleep by 1am every night and so far I’ve done that. There was one day I even went to sleep at 10pm, so that’s been a good thing. I still can’t seem to get myself out of bed in the mornings, but it’s progress.

Andy and I went on a day trip a couple weekends ago to visit my younger sister, because my mom, older sister, niece, and nephew were going to. We went to this place called the “Shell Factory”. I’ve been there many times in the past since I used to live near there, but haven’t gone in years and years. Some things were okay and other things weren’t that great. I did take some pictures, so here are a few. For the small ones, you can click the image to see a full size version.

These next pictures will just be a bunch of random pictures, furbabies, sunsets, etc. 🙂

Some banana bread and cheesecake that I made recently. 🙂

And with that, I think that’s all I have for this update. I still want to do a picture update from when I went to Illinois for a month in June, so hopefully I’ll finally get around to doing that post. I’ll catch up with your posts and comments over the weekend. 🙂 

In case you missed it;
Release Day|| September Releases

I hope you have a great day and weekend!