500 book challenge

Good morning fellow booknerds!
I’m alive, and back, at least for right now.

That seems to be the standard for me. I start to say I’m going to spend more time blogging this year, post a few entries, and then poof disappear into the void without a word, until I come back again.

So if you have stuck around, yay! If you are new, yay! If you just clicked because of the title, also yay!

The other day I was scrolling Booktube, as you do, and came across a newish challenge. Now the challenge itself isn’t really new, because it’s been around in some sort of variant throughout the years, usually popping it’s head right up after Christmas because all the booknerds realized how many books they have and that they need to read them. I’m talking of course of the Read what you Own challenge.

This year a creator has made it where it’s a challenge to read a certain level of what you own before you buy a new book. 25, 50, 75, 100 books off of your shelves before you purchase more.
And then another creator decided to do a 500 book challenge, where you read 500 books that you own before you purchase more. And people started deciding that was a great idea.

I laughed a bit. And then counted Steve my TBR (side note for anyone who is new, I named my TBR about 6 years ago) And then realized how many books I had on him. Now I really don’t mind a big TBR. I would rather have options then run out of items to read. However I live in a small hobbit hole apartment, and I really don’t have the space that I need to have a TBR that is almost 500 books.

So I decided I was going to join, but I decided that I was going to have a few different parameters for the challenge. Mainly because book buying bans, well they just really don’t work for me. I could go strong for a few weeks and then I would break and buy a lot more then if I would just buy one or two when I wanted. So I will still be purchasing books- but with some guidelines.

Guideline one: Preorders and my monthly book box are still coming. However I have to read the books that come in from that either in that month or in the month immediately following so that they aren’t sitting on Steve for years.

So this means that if one of my books is a preorder to a continuation of a series, if I’m not up to where that book is in the series, then I have to at least read the next one in the series so that I can justify it

Guideline two: I can still buy books, however I am putting a limit on how many I can purchase. So instead of going slightly crazy like I have the past 3 months, I’m limiting my purchases to about 10 or so. It won’t roll over but that way if I do see a classic I want or find a new release that is something I’ve had my eye on, I can get it without any guilt.

Guideline three: Rereads count. Listen I only have 486 books on Steve, and I’m not going to buy more books just to make it to 500. And I have several series on Steve that I need to reread the first or second books just to remember what the series is about. So for this, rereads will definetely count.

Personally I’m not sure how this will work. Nor how long it would take. Though if we took the numbers from my last 2 years of reading, (2021= 300 and 2022=288) if I kept up that reading pace, it would take me about a year and a half to fully read 500 books. Of course that is still with me buying some books, but even then, really concentrating on what I physically own.

So I’m going to try to do this challenge. I’m not sure how it will go. If I’ll finish it with a smaller TBR or if I will completely fail and have a larger than ever one. But all I know is that it will be fun doing it. And I’m going to be keeping a record in here so that way I can make sure to have some accountability.

Have a great day, thanks for reading and hope you get to some books!

~Stephanie

Mid Year Check in, goals, life and other random tidbits

Hello fellow Booknerds!

I’m just going to pretend that we didn’t really have that 8 month sabbatical and that everything is fine. Actually everything is going good- I needed to take a space back to really think about what I wanted to use this space for, and what I was going to do with it.

Here’s the thing, I want to blog. I miss it honestly, I miss having a longer type conversation of what I’m reading and what I think about and stuff like that, longer conversations that insta won’t really allow you to have. But more than that, even though I do the weekly updates for how many books I read I feel that sometimes that is just so cut and dried. And sometimes the nuances that I’m feeling about a certain book, don’t really come through for a star rating. Or maybe someone doesn’t understand why I rated a book a certain way. And besides books I want to be able to write about other stuff too.

Which seems weird, like what is life outside of books? But I do have things outside of books which is odd but true.

So let’s chat for a bit about some stuff that has happened in the past 8 months, some stuff coming up and how I’m looking on my goals for the year.

In random news, I’ve been doing a lot of training at my job. Virtual and in person, travelling (thankfully not too much) but I did just get back from a trip to California- which was gorgeous though I didn’t get a chance to really see any sights.

I also got my 4th tattoo this year. It’s one that I had planned out, and somehow the execution is even better then what I was hoping.

I joined up with a friend for a summer reading challenge where I am trying to read as much as possible off of Steve my TBR and so far it’s going quite well, though I would like to read a bit more, but that’s normal for me.

And for the first time in my entire time of working (ever) I have pto and I’m going on a trip in October, for 2 whole weeks, which I’m so excited about.

Now for the bookish goals? Well I personally think that I’m doing quite well on that front, mostly. There are some things that I would like to get done and dusted that hasn’t happened yet but hopefully soon! (Especially since at the time of writing this I technically only have about 4 months left in the year) So let’s go over what my goals were for the year and what I’ve accomplished so far!

Goal One was to read 300 books: At this moment I’m at 181, so I feel rather confident on this point, hopefully I can get a few more done and dusted before the end of the month!

Goal Two was to read 85K pages, and I’m sitting at 47K right now so I should be able to complete this one (I hope so at least since it seems like I always fall just a bit short of the page counts)

Goal Three was to get 150 books off of Steve my TBR. This honestly wasn’t going as well in the beginning of the summer but now that I’ve been doing a summer reading challenge with a friend, I have bumped this number up to 84 read so far off of him. So if I keep at this pace I should have no problem to get this goal knocked off.

Goal Four was to get through 12 tomes (over 500 pages) and I made the caveat this year that they had to be books that were new to me/off of Steve for this to count. And I’m actually at 5 tomes so far, so that’s always a great thing!

Goal Five was to complete at least 3 series. *crickets* Look I’m trying but I get so distracted by new shiny’s and by trying to read other books that my series goals have really fallen by the side, well really I’ve launched them off the side of the boat without a care because I have been focused on standalones. I am trying to do better on this part though, maybe in September I can actually finish some of the half-started ones?

Goal Six was 22 books by 2022. This is also a goal that I completely forgot. I have read 2 of them, and I think that I happened to get rid of both of them, which makes me realize a lot of those books were ones that I bought because of wanting to read what everyone else was reading. Which is not a good idea for my bookish goals for sure.

And finally Goal Seven was to read at least 5 TBR vets (books that had been on Steve for at least 3 years). I have actually read 3 of them so far. And of the 3, I enjoyed one. Again, a lot of the books that have been on Steve are ones that were purchased because they were hyped or popular or someone told me that I should read it (even though they didn’t have the same taste as me).

So this is just my little bit of a catch up. I think I might start doing my weekly wrap-ups on here as well as doing them on insta, so I can give a bit more of a review for everyone.

Anyways, hope you have had a great day!

And remember, life is too short for mediocre books! Happy reading!

-Stephanie

Bookish Goals for 2022

I had a great reading year last year, I didn’t reach all my goals, but I did hit quite a few of them. And I’m sure there’s a complicated word for how I feel in almost completing the goals that I hit, because while I’m super happy that I hit some of my toughest goals, I also am slightly sad that I didn’t hit all of them.

But I have about 7 that I would like to hit with my reading this year, whether that will happen or not, well who knows. A lot depends on my lovely mood reading because half the time I’m like “yes do all these things” and then the rest of the time I’m like “or I could just reread and that would be fine right?”

Goal 1: Read 300 books. I actually hit this number last year for the first time since I’ve been really tracking my reading and I’m hoping I can do it again this year. (actually if we are being honest, I want to go past that number, but 300 is an easier goal to manage)

Goal 2: Read 85K pages. I almost hit this one last year, but missed it by about 3K, which was so close but there’s always this year!

Goal 3: Get 150 books off of Steve. I should be able to accomplish this no problem as in 2021 I got 143 off of him. The main problem comes from just making sure that I don’t replenish them immediately with new shiny’s.

Goal 4: Get through 12 tomes (over 500 pages) this year. I love reading big books but I just haven’t reached for them as often as I wanted to last year. This year, this is a priority for me. (Plus I have a ton on Steve my TBR so I might as well start knocking those down)

Goal 5: Finish at least 3 series. I say this goal every single year. And every year I laugh when the end of the year comes and I haven’t hit any new series off of Steve, and that’s slightly frustrating because I have over 20 series that I would like to get done and dusted. This year I am trying a new thing where I wrote down 20 of the series and rolled a D20 to see what series I would focus on first. Hopefully this will help me get some of them down!

Goal 6: I have a list of 22 books I would like to read for 2022, and I want to read them, but they are also slightly “self-destructive” as in I told myself that if I don’t read them by the end of the year, I have to get rid of them. Whether that will happen or not, who really knows. Honestly, I doubt it but hey I can try.

Goal 7: Read at least 5 TBR vets. So books that have been on Steve for over 3 years. I’m not sure what ones those are going to be yet but I’m sure I’ll think of a few. (Now of course that I’m thinking of it, I’m pretty sure about half of those 22 books are ones that have been on Steve for a while)

So those are my goals for this year. I do think that I will be able to complete at least some of them, and honestly even if I get just a bit done on each one (specifically the series and reading the vets) I will be most pleased. I would love to complete all of them, but being realistic with myself and my lovely mood reading ways, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m going to have fun doing it that’s for sure.

Do you set any goals? Or do you just kinda wing it each year?

Hope you get to have some reading time today, and remember, life is too short for mediocre books!

Stephanie

The window

It’s a small slice of life that you get to witness, walking back and forth to your job and then back to your small apartment every day except Sundays. Twice a day you pass a bay window. It has blue lace curtains along the edges and plants sitting on top of stacks of books and papers. Every morning when you walk down that street, you are never early enough to see who lives there as the blinds are raised by the time you cross over. And you never see who closes the blinds at night because they are open always until after you pass, even late at night when everyone should be asleep.

It gives you a feeling of small comfort, after all, you live in a small open-spaced apartment. You don’t have room for plants or books or anything really, you live with a couch that folds out to your bed, you have 6 uniforms that you wear to your job, and a fun hoodie you wear on Sundays. A computer that wheezes and groans when you turn it on and a small tv that you bought for $15 dollars at a garage sale.

But you are alone.

You came here because of a promise of a job and friends, but the job turned sour and the friends disappeared when you had to take whatever you could. You are making it, but it never felt like home and seeing this one random place makes you wonder if you could somehow make your place your own.

Day after day you cross the street, even when it adds an extra 7 minutes to your walking commute to the job you don’t like, just to see into that window. And one day, it’s a Tuesday, the most ignored day of the week, when you see that there is now a cat sunning itself in the window. And the sight of the white belly and paws makes you do something you never thought you would, you stop at the door.

You don’t know why you are doing this, but you know if you don’t get some sort of human interaction, you will somehow do something you will regret. So after straightening your clothes, and wishing you were wearing anything but your work uniform, you knock on the door.

It slowly opens and the person who opens it, smiles with genuine delight. “I have been wondering when you would stop by, I’ve been waiting for you” And you take a deep breath and step into the room, warm and fragrant with the scent of lemon and cinnamon and the cat comes and winds around your ankles. And you know that now you are home.

The Bicycle

It was just after the festival opened for the weekend that the fluffy flakes of snow were noticed. They were lazily drifting down as though Mother Nature forgot that for this town they didn’t get snow till at least Halloween. In fact, the years that they wouldn’t have snow for Halloween always caused the mothers anguish since they would have already made the costumes with wool and layers because of the temperatures.

But this was the first weekend of September. Much much too early for snow, but the children were delighted. They ran and whooped, dancing through the lines for the fried dough and ice cream, screaming with laughter and spinning like they were a part of the snow as well. The couples that got on the Ferris Wheels were the ones that had the magical snowy kisses, the cold of their lips meeting for the first time with gentle flakes of snow mixing in their breaths.

But it was too early for snow.

That was what the old woman known simply as Granny kept saying. No one paid her any mind, after all with all that the world had been through in the past couple of years, why not enjoy the snow, enjoy the magic for one night before the worries came crashing down and made them wonder why now.

The majority of people could only last a few hours in the cold, after all, it was September. Most weren’t dressed in layers, most only had flip-flops or shorts on and when they felt their toes tingle and realized that they couldn’t feel their nose, they started leaving for their houses. Hoping that this would just melt away.

But it was too early for snow.

The next day it came as a shock, the snow, instead of melting away had piled up, higher and higher. And still, it snowed.

After three days there was a run on the grocery store and Clair was able to get some flour and more yeast because all the prepackaged bread was completely gone. At least she knew how to make bread, she thought as she walked slowly home.

Walking over the bridge in the middle of the afternoon was a new experience. It didn’t hurt that she never usually walked, especially in the snow, but she needed to get out, needed to have some sort of fresh air for her brain and mood. The snow still falling muffled everything so she could only hear the slight squeaking of her boots in the snow already on the ground, the clink of her buckle. And that was when she noticed it.

Propped up in the middle of the bridge, against the pole that the tourists usually would climb to take selfies, showing the river rushing below, the city rising up on either side and the mountains in the background, it was a popular site. But she had never seen a bicycle there before. Obviously, she had seen bicycles but never covered with this much snow. It looked as though it had been there for months, but Clair knew that it was probably there from the festival. She wondered what local had left their bike, after all, that was usually how they would get around in the good weather, and while she was wondering that she heard a tiny rustle and a small mee sound.

Bending down she noticed that there were 2 glowing eyes almost hidden under the pile of snow under the bike, it looked too small to be a wolf though they had been known to come into the town when they were desperate. She crouched down and held out her hand, and slowly what looked like a mound of snow came towards her. Clair realized at that moment that her mom’s stories about what might come in the snow were all true as the snow mound crept towards her and put its chin on her hand.

The monsters were real, they just were much tinier than what she had been expecting.

One girl’s bookish sabbatical

Good morning. Or evening.

Or new week or old week. Wherever you are.

I’ve been slightly MIA for the year, well at least on here. I’ve still been active over on my Instagram (dreams_in_blue if you want to come say hi) and also on my goodreads (goodreads.com/bookishlybeauty) but on here I’ve been slightly silent.

I realized why it was earlier this month. It was quite simply because I was bored.

Bored almost to death of this blog. Not because I dislike writing, no in fact I love writing. But what I was bored of was what I was doing on this blog.

The same 10 ish posts over and over again, and like no wonder I was bored stiff.

So I really thought about it, and decided what I’m going to do is restart this blog and make it more about short stories. Basically every couple of days I’m going to raid pinterest for an idea or see a writing prompt and write a short story between 500-1500 words. (I’ll use a random number generator to see what number I’m doing that day) And that will be it.

I don’t want my creative ideas to fall to the wayside just because they don’t happen to fit into my WIP (of which I’m almost done with my first draft- yay!) and so I figured why not? After all, I like seeing how people come up with ideas and maybe this will help me come up with better plot points. And really, if I have some sort of accountability, it might work better. (notice I said might not will…I do know myself quite well after all)

So to all that was, all that will be and all to come-

Happy reading-

Stephanie

Well, hello 2020!

 

I’m a bit late, obviously.

My grand plan was to have all these posts up in January since you know, that’s when the year starts. However, life happened. And I was also trying to decide if I wanted to continue on with writing blog posts. It seems more and more each year that the blogging community is slowly disappearing, but I decided through out the month that even if it does disappear, I want to go out with it guns blazing!

So let’s talk about some of my 2020 goals!

1-Read 225 books- This is probably one of the most doable goals on this list and that is saying a lot. But since I’ve read over 200 books per year for the past 3 years, I’m pretty sure that I can do it. I did lower it a bit from what I was planning because I do want to get my novel finished this year, so this provides me with some time that I can do it. (And I know that some of you might be saying “Just make your goal one book then” but I can’t do that, I’m competitive with myself and if I set it too low, I won’t continue reading)

2-Read 100 books off of Steve my TBR- Last year I decided to be more focused about reading what I already own, instead of relying so heavily with library books. And I found that it’s a great sort of accomplishment to look back over the year and realize just how many new favourites you found because you happened to read what you had purchased.

3-Read 12 Big Books (Over 500 pages)- Look, I know that I tried this one last year, but didn’t do as well as I should have. But I have rearranged Steve my TBR and have moved all the big chonky bois to one separate shelf so that they would be in my focus and I would be reminded to read them. Plus TomeTopple is coming up this month and that’s a great readathon to get some of the thicc baby’s down.

4-Read 80,000 pages- Yet another one I’m sure I can tackle this year. I was really close last year, and missed it by about 2k pages. So this year, especially with moving my big books up to my notice, I’m hoping I will be able to read more pages and actually get this one done.

5-Complete at least 3 series that are already finished- I don’t know what it is, but for some reason, even if I love a book and love the start of the series, I have a tendency to not want to finish the series, and instead just think that if I don’t finish them, everyone stays alive and it’s all happy. I know this is complete bosh but I’m still hopeful. (Some of the series I need to complete: Stalking Jack the Ripper, Charlotte Holmes, Great Library, Invisible Library, Rebel angels, Rebel mechanics, Time discord series, and the list goes on.)

So that’s all my bookish goals at least. I do want to try to be on here more consistently, mainly because I do like writing blog posts and I like sharing my thoughts while I’m reading and whatever. I do think I’m going to try to do weekly wrap ups, I do those over on my instagram but I sometimes want to explain a bit more of why something got a certain rating or explain what was good or bad about a book, and over there it’s a bit limited.

What are some of your goals? And since we are already into February, are you doing well on them? Are you having a good start to the year? Come and chat with me below!

Have a great day and remember, life is too short for mediocre books!

~Stephanie

2019 wrap up!

Hello fellow booknerds!

I wanted to do a quick little wrap up of 2019, what goals I did or didn’t accomplish and all that jazz. So let’s get to it. I actually had to look back over what I had actually wanted to do for my goals, because I couldn’t remember them at all.

On the whole, I did a lot better then what I thought I did, but on other parts I could have done better, but I’m rather chuffed about what I managed to get done this year.

1-Read 200 books– Y’all, I smashed this number out of the park! I managed to read 284 books in 2019, I have no clue how but it was such an awesome thing to end the year with one of my best reading numbers yet! Also, being real, about half-way through the year I really began to question if I would even make 200 because I was just not feeling about 80% of the books I was reading, so to realize how much I read, it was so great.

2-Read 75 books off of Steve my TBR– I again smashed this goal! I managed to read 107 books off of Steve, which I was super surprised at, because it didn’t feel like I had actually read that many off of him!

3-Read 80,000 pages– I didn’t accomplish this one. I did do better then I thought I did, clocking in at 78,894 pages read this past year, but didn’t beat it. I do have to say part of that was I was focused on getting smaller books done, and kinda forgot about my big books goal, which leads me into

4-Read 12 big books (over 500 pages)– I did not do this one justice. I did manage to get through 6 big books (King of Scars, East of Eden, Anna Karenia, Foundryside, Little Women, Great Expectations, Fountains of Silence) *(And honestly Starless Sea was 498 so I’m kinda counting it as well, so technically 7 books that were big). I think I would have done better on this one if I had made myself more aware of all the big books that were on Steve. Instead I just happened to read what I was in the mood for, which sometimes worked out.

5- Read at least 12 C.S. Lewis books this year– I actually managed to read 16 of his works this year, which made me really happy. C.S. Lewis is one of my favourite authors but I hadn’t read many of his books that aren’t as well known, so I decided to read more of those. And I’m glad I did. It was a really nice touchpoint for the year.

So overall, I’m not actually upset about missing a few of the goals. Simply because I read so much this year, I found new favourites and new authors that I love, and some that I wasn’t that thrilled about. But I read more than I ever have before and I’m pretty chuffed about that honestly.

How was your reading year? Did you accomplish your goals for this year? Did you fail a few or fudge a few? Let me know in the comments!

Happy reading and remember, life’s too short for reading mediocre books!

~Stephanie

“Guilty Pleasures”

I used to label some of my reading “Guilty Pleasure” reading.

For me, I used that term when I was rereading a book when I had a mountain of books waiting for me that I still hadn’t read.

I used it when I was reading middlegrade or YA books instead of adult books, complete with “Oh I’m just reading this to pass the time, I don’t really like this, I know I’m an adult”

I also used this when Taylor Swift would come on my music station, or when I would want to watch a feel good movie, that admittedly the acting was not on point. Or when I would randomly buy myself another nail polish or red lipstick, eat a dessert when I hadn’t really worked out: whatever made me somewhat happy I would tell people it was my “guilty pleasure”.

But a few years ago, I began to wonder why I did that. I began to look, really long and hard at my reading and my likes and dislikes and I began to ask myself why I thought that simple small things that made me happy warranted a “guilty pleasure” notice. Why didn’t I just embrace what I liked, regardless of what others thought?

That year was the first year I began to not apologize for what I read or listened to or bought. That year, every time I felt like I wasn’t a “real” reader because I read middlegrade or YA, I reminded myself I like YA (mostly) and I like middlegrade. I like wearing red lipstick and having fun nail colours and buying candles. I like eating dessert and I don’t like having to provide an explanation of why I do what I do.

Here’s the truth, what makes me happy, probably won’t make you as happy. Seriously, throw me in a bookstore with a coffee and you could leave me alone for about 8 hours and I would be the happiest person on the face of the planet. (Would also be extremely happy if you offered to buy all the books I was holding but that’s a whole different story) You could also throw me in front of a fireplace with cozy socks and coffee and a good book with some music playing in the background and again I would be happy. But for others that might not seem like the best day ever. I have friends who adore skiing and skating and running, and friends who love Austen and candles and coffee. All of us are different.

And how crazy is it that we try and judge what should or shouldn’t be a guilty pleasure based on our own personality? Like you do you boo, if you like the sexy time books, by all means, devour them. If you like candles, burn away. If you like the freaky scary movies that have me whimpering and hiding under my blanket, please feel free to watch (but maybe not when I’m with you ok?). Do what makes you happy.

Ultimately, a lot of people will try and tell you what you should be doing and what you should be reading or watching or buying. But if it doesn’t make you happy or make you smile, why should you do that? Do what you want.

In fact, that’s the only time that you should use the phrase “guilty pleasure” when you are denying the pleasure of someone for trying to make you feel guilty.

What’s one thing that you like that sometimes you feel guilty about? Tell me below!

Happy reading friends, and remember, life is too short to read mediocre books!

~Stephanie

November Wrap Up

So the past 2 days I was planning on doing some idea inspiration for this blog and for some posts that I want to write, but yesterday I pulled a double and ended up working nearly 15 solid hours so planning fell to the wayside so that I could get some sleep! 🙂 (side note: please be nice to all the customer service people you run across this holiday season, we are all still humans and we want to somehow enjoy the holiday’s as well)

I decided therefore to do a relatively quick and painless wrap up of what I had read last month. I was starting to drag myself a bit when I realized how little I read (comparability for me at least) but then I reminded myself I did NaNoWriMo and WON (for the first time in 6 years) and therefore I did amazing!

I read 19 books total in November, with a total of 4846 pages read this past month. I managed to read 9 off of Steve, 6 reread and 4 from the library! (also I got rid of 2 books this month as well!

Breakdown: 

3 Agatha Christie

 

8 Adult Fiction

 

 

3 Classics

 

 

1 Middlegrade

 

1 Graphic Novel

 

1 Christian NonFiction

 

2 Adult NonFiction

 

This month I actually ranked my first 1 star book of the year. And read a very low 2 star as well. But I did get to read my most anticipated book of the year and I gave that 5 stars, so I guess it balances all out?

How was your month of reading? Did you participate in NaNo? If so how did you do? What is one book you were glad you read this month? Let me know below!

Happy reading fellow booknerds, and remember, life is too short for mediocre books!

~Stephanie