Greetings 2020!

Hello, everyone!

I can’t believe that 2020 is here.  A new year, and a new decade to boot. Things have been motoring on while I try to finalise my 2020 Reading Goals for an upcoming video. 

I’ve already started on my Goodreads Challenge by submitting the goal I’d like to reach this year... well, at least my jumping off point if previous years are any guide. So 150 is my first target to reach, and then we’ll see what happens from there. And while I would love to surpass last years amazing tallies (443 books and 124k+ pages), I’m not going into this years challenge with that in mind.

So far I have completed 3 books, and before you say anything, they were small cozy mystery novels, two of which were average, and one that I adored. In fact I enjoyed it so much that I’m going to purchase a paperback edition for my shelves (I read it from OverDrive), and I can’t wait for the second book to come out in June.  Death in a Budapest Butterfly is the first book in Julia Buckley’s A Hungarian Tea House Mystery series, and I think I’ll give it a post of it’s own to highlight what a great cozy mystery I think it is. However that may have to wait a few days until my back/hip sorts itself out and I can sit at my desk to fire up the desktop and either film a review, or do some fancy-smancy stuff on PS to tizzy up the picture for y’all.

Oh, so you caught my little slip of the keyboard. Yes, after mentioning in my last video that I’m feeling a lot better I managed to pull a muscle or tendon while washing my hair in the shower - of all things! I feel like such a dink, but there I was, rinsing out my hair, sitting on the bench seat, when I felt a ‘pop’ in my rump and felt a hot and tingling sensation. I had to get out of there asap while I could still move! Spent the evening with a cold pack on my butt, and this morning it feels like someone has punched my hard in the hip. But I’ll take a deep muscle pain over a pinched nerve any day of the week.  At least I can move and get myself out of bed, etc.

So, this latest adventure in my chronic pain journey has me reassessing how I’m going to try and live my life, even my social media/online life, in a normal fashion when my body is rebelling. I think I’ll have to save up and invest in a laptop (my old one died about 5 years ago. RIP my HP laptop) so that I can at least edit and upload my videos while confined to the bed or couch. My trusty iPad was just not made for editing videos.

Anyway, I think I’ve jabbered on enough for the moment and had better get back to brainstorming those 2020 Reading Goals.

I hope to see you guys soon. So until next time

My Goodreads stats are in!

I can't believe it's only days until 2019!  The older I get, the faster the year seems to fly by.

Today I'm talking about my Goodreads stats.  This is just an overview, and not an indepth discussion on any of the titles mentioned.  I had a lot of fun with my reading this year - which I will discuss in my Best & Worst Reads of 2018 (coming soon!) - and have already planned out some of my 2019 challenges, so finger's crossed.

I hope you have a wonderful holidays, and a fabulous New Year.  Thank you for watching, commenting, liking and subscribing, and until I see you next time,

 

Where has the month gone?

It's seems like just last week when I was wishing family and friends "Happy New Year!", and now it's already three weeks into January and I'm only just getting around to updating my reading.

A lot has been happening on the reading front.  I set my GR challenge goal to 100 again.  A nice round number that I know I will reach.  I've still got books limping in that were ordered in early December - with still one, no two, tardy packages still to arrive.  I really do need a whole new bookshelf system as multiple bookcases aren't coping (and I can only have so many in a room!) that I'm considering going to a bracket system so I can use up the whole wall, not just where a bookcase can fit.

So far I've gone through nearly 30 books (with updates on GR still to come), and have also discovered a few new authors such as G.M. Malliet's Max Tudor series (thanks to Katie Howe for the recommendation), Elizabeth Peters Vicky Bliss series, and a few stand alone authors such as Sarah Maine, Anna Romer, Josephine Pennicott to name a few.  Will definitely be trying to find more by all these authors in the coming months.

Have been reasonably restrained with my thrift shop purchases (only had one go at the 3 stores in town) and picked up a few books.  Great find was a Robin Paige cozy mystery book - that turned out to be book 9, but it was still good - and a beautiful vintage copy of Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

January has also been the month of the heatwave here in QLD, Australia.  It's been amazingly hot, and I've even had to put the A/C on a few times so the cats and I didn't melt.  As you can imagine, hot weather is not conducive for tapping away at a keyboard for hours in a hot stuffy room - nor is it the best weather for having to mow your ¼ acre block! {for my efforts I ended up with strained ribs and unable to move for a few days}  Today we've had a little bit of a reprieve and the overcast weather is wonderful ;-D

Well, that's my amazingly quick update for now.  Will be posting book pics in the near future of all my bookmail (already on my IG feed), and an upcoming list of my must have pre-orders for the next few months.

Until then my lovelies,