It’s time for another weekly recap post of all things happening on and off the blog. This week I’ll be linking to the Sunday Post, which is hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

I’m sitting here trying to remember what I did this week so I can write this recap, but honestly the week is a blur. We had several all day trainings this week at work, which is probably what is accounting for the blur since I’m pretty sure I dozed through most of the sessions I had to sit through.

The weather also turned cold again, and super windy, so if I didn’t have to go to work or run my son to soccer practice, I spent most of my time hibernating in the house. I continued to plug away at my January ARCs. This time last week I still had 4 left to read and now I’m down to 1 and a half.  I’ll probably do a post of mini reviews for all of them later this week and then I’m also working on a post of mini reviews for the backlist books I’ve read so far this year.  While I kind of failed at keeping on top of my ARCs in January, I’ve been pretty successful with reading books I already own. I’m on my 7th backlist book of the month and may have time to start an 8th.

I also spent a little bit of time this week researching Peloton bikes. I’ve been thinking about investing in one because I love the idea of the live classes without having to actually go to the gym, but I just can’t decide if it’s worth the money.  Have any of you tried one?

Oh well, I think that’s pretty much it for me.  Have a great week, everyone!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

[19 Jan] Weekly Recap #138: Week of 1/12 – 1/18 
[20 Jan] Big Lies in a Small Town by Diane Chamberlain ★★★★★
[21 Jan] Top Ten Tuesday – The 10 Most Recent Additions to My Bookshelf 
[22 Jan] Can’t Wait Wednesday – THE KINGDOM OF BACK by Marie Lu 
[24 Jan] The God Game by Danny Tobey ★★★★

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

           

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

   

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

      

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

 

It’s time for another weekly recap post of all things happening on and off the blog. This week I’ll be linking to the Sunday Post, which is hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

This is my first weekly recap of 2020, so Happy New Year, everyone!  I didn’t post last Sunday because I was in New York with one of my besties.  We wanted to meet up and see a few shows, but didn’t want to get caught up in the madness of New Year’s Eve in Times Square so we headed up on Thursday for a long weekend.  We were nervous about going there in January because of the potential for winter weather but we got very lucky with temps in the high 40s to low 50s every day we were there.  We also saw three Broadway shows – the play To Kill a Mockingbird, with Ed Harris as Atticus, which was incredible; Dear Evan Hansen, also incredible; and on our last night there, we went to see a preview of West Side Story.  This production of West Side Story is a pretty modernized version, with a screen on the back wall where the author’s faces are projected in close ups.  It’s also pretty intense and a couple of the lighter songs, like “I Feel Pretty” have been cut out of it.  I think it’s going to be a show that people will either love or hate because of those changes.  My friend and I both enjoyed it but heard a few people complaining about it as we left the theater.

Once I got home from New York, it was back to the grind at work.  Thankfully it was slow while I was out so there wasn’t really much to play catch up on. We’re getting geared up for another busy tax season now so I was grateful to not have a backlog of jobs waiting for me to deal with.  I was able to start fresh Monday morning, which is just the way I like it.

I’m still undecided with respect to my reading/blogging goals for 2020.  So far I’ve only signed up for the Goodreads challenge and my usual backlist challenge, and I may just leave it at that since I know my number one goal is to read more books that I already own.  I’m on my third backlist book of the year already, but need to jump back to my ARCs since I still have some January ones to get through and a bunch of reviews to write for the ones I’ve read.  I have a list of author I’ve been wanting to try for years now and still haven’t, as well as several series I really want to finish so that may end up being one of my main focuses instead of signing up for specific challenges. Last year I lost interest in several of the ones I had signed up for, so I’m hesitant to sign up for more in 2020.

Anyway, that’s pretty much it for me this week.  I hope everyone’s year is off to a great start!

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

[7 Jan] Top Ten Tuesday – Most Anticipated Book Releases for the First Half of 2020 
[8 Jan] Can’t Wait Wednesday – CHASING LUCKY by Jenn Bennett 
[10 Jan] First Cut by Judy Melinek, T.J. Mitchell ★★★★

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

       

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

   

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

            

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

 

It’s time for another weekly recap post of all things happening on and off the blog. This week I’ll be linking to the Sunday Post, which is hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

I honestly don’t have much to report this week. I enjoyed my time off from work but, as predicted, it was not nearly as productive as I would have liked.  Lots of naps were had though, so I’m feeling very refreshed heading into the holidays.  I also made a small dent in my January ARCs, although I still have quite a few of them left to read heading into next month.

I’m not sure at this point how much I’ll be online this week so if we don’t cross paths again, Happy Holidays!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

[15 Dec] Weekly Recap #134: Week of 12/8 – 12/14 
[17 Dec] Top Ten Tuesday – Books from My Winter TBR I’m Most Excited For 
[18 Dec] Can’t Wait Wednesday – WE ARE NOT FREE by Traci Chee 
[20 Dec] The Map from Here to There by Emery Lord ★★★★
[20 Dec] Chosen (Slayer, #2) by Kiersten White ★★★★

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

       

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

   

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

            

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

 

It’s time for another weekly recap post of all things happening on and off the blog. This week I’ll be linking to the Sunday Post, which is hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

This past week has been kind of a blur.  Work was slow, which was good, but holiday preparations are now in full swing, including me finally starting my Christmas shopping.  Thankfully we don’t exchange gifts with many people so it shouldn’t take me long to get all of my shopping done, but it’s just so hard to find good gifts.  With the exception of the kids on my list, everyone I know is at that stage of life where when they want or need something, they just go and buy it.  Aside from the shopping, I also finally finished decorating.  I kept getting distracted so it took me about three days to finish it, but here’s our tree.  We usually like to put it in our family room but to keep the puppy from knocking it over, it’s baby-gated in my office this year.  I think I’m the main one who enjoys the tree anyway so I think that’s a perfect spot for it, lol.

 

 

Not much else to report this week.  I think seeing Hamilton with my family last Sunday was the highlight and it pretty much was a downhill slide from there.  I had already seen Hamilton once in New York, but I have to say it’s an entirely different experience watching it in Virginia.  The characters who were from Virginia – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison – played to the audience in a completely different way than they did when I saw it on Broadway.  Thomas Jefferson, in particular, really stole the show several times.  After the show, the actors even commented that they had no idea they would get the reaction they did from their Virginia audiences.  I guess they didn’t realize that we take our history very seriously here, lol.  It was such a fun experience though.  I definitely recommend seeing it if you can.  It’s one of the few shows I’ve watched that fully live up to the hype.

On the blogging front, as usual, today is my catch up day for commenting so that’s number one on my agenda.  I’m also trying to sort out what I still hope to get read by the end of the year.  I’m starting off the year with way too many January 7th ARCs so I’m starting those this week, but I also have a few more backlist books that I really want to finally knock off my TBR.  Some of my reading/blogging challenges have been failures this year, but I think I can meet my goals for my backlist challenge and possibly my retellings one.  We’ll see how the next few weeks go.

Oh and before I forget, today is the last day to enter my Instagram giveaway so if you’d like to win a free book of your choice, be sure to check it out!  —> IG Giveaway

Anyway, I think that’s about it for me.  Have a great week, everyone!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

[1 Dec] Weekly Recap #132: Week of 11/24 – 11/30 
[3 Dec] Top Ten Tuesday – My Ten Favorite Movies to Watch During the Holiday Season 
[4 Dec] Can’t Wait Wednesday – THE NOBLEMAN’S GUIDE TO SCANDAL AND SHIPWRECKS by Mackenzi Lee 
[6 Dec] Mini Reviews for Reputation, Meg & Jo, and The Dead Girls Club 
[6 Dec] Reputation by  
[6 Dec] Meg and Jo by  
[6 Dec] The Dead Girls Club by  

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

       

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

   

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

           

TOTALLY RANDOM

 

 

It’s time for another weekly recap post of all things happening on and off the blog. This week I’ll be linking to the Sunday Post, which is hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

I guess the big news of the week is that my puppy seems to be doing much better.  He finishes up the last of his antibiotics tomorrow and as long as he doesn’t backslide once the medicine is out of his system, he should be in the clear.  He still has a cough but the vet says that will probably linger for another week or so, but the fever and the congestion are definitely gone now, which is such a relief.  I was really worried about my fur baby for a while there!

Beyond that I’ve mostly been busy with work.  We have a big government deadline on November 30th so we’ve been trying to get all of the jobs related to that wrapped up before Thanksgiving.  I worked on Saturday in hopes of achieving that goal.  I think we’re going to make it but we do have one client that we still need information from so it’s on them if we don’t make their deadline.

In order to make it easier to manage my blog while I’ve been busy with work and the pup, I’ve dropped back to four posts a week.  That’s a pretty doable schedule for me so I’ll probably keep it that way until January 2020 unless I get some unexpected free time along the way.

I’m also planning to jump back into doing mini reviews.  Even though I’ve been kind of lame about blogging, I have gotten quite a bit of reading done lately but just haven’t reviewed anything.  Tomorrow I’m going to have a post of mini-reviews to share some quick thoughts on what I’ve been reading.  I’ve started reading my December ARCs and I also want to make a big push to meet my backlist goal of 35 pre-2019 books.  I’ve read 30 so far and I’m almost finished with Thunderhead and I’m about halfway through Beartown. I’m hoping to knock both of those out this week which will leave me the month of December to get at least 3 more read.  I’ve failed on most of my challenges this year so I’m really hoping to succeed with this one.

Anyway, I think that’s about it for me.  Have a great week, everyone, and early Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who will be celebrating on Thursday!

 

WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK

 

[17 Nov] Weekly Recap #130:  Week of 11/10 – 11/16 
[18 Nov] The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware ★★★★
[19 Nov] Top Ten Tuesday – Ten Changes in My Reading Life 
[20 Nov] Can’t Wait Wednesday – A HEART SO FIERCE AND BROKEN by Brigid Kemmerer 

 

WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

 

       

 UPCOMING REVIEWS

 

   

 STACKING THE SHELVES

 

          

TOTALLY RANDOM