March 2019 Wrap-Up Post and Looking Ahead to April

So, I was on top of things, almost way ahead, then, beginning of this month, I got sick.  And that cough/upper respiratory infection/asthma flareup issues lasted for almost all month.  It was just this past week that I was finally able to sleep normally, without having to be sitting up to keep myself from coughing all night.  Now, I'm still pretty close to being on track, but not ahead, at all.  I took a trip during my spring break, and it was a weekend away from my dogs, everyone, it was supposed to be for writing.  But I was sick.  So I just kind of relaxed and kept up with blogging that needed to be kept up with, but didn't get anywhere near ahead.

However, I am still happy that I'm up to date enough to be still on top of an end of the month post.

Let's start with the reading stats again this month.

Once, again, according to Goodreads, I've read 59 of the 215 books I've set as my goal for the year, March  made up 20 of those.  I am 7 books ahead of schedule, but till debating whether to up my goal or not.

Here is a list of books I've read this month, and I'll link to my review if I've finished it:

1. The Everlasting Rose by Dhonielle Clayton
2. Hold On by Samantha Young
3. Space by Penny Reid
4. The Last 8 by Laura Pohl
5. The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
6. Riot by Jamie Shaw
7. Soaring With Fallon by Kristen Proby
8. Pucked (re-read/listen) by Helena Hunting
9. The Hashtag Hunt by Kristina Seek
10. Girls With Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young
11. Misadventures of a City Girl by Meredith Wild and Chelle Bliss
12. Just Swipe Right by Allie York
13. Play (re-read) by Kylie Scott
14. Drunk Dial by Penelope Ward
15. Hissy Fit by Lani Lynn Vale
16. Eyes on Me by Rachel Harris
17. Forever Mine by Kennedy Fox
18. Sky Without Stars by Jessica Brody and Joanne Rendell
19. The Roommate Agreement by Emma Hart
20. Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan

Any that aren't reviewed are either part of upcoming blog tours, or I just haven't had time yet to review.

Books that I read in February but didn't get reviewed until March are:

1. Within These Lines by Stephanie Morrill
2.  Off Limits by Vivian Ward
3. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
4. The Sweetest Match by Abby Tyler
5. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood:  The Poetry of Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers
6. One in a Million by Jill Shalvis
7. Moonlight Sins by Jennifer L. Armentrout
8. Diary of a Bad  Boy by Meghan Quinn

So, while I will have 50 posts for March after this one goes up, since it is a longer month than February, I'll say that I stayed about the same for not really getting better about less posts.  Still working on that!  I had 18 of those 50 that were review posts, and one of those had 4 reviews in it.  I've been good with my weekly posts I want to keep up with too!  My rating was the same as February, 4.4 stars for the books I read.

Okay, on with my challenges.

1.  As I mentioned above, still working on my Looking Forward To posts once a week, have moved them to Wednesdays to coincide with everyone else's Waiting on  Wednesday or Can't Wait Wednesday posts.
March 13th
March 20th
March 27th

Had a bad time with commenting on other blogs with being sick myself, as well as it seemed I had internet issues sometimes with just responding to comments on my own blog!

Been doing well on cleaning up my Goodreads TBR with my weekly post and giveaway, as well as even my physical TBR a little.  I still only have one person joining in, but feel free to join in as well.  Here are the posts for that:
March 2nd
March 9th
March 16th
March 23rd
March 30th - And this giveaway is still up for the next week!

2.  My Reading Goals are coming along with the Goodreads challenge, but haven't read any of my other specific books that friends suggested yet.  Unless I count finishing The Kiss Quotient.

3.  Writing goals went kind of phooey this past month. The best thing though is that I found a critique partner who gave me some great feedback.  Now I just need time and the health to go back and write and fix those things!

Not so great with this one.  Didn't add a single one from my list this month.

I actually joined in this month!  I posted a discussion about when you start not enjoying your former favorite authors:  I Will Always Love You or Do You Ever Begin to Get Over Favorite Authors.
I even have an idea for a discussion post I hope to do in April, if I get time!

Also, still need some kind of button for the First in the Series Challenge, but since I didn't do any of the ones on my list, no biggie.


Now, yesterday was the coolest day all of the month of March because Planet Comicon is taking place in my hometown this weekend.  So I got to meet some of my idols!  First was the one I spent big money on and am so glad I got to meet!

So cool, but so quick when you do the professional photos, so didn't do much other than pose and move on.  But still, I TOUCHED the Weasley twins!!!!!!

Had a little extra time before my photo op for the Weasley twins took place, so I decided to stop by and see Mark Pellegrino, or who I know as Lucifer from Supernatural.

My sister went with me, and she was there to meet her big idols, Superman and Lex Luthor, but from Smallville.  As we were leaving, she decided to go ahead and stop to see Dean Cain.  He was so nice, complimented her eyes a lot.  As I was standing to the side holding all her stuff so she didn't have to hold it in the picture, he asked who I was and said we should all get a picture, so that was a bonus shot!

Bonnie Wright, who played Ginny Weasley was there, but I was broke, and also William Shatner and Henry Winkler, but they weren't ones I HAD to see, so I was okay with what I saw and did.  I did see Wallace Shawn walking over to do his photo op, and he smiled at me, so that was kinda cool.


Looking forward to in April:
Okay, so here is my proposed TBR based on my blog tours and review requests for this month:

1. Stormy Kind of Love by Tia Lee - reading this one now, supposed to review this coming Friday, but not enjoying it, so it may be a DNF. 
2. Smoke and Key by Kelsey Sutton - Reading the ARC of this one right now, and part of a blog tour scheduled for the 10th.
3. The Stars in Her Eyes by C.M. Albert - review on the 11th
4. Two for Holding by Kay Gordon - review on the 12th
5. The Hummingbird Dagger by Cindy Anstey - review on the 15th
6. All We Could Have Been by T.E. Carter - signed up for a tour, don't know yet if I got it, but could be reviewing on either the 16th or 19th
7. Give Me Fever by Jasmine and Arielle Lockhart - signed up for a review, I think on the 18th
8. The Perfect Dress by Carolyn Brown - review on the 21st
9. Baby Mine by Kennedy Fox - review on the 23rd
10. Lord Have Mercy by Lani Lynn Vale - review on the 24th
11. We Were Beautiful by Heather Hepler - review on the 26th
12. Imperfect Match by Corinne Michaels and Melanie Harlow - review on the 29th
13. Boyfriend Bargain by Ilsa Madden-Mills
14. Romanov by Nadine Brandes
15. #Poser by Cambria Hebert - currently listening to
16. Tinfoil Heart by Daisy Prescott - currently reading
17. First Down by Michelle Sodaro - currently reading
18. Time by Penny Reid - review will be shortly after pub date, they're not sending e-galleys early!
19. Things We Never Said by Samantha Young

There will probably be another audiobook somewhere in there, just not sure what I'll listen to next.  Because things have been so crazy this month, I'm going to skip the Best of the Bunch challenge today and just go ahead and wrap this post up.    One last reminder, don't forget to enter the giveaway on my last Cleaning Up My TBR Post which I linked to up above, the prize is going to be 3 books this week instead of just 2!

January End of the Month Wrap-Up Post

Hmm, my life doesn't seem to slow down!  Oh well, going to try to do better with the end of the month posts, but am not going to stress about the weekly posts all the time.  I've been a bit stressed because my Goodreads goal has me 7 books behind at the moment, but I've only got it set at 5 books over how many I read last year. We'll see how that goes.  Let's do an update of all my challenges.

Well, I'll keep hanging my head in shame.  Goal of 4 books, but none of this done yet!

My goal for this one was 4 discussions for the year.  Haven't done one yet, but do have a couple ideas to do one in February.

My goal was 12 books for the year, and so far I've done 3!!  Totally on track with this one.  Although I don't have all the reviews posted yet.

1. The Countdown (The Taking #3) by Kimberly Derting
2. Sentinel (Covenant #5) by Jennifer L. Armentrout
3.  Ashes (Seeds of America #3) by Laurie Halse Anderson

My goal for this was 12 as well, only one done so far, but that is still on track.  And it is one that counted for the last challenge.

• The Countdown (The Taking #3) by Kimberly Derting

My two categories that I picked were blogging and writing.  Here's how I'm doing on them so far.

1. Blogging - I don't think I'm going to keep up with the labeling all my posts whether they are ARCs or etc.  I put that in my book info at the beginning of the reviews, I figure that's good.  I think I'm commenting on 7 blogs a week?  Not positive.  Need to keep better track of that this month.  I am working on getting an image for my blog made, so that is in the works.  
2. Writing - I'm also giving up on the writing a short story every week.  I tried the first week, but it is going longer than a short story, so I'm just going to keep working on it.  I do need to work on finishing my past NaNoWriMo stories.  But I kinda want to finish the short story I started on first, make it a very short one.  Maybe get it fixed up and see how it does on Amazon or something.  :-)  As for spending an hour a week at least on writing, I'd say that's been at least every other week.  So going to keep up with that.

I'm so glad that is all the challenges I'm doing this year.  Although I am going to participate in the Mini-Blog ahead challenge at the beginning of March, which will be really helpful for when I go to ApollyCon at the end of March.  I can't believe how close it is getting!  I've started getting all the books I want signed together, and I think I might need to take a suitcase just for that.  :-)

Alright, here are some statistics from January:

• # of books read:  15, that is down from the 19 a month I was doing before Christmas.
• # of full reviews posted on blog:  8-10, if you count the two I did for two of JLA's books in one post
• # of mini-reviews posted on blog:  19-21, again depends on those two I mentioned above

Possible February October TBR (that hasn't already been read):

• The Wish Granter by CJ Redwine
• Long May She Reigh by Rhiannon Thomas
• Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller
• Sad Perfect by Stephanie Elliot
• Reignited (Reawakened #0.5) by Colleen Houck
• The Great Pursuit (Eurona Duology #2) by Wendy Higgins
• The Beast is an Animal by Peternelle van Arsdale
• Geekarella by Ashley Poston
• Max by Sarah Cohen-Scali
• Lifeblood (Everlife #2) by Gena Showalter
• The Shack by William Paul Young
• Denton Little's Still Not Dead (Denton Little #2) by Lance Rubin
• Wrong Bed, Right Guy (Come Undone #1) by Katee Robert
• The Cinderella Arrangement by Vanessa Waltz
• Screwdrivered (Cocktail #3) by Alice Clayton
• Neil Patrick Harris:  Choose Your Own Autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris

We'll see what else I end up with time to read!  Hopefully I'm not missing any review books in that. 

If you've done your own January Wrap-Up Post, be sure to go link up at Feed Your Fiction Addiction so you can get entered into a giveaway, as well as get more visitors to your post!

October End of the Month Wrap-Up Post

October was very busy, but I intend for November to be crazy busy with writing for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).  So.... I will most likely not be doing any weekly posts, and very few posts that will require me to go return comments.  Instead I'm hoping to just go comment on blogs when I have time instead of feeling like I have to go comment on all the WOW or Sunday Posts that come up.  Also, I'm doing my October wrap up a day or two earlier than normal, because I want to be done with it before November starts as well!  This will probably be another quick post like last time, and I might also do some normal Sunday post topics in this as well.  We'll see.

Another month where I didn't get a discussion post done.  Not sure I'll meet my goal for the year, as I don't know how I'll get a discussion post done in November either.  Maybe December will get a few instead.

I got a few in this month.  If you're wondering what this challenge is about, you can go check it out HERE.

1. Hudson Valley series by Alice Clayton
2. Wendy Darling series by Colleen Oakes
3. There's Wild, Then There's You by M. Leighton
4. Six of Hearts by LH Cosway

Only one that I think counts this month.

• Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2) by Marissa Meyer 

Two books this month:

• The Row by JR Johansson
• Glitter by Aprilynne Pike

Got three of these this month.

• Deep (Stage Dive #4) by Kylie Scott
• Illusion (The Heirs of Watson Island #3) by Martina Boone
• One King's Way (On Dublin Street #6.5) by Samantha Young

I'm going to skip my Bookish Resolutions wrap-up for the month, which means I'm not meeting some of them kind of.

Some Statistics from Last Month:

• #of books read:  20 as of today, maybe one or two more by actual end of month
• # of full reviews posted on blog:  14
• # of mini-reviews posted on blog:  6

So that's my month at a glance.  Not going to list out a possible TBR either.  Just know that I'll hopefully be writing my 1,667 words every day in November in hopes of getting 50,000 done by the end of the month!

August End of the Month Wrap Up Post

Okay, since my posts are always all about how I'm doing with my challenges, I wanted to  make sure to get everyone's attention over to my 5th Annual September is for Sequels Challenge and see if anyone wants to join in. There is a giveaway that goes along with it, and I see some people have entered, although they haven't posted a link to a sign-up post yet that I can tell, so not sure how they are entered.  You can check it out by clicking on the button below. Sign ups are open till September 15th, and it fits in with a lot of other challenges, like the one I'm doing, Series Enders, and then of course the TBR Pile could always tag along as well.

Of course I'll let you know how well I did at my end of September post!

So, this month I didn't quite reach my goal of 11-20 comments, I think I only got 8 in.  I had an awesome partner though, but I think she ended up like me having too much going on to get all of them done.  I still enjoyed checking out Marilag's posts at Story and Somnomancy during August.  She even tagged me for a post that I need to do pretty soon!  I'll miss not having this challenge the rest of the year, but will look forward to hopefully participating again  next summer.

My August post had to do with the books that everyone loves, but I  just couldn't get into.  You can go chime in on the discussion if you want:  I'm Yes Then I'm No, I'm In Then I'm Out - Or The Beloved Books That I Just Couldn't Seem To Love.

Only one new to me book this month:

• Poison Princess (The Arcana Chronicles #1) by Kresley Cole

 

Nothing from my TBR pile this month. Guess I'd better work at rectifying that!

I got one, although not sure why I didn't include it in last month's wrap up post as I actually did it then.  But I'll share it  now!  My score is still 70%.

• Wake the Hollow by Gaby Triana

Okay, let's see how I did about completing this challenge.  I needed 10 more, but I only got 5 from the list done.  However, since the goal was basically to read 20 books this summer,  I've added 5 more that weren't on my list to complete the goal.

• Ink and Bone (The Great Library #1) by Rachel Caine - Review to come in September - didn't get to book 2 yet
•  The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich - Review to come in September
• Finding It (Losing It #3) by Cora Carmack
• Wake the Hollow by Gaby Triana
• Pure (Covenant #2) by Jennifer L. Armentrout
• Play (Stage Dive #2) by Kylie Scott
• Too Many Rockstars by Candy J. Starr
• Leveled (Saints of Denver #0.5) by Jay Crownover
• Built (Saints of Denver #1) by Jay Crownover

I've got a couple to share this month!

• Finding It (Losing It #3) by Cora Carmack
• Asa (Marked Men #6) by Jay Crownover

Very quick, short, short version!

• Still keeping up with not downloading from Edelweiss and Netgalley.
• Still posting every day.
• Didn't meet comment goal for challenge, and not as great with commenting once school started back up this month.
• End of month post - check!
• Still getting at least 2 reviews a week, although I'm still behind on reviews, I have at least 12 books sitting in a pile waiting to have reviews completed and posted, so may bump up to doing more than one review a day on review days, or combining them on days with other posts, just to try to get back on top of that.
• I had money saved, but have had to pull from it a couple times to make it through the month, well, for things not necessarily needed. But I did get my carpet cleaned, and that was necessary.  Haven't done much with my new laptop.  Probably need to make that a goal.  
• Walking goal of three times a week wasn't met every week, but I did get at least 2 per week. Being back in school has totally messed with that.  Had to get a new Fitbit, so am enjoying that as well!

Some statistics from the past month:

• # of books read:  19 
• # of full reviews posted on blog:  11
• # of mini-reviews posted on blog:  10
• # of DNFs:  4

Possible August TBR:

• The Portal to Kerberos (Elementals #4) by Michelle Madow
• Redeeming Trust (sequel to Broken Trust) by Michelle Sodaro
• Torn (A Wicked Saga #2) by Jennifer L. Armentrout
• Endless Night (The Arcana Chronicles #2) by Kresley Cole
• The Giant (Quarantine #4) by Lex Thomas
• Elixir (Covenant #3.5) by Jennifer L.  Armentrout
• Swan Riders (Prisoners of Peace #2) by Erin Bow
• Ice-Out (sequel to Frozen) by Mary Casanova
• Like a River Glorious (The Gold-Seeker Trilogy) by Rae Carson
• Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco and James Patterson
• Stealing Snow by Danielle Paige
• The Women in the Walls by Amy Lukavics
• Legal by Bree Dahlia

Now that doesn't include all the ebooks I'll be fitting in as well, or any audiobooks.  NOt sure what all I'll be doing for that.  Speaking of which, I am off to the library website to pick out some new audiobooks for when I finish my current one!

How was your August?

March End of the Month Challenge Wrap-Up

Well, this month I got my Sunday Posts done, but I don't know if I did that well on my other Challenges.  I also joined a new challenge, the 2016 Discussion Challenge.  I got one post this month, Fiction is Fiction, and as my goal is 1-12 posts, I'd say I've already completed the minimum for that.  Also just by doing this post, I'm keeping up on this goal of doing end of the month posts.  And I'm 5 books ahead on my Goodreads goal, so I'm doing well this month!  So let's check out all my challenge results for the month.

Starting with the new challenge I'm hosting this year.  Unfortunately I didn't really do much towards what I'd planned.  If I change the guidelines like I've said I would, for people to even just try new to them authors, then I can say I got more done this month.  Really, there is only one that fits the original series guidelines HERE.

• Taking Chances by Molly McAdams
• If I count a new author towards this, then I have finally read a book by Wendy Higgins, and love it, The Great Hunt. 

I only got one book again this month, but that's okay since my goal is 11-20, as you can see on my sign up post HERE.  But the one that I did do was on my original sign up list.  I just finished it today, won't have the review up for a week or so though, so I'll link it to the Goodreads info.

•  Broken Trust by Michelle Sodaro

This month I gave feedback on five books, bringing my Feedback ratio up to 70%.  My goal was to try to get back up the 80% ratio, or at least get a total of 10 done for the year, as I listed on the original post HERE.   So I am at least at 7 of the 10.  Three of the books I actually read, and the other two are ones that I couldn't finish, so I went ahead and left that as the feedback.  Here are the 5 books:

• Firstlife by Gena Showalter
• Stone Field by Christy Lenzi
• Tell the Wind and Fire by Sarah Rees Brennan
• Once Upon a Dream by Liz Braswell
• Hot Pterodactyl  Boyfriend by Alan Cumyn

Well, let's go through what I did this month, you can check out the original post HERE. 

• I'm still doing really well with not downloading tons of e-galleys.  It helps to just write them down in my calendar, and then I don't go to download them until it is closer to the time of publishing/when I'll be reading them.  I'm also trying to make sure I read the Netgalley ones first if I can, so I can work on the challenge I talked about above.
• I still ended up posting almost every day again.  But I am trying hard to not sign up for tours unless they are books I know I'm going to read and really want to promote.  However I did skip one Sunday post, because I had several other things I wanted to post instead.
• Still doing my best to comment on other blogs.  
• Again, using this post monthly to keep up with my challenges.
• I've had two reviews every week this month, although only one so far this week.  I'm planning another tomorrow!
• Personal goals:  Still no money saved, but I have finally decided on what I'm going to do with my air conditioner.  I met my going to the gym and walking once a week goal, and got my reward of a tattoo, which you can see a picture of HERE.  I set a new goal of going to the gym and walking twice a week until the end of May, when summer break starts from school.  I think my reward for that will be buying a new pair of Nike tennis shoes for walking at the Nike Outlet store when my family goes to Branson over Memorial Day weekend for our annual trip.

I didn't really get anything for this goal this past month.  Unless the Maybe series by Colleen Hoover isn't going to have any more than the two books it already has.  And I kind of feel like it is, since there haven't been any more since 2014. 

For April this year, I'm not participating in the A to Z Challenge for a change.  It doesn't go with my goal of posting less.  I'm also really starting to feel like writing again.  I've decided that I am going to go back and finish the NaNo story from several years ago, but re-write it as a New Adult instead of just a straight contemporary romance.  Not sure when I'll find the time to write.  I'll probably just wait till this summer. 

So, how did your March go? 

February End of the Month Challenge Wrap-Up

So this month I didn't do very well with my normal Sunday posts.  It just didn't seem to work out.  So there are a lot of books I did get this month that I haven't shared.  I'm going to try to start again next week, with the first Sunday in March and get back to that.  But for my one goal of doing the monthly wrap ups of my challenges, I'm still on track this 2nd month of the year.  Last month at this time I was behind on my Goodreads goal, but this month, due to my picking up and devouring a  new series, I am ahead.  Only one book at this moment though because that series has created a huge obsession to where I am listening to the audiobooks of the books that I've already read because I need my #Hessa fix.  More about that in a bit.

As usual I'm going to start with my own challenge.  My goal for this challenge was to start 4 new series this year.  You can read about the challenge if you click on the button above, you can even still sign up yourself!  I started one new series last month, The Madman's Daughter by Megan Shepherd.  This month I started, and finished, a new series that wasn't even in my original plan.  It is the series I am now seriously obsessed with.  I think about the characters all the time.  I'm listening to the audiobook of the 2nd book, even though I actually read the 2nd book, and will probably soon listen to the audiobook of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th as I am able to get them!  I own all the books now, and probably am going to try to buy the digital downloads of their audiobooks because of how much I love listening to the story. They make walking at the gym go by so fast!  Here is that series:

• After by Anna Todd 

I loved it so much I'm offering a giveaway of any of the books in the series that you want, it is international as long as The Book Depository ships to you.  You can enter by clicking on the link above, you have until the middle of March to enter.  I loved the book so much, I even spent time at work one day making a Someecard for it:

And if you follow me on Twitter, you'll probably see lots of tweets from me about this.  Usually with the tag of #Hessa.

Okay, how am I doing on this one?  Well, none of my choices which you can see in the original post HERE, were ones that I got to.  The only one I think I can count is one that I got an ARC of last year towards the end of the year.

• Titans by Victoria Scott

During March I will have a week of spring break, and even though I told my part time job that I had all the days free to work, looks like they still only have me working 2 days that week.  So my goal for that week is going to be to try to finish 5 books, which is about a book a day.

Yeah, none this month.  So let's move on from the depressing part of not doing what I needed.  :-(

• My goal about not downloading egalleys is going well.  Now when I find them on Edelweiss or Netgalley, if they are ones I don't have to request, then I just write them down in my calendar in the month they'd be published and wait to download them, just in case I can't get to them.  If I have to request them, then they have to be ones that I really, really want.  
• I've tried harder about not having to post every day of the month, and have continued to do better about it.  Both Friday and Saturday of this past week, I didn't post.  And while in the back of my brain I was thinking about what can I post, I just took a break.  
• I'm trying harder to go comment on other blogs, going through my GFC scroll on nights that I don't have a post to get done, and trying to click on more of the emails I get to go to the posts and comment more.  
• This post keeps me up to date with my end of the month challenge post.
• For the most part I've done 2 reviews a week.  If you average out how many I've done for the month, then I'm good.  But this After series obsession is really hurting me on the audiobook and reading in bed at night fronts.  I often go to bed listening to the audiobooks instead of reading like I was doing.  So that is something that needs to be worked on in March!
• For personal goals I still haven't saved any money. Although I'm hoping to be good with my tax return, depending how much it is, and spend it to get a new air conditioner for my house.  Although I do really want the new Fitbit that comes out this next month.  That goes along with my other personal goal of getting to the gym.  I've been once a week this past month, and I have the goal of doing that until spring break.  If I do, then I am going to start saving money and thinking about my next tattoo.  :-)  Hoping that after spring break, and during, I'll start going to the gym, or walking twice a week.  

You can see all of my goals by clicking HERE.

Hmm, this is an interesting one.  I just signed up for it last month.  I set my goal at Level 3, which was to read 10-15 this year, more specifically 12.  I got one done last month.  The only thing I can possibly count for this month is finishing the After series.   So, again, hoping March and spring break will get me back on track!  In fact maybe I should do some planning on what to read in March, especially during spring break week, like I see some blogs doing. 

That's my progress this month.   How did you do with your challenges?  One other thing I'm planning to do is set up another giveaway for my It's New to Me Challenge that I mentioned at the top of this post.  It will be for participants only, and I'll have them link up to their reviews!