1. I deleted the Tik Tok app off of my phone and I can‘t redownload it but I can still watch it through an internet browser.
2. It snowed here in TX for 1 day and I played in it for the first time ever. I had so much fun.
3. I washed my bear from childhood and brushed out its fur.
4. I wrote down book recommendations from Tik Tok.
5. The neighbor‘s cat is still visiting us.

#5joysfriday

1. The Aeneid
2. The Bell Jar
3. The Catcher In The Rye
4. Dracula

I only read these 4 books. I think the most interesting books I read were The Iliad and The Aeneid. I listened to a dramatized audiobook of these stories and I liked taking in the stories that way because I felt like I was listening to plays and I like plays but I never understood what was going on and I don‘t remember anything that happened.

#threelistthursday

I‘m reading this book for the #whimsicalreadsbookclub but I‘m not done yet. I‘m making progress but it‘s been slow progress. I was enjoying the book in the beginning but now, I‘m up to Part 5 and I haven‘t been listening to this book as much. I don‘t know if I‘m enjoying this book anymore. I keep getting distracted and looking for other things to do besides read this book and it‘s taking me so long to read it and that‘s not a good sign.

During the first week, I read a psychological thriller about a therapist who helps a troubled little girl.

During the second week, I read this memoir by a woman who went through a spiritual awakening.

During the third week, I read some books but none that were my favorite so I‘m putting Sherlock Holmes here.

During the fourth week, I‘m putting Sherlock Holmes here because I haven‘t finished reading anything else.

#weeklyfavorites

It snowed yesterday morning here in Southeast TX. I didn‘t want to miss out on it because I knew it would only last 1 day so I decided to go outside and play in it. I made snow angels, threw snowballs and wrote in the snow. I tried making a snowman but the snow was too powdery. I‘ve never played in the snow before. It was so fun but my body feels sore today. By yesterday afternoon, a lot of the snow started melting.

#whatsnewwednesday

I finally finished this week‘s short story “The Second Stain”.

#noplacelikeholmes

1. I decided to join the #realmoftheelderlings readalong hosted by @PuddleJumper
2. I went for a walk 2 days this week and made progress in my walking game called Walking Planet
3. I signed up for Tome since TikTok is getting banned
4 & 5 - I gave feedback to Taylor Bradshaw on what he should focus on next for his music this year and as a thank you gift to me, he sent me a voice memo of a new song in progress and song lyrics.

#5joysfriday

My 3 favorites from this list are:

1. Holes (I read this book in 7th grade English class and this was my favorite book that we read that year. I liked my teacher. She was actually my English teacher in 6th, 7th and 8th grade. One day, I found her on Facebook and we‘ve been Facebook friends since then.)

2. The Graveyard Book (I really liked this one.)

3. The Girl Who Drank The Moon (I also really liked this one.)

#threelistthursday

When I was going through my storage bin today, my scrapbook was in there with a pack of 10 extra sheets I can put in the scrapbook as well as a pad full of cardstock paper. I was looking through my scrapbook just to see if I wanted to add more pages to it so I can continue scrapbooking. I have some stuff cut out that I could add in there if I wanted to continue scrapbooking but I don‘t feel like it needs anything else.

#whatsnewwednesday

I decided to start this book because it‘s the book club pick for the #whimsicalreadsbookclub and it‘s good so far. I haven‘t read The Cosmere. This is my first book by Brandon Sanderson but I don‘t feel like I‘m missing anything important. It‘s a fairy tale and I like fairy tales. I‘ve heard that this book is inspired by The Princess Bride but I haven‘t read The Princess Bride. All I know about The Princess Bride is that it‘s also a fairy tale.

I got this email from Taylor Bradshaw inviting me to his private discord group and here, I‘m showing my response to the email and his response. I‘m nervous about it. I‘m a very quiet person. I don‘t know if I‘m going to have anything helpful to contribute to his music project or if I‘ll be saying very much during the Zoom meetings. I don‘t know if this will be the right fit for me but I‘ll try it out and see.

#tuesdaytunes

1. I like curling up with a book and a blanket on the couch with some hot chocolate. I like the cold and the coziness.

2. Tagged! I read this one before Christmas and this one does. It‘s set during the winter. The people in this book are staying at a cabin in the mountains during winter and one by one, they all start dying. I liked this one.

#two4tuesday

Here‘s my review. This is my other #roll100 book that was picked this month.

I have some Mardi Gras beads and I decided to do this with them. I didn‘t want to get rid of my beads. The colors are so pretty.

#litsycrafters

Since I just made a post talking about decluttering, I actually decluttered some craft supplies. I threw away scraps of paper and old high school graduation invitations. I thought I was going to use the invitations to make homemade cards. Now, I‘m trying to decide if I want to keep the stuff that I‘ve cut out to put in my scrapbook but now, I‘m thinking that I should throw that stuff away because I don‘t scrapbook anymore. I lost interest in it.

I‘m in a decluttering group on Facebook called Declutter 365. The admin asked this question and this was my answer.

This book is our pick this month for the #whimsicalreadsbookclub but I‘m not sure if I‘m going to understand the references in it or enjoy the book because I haven‘t read The Cosmere and it has references to The Cosmere. According to reviews on Goodreads, this isn‘t a good book to start with if it‘s your first time reading Brandon Sanderson because you won‘t understand it if you haven‘t read The Cosmere.

1. I crocheted this blanket a long time ago and it ended up turning into a hooded cape so I decided to put it on this bear that I have since it didn‘t have clothes to wear.
2. I figured out how to read Kindle books on my smart TV.
3 - 4. I got these things for Christmas.
5. My guy friend of 21 yrs sent me these stuffed animals for Christmas in the mail and I talked to him on the phone for 2 hrs.

#5joysfriday

I read this week‘s short story “The Abbey Grange” for #noplacelikeholmes. I‘m ready for Saturday‘s discussion.

Here‘s my review. This was another #roll100 book. This was a Read Now book on Netgalley but my file for the ebook expired so I had to buy the Kindle book. Next time I‘ll probably send my Netgalley books to my Kindle so I don‘t have to worry about them expiring because a lot of my Netgalley books have expired and now, I have to either buy the books or borrow them from Kindle Unlimited or Libby.

1. The Graveyard Book
2. The Secret Garden
3. Lord Of The Rings
4. The Hobbit
5. The Cat In The Hat
6. The Very Hungry Caterpillar
7. The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz
8. The Little Prince
9. Treasure Island
10. Little House In The Big Woods

I want to continue 2 of the series on this list: The Wizard Of Oz and Little House On The Prairie because I really liked the first books in those series.

#threelistthursday

I haven‘t started the book yet for the #whimsicalreadsbookclub but I looked at the reading schedule and it looks like I still have enough time to read the book. I‘m glad because I have a lot going on this month with reading. I‘m doing #noplacelikeholmes, #roll100, #bookspinbingo, #readyourkindle and this book club but I still have plenty of time in the month. There‘s no need to rush. I can go at my own reading pace. Reading is not a race.

#whatsnewwednesday

Here‘s my review. This is one of my #roll100 books. I went to my Netgalley app and saw that this book expired on there so I couldn‘t read it on there but I downloaded it before it got archived so at least I can review it on Netgalley. Fortunately, I was able to borrow this book from #kindleunlimited to read. I‘m very late reviewing this book. It was published in April 2024.

The first question today is “Do you believe in second chances?” and this is my response. I didn‘t know I was going to have so much to say about it but I did.

The second question says to tag a book where I feel like the character got a second chance. I don‘t really know of any books. Usually when I think of books with second chances, I think of the second chance romance books but I haven‘t read very many of those.

#two4tuesday

I crocheted this blanket a long time ago but it ended up turning into a hooded cape after I got finished with it so I‘ve decided to put it on this stuffed bear I have because it didn‘t have any clothes to wear and it‘s perfect because it‘s too small for me to cover up with.

#litsycrafters #crochet

I just learned that you can read your Kindle or have Alexa read your book to you on your TV if you have an iPhone or iPad. iPhone and iPad have a screen sharing feature. I know that the Echo Pop in my bedroom will play my Kindle book. I wonder if I can put it on my TV in my bedroom. I do have a Fire Stick in my room and my Amazon Alexa app says that it‘s compatible with my TV in my room so I‘ll have to try it out sometime.

Here‘s how I‘m doing on Netgalley. I‘m very behind on reading and reviewing books but I hope participating in #roll100 this year will help me reduce the number of ARCs I have to read. At this point, I‘ll have to read more than 100 of these ARCs just to catch up. I‘ll just have to see how I do on #roll100 for the rest of the year but I‘m feeling optimistic this month.

I‘ve decided to make this board for #roll100 to fill in with the books that I read for this challenge. All I‘m reading is Netgalley ARCs but I would like to make more progress in my Netgalley backlist because I‘m so behind on there. I think this would be a fun way to track my progress on #roll100. As I read the books then I can fill in the board. I‘m looking forward to getting started.

Here‘s my #roll100 picks for January. These are all Netgalley ARCs I have to read. They look interesting and I want to read them. The one I‘m the most interested in is the one about Jean Carroll because I don‘t know who she is and I don‘t know anything about her.

Here‘s my #roll100 list. This is the Netgalley ARCs I have to read. This is my first time participating. I hope this will motivate me to read my ARCs because I‘m behind on reading and reviewing them. I mood read for a few months but now, I‘m ready to start reading them again. A lot of them are nonfiction.

Here‘s my #readyourkindle picks for January. Book 6 is the first book in a series I want to finish for #serieslove2025 and the other books are going to be Netgalley ARCs. My Netgalley ARCs will probably be from my #roll100 list.

Here‘s my #readyourkindle list for January. I‘ve had a few months of mood reading and now, I‘m ready to start reading my Netgalley books again. When I was making my Kindle lists in 2024, I always forgot to add Netgalley prompts but this time, I remembered. I‘m also participating in #serieslove2025 so I‘ve chosen 2 series on my Kindle that I want to finish. I also have 2 Kindle Unlimited books on my Kindle that I didn‘t get to in December.

Here‘s my #bookspinbingo board for January. My bingo board theme is Northern Lights. I just chose a Northern Lights background. I‘ve never seen the Northern Lights in real life but it‘s pretty in the pictures.

Here‘s my #bookspinbingo picks for January. My #bookspin is the #whimsicalreadsbookclub pick for January. I‘ve never read anything by Brandon Sanderson but I‘ve heard nothing but good things about his books in the online book community. My #doublespin is going to be a Netgalley ARC but it will probably be one of my #roll100 books because I‘m using my #roll100 list to motivate me to tackle my Netgalley ARCs.

Here‘s my #bookspinbingo list for January. I‘m hoping to read some of my Netgalley ARCs this month. I mood read for a while but I think I‘m ready to get back to reading my Netgalley books again.

For #serieslove2025, I‘m not sure what series I‘m going to be finishing yet but the goal I‘m setting for myself is to finish at least 3 series. If I can do more, that would be great too because then I can remove more book series off of my book series spreadsheet. I have 59 book series on my spreadsheet. I‘m not even sure if I want to finish some of them because some of them have a lot of books.

Here‘s my 2024 #spotifywrapped. I didn‘t want to wait until #tuesdaytunes to post this. I liked the music I listened to during January and February the most. I got Amazon‘s Echo Pop for Christmas and I bought 1 for Christmas during a Black Friday sale for my mom, my mom‘s boyfriend and my brother so they each have their own. I need to set it up so I can try it out. It‘s smaller than the Amazon Alexa speaker and it takes up less space.

Here‘s my 2024 reading wrap-up from StoryGraph.

#readingwrapup

I‘m sharing my December Book Haul using my reading journal from Novelly Yours.

#bookhaul

I‘m using my reading journal from Novelly Yours to share this grid that shares my books of the year by books acquired so it looks like for the entire year, I acquired 338 books. I can see looking at this grid the months where I acquired a lot of books and months when I didn‘t acquire as much.

Here‘s my points for the #wintergames. I read a lot of dark books. I either read books set during Winter or books with dark themes. I really liked that because I wasn‘t in the mood for overly Christmassy books since my dog passed away on 10/25/24.

#christmaschapterchasers #xmaschacha

Here‘s how I did on #bookspinbingo. I almost blacked out my bingo board. I just needed to read 3 more books but I ran out of time in December. I wasn‘t in the mood for books that were overly Christmassy because my dog passed away on 10/25/24 so I just decided to read books either set during Winter or books with dark themes. I really liked reading these type of books during Christmas and a lot of my books were from my Kindle.

Here‘s I did on reading my #readyourkindle picks. Book 13 was a Kindle Unlimited book. Book 10 was a mood read. Book 4 was a Kindle Unlimited book. Book 18 was a mood read from my Kindle but I didn‘t get around to reading anything for that. I was so close to reading all of my picks. I only had to read 1 more book and I wanted to read something for that but I ran out of time in December.

Here‘s how I did on #readyourkindle in December. I didn‘t finish my list but I was so close. I only needed to read 3 more Kindle books that were mood reads. I wanted to finish my Kindle list because I finished my #bookspinbingo list but I ran out of time in December and now, it‘s 2025.

Here‘s how I did on #bookspinbingo in December. I finished my list that I made.

Yay! I read my #bookspinbingo picks in December. For my #bookspin pick, I had to choose a mood read and I chose something from my Kindle to read. For my #doublespin pick, I had to choose something to read from my #readyourkindle list and I did it.

Here‘s my review.

This book counts for:

☑️ 3 readathons - #bookspinbingo, #readyourkindle, #wintergames

☑️ 2 hours of reading

☑️ Holiday or winter read (A #kindleunlimited book set during Christmas and Winter.)

#christmaschapterchasers #xmaschacha

I forgot to post the music I listened to one night before bed on Spotify for #tuesdaytunes so I‘m posting it on Weds instead. I listened to the cd by Clint Black because I own the CD but I‘m gonna get rid of it because I don‘t really care for the songs on it. I like his older music better. I skipped 3 songs because I wasn‘t in the mood for them: What Might Have Been, She‘s In Love With The Boy and Watermelon Crawl.