Tag Archives: books

An Unexpected Digital Cleanup (or Finally Getting A New Kindle)

Posted on August 12, 2022 | Comments Off on An Unexpected Digital Cleanup (or Finally Getting A New Kindle)

In June, I made my monthly challenge all about cleaning up my digital clutter. One of the things I never considered decluttering or organizing was my Kindle. I have a lot of e-books and the way I’ve organized them before was by author or book series. And I had no need to change that or go through the books I have and get rid of any. There are so many books I have gotten that I haven’t read in a while or that I haven’t read at all (I like to stock up when there are free e-book sales), but that was fine since I always had enough memory.

But like with so much of the technology I own, I used my Kindle until it was starting to really die and become unusable. My Kindle was almost 9 years old and was not holding a charge for more than a day or two and it could take 15-30 seconds to turn a page. So I knew it was time to finally upgrade and get a new one.

Fortunately, when my Kindle was dying it was about to be Prime Days so I knew I’d be able to get at least a little discount on a new one. I knew I wanted to get a new Paperwhite since that’s what I had before. And I didn’t want anything too crazy or fancy. I only use it to read on. But I do like buying the one that doesn’t put ads on the lock screen, so that is a little extra. I was looking at the different storage options, but then I realized how little storage there was on my old one, so I would be fine with whichever I ordered. So I got a little bit off of the one I ordered and because so many people were ordering Kindles that day, it was backordered and I had to wait over a month for it to get here.

But it did arrive just before my birthday and I was able to get it set up.

But I didn’t realize that I hadn’t updated the software on my old one so the new one looked very different. The way collections were done wasn’t what I was used to and I figured out quickly that I would need to make some changes to how I was used to organizing things.

And as I was figuring out what I wanted to do, I was looking at the books I had and noticed I was missing quite a few. And then it hit me, a lot of books I owned were originally for my Sony e-reader and I had to convert them to work for my old Kindle. But I had no way to convert them again since I didn’t have the original files. So I lost quite a few books when I got a new one.

After I worked on setting up new collections (which are now split into books I’ve read, books I need to read, library loans, books from Kindle Unlimited, and categories like that), I went through my old and new Kindles together and took some notes on what books I was missing. I started a new list on Amazon for e-books I was missing and that I wanted to rebuy when they were on sale. Most of these are books that are a part of a series where some of them made it onto my new Kindle and others did not. But as I was doing this, I also had to think about what books I really cared to get again.

E-books can get expensive which is why I usually get them from the library or Kindle Unlimited now. I don’t remember the last book that I paid for. Even though I do pay for the Kindle Unlimited subscription, I don’t consider those books I bought. And I only think of buying a book if it’s an author I really want to support and that I know I will want to read that book over and over again. It is a good thing I’m not spending money on e-books the way I used to, but it is weird to see how many I bought when I had my Sony e-reader compared to what came over to the new Kindle.

Doing a cleanup of books doesn’t really happen that often for me. I have done cleanups of physical books I own since those take up space, but I don’t think I’ve ever done a cleanup of the digital ones. And while I don’t love that I probably lost a hundred or so books, I know that I can rebuy the ones I really want and it’s ok to not have the ones I rarely read or didn’t worry about losing. It’s a fresh start with the new Kindle, and I know that I’ll be getting a lot of use out of it and will be reading hundreds or thousands of books on it!

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Reading About A Secret Life (or Time For Another Giveaway!)

Posted on February 9, 2021 | 2 comments

I’ve shared several times on here that I’m a big reader and huge book nerd. I love to read so much. I love being able to escape into another world or to learn more about something I don’t know much about. I do read a lot of fiction that tends to be more “chick-lit” style, but I try to keep my reading a bit varied. But I love all books.

And I love books even more when I know the person who wrote them! This hasn’t happened too often, but whenever it does it makes the book even better. And I recently had a chance to read an amazing book written by someone I have gotten to know recently!

I mentioned being on Brianne Davis-Gantt’s podcast in the past. I really enjoyed being on her podcast and I have loved listening to all of her episodes and learning more about her story. She has been so incredibly brave in sharing her sex and love addiction. I personally didn’t know much about this addiction before, but after hearing Brianne share her story, I understand it so much more now.

And I feel like sex and love addiction is likely the closest addiction to food addiction/binge eating disorders. For so many addictions, it’s easy to avoid things for the rest of your life. You don’t have to drink, do drugs, or gamble in order to get through life. I cannot avoid food for the rest of my life. And sex and love addicts have to confront their addiction if they do not want to live isolated and alone for the rest of their lives. The battle to overcome an addiction while facing it every day is something that not a lot of people understand. And even though it’s not quite the same as my issues, hearing Brianne’s story has helped me feel less alone.

So when I heard that Brianne was writing a book about a character overcoming a sex and love addiction, I knew I’d want to read it as soon as it came out! And I was lucky enough to be given an advanced copy of her book “Secrets of a Hollywood Sex & Love Addict” recently!

Brianne based this book on some of her experiences with her addiction and created a beautifully honest story. The main character, Roxanne, is flawed just like we all are. The character sees the flaws in herself and works on finding herself and who she wants to be. It’s not a self-help book, but it does feel like a mix of chick-lit that I normally read and some self-help. There are so many moments in the book that I felt inspired in my own journey with overcoming my eating disorder and felt hopeful that I will have similar breakthroughs in the future.

I already know that I’ll be reading this book again because it was a great read. While I did get lost in the story as I love to with books, I also was learning a lot and taking in so much information that I know I needed to hear. And I know there are more lessons in the book that I didn’t fully take in with the first read. And it seems like all the review’s Brianne has gotten so far have all said very similar things! Whether you are struggling with addiction and don’t want to feel as alone or want to understand what those dealing with addiction go through, this is an incredible book that everyone should read.

And I’m so excited that I was given the chance to give away a signed copy of “Secret Life of a Hollywood Sex & Love Addict”! You have multiple ways you can enter. You can comment on this post, you can follow different accounts on Instagram, and you can tweet about the giveaway! This giveaway is open to everyone 18 and older who lives in the US. I’ll be selecting a winner randomly on the 16th!

So make sure you enter and tell your friends to enter too! I can’t wait to hear what you all think about this awesome book! And good luck everyone in the giveaway!

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Gaining A Little Control In My Kitchen (or Continuing To Repeat Monthly Challenges)

Posted on November 4, 2020 | Comments Off on Gaining A Little Control In My Kitchen (or Continuing To Repeat Monthly Challenges)

For October, I challenged myself to find more simple recipes to have as easy meals I can make with little effort. I know that cooking for myself doesn’t have to be an elaborate production, but it’s felt like that for quite a while. And I know that in order to be more on top of my health, I need to be cooking for myself more often. I can’t just rely on delivery food and frozen dinners. But it’s been a struggle for me for so long.

I don’t know if I will say I was totally successful last month, but I think I made some really big steps forward. I wanted to have a few more easy recipes that I knew I could turn to, and I don’t know if I got as many as I would like. But I did add a few more that only require a little shopping. For example, I found a good chicken recipe that only really takes some chicken, the healthy type of cream of chicken soup, cream cheese, and Italian seasoning. While these are not things I normally have in my house, they are easy to get ingredients. And to put this meal together, it only takes about 15 minutes in my pressure cooker. The recipe says to serve it on pasta, but I had it with some broccoli mixed in and ate it by itself. It almost felt like a deconstructed pot pie.

I’ve also realized that it’s ok to use some frozen ingredients along with a little cooking to make a nice meal. My friend Tara sent me a super easy recipe. All it took was some frozen pepper pasta from Trader Joes and pancetta. Make the pasta as directed and cook up the pancetta and it’s almost like a pasta carbonara. I made this and added some peas to it (although I know I added too many peas) and it was really good! I don’t know if I’d use the pepper pasta again because it was a little too peppery, but it was still very tasty!

And even though my goal was to cook more, I also tried to find ways to make cooking easier or to find shortcuts. I know it’s super easy to boil water for pasta, but when I’m just cooking for me it takes a long time for the water to boil (sometimes I’m waiting over 10 minutes and it’s still not simmering). Pasta isn’t the healthiest thing to eat, but sometimes it’s the easiest thing and it’s healthier than ordering delivery food. So when I saw this microwave pasta cooker, I ordered it. I know that I don’t need it, but it’s nice to know I can make pasta super fast and without getting a giant pot dirty. And I know that it says you can cook other things in it as well, so I’m going to explore those options too.

While I didn’t get as many recipes added to my list of things I can pull together with minimal effort, I’m happy with the steps I did take and how much more comfortable I am with just looking around my kitchen and finding things I can pull together to make a simple meal.

And for November, I’m doing something I’ve already challenged myself to do in the past. I’m participating in NaNoWriMo again. But this time, I’m not working on my book that I’ve been working on the past few years. That book is pretty much done. I know that technically it might never feel done, but I feel very happy with where it is. I do have another chapter or two that I want to write with lessons about dating during a pandemic, but it’s not something I feel like I need to work on this year. This time, I’m working on a completely new book.

This time, the book I’m working on is fiction. It is also about online dating, but it’s a completely made-up story. I don’t want to share too much about it since I don’t have it outlined yet and it’s still just ideas, but it’s almost like a mystery/suspense book that has online dating as a way to move the story forward. I’ve had this idea in my head almost since I started writing the first book, but it’s only been a few notes that I’ve saved. Now, I’m trying to flesh out the idea and actually get some things written down.

This time, writing a book is different from the last book. I don’t have the entire story in my head. I don’t have real things that happened to me that I’m writing down. I’m making it all up and I don’t have much done at all. So I don’t know if I’m going to get to 50,000 words this time, but I’m going to try. But the main goal I have with NaNoWriMo is that I want to get a full outline done for this book. I do want to get as much written as I can, but I also know that there may be a time this month where I’m stuck and don’t know how to write the next chapter. So I’m lowering my goal a bit. But it would be nice if I surprise myself and am able to write almost a full first draft by the end of the month!

I’m excited to see what I can get done with writing this month. I think it will be a really good thing for me to do for so many reasons. This idea has been in my head for too long and it’s time for me to get it out in words. Also, this will be a good way to spend time each day. I need to work on being more productive and this will give me something to do every day.

I can’t wait to share with you all how it goes and I hope I have exciting news about how my writing goes by the time I write my update on this challenge!

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Working On My Reading List (or Thankful Again For The Library)

Posted on June 12, 2020 | Comments Off on Working On My Reading List (or Thankful Again For The Library)

When the Black Lives Matter protests started and the idea of working toward becoming anti-racist was talked about more and more, one thing people started to do was to create anti-racism resource lists. I shared links to a few of these lists last week. And I’m grateful that people took the time to create these lists so we could start working on our anti-racism education as soon as possible.

I started to watch video clips that were posted right away. And I quickly read many of the online articles that were shared. Those were easy resources to access and view. But I wanted to make sure I was reading books from the reading lists too. Ideally, I would have bought those books to support those authors. I know that is the best thing to do, but I really don’t have the money right now to do that. So the next best option for me was to get those books from the library.

And I think a lot of people had the same idea as I did because when I went to put myself on the waitlist for “White Fragility” (which was the book many people recommended to start with), I saw that it might be a while before I had a chance to read it.

But I think the library saw how many people wanted to read the e-book and they quickly bought more digital licenses for it. I got an email 2 days after putting myself on hold that the book was available. I am currently finishing another book I was already reading, but this is the next book that I will be reading and I have several friends also reading it that I can discuss things with.

The same day that I got off the waitlist for the book, I saw on social media that the library was posting about how they have added an on-demand social justice book section online.

There are so many books now that are available without having to put yourself on hold. I love that the library did this because not only does it help people read these books as soon as they want to but it prevents people from forgetting that they want to read them if they had to wait weeks or months before they were available. I do hope that reading anti-racism or social justice books isn’t just a trend or fad and people will always want to educate themselves, but I’m scared that in a few months people won’t be as passionate about the issue as they are now. So letting people read those books now (or listen to the audiobook version) is a really good thing.

I haven’t gotten any of the on-demand books yet since I am going to work through one book at a time, but I have been going through the reading lists and either putting myself on the waitlist or adding books to my wish list so I have more than just the ones that are on-demand available to me. I know that I need to read up on how to be anti-racist and I’m glad that the library has so many books for me to choose from.

If I feel like I need to re-read one of the books or take notes in them, I might buy one so I could do that. But for now, I’m just going to use the library for the resources they have for me and not use not being able to buy books as an excuse to not read them.

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A Bookcase Makeover (or A Free Upgrade To My Space)

Posted on February 6, 2020 | Comments Off on A Bookcase Makeover (or A Free Upgrade To My Space)

I’ve had said for a long time that I want to work on organizing my house more and making my space feel more like me. There are a lot of projects that I could do to accomplish that, but it’s overwhelming to think about everything I could do. I think because of that, I have avoided doing any of them. But I have had a feeling of needing to change things up for a long time.

I’ve slowly been making changing in my house to have nicer things or to make what I have work better for me. A lot of the changes are about getting rid of things that I might not need anymore. I’ve been selling things that I don’t use anymore to have a little extra money, but it’s not about raising money. But making $10 or $20 off of something I would just get rid of is nice. And there are a few things that I’d like to buy to add to the organization of my house that I could put that money toward.

But it’s always nice when I find something that costs nothing that makes my house feel so much more like me.

The bookcase I have in my room isn’t anything special. I think I bought it at Target or Staples and I know I bought it when I got my first apartment. So I’ve had it for over 16 years. It’s been with me in 3 different homes and it’s been in a few different places in my current house. I don’t love the bookcase, but it does the job and I haven’t felt motivated to get something new nor have I found one that I really want to get. I don’t want to replace it until I find something that I know will add to my space.

But the bookcase serves its purpose. I don’t have a ton of books, but I need to be able to store them and keep things organized. And for as long as I can remember, my books were organized in the same way. The very top shelf had my etiquette books and other types of self-improvement type books (more about style than improving my life, but still self-improvement). The very bottom shelf had all of my acting books. And the middle shelves had my other books. And each section was organized in alphabetical order. I figured that made sense and just went with it.

I couldn’t find a good picture of what my bookcase looked like before, but I did find this photo where you can see it a bit and it gives an idea of how I had things set up.

But even though this organizational method made sense, I didn’t like the look of it. I would love to have a library of beautiful books and have my bookcase look fancy. And the way that I had my books just looked too functional when it didn’t need to be that way. So from time to time, I would look at things online about how to organize a bookcase. I never really thought any of those ideas would work, but I still wanted to make a change.

For some reason, this past Monday I was struck with the need to change my bookcase. I figured I could try different organizational ideas and see which ones I liked. I didn’t think I would just work on it and be done with it, but I knew I needed to just start and go from there. So the first thing I did was take every single book off of my bookcase. And when doing that, I found a few books that I realized I don’t need anymore. I don’t think I got rid of any of my fiction books, but there were several acting and self-improvement books that were either outdated or that I hadn’t looked at once since I moved into my current house. All of those books went into a bad to donate (I didn’t want to sell them since donating them to the library or other places is better).

Once I got rid of some books, I started working on the first idea about how to organize a bookcase: organizing the books by color. I picked this first because I was so sure that I would hate it. Organizing books by color didn’t keep books together in a way that made sense. I still wanted to have some separation between my fiction and non-fiction books and if I just did all of the books of the same color together, that wouldn’t accomplish that. But I started to make piles around my room and found that I could still keep those 2 types of books separate even when I split them up by color.

I worked on putting the books back after making the piles, and I didn’t put them all upright. I did some of the books on the side which ended up making more room on my bookcase. And once I had the books in a place that worked, I added a few other things from around my house to fill in the empty space. And once I did that, I took a step back and realized that the idea that I thought I would hate ended up being exactly what I wanted to do.

It’s silly how my room feels so much more complete somehow just by moving around a few books. I didn’t make a huge change and almost everything is still in about the same place as they were before. But that small change put things into exactly where they should be and created the look that I didn’t know I wanted to find.

So many organizational projects require supplies or buying something to complete it. It’s nice when I can find something that is completely free and still makes me feel like I splurged on something!

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Adjusting Monthly Challenges (or Books And Happiness)

Posted on February 4, 2020 | Comments Off on Adjusting Monthly Challenges (or Books And Happiness)

Last month, I set a monthly challenge to only read self-help/improvement books. I really was excited about this challenge because I had so many books on my library list that I wanted to read. I thought I’d be able to go through a big chunk of that list and I started the challenge assuming it would be easy to do and I’d get it done.

Then, only a week into the month, I realized that this challenge might not be the right one for me. It was actually stressing me out to not have reading as an escape and I had to read something that wouldn’t make me have to think too much. I wasn’t sure what a new version of the challenge would be, but I was open to exploring other options. But this was before I started to feel horrible so I think my ideas just weren’t realistic for me. All the ideas that I was thinking about trying just didn’t happen.

What I did end up doing was spending one or two days reading a self-help/improvement book after completing a fun book. This ended up being once or twice a week so I did get quite a bit of reading done in the book I started working on. I think part of the struggle was how close to home the book I was reading was hitting me and it was tough to get through. I was taking everything in that I was reading and I had to take some time to let it sit. I didn’t want to start reading another chapter when I was still thinking about what I just read. So only reading a little bit at a time and then taking a break did end up working for me. That just wasn’t what I was planning on doing. But this routine is working for me right now and I plan on continuing it as I work through this book and hopefully as I read a few more books I have on my list.

I’m not declaring last month’s challenge a total fail because I did adjust things as I need them. That’s not something I normally do, but I am proud of myself for realizing I did need to do that in order to have a bit of success.

This month, I’m doing a challenge that I’ve told myself I needed to do for a while. It’s been a long time since my old therapist had me work on a happiness checklist. I’ve made some minor changes to the list, but for the most part, I have the same things on it that I’ve had since the beginning. And that’s just not working for me anymore. I need to take some time to find what makes me happy and what doesn’t and adjust the checklist accordingly. And in the past, when I’ve tried to change up what’s on the checklist, I don’t think I’ve taken enough time.

There are a few things on the list that are easy for me to decide that I want to remove. Either they aren’t important to me anymore or they are things that I don’t feel add to my happiness in life. For example, getting 10,000 steps is currently on my list, but I don’t really care as much about this anymore. I would love to be able to get 10,000 steps a day done, but that’s not always possible. When I’m extremely busy with work or I’m feeling nauseous, I know I won’t get my steps in. And I don’t want to stress about not getting that done just so it can be checked off when I don’t care.

But when it comes to what I want to add to the list, that’s a bit harder for me. There are some things that I think would be good on the list, but I don’t know if I want to have it as something I worry about getting done. So this month, I want to test out a few different ideas to see how doing them regularly affects me (or stresses me) and I also want to take notes on other things that make me happy or bring me joy. I might discover something I didn’t think about having on the list because doing it randomly made me so happy.

I’m not going to rush into making any final decisions about what I want on the list until closer to the end of the month, but I will play around with different list ideas and probably make some mock-up checklists to see if they feel right to me. Right now, I have 10 things on my list, but I don’t know if that is going to stay the same. I don’t know if I want to have way more than 10 or how low I want to go below 10. 10 seems like a good number, but it doesn’t have to stay there if I discover having 9 or 11 on the list works better for me.

Hopefully, at the end of this month, I will have a better idea of what I want my checklist to be. I might not have the final checklist idea, but I want to have at least some adjustments to it to reflect what makes me happy a bit more. And by having a better checklist, I hope that I can find ways to be happier more often and I will find the checklist as useful to me as it was when I started using it.

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Figuring Out A Plan For My Book (or I’m Not Sure What’s Next)

Posted on January 23, 2020 | Comments Off on Figuring Out A Plan For My Book (or I’m Not Sure What’s Next)

It’s been a little while since I finished the first draft of my book. I knew once I finished it that I was going to take some time away from it before I did anything else. Some of the stories about my dating were a little too fresh for me to be able to review what I wrote. And everything was still new in my mind and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to edit it too much. I did minor editing as I wrote each section, but I needed time away before I could look at it with fresh eyes to see what changes needed to be made.

And even though I wrote so much back in November, I have added stories since then. There have been a few dating situations where I knew I needed a section of my book about it. For example, I had a date last month where the guy thought the best way to fix his need to use a bathroom would be to unzip and pee on the sidewalk as we were walking. That one was so shocking that I didn’t know what to think. I just kept walking because I knew that was the end of that date. I didn’t even tell him I was done. I just kept going until I was sitting in my car. There was no way that the story wasn’t going to be in the book. It wasn’t the craziest date ever, but it’s up there. And it was the first date that I think I was truly speechless.

The main reason why I changed the format of my book to be all about life lessons was that I didn’t need to have a real ending for it. If it was a story of my dating history, I wouldn’t know how to end it until I found someone. But with it being about different lessons, I don’t have to necessarily have a happily ever after to feel like I can finish the book. Of course, I would love it if it did end that way. But I know that I can end it without that.

The next steps for the book are to edit it and then edit it a few more times. I’m pretty certain that I don’t have typos or crazy grammatical errors, but I know the stories aren’t perfect and they are probably a bit rambly (just like my blog posts are). I also probably have some stories that don’t make sense to someone other than me because I can fill in the gaps. So I want to not only edit it myself but have others read it to make sure they feel like it makes sense. Fortunately, I have several friends who have asked if they could read the book so I know I can get a lot of different opinions on if the book works.

But after editing it, I honestly have no clue what to do. I would love to get the book published because I think it is funny and entertaining and maybe a little educational as well. I really think I would have loved to have read a book with stories like mine when I got back into online dating. Plus, some of the lessons are things that I know my friends wouldn’t have thought of if they were in that situation. For example, the ways I am able to do a bit of searching to confirm my dates are telling me the truth about themselves are things that most of my friends have told me they wouldn’t have thought of doing. I would love to save someone from having to learn these lessons on their own and be able to date smarter after seeing my mistakes or issues.

I’ve also had friends who have told me I should turn my stories into a web series or something filmed, but I have never seen my book as a screenplay. I also don’t know how to write scripts so I think that is stopping me from thinking it could be a script. But I would prefer to focus on keeping it as a book and if something else happens from that, then I can figure it out from there. But the plan is to focus on keeping the book a book and seeing what can be done.

But this is where I am stuck. I don’t know how to try to get a book published or if I should look into self-publishing. I don’t know what the steps are to sell a book if I was able to do that. The entire publishing world is foreign to me and I am trying to not be overwhelmed by it. I did a little bit of research on what to do, but that was going a million steps ahead of where I am right now and it just became too much. So my only thoughts and plans are to work on the editing and then when that is done I will do the next thing. And I would love to know what that next thing would be without having to do the research, but I also know that I probably won’t have someone who comes to me telling me step by step what I need to do.

I’m going to try to start a bit of the editing process in the next month or two and then I guess I will just be figuring it out from there. And hopefully, when I get to the next step, I will have more updates I can share or I will have a better idea of what might come next.

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Thinking Of Changing Up My Monthly Challenge (or I Guess This Would Be A First)

Posted on January 9, 2020 | Comments Off on Thinking Of Changing Up My Monthly Challenge (or I Guess This Would Be A First)

I’m only 9 days into the month, but I’m already rethinking the monthly challenge that I set for January. I said that I wanted to have all my reading this month be self-help or self-improvement books. This challenge was something I chose because I realized I was behind in my more serious reading because I was enjoying my fun reading too much. I have gotten books that I know I need to read because they will teach me something I need to know but I just kept putting it off. I didn’t want to have that excuse anymore and I wanted to get through my book list. I knew I probably had enough to read for the month, but I also thought maybe this challenge would help me find more self-help books that I should read.

I really thought this would be a great challenge for me. I knew it might not be easy because I do like to have some fluff reading in my life, but the idea of a challenge is to push myself. And I thought this would be a good push and that I would be able to do it.

But 9 days later, I’m thinking that this might not have been the best challenge for me.

Reading has always been one of the ways I relax and escape. I love getting lost in a good book and getting sucked into a story. It’s something I do every night when I’m getting ready to go to bed. And even though I can read something serious or intense when winding down for the night, it’s not the only thing I want to read. I need to have some of that entertainment and escape from time to time. Sometimes I have a stressful day and all I want to do before going to sleep is to have something easy to read that will calm me down a bit.

And I have had some of those stressful days the past few days. It’s nothing horrible, but I haven’t been calm and relaxed when I was trying to sleep. And I continued to read the self-help book that I started this month as my bedtime reading, but it just was starting to stress me out a bit more. The book isn’t about anything crazy, but it is something that is making me think a lot and that keeps me up later when I already can’t quiet my mind about everything I dealt with during the day. I pushed through when I could, but on Tuesday night I had a bit a breakdown and realized I just needed to switch up my books and read some fluff.

And honestly, reading that fluff that night was exactly what I needed to do. I was able to be a lot calmer as I fell asleep and I slept a lot better that night. I know that things haven’t been completely normal for me lately, but I still felt so guilty that I had already failed my monthly challenge. I hate knowing that I won’t be able to be successful in what I set out to do.

And I let that feeling sit with me for a day before I realized that I didn’t have to make this challenge a fail. I could change what the challenge would be. There’s nothing that says I can’t change the challenge if I realize that this isn’t going to work for me. And this might be a good opportunity to change it to fit what I need the challenge to be. I’m still playing around with what I would want the new version of the challenge to be, but I’m thinking about making a list of the top 3 or 4 self-help books that I want to read this month and making the challenge completing the list. I’m not sure that’s what I want the new challenge to be, but it gives me a starting point for reworking it.

I’m glad that I was able to change my mindset and not think of this as a failure of my monthly challenge but an opportunity to find a better way to challenge myself. But it still bugs me a bit that I wanted to push myself to do something that I knew would be hard and I wasn’t able to do it. I know I’m very competitive with myself and that’s probably something I need to work on. But I can’t help thinking that I can accomplish any goals that are within my control. But I guess it’s a sign of growth that even though I have those feelings that I was still able to reframe it and make the situation a bit more positive.

I’m going to take the rest of this week to figure out what my new version of the monthly challenge will be, but I probably won’t be posting about it again until I do my challenge recap. I don’t think I will need to change it more than once, but I also want to give myself permission to do that if I need to.

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First Monthly Challenge Of The Year (or Setting Up For The Year And Self-Improvement)

Posted on January 3, 2020 | Comments Off on First Monthly Challenge Of The Year (or Setting Up For The Year And Self-Improvement)

As I have done for several years, I am using a Volt Planner to work on my goal setting for the year. And that includes the monthly challenges that I’ve been doing every year I’ve had the planner. When I started using it, I think I was a bit more successful with the monthly challenges. Maybe I was doing easier challenges or maybe it was the novelty of it. But in the past year or so, I haven’t been completing them as much as I used to. I don’t know what I can do to change that, but I’m going to try hard to pick challenges that push me but are doable.

And my challenge for December was one that I was able to be successful with. I wanted to spend my month getting prepared for this year. A lot of that meant getting organized because I know a cluttered space makes things more chaotic for me. I did get a lot of organizing done with different spaces in my house. It’s not a completed project, but it’s significantly better than it was before. I also wanted to be in a better mental place for the new year and I feel like I was finally able to release some negative feelings and people from my life. I didn’t do anything special to do that, but I did make a focus on why I was dealing with those feelings and somehow they faded away. Maybe I just needed to acknowledge them and that allowed my brain to know they were there and I didn’t have to think about it more. I still have a few things that bring me down that I want to let go, but just like my organizing, it is a work in progress. But the most important thing is that I got started on the right path and I know it will be better for me.

Going along with the idea of being ready for the year and in a better mental place, my January challenge will be another one that hopefully will put me in a better space. My challenge for this month is to only read self-help and self-improvement books. I usually do a mix of self-help/improvement books with fiction or fluff books. Lately, I’ve been neglecting the non-fiction books and I’ve just been reading things that make me happy or are an escape. But I want to get back into the habit of changing up what I read and I want to catch up on books that I’ve been putting off.

I have several books on my Kindle that are self-help/improvement ones that I bought when they were super cheap and told myself that I would read them soon. So I already have lots of books to choose from. I don’t know if I have enough to read to get through the entire month, but if I need more I know I can get some e-books from the library. I have been putting some books on my wishlist that would be good options. I usually buy these books instead of getting them from the library because I like to take my time reading them. But I think that reasoning isn’t the best one. I can always get something from the library to make sure I like it and then if I want more time with it I can buy it. My book purchasing habit is significantly less than it was before, but I do want to find more ways to save and this is one way. Fortunately, I’m pretty sure all the books I bought are ones that I will like so I’m not too worried that I wasted money.

Since I read every day, I know I’ll get a lot of reading done this month. And since I will only be reading books that fit into this challenge, I feel very good that I can be successful at it. I will need to resist the temptation to read something silly as a break, but maybe I can find a self-help/improvement book that isn’t as serious or intense to read if I need that mental break. But challenging myself to not go easy on me is a part of this challenge that I want to try to do. I know that I can try to do something hard but I want to prove that I can complete what I set out to do. And hopefully, that will give me the boost I need to keep pushing through future challenges if they seem too hard to do.

I’m excited to work through this challenge this month. Not just for proving to myself that I can do it, but also to see what I will learn from what I read. I know that I will learn something from every book I read even if it’s not exactly the perfect book for me or my situation. And those things I learn can only benefit me in my life.

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I Actually Wrote A Book! (or Getting Myself Ready For 2020)

Posted on December 3, 2019 | Comments Off on I Actually Wrote A Book! (or Getting Myself Ready For 2020)

Last month, I did a repeat monthly challenge. I’ve attempted to write my book about online dating for several years now and I’ve never been able to complete that challenge. I knew going into it this past month that even if I complete the challenge it doesn’t necessarily mean that I finish a book. But I wanted to see what I could get done and I was hoping it would be better than my past attempts.

I had changed what my book was going to be about when I thought about it earlier this year. Instead of just telling stories about dates I went on and guys I met, I wanted to organize it into lessons I’ve learned through dating. This allowed me to work on the book without figuring out where things were going or needing to have an ending to it. This book has the potential to be a work in progress with new chapters for a while, so I didn’t want to have to feel like I needed a way to wrap things up. And by making it more about life lessons got me into that mindset.

I was following the NaNoWriMo plan again this year as I had in the past. I knew that I might have some days where I wrote more words than I needed to and other days would be fewer words. My goal was to work on one lesson (or one chapter) a day. And while I had done a lot of research and planning, I knew I would need to plan more lessons during the month because I wasn’t going to have enough. It wasn’t always easy, but I figured out how to split things up differently and new lessons to add so I had enough to work on one a day. And on Saturday, the last day of the month, I made it to the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words!

Writing this book ended up being very therapeutic for me. I had to work through some things that I didn’t realize I wasn’t completely over. I had to revisit some moments that are not positive or that I am ashamed or embarrassed about. I had to be brutally honest with myself as I wrote things because I’m not always the hero of the story. Every day that I worked on the book, new emotions came up but at the same time, I found new peace with some things as well. I didn’t realize how much I needed to write this book for me.

Since I know this is still a work in progress, I don’t want to say that I finished a book. There are still things that may change about it, but I have a full draft of the book as of right now. And I want to start working on the editing process on the chapters I have completed so far. I have several friends who have offered to read it, but I don’t know if I’m ready for that just yet. I can do some editing on my own first and that’s what I plan on doing. Hopefully, soon I will feel ready to share it with some friends for some feedback and editing. And then after that, I can do some more research on what it would take to get my book published in the future.

For this month, I wanted to do another reflective monthly challenge. Not only is this the last month of the year, but it’s also the last month of the decade. That seems monumental and made me think about how I started this decade. I was in the middle of a lot of change and it was a very chaotic time for me. This decade hasn’t always been the best, but I think that I’m in the best place I’ve ever been in with my life so far. And I want to continue doing that into the next decade (and beyond).

So my plan for this month is to spend the time preparing to kick off the new year and new decade as my best self. I want to work on being in the best place I can mentally and working toward the best place physically. And some of the mental work includes working on my physical space, which is something I have been working on lately. I’ve been cleaning up my house and getting it more organized. I’ve been working on finding new ways to store things so my space doesn’t feel as cluttered. It’s been a process, but I’m feeling much better about how my house looks now.

I need to do some serious organizing work with my kitchen and it feels right to do that before the new year. I want to find ways to use my kitchen more and more efficiently. I also have a plan to do some food reaction testing soon and I need to have my kitchen in a good place to do that the best I can. I’m also looking at other things around my house that I want to change because I have lived here for almost 10 years now and some things are things I got when I moved here. I think updating my space after 10 years seems right.

I’m so excited that I’ve finished my first draft of my book (so far) and that I’m in such a good headspace for the new year. Now, I just want to make sure I’m continuing to work on those things so I can kick of 2020 with a bang!

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