I just wanted to post this quick message that my laptop is mostly back in working order. The Boyfriend and I also moved into our new apartment, and most of the boxes have been unpacked. My new home isn’t perfect yet, and neither is my laptop. So while I’ll begin posting my Monday Minutes and #FitReaders posts again soon, I’m not ready to get back into the full swing of things quite yet. Besides finding new homes for the random objects I’ve been taking out of the few remaining boxes, and downloading and installing the kajillion updates for my laptop, I’m also dealing with a bit of a stomach bug. Either that or there was something wrong with last night’s dinner. Regardless, I’m taking it easy.
Tag: announcements
Technical Difficulties
If you follow me on Twitter, you may already know that I had to take my laptop to the shop to hopefully get fixed. It’s still in the shop. The Boyfriend gave me his old desktop computer, but it doesn’t have a wireless card and my “office” isn’t near enough to connect directly. That leaves me with my phone, but it’s beyond a pain in the rear to write blog posts on my phone, and I can just forget about adding graphics. Because of all that, I wasn’t able to do my #FitReaders check-in today, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to blog again. My laptop may not be fixable. So, until further notice, I’m on a blogging break, but please rest assured that I will be back! I’ve been going through withdrawals and I miss all of you since not having my laptop also means not being able to do much socializing, commenting, or blog reading the way I want to be able to do. Again, I will be back as soon as possible! TTFN!
Super Rad Announcement
I GOT A JOB!!!
Due to this, I’ve been celebrating with the Boyfriend and texting back and forth with friends and loved ones instead of writing today’s book review. I got the call first thing in the morning yesterday after I got home from my part-time job. My head has been somewhere in the clouds since I got that phone call, and my shoulders are back where they’re supposed to be, so I can only assume that they were anchoring my head while connected to my ears for the past month and a half of job hunting.
Anyway, my life is no longer on a semi-hold, and starting in two weeks I’ll be earning a higher salary than I was expecting to be offered right out of college, even with my work experience. I’ll also be doing something that I’ll (hopefully) enjoy, and the benefits are excellent. I’ve been doing a happy dance and randomly jumping up and down while simultaneously freaking the cat out with my exuberant behavior. I don’t think he knows what to do around me right now.
Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten that tomorrow is Harry Potter Book Night! I’ll be spending the day making sure that’s all in order, and everything is ready to go by 5 pm CST tomorrow 🙂 Until then…
College: I’m Done
Do you remember last year around this time? Those of you who have been reading my blog since back then know all too well my stress and anxiety about completing my degree. Guess what?! I took my last Final Exam today, and I went to school in my pajamas. Why? I graduate on Saturday, and so today was probably the last time I’ll be able to go out in public in my Cookie Monster pajama pants without it being completely inappropriate.
I’m still stressed out. I’m still anxious. But I’m done, and so I also have a sense of overwhelming elation. Perhaps it’s because I got about three hours of sleep last night and I’ve been up since 5 am, but I feel like laughing and crying and hugging random people all at the same time. I also feel like taking a nap. Several naps.
So, you might not hear from me until Sunday when I post whatever pics turn out decently enough from my commencement ceremony. Until then, thank you for joining me during this part of my life, and sticking with me even when I cut back on blogging. I should be able to get back to a more normal volume of posting next week.
Annoucement: Recent Changes!
This has been in the works for a couple months, but I finally went and bought a new domain, FortifiedByBooks.com. While my old domain (TheReadingWench.com) is still active, and will still get you to the blog for awhile, please update your bookmarks.
I’m also in the process of changing the design of my blog, and updating my various social media accounts, but my logo (as seen above) is staying the same. I will also be providing the same kind of content you’ve come to expect from me. This is still primarily a Fantasy genre blog since my reading tastes have yet to change.
Why am I making these changes? There is a Romance author who has been mistakenly tagging me as the reviewer of some of her books. That has led to a flood of other Romance authors sending me review requests without checking to see that I am not, in fact, a Romance reviewer, I’m not the blogger they all seem to be confusing me with, and they’re not even reading my review policy. While I have no problem with her, her blog, or the Romance genre, in general, I’m tired of being associated with all of that, and I’m sick of the spam. To me, it’s not about who owns the domain. It’s about my blog’s image and my image as a book reviewer.
I’m Back!
I got back home from New Orleans last night. Have you ever needed to recover from a vacation?
That’s how I feel right now, and that’s why there was no Monday’s Minutes post yesterday. However, I didn’t want to leave you hanging until I get back into the swing of “normal” life again, so below is what you’ve got to look forward to throughout this month.
- #FitReaders Check-Ins will continue as usual starting today.
- The Joy Luck Club Read-Along – the first recap will be posted this Saturday, and the sign up is still open!
- Uprooted review – I finished Uprooted by Naomi Novik last week before I left for New Orleans.
- Thursday’s Things #9
- The Vampire tour of New Orleans – As I mentioned in my Packing for New Orleans post, the Boyfriend and I came up with our own tour of New Orleans based on Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. While we didn’t get to see every place, we saw enough for me to write a whole post about it.
- My long weekend in the French Quarter – I’ll share the food we ate, the stuff we bought, and the non-vampire related places we visited or came across in our wanderings. It may end up being a two-parter, and it will definitely contain tips that will save you a lot of stress and money.
- The Never-Ending Anne Rice Reading Challenge
- Tuesday’s Tunes, Wednesday’s Words, Friday’s Fairy Tales – I’ve got a ton of great ideas so I’ll get these features written and posted throughout the rest of the month.
- RIP X – Vampires, Ravens, and Chthulu, oh my! I’ll be posting my RIP X related reviews.
- Harry Potter Discussion and Link Up – I’ll be posting the discussion post for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on the 30th. You could be featured, so be sure to get your HP related posts linked up before then!
Resolutions and Announcements
“New Year’s Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.” – Mark Twain
It’s New Year’s Day, so instead of “Thursday’s Quotables”, I’ve decided to let all of you know what changes I’ll be making for 2015!
First up are my resolutions for the year:
- In keeping with the challenges I’ve chosen to take up, I need to read at least 65 books by the 31st of December. At least 50 of those books will be those that I already owned as of yesterday, and 50 of them will need to be from Netgalley or Edelweiss. That means I will actually have to read 84 books, so that’s my “true” goal.
- I’m participating in #FitReaders. My goals for that are to start off the 1st week of the year with at least 1K steps per day, and then increase my total steps per day by 1K each week until I’m walking at least 12K steps per day during the 12th week. I’ll repeat the week if I don’t make the steps for that week before moving on to the next one. After that, I’m going to add some weight-bearing exercises and start either a cycling or jogging program, but that’s all dependent on my knees. The Boyfriend and I also have plans to do Hot Yoga, so I’m hoping to do that at least once a week.
- I have a bookmarks folder full of blog tips and tricks that I will attempt to clear out by the end of the year. This will probably mean some changes to the blog over time, but they may or may not be as noticeable as the changes I’ve listed below, since some of them have to do with my editorial calendar, writing schedule, and other behind the scenes stuff.
Now on to the changes I’ll be making to the blog:
- What I’m Reading Monday will now be called Monday’s Minutes.
- Tuesday’s Tunes and Things will be split up into Tuesday’s Tunes and Thursday’s Things. They will remain monthly features. On “off” weeks, I’ll be posting book reviews.
- Thursday’s Quotables will be moving to Wednesdays and will be called Wednesday’s Words.
- I’ll be adding a new feature called Friday’s Fairytales starting Jan. 9th. I’ve yet to decide if it will be a weekly or monthly feature.
- Saturdays will be for author interviews or other book related posts that don’t fit into one of the features; otherwise I’ll be taking the day off.
- Unless I’ve got something time sensitive and/or I just don’t want to wait to share it, I’ll be taking Sundays off.
What resolutions have you made? What are your thoughts on the changes I’ve mentioned, or is there anything you wish I would add or that you would like to see more often? Let me know in the comments!
Announcements!
Now that I’ve got a little bit more time on my hands, I’ve decided that I’m going to add a few features to this blog:
What I’m Reading Monday – I will detail what I’ve finished reading, what I’m currently reading, any DNF books, as well as my total pages read for the previous week, and the total number of books I’ve read for the year.
Wordy Wednesday – I will list the words, and their definitions, that I didn’t know from books I’m reading that week.
Thursday’s Quotables – This will be my favorite quotes from the books I’m currently reading.
In addition to these, I will also be adding a Reviews page which will list every book that I review, in alphabetical order, that isn’t a book on my Classics Club list. Each book on the list will be a link to that review. Also on the Reviews page will be information regarding review requests, but I haven’t quite figured out all the details for that yet.