My back decided to flare up last weekend, so I spent Sunday and Monday doing basically nothing. I then struggled to find the energy to do anything beyond going to work for most of the week. I had a friend over on Thursday to help me get caught up on packing. Then I did some more packing on Friday while I waited for my groceries to be delivered ahead of the Winter storm that is supposed to be starting this evening. I haven’t gotten much done all day thanks to my neck flaring up and causing my hands to go numb on and off since early this morning. The stress of moving combined with very low temps are really doing a number on my body, so I’m doing my best to just rest and have faith that I’ll get everything packed in time.
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I had very little energy this week and didn’t do much of anything other than use another of my remaining Audible credits. I didn’t even have the energy to read much more than a few pages several days this week and went to bed early instead. I’m hoping that I’ll finish at least a couple of my current reads over this long weekend, though. I have Monday off from work for the holiday, and while I’ll mostly be packing, I plan on taking plenty of rest breaks for reading.
What are you reading? Let me know in the comments!
I finally finished my first book of the New Year. While I’m reading for at least 90 minutes every day, I’m also reading multiple books, as usual, so 2026 is off to a slow start.
My number of books also went up by one because I used a couple of my Audible credits. I won’t be renewing my Audible subscription this year since I had planned on canceling it last year but renewed after I was offered a significant discount I didn’t want to pass up. However, I have far too many audiobooks that I still haven’t listened to, and I’m not happy with Amazon’s business practices in regards to authors, so this is definitely the final year. I also have a Libro.FM subscription that I have paused for three months. At that point, I will decide on whether I will keep it or cancel it until I use up those credits and actually get through a significant number of the audiobooks I already own.
While getting through my audiobook collection won’t reduce the number of physical books I own, nearly all of those books are now packed up, with the exception of a basket of books I want to read over the next few months. Other than those, I won’t be reading any of my physical books until I’m settled in a place where I can fully unpack. Hopefully that will be by June.
What are you reading? Let me know in the comments!
I managed to finish one last book before the New Year, bringing my total books read in 2025 to 104. I’m setting my reading goal for 2026 fairly low because I really want to focus on reading what I’m in the mood to read instead of picking shorter books. However, I’ve added a new goal of reading for a total of 90 minutes every day. Over the last few months of the year, I noticed that I wasn’t reading much after I got home for work. Instead, I was scrolling on my phone or bingeing TV. I want to return to quiet evenings with a book and a mug of tea after dinner. I already know from first-hand experience that doing that helps me.
I gave myself permission to buy some books for my Birthday. I was only supposed to buy one, but I ended up buying 4 physical books (1 of them is used) and an ebook.
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Yule was quiet and wonderful, just how I wanted it. Spending Christmas Eve alone was difficult, but I made myself a giant mug of hot chocolate and a bowl of popcorn, and watched my favorite Christmas movie, “Mickey’s Christmas Carol.” After that, I settled in on the couch with Wolf Winter, my cats, and a big mug of tea. Christmas morning was also a bit difficult, but I’m glad I had plans to have a late lunch with a friend, as that helped me a lot.
I did next to nothing yesterday, and at first I felt guilty about that. Then I realized that I haven’t had any real time off from work just to relax since March. Any time off I’ve had since has been either only a day off in which I ran around trying to catch up on everything or because I was sick, injured, or dealing with something stressful. So, the only productive thing I did all day was to set up my 2026 Reading Tracker.
In addition to doing another year of my #ShelfLove reading challenge, I’ve decided to try the Reader’s Gauntlet:
I will be doing this challenge on “Easy mode,” and even then I have no idea how well I’ll do, but my only real goal for this challenge is to have fun by gamifying my reading. What I like about this challenge is that it’s not entirely made up of specific reading prompts. I’m too much of a mood reader to succeed at those challenges, unless they’re very short-term seasonal ones, and even then it’s iffy. Instead, just about every book I am likely to read will fit into the Reader’s Gauntlet somewhere, and the real challenge for me will be to fill in the “blanks” as I go along, similar to unlocking an achievement in a video game. That sounds like a lot of fun!
Over the remaining days of 2025, I’ll be doing my best to finish all of my current reads so that I’m starting 2026 fresh.
What are you reading? Let me know in the comments!
I’ve accepted the written agreement to break the lease! I’m glad I saved all of the boxes and packing materials from my move. I’m also going to be doing another round of decluttering so that there won’t be as much to move, though I still have far more books than anything else.
I also talked to a realtor this week, and I’m going to take the steps to get pre-approved for a mortgage next week.
Beyond that, I’m doing my best to stay in the holiday spirit. Only having to work for two days next week is definitely helping with that. I have plans to celebrate Yule tomorrow by having a quiet day at home and then making and eating a nice dinner. I was going to have that dinner on Christmas, but I’ll be getting together with a couple of friends for Chinese food that afternoon instead. The following week, I only have to work three days and then I’m off until the 5th, and I’m greatly looking forward to all of the rest I’ll hopefully get between now and then. After that, my life is going to get very busy again as I declutter, pack, and start looking at condos with my realtor.
What are you reading? Let me know in the comments!
After Thanksgiving, I took the first step to legally break my lease by sending a certified formal demand letter to the apartment management. They sent the maintenance supervisor over on Wednesday to inspect the walls that I share with the neighbor. He said he couldn’t figure out how the smoke smell was coming into my bedroom, but he found a huge hole behind my dishwasher and other gaps and cracks along the wall in the kitchen cabinets. He got all those sealed, but the next day I got an email from the manager offering to allow me to break the lease with no penalties! I’m assuming the supervisor noticed something that isn’t easily fixable, likely expensive, and maybe out of code, so they’d rather let me out of the lease instead of me taking them to court.
I met up with my ex today to talk about it, and we’ve agreed that, assuming I accept their written agreement to break the lease, I will move into his guest house instead of renting another apartment. That way I’m not stuck in another year-long lease and I can start searching for a condo or small cottage-style house to buy. While that means I’ll be moving a total of three times in less than a year, it will still save me quite a bit of money in the long-run.
Speaking of saving money – I’m going to do another #ShelfLove challenge next year, as part of a Low-Buy year. While I didn’t spend nearly as much money this year on books as I have in previous years, I was not frugal about much else. I think that was largely an emotional response to my very practical decision to not leave my full-time job. Given everything that has happened since July, I’m very grateful that I didn’t quit, but I spent an embarrassing amount of money on stuff, and oddly enough, I don’t have much to show for it. I didn’t go into debt, but since I am saving up to buy a home (I currently have about half the money I need for a down payment), I’m going to cut as much of my spending on things as possible and put as much as I can into savings.
What are you reading? Let me know in the comments!
My apartment flooded again; this time because of a roof leak. I had a cloth basket full of books on the floor where the water came in. Luckily, only three of them got ruined, and even more importantly, none of them were the library books I had in a tote right next to the basket. The only good news concerning my apartment is that the neighbor has stopped smoking inside, at least for now. Hopefully, for good.
I went to a Holiday market near where I live today, and one of the vendors was selling Blind Dates with a Book. I’ve decided to not open the one I got until Christmas.
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I think this is the lowest number of pages I’ve read in a week this year. My Thanksgiving morning started out wonderfully. I made myself a good breakfast, since I knew I wouldn’t be eating again until much later in the day, and I watched “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.” However, my neighbor started smoking weed very heavily and I decided, as a last ditch attempt to get the smoking indoors to stop, to go next door and beg my neighbor to please stop smoking. I really thought that would work, but I got the exact opposite reaction from what I was expecting. She started screaming at me and followed me back to my door as I tried to get away from her. Luckily, I was able to get inside and lock the deadbolt before she reached me. Just as I was starting to calm down, she came over and began banging on my door, ringing the doorbell, and screaming through the door. She eventually left, after I told her through my doorbell camera that I would call the cops, and soon after that, I left (walking the long way around to my car so I wouldn’t have to walk past her apartment) and I went to a Bob Evans near where I live to have Thanksgiving dinner.
I, of course, reported everything to the apartment management in an email, but didn’t get a response. I’m not sure if that’s because they’re not bothering to do anything about it or perhaps they didn’t open the office on Friday. Regardless, I took the next step by talking to an attorney, and we’re working on legally breaking the lease so I can move out. Knowing that this ordeal will be over with one way or the other within a couple of months gave me enough mental breathing room to shift my focus to all that I’m grateful for instead of the negative. For instance, I’m grateful I had the energy last weekend to put up my doorbell camera, and I’m grateful that Bob Evans restaurants were open on Thanksgiving, giving me a warm, safe, and comfortable place to enjoy some good food. I’m grateful that, despite all of the issues, I have a place to live, and two amazing fur babies who demand lots of snuggles now that the weather has turned icy and gloomy. And I’m grateful for my tea kettle and blankets and books, especially my Christmas books! Oh, and the very long list of Christmas movies for me to watch this year.
I know that my reading will pick up through the rest of the year, and I’m grateful for that, too.
What are you reading? Let me know in the comments!
I’m not doing well. I definitely overdid it by going to the zoo last weekend and ended up having to take three days off from work. On top of that, the neighbors continue to smoke in their apartment and my cough won’t go away, which is keeping my back from healing. The management’s response to my complaints was to schedule a duct cleaning for my apartment and not inform me about it until 30 minutes prior to their office closing for the weekend. They scheduled the duct cleaning for Monday, and I have no way of getting that time off from work to be there.
The one bright side of this is that I had a lot of time to read while I was stuck at home. While I’m still not listening to any audiobooks right now, I did make my #BookSpin list for December, which includes several audiobooks, in an attempt to get me excited for Christmas. I haven’t posted it to Litsy yet so here it is:
What are you reading? Let me know in the comments!
