What A Year - Happy New Year!

Photo by Jill Wellington from Pexels

Hello my fellow bookworms!

What a year it has been. I cannot believe today is the last day of 2022 - it feels like it just started! This year for me has been full of many, many changes. Some positive, others not, but overall, it was full of personal growth and I am definitely in a better place than I was last year.

Where to begin? Last year I aimed to read 25 books for the new year, as I am now in school (again). I was able to meet this goal, and I hope to do this again next year! My new job requires more reading, and hopefully I can challenge myself to read more outside of my preferred genres, so it is a good goal to keep all around. :) 

My books this year included a book for a formal book discussion (The Maid by Nita Prose) and a creepy recommended comic book series (Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez). The longest book was Crave by Tracy Wolff, totaling 592 pages! My average book length was 212 pages and my average star rating on Goodreads was 4.3 out of 5 stars. Here are my top 7 books from this year, in no particular order:

• The Girl Who Fell Beneath The Sea by Axie Oh
  
• Becoming Alpha by Aileen Erin
• Across the Desert by Dusti Bowling
• The Upside of Falling by Alex Light
• Two Parts Sugar, One Part Murder by Valerie Burns
  
• The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller
• Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
  

Other goals I would like to achieve include participating in some sort of research for my degree / school, continue with my courses (and maybe even doing more than my current pace!), starting up a workout regimen, cut down on my materialistic spending (have to stop spending money on those unneeded purchases, including too much coffee!), and to perhaps open up an Etsy shop. This past month I hosted a craft class at my work with perler beads and had fun learning about the things I could do beyond the basics, including some book-related themes. If I can make it work, I will post the link for you guys to take a look!

Photo by Markus Winkler from Pexels

I would also like to brush up on my computer skills and learn new things, especially with the upgrades to Windows and everything else that keeps on updating. I just learned that Microsoft has a free "coding" program for those interested, called Microsoft MakeCode, which is a good start to understanding how code actually works and can be a basis for learning actual code! I hope to learn more coding for the upcoming makerspace that my local library is going to have this upcoming year. I cannot wait!

What are your goals for the upcoming year? Share them with me in the comments!

Before I leave you, I want to remind you to unite against book banning and support your local libraries and make a simple change by checking out this video here from author Dav Pilkey, creator of Captain Underpants!

Happy New Year and happy reading! :)