I so meant to post this last Friday! Honestly, with everything that’s been going on in the world, it’s hard to know what day it is anymore. I hope everyone out there is staying well and doing what they can to stay healthy. We have been lucky so far that none of our family or any of my friends have gotten sick, although I do know that there are cases of COVID-19 in my town. It’s a scary time, especially when most of my family can’t stay home, despite the shelter-in-place order – we work in businesses that are considered “essential,” which means they stay open. It’s good that we don’t have to worry about finances like some people do, but it still makes me a bit nervous. Trying to take as many precautions as possible, but also know that A). there are reckless people out there who don’t care as much, and B). some things you just can’t completely avoid. I guess all I can do is keep doing my best to be careful.

Let’s move on to some really good news, shall we! The blog had an amazing week last week, mostly due to getting featured by The Write Reads on Twitter! If you don’t already follow them, be sure to do so. They are a large group of book bloggers and feature posts every day by people in the community. They featured a review of The Demon King by Cindy Williams Chima that I wrote back in 2012 (not sure why they picked that one, it was a bit random, but cool) and my stats and site traffic for Thursday were triple what they usually are. Picked up several new followers, both here on WordPress and on Twitter (hello!), which is always fun. Now I just need to keep up with blogging again and not fall into another slump.

Speaking of slumps, I am still recovering from the big one I had when I lost my previous job, was out of work for a few months, and then adjusted to my new job and new work schedule. Last week felt pretty productive, which was awesome, and then getting featured by The Write Reads inspired me to keep it up even more. Since my reading is nowhere near the levels it was last year, I am officially dropping my GoodReads goal from 75 down to 50. Still a respectable goal, but a bit more realistic for where I am in my life right now. That might change, and if I exceed that goal, then yay! But I don’t want to burn myself out either, with reading or with blogging. That’s never good. So here is the blog schedule that I will be attempting to maintain for right now:

• Mondays: Chapter-A-Long with the Harry Potter series until I finish it. After that, I will try to decide whether or not to keep doing it with other books.
• Tuesdays: Teaser Tuesday with The Purple Booker and Top Ten Tuesday with That Artsy Reader Girl. Same as always, although I may not always have ten things in my top ten list. Depends on the topic.
• Wednesdays: WWW Wednesday with Taking On A World Of Words. I used to worry about participating in this feature if I didn’t finish any new books, but I’m going to stop worrying as much about that and just be honest if I had a rough reading week.
• Thursdays: This has typically been my day to post book reviews, unless a blog tour scheduled me for another day of the week. Right now I am not reading as many new books, since re-reads tend to help me get out of reading slumps, and there usually isn’t much point to re-reviewing a book that I’ve already reviewed here. As I read new books, I will post reviews on Thursdays. If I haven’t finished a new book, I have a list of old reviews that I’ve done on other websites that I will repost here as a #TBT post. I will probably also alternate between reviews and Nostalgic Reads posts, since I don’t plan on posting much on weekends anymore.
• Fridays: The last day of the week will continue to be home of the Weekly Wrap-Up (except for this one, because reasons). I may occasionally post a Nostalgic Reads post on Fridays as well if there isn’t much else going on to talk about.
• Saturdays and Sundays: Most of the time, unless something special is going on, I will not be posting on the weekends anymore. This is primarily because I have to write all my posts for the week over the weekend and schedule them to post because my weekdays are too insane right now.

This feels pretty good right now. Still blogging a lot, but not so much that I feel like I can’t keep up. I also want to try and keep up with the blogs that I follow, but honestly, I started following a bunch of you guys and it gets overwhelming at times. That’s why I am so grateful for everyone who takes the time to like and comment on my posts here. I don’t reciprocate nearly enough.

Much love to you all! Stay safe and stay healthy!

Categories: Weekly Wrap-Up