We're starting a new year, which means looking back on the past year. And while I realistically should have written this post yesterday, I was far too busy making and eating a bunch of junk food to be bothered with that. So let's look back on my year, shall we?
In 2024, I quit my job at the bakery outlet with nothing new lined up at the time. A friend and co-worker was looking for another job with benefits at the same time I was, and I knew that if she found another job and I was still there, I would feel obligated to stay until her replacement was hired and trained and I'd probably find other reasons to put off getting another job because I was comfortable there. But I'm not a spring chicken anymore, and need to be in a job with benefits as well. And my husband was on board with me being a kept woman for a while as I looked for an office job. I was fortunately only out of work for about two months before I landed a position as an administrative assistant/personal assistant (there's some serious line blurring in my position that makes it hard to categorize exactly) at a local sewing manufacturing business. Then I had three weeks to learn enough of the job to basically do it all for a week while the boss and marketing director were out of town for a trade show. It was incredibly nerve-wracking, but I did it, and fairly well I think. Not perfectly, but well enough. The biggest benefit of this new job though, I just had almost two whole weeks off work for Christmas because the business just shuts down for the holidays as things slow down. Half of the time off was unpaid and I didn't have any PTO really built up yet as I just started at the end of October, but it's mostly fine and I've enjoyed the time I had off completely guilt-free.
In 2024 I also finally got all my books back on my bookshelves where they belong (well all my books that are coming out of boxes. I have a lot of early reader type books that are just staying boxed up for now until I decide if I'm keeping them or not, because no one in my house is reading them anyway). At back to school night for my daughter, I found out that she apparently loves to read, which was news to me because she doesn't do it at home. But that's led to me trying to figure out what types of books she's into as I certainly have books on my shelves she would enjoy. We've also taken trips to Barnes and Noble for her to pick out some new books for her to read that are both more and less age appropriate at the same time. She'd been reading very simplistic books for a 13 year old, but she picked out books like Bride by Ali Hazelton and Birthday Girl by Penelope Douglas. I'm aware of the content, but if that gets and keeps her reading, I'm all for her reading them.
I ended 2024 in 9 book clubs, which included losing one in the middle of the year. And I'm thinking about starting a neighborhood book club bringing me up to a round 10 book clubs. I think my husband would be on board, because if I'm hosting book club meetings at my house, I'm also going to have to keep the first floor looking presentable. But in the last two months of the year, I started to struggle to keep up with the reading for my 9 book clubs, although some of that had to do with the holidays throwing wrenches into things left and right with meetings being scheduled at different times than normal, and much closer together than they usually are. I have four book club meetings this coming weekend in fact, and two of them are the December meetings for those clubs. I've already read one of the books though, and had started another before it was even selected for the book club, so I should be fine. I've got the rest of today off work to read too, once I finish a couple more blog posts at least.
In 2024, I read 209 books, and only 34% of my books were audiobooks, which is what I was aiming for. I'd started out the year with a real even split between physical, ebook, and audiobook, but that got skewed along the way. I don't mind that it wasn't a 33/33/34 split so much as long as the audiobooks only account for 1/3 of the reading. And that is not to throw shame on people who read audiobooks, I just want to use my eyeballs more for my reading than my ears.
I got back into blogging this past year, and although I still have a massive review hole I need to claw my way out of, I made some decent moves in that direction. I have fewer chapter book reviews to write than I read in 2024, although I am still writing reviews for a few books I read at the very tail end of 2023 too, so I need to get those knocked out for sure, and I will, I'm definitely working on it at least.
So what do I want to accomplish in 2025? I think obviously I want to get caught up on my review writing, and in theory, I should be able to accomplish that, but I imagine life will get in the way again at some point. As long as I have fewer than 172 books to review (and none from 2023) by the end of 2025, I'll be happy.
Other things I'd like to do this year include reading one non-fiction book a month as well as reading one of my absolutely oldest Netgalley books each month. I've had some books from Netgalley for an entire decade now and I need to start rectifying that in a serious way. I'm also hoping to post two book reviews per day (one chapter book and one children's book), and I could potentially do that for the entire year if I can maintain my reading speed from 2024. But if I don't maintain my reading speed, then I just want to post the 2 reviews per day until I get caught up on my reviewing, which would also be a major win.
Finally, I'm hoping to get my Netgalley feedback percentage above 50% and keep it there. Reading and reviewing children's books every day will definitely help me in that goal, but I don't want to count on children's books completely as it lowers the motivation to read the other books I have through Netgalley. So we shall see how things go there. For transparency, I'm starting the year at 32% feedback with 965 approvals total, if you wanna do the math to see just how deep my hole is.
And I think that's pretty much it for my life and blogging update. I may try to do more smaller life updates throughout the year again, or I may decide I just don't have the time with all the other things I'm wanting to do. Only time will tell. - Katie
