Thinking About 2013

Wow … I can’t believe that I actually just typed “2013” into the title of this post! It seems unreal. It seems like just yesterday it was turning into 2012. It also doesn’t feel like I have a 6 month old son – but I do 🙂

It’s always this time of year when I start reflecting back on what I have accomplished in the current year and trying to figure out what I want to accomplish in the upcoming year.

So … as of today, I sit at 31 books read for the year. That’s not too shabby in my opinion. I mean, I did give birth in May. And honestly, I have actually read more books after Garrett was born than I did while I was waiting for him to arrive! Crazy, right? Not really when I think about it – I had a really bad case of pregnancy brain! I couldn’t concentrate on anything!

In 2012 I signed up for 3 reading challenges. Only one of them (Mystery & Suspense) I was able to successfully complete. The other two I made good progress, but I won’t be able to finish them completely. That’s okay though, I’m pleased as to where I am overall.

So what is it that I want to do with my reading next year? Well, I need to read off my shelves. I have been seriously contemplating putting my Bookmooch and Paperbackswap accounts on vacation for the first quarter of 2013. I have a gazillion books on my shelves simply because I cannot keep myself from requesting more books from those sites. I think what I will do is put my accounts on hold and only open them back up to send out books that I know are on other people’s wish lists. I need a serious break from bringing books into this house!

I have already seen quite a few reading challenges that I am really interested in signing up for next year. I need to control myself on that front as well. And I’ve taken on more than a few review books for next year as well. I’m going to have to reign myself in on those requests too so that I don’t get too overwhelmed on review books.

So what do I really want to accomplish? Well, obviously I really want to concentrate on books that I have on my shelves. I’d really like to concentrate on getting some of my series’ caught up. I only have a ton of series that I follow and I hate not being able to read the latest one because I’m so far behind in the series. If only I weren’t so addicted to book series, lol.

There have been many times in the past year that I have seriously considered hanging up the blog. January 1st, 2013 will see me into my 5th year of blogging. I don’t have near the time to commit to it anymore. I very rarely even turn my computer on, and it’s challenging to update with my iPad. I’m also not reading as much as I used to. I was posting anywhere between 1 and 3 book reviews a week. Now I’m lucky to finish 3 books in a month! I sometimes feel as if my blog is full of nothing but memes – and that’s not what I want for this blog, I want it to have meaning – not just posts to have a post up. The blogging community has changed so much lately – things are so competitive and petty. It’s like high school all over again – and trust me, I so do not want to go back there again. It’s just not the same as it was. Either that or I’m just starting to outgrow it. It probably also doesn’t help that for the past 4 years I have kept this blog a secret from everyone I know except my husband. No one else in my real life even knows I have this – I’ve always been to shy/embarrassed about it. It’s not something that I want to share with people I know in real life. And that upsets me, it makes me feel as if it might not be something I should really be doing. However, I worked hard to get the followers that I have and the contacts that I have with various publicists. I would almost hate to throw it all away, but really, my interest is dwindling quickly. I thought that when I bought my own domain name this year I would feel more energized and confident in my blog. And it helped – and actually, I’ve gotten a lot more interest in review requests since doing it – but, I’m still not where I really want to be with everything. I think where I’m going with this is that I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be keeping up with this blog. Sometimes I just want to take it all offline and keep a paper journal. I miss things like paper and pens. For a while I tinkered with the idea of keeping both, but I’m just not sure that I would have the time to do both of them.

I’m just so unsure as to where I really want to go with this blog. I know I will miss a lot of good people who I’ve met through this blog if I do indeed decide to close up shop. But my faithful readers know that I’m so fickle in two months time I might be back on the bandwagon and having a blast with it again, lol. Don’t delete me off your Google reader just yet 🙂

Either way – my ultimate goal in 2013 is to just have fun and read some good books.

How about you – what are your 2013 goals?