Reading Challenge for 2013
So, I’ve settled on 50 books as my goal for 2013. So far, I’ve read 4 books and I’m ahead of schedule. I’ve added a widget that shows my progress. The widget is from Goodreads. If you aren’t a member of Goodreads and you love to read then I strongly suggest you take a look at it. It’s a great way to keep track of the books you’ve read, and books you want to read. You can create bookshelves to organize your books or just do I like do and stick to the default three bookshelves: to-read, currently reading, and read.
The four books I’ve read so far this year are:
- The Lying Game (Lying Game #1) by Sara Shepard
- Never Have I Ever (Lying Game #2) by Sara Shepard
- Two Truths and a Lie (Lying Game #3) by Sara Shepard
- The Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman
I’m currently reading
- Hide and Seek (Lying Game #4) by Sara Shepard
Achievement Unlocked: 37 books in 2012!
Okay, so maybe my 30 days of blogging didn’t go as I had planned. Two days in a row and then nothing for weeks. LOL, that’s what I get for trying to take on a blogging challenge during the holidays. Maybe next year I’ll set myself a more reasonable long term goal – like one post per week. I think I can handle that.
So, do you want to know what I’ve been up to since I haven’t been blogging? Well work and family and holiday obligations of course, but also a little bit of World of Warcraft and lot of reading. I set myself a goal of 36 books for the year 2012 (3 books per month). I know it’s not a lot but for someone with a family, a full-time job, and a part-time job – that’s a lot. Anyway, I have reached and exceeded my goal! I have currently read 37 books this year and I’ll probably be finished with the one I’m reading now before the end of the year. I have been taking full advantage of all of the sales this time of year and I’ve loaded up my Audible account with tons of books for next year. I’m thinking about setting a goal of 50 books for next year, but I haven’t decided yet. I joined an online bookclub through Goodreads and some of the ladies on there have set goals for 100 or even 200 books. That is freaking crazy!! Those ladies must all have rich husbands and housekeepers, LOL! Anyway, the book I’m currently reading is called Golden Earrings by Belinda Alexandra. I’m doing the Audible version which is read by Caroline Lee. She is superb with all of the accents. Love, love. love her! The reason I picked this book was because Caroline Lee is the narrator for all of the Kate Morton books and I love her so much reading those, I thought I’d give this a try. I am so glad that I did. I’m not quite halfway through it now, but I’m really enjoying it.
I’ll do another post on the Golden Earrings once I’ve finished it. It had just been a while since I had posted anything and I wanted to wish you all very Merry Christmas!
Reading Makes the Monday Blues Better
So, how was everyone’s first Monday back after a nice long holiday weekend? Slow, quiet, relaxing,and uneventful? Yeah, me neither. First thing this morning the phone was ringing off the hook and didn’t really slow down all day. I have several things I’m working on for different people that are all needed yesterday. Oh well, it’s great job security I guess to be this awesome I guess. LOL
Anyway, I don’t have a lot to say today so I’ll keep it short. I’m reading The House at Riverton by Kate Morton on Audible (read by Caroline Lee) and I’m pretty wrapped up into the story. I know that book is really awesome when I’m torn between gobbling it up because I can’t wait to find out what’s going to happen and wanting to take it slow because I’ll be sad when it’s all over. That’s the way I feel about all of the Kate Morton books that I’ve readso far. They are all awesome books and you should definitely check them out:
- The Forgotten Garden
- The Distant Hours
- The House at Riverton (currently reading)
28 days to go…
30 Days of Blogging
I haven’t blogged in forever so you’ll probably laugh at my attempt at 30 days of blogging. It’s okay, I’m laughing at it a little myself. But I am going to try, because I think that once I get the ball rolling I’ll really enjoy it. Somewhere deep down I still think I might be a writer someday. (Shh, that’s our little secret, okay?) But I realize that I’ll never become a writer if I never write anything. So in the spirit of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I’ve decided to take the plunge and try to write something every day for thirty days. I don’t have that “one great idea” yet so I’ll just blog for now.
In the past, each time I start to blog (or write anything for that matter), I spend way too much time on editing and not enough time on actual content. I’ve decided to try to not worry so much about editing and just try to write. So, that being said, please ignore my grammar errors when they inevitably arise (yes, I’m talking to you Matheo).
Since today is November 25th the end of the thirty days will fall on Christmas Day. So this will be a countdown to Christmas as we count up my blog posts. 29 days to go! Cheers!
The Pandas Are Coming!
Blizzard has finally announced a release date for the latest expansion of World of Warcraft, Mists of Pandaria – September 25, 2012. That is less than two months away! Holy cow! Guess Hedwig needs to kick her quest for Loremaster into gear!
Anyway, now that we have a definite date it’s time to start thinking about raid teams, raid times, etc. I really want to keep all of our existing raiders, but I want everyone to be happy in their role. Here is what we will need for raid: 2 tanks, 3 healers, and 5 dps. While we’re at it, let’s also look at raid composition. We’ll also need: replenishment, heroes, and a battle rez. Those are requirements. There are other buffs and bonuses that I’d like for us to have but those three are non-negotiable.
We currently have nine people on our team so I’m working on recruiting a healer. If you’re a healer and reading this blog post, please comment and we can chat. Also, I have added a chat box to my blog page for now (if it gets an abnormal amount of spam I’ll take it down). But for now, it’s there so please use it to chat about raiding, wow, music, or whatever floats your boat.
Thanks a bunch for visiting!
~ Hedwig
Musical Monday – Somebody That I Used to Know
Okay, so my friend Jessy is trying to start up a new blog trend called Musical Mondays and I thought I’d play along. Her blog has a cute little question and answer thing where you do the shuffle on your ipod and enter the song title for the answers to the questions. I’m short on time so I’m just going to list the first ten songs that come up when I hit shuffle. Here is what I’m listening to:
- You Don’t Know What It’s Like (Bee Gees)
- Alabama Clay (Garth Brooks)
- Do You Wanna Date My Avatar (The Guild/Felicia Day)
- On The Side of Angels (LeAnn Rimes)
- I Always Liked That Best (Cyndi Thompson)
- Faithfully (Journey)
- Breathe (Anna Nalic)
- Shut Up And Drive (Rihanna)
- Love Story (Taylor Swift)
- Late Morning Lullaby (Brandi Carlile)
My favorite new song right now is “Somebody That I Used to Know” by either Goyte or by The Glee Cast. I think I like the original better, but the guy in video freaks me out and when I hear the original version sometimes I can’t help but picture him. If you haven’t seen this video yet you should totally check it out. That way you’ll be just as freaked out as I am, LOL! The video starts out all cool and if you’re watching it for the first time after reading this post, you’ll probably say “Yeah, he looks a little strange. But I’m not freaked out. What is she talking about?” And then as he gets more into the song, you’ll see his abnormally large mouth. It’s kind of scary. I always watch the whole video every time it comes up, even it freaks me out a little. The song is great and the watching the video is sort of like seeing a car crash. You don’t want to look, but you just can’t seem to look away.
Anyway, freaked out or not – here is my favorite song of the moment. It’s great to sing this one in the car with the windows down and the radio blasting.
Goodreads Bookshelf
I just added the Goodreads Bookshelf widget to my blog and it looks amazing! I love that all of the books that I’ve read when lined up side-by-side are so colorful and visually appealing. You can tell just by glancing at my books that I have very eclectic tastes in books. I’m working on a post for my Tech Tip Tuesday so show you how to add the Goodreads widget to your blog. Meanwhile, if you don’t have an account at Goodreads, you should check it out and create your free account. You can organize the books you’ve read into categories if you want and make lists of books that you’d like to read in the future.
Day of the Week Blogging
Blogging, oh how I’ve missed you! I think about you often but I never call. I hope you haven’t given up on me yet. Someone wise once said to be a writer you must “write something every day” and I’m going to give that a try. I am a planner at heart, so I spend more time planning out what I want my blog to look like, what kinds of topics I want to have, and what widgets and colors I want to use. I thought I’d try to spend some time actually blogging instead of agonizing over what to blog about. So this is a blog about my plan for blogging! LOL, baby steps.
I have a list that I’m working on for day-of-the-week blog posts. It will be something to get me started and get me in the groove of blogging again. Here’s the tentative list:
- Musical Mondays (awesome idea of Jessy’s that she’s tried to get me to do before)
- Tech Tip Tuesdays
- Wordless Wednesdays/Oh How Pinteresting Wednesdays
- Thursdays – Book Review (I couldn’t think of anything cool to start with a T)
- Finally Fridays – probably spend Fridays talking about WoW since it’s not on another day
What do you think? LOL, you’re probably think “Great, if you actually follow through with it!” That’s what I’m thinking anyway. I’ll do my best not to disappoint either of us.
Anybody have a good idea for a catchy name for Thursdays?
Diablo 3 Launch
So, Diablo 3 came out yesterday during a midnight launch. How many of you were awake at 12:01 waiting to play?
I didn’t play until yesterday when I got home from work. I logged in and created my character and instantly got a message from one of my friends
Him: “You’re only level 1?!?”
Me: “LOL, I just created my character and I have even logged in yet.”
Him: “Hurry up! LOL”
Him (five minutes later): “Ding, level 13″
Anyway, it was a lot of fun. I was lucky enough to be included in the beta, so I had played it all the way through and wasn’t a complete noob at game launch. I’m just more of a casual play. I enjoy the game, so there’s no RUSH to get to a certain level or certain place.
Later another friend suddenly joined my party. It was pretty funny because I didn’t even know you could do that without asking someone. (Makes me want to double check my friends list and make sure I like the people on there enough to spontaneously play with them, lol). But anyway, the guy that logged on hadn’t participated in the beta so he was like a kid on Christmas morning. It was a lot of fun to show him the ropes. Total change from when I started World of Warcraft. I was a total noob. I remember not knowing how to separate stacks of items into smaller stacks. So if someone needed some potions, I’d trade them the whole stack and then ask them to trade me back what they didn’t need. LOL
I’ll post more later on my Diablo 3 adventures. What about y’all? What’s your favorite part of Diablo 3 so far?