March Wrap Up + April Goals!

Well…March was…not the best month for the world. Raise you’re hand if you’re already ready for 2020 to be over even though we’re only 3 months in:

Yeah…me too. Good news is I finally got caught up on my Goodreads goal. I mean…I’m one behind again atm but I was caught up. XD So let’s look at how this month went!

March Reading Stats:

• Read During March: 9
• Finish This Month: 8
• Total Pages (not including audiobooks): 1,617
• Average Rating: 2

Books Finished:

Owned:

Sadly, I DNF’d both Wicked and The Looking Glass Wars. I loved the concept of LGW but by the time I got to the middle I just could not mesh with the writing anymore. It was just getting hard to get myself to care about it, which was really disappointing. Wicked I only read the first 30 or so pages of and I was just like uhhhh…no. XD It was just a little too weird for me and not something I was interested in reading anymore. I think I’ll just find the musical on YouTube or somewhere and watch that instead. I’ve heard most people enjoy it a lot better anyway. Oh well, it was one of the books I’ve owned for forever so at least I tried. XD

I loved Eliza, though! I gave it 4 stars and I really enjoyed the romance and how they wrote notes to each other and how her comic was woven in and I loved the characters and I’m happy with how it ended. 🙂

Audiobooks:

I reread The Day the World Came to Town via audiobook (which I still loved) along with my physical copy and got the Scorpio Races from Libby, which I really didn’t know what to think of. I gave it 3 stars. I thought it was just…okay. I was mostly confused about the worldbuilding, and I expected the Scorpio Races to be more than one event, as the plural “races” implies, instead of just the one race at the end of the book with the whole rest of it leading up to it. I just felt like the story didn’t really get started until the day of the race, and then it was pretty much over. There are things I kinda liked about it, like Puck and the relationships with her brothers were interesting, and the setting sounded cool, but overall I was just kinda confused and underwhelmed.

Library:

I really like Raina Telgemeier’s other autobiographical graphic novels, Smile and Sisters, so I knew I would like this one too. There were a couple of pages that I came really close to crying while reading because I saw so much of myself in her when I was the same age. (4th/5th grade) I don’t normally read graphic novels, but this one had an impact. I think it’s great for anybody who grew up with anxiety issues and wondered what was wrong with them. This is such a short and sweet and encouraging message that you’re not alone.

Passenger was AWESOME! I enjoyed it even more than Darkest Minds! Not that I didn’t like Darkest Minds, I’ll still probably continue the series at some point, but this being a time travel historical fiction with high stakes was definitely more up my alley since I feel like I’ve kind of grown out of dystopian. I loved the characters, especially how Etta being a musician tied in with her whole character and the way she saw the world which really affected the book, and I loved that it wasn’t just a hobby that was forgotten about as soon as she went back in time. I loved the plot, the sailing, the traveling from different countries and time periods, how the rules of time travel worked, the complex characters, and that ending with all of those crazy twists OMG. I neeeeeed the sequel! I’m trying to decide if I’m going to buy both books or just get it at the library too when it opens back up. I gave it 4.5 stars and it was alllllmost my first 5 star read of the year; but there were a couple of tiny things that I knew weren’t perfect, like I didn’t like how the romance was a little bit of love at first sight on Nicholas’ side, (but I really liked how their relationship developed further on) and just a couple of things that were either just a little bit confusing or unrealistic. But other than that it’s definitely a new favorite!

Still Currently Reading:

I’m 34% through this and so far it’s just kind of okay. I think the beginning kind of pointlessly meandered a little bit, but I like the magic system and the banter between Ruby and Arcus so far. 🙂

Blogging:

Posts This Month:

• February Wrap Up + March Goals!
• The Mystery Blogger Award
• Top Ten Tuesday-Spring TBR
• Top Ten Tuesday-10 Retellings Recs!
• April Book Club Theme Announcement

Life:

Things That Happened:

Well…my friend’s play we were supposed to usher for didn’t happen for obvious reasons. :,( Luckily they only decided to postpone it to the fall season rather than cancel it, so there’s still hope that we might get to see it eventually.

I applied for a job as a library assistant at a library about 10 minutes away! We visited them for a book fair like a couple days before things started to close down up here, and they told me about the position they had open and to fill out the application online before the deadline anyway. This is the exact kind of job I had been wanting to have for a long time. I had done it in high school and really wanted to do something like it again, either in a library or a bookstore or whatever, and now there’s actually an opportunity! I got an email from them maybe a week or so ago that they got my application and even though they have now had to extend their closure, they are planning to start interviews whenever they can reopen and to contact them then if I’m still interested. And yes, I don’t care how long I have to wait I’m definitely still going to be interested! 😀

I honestly feel bad that I have this little glimmer of hope on the horizon when so many others have probably lost their jobs or are unable to work through this, but I have faith that we will all get through this, and that it’s important to focus on the little blessings that we can find.

Writing:

• Finish rereading Project Ocean Eyes and make my notes. I honestly don’t even remember the last time I touched it. O.o
• Read through my friends’ copies and talk with them about their notes. NOPE.
• Take all the info I gained from rereading and make a new outline. Hahahah…no. That probably won’t happen for a few more months.
• Figure out if I’m going to reoutline Project Ocean Eyes, start the 2nd draft of it if I’m ready, or draft something completely new for April Camp Nano. Well, I’m outlining something new for Camp Nano, and I also might start drafting it this month too.

Bujo:

Here’s my reading tracker from last month all filled out! I colored the blank days where I didn’t read anything black to make it look like the night sky showing through which helped a little bit, buuuuut I don’t think it turned out as realistic as I was planning in my head. XD I tried to use colors that are in the Northern Lights, but I probably should’ve thought about a pattern more beforehand cuz it doesn’t look exactly right. 😛

Here’s my hello spring page! I just ripped up some book pages (of a paperback I deemed specifically for this purpose, I don’t normally do this okay?!) and scrapbook paper and glued them down and stuck my spring themed planner stickers on top and wrote the words in black pen and metallic marker. I’ve never tried this mixed media type of thing before and it’s kinda chaotic, but I think it turned out pretty cute. 🙂

Here’s my April title/TBR page inspired by this! This took a while and of course I couldn’t keep my ink from smearing around again, but overall I like it!

And my tracker inspired by this. I used blue glitter gel pen to outline the raindrops (which I’m also going to use to color them in with) and to put detailing on the header. I turned the journal at an angle so you can hopefully see the shine a little bit. 😉

Camp Nano Bujo:

I didn’t really put any thought into this tracker at all, just made three sections and put some stickers down. XD

I wanted to see if a “mood” tracker style would also work for work count, and since writers tend to drink tea, I made this cute tea and mug tracker inspired by this! And then I kinda did the same thing with the title page that I did for “hello spring” in my other bujo, but only because I messed up the other design idea I was doing for it and was too lazy to fix it and just decided to do something to cover it all up. XD

Blogging:

Upcoming Posts:

• Writing Update #8: How is Camp Going?
• May Book Club Theme Announcement + Poll
• Hunger Games Readalong Announcement
• Top Ten Tuesday-Books I Wish I Had Read as a Child

Goals:

Get things ready for my Hunger Games readalong event and just try to keep up with my posts.

Writing:

Well…my Camp Nano goal is 45k. Which I am now thinking might be a little unrealistic. XD I’m already like 3,000 or something behind and it’s only day 4. I think I have only like 3,000 something of my outline so far maybe. I’m too lazy to log in and check. XD But I’m still determined to do what I can, and if I get to 40,500 that will beat my personal best from last April! So we’ll see how this goes. I also want to try to work on rereading Project Ocean Eyes still whenever I can but I can’t promise it’ll actually get done this month. 😛

Life:

Ugggggh try not to die? Sorry that’s not funny. My biggest goal really is to get my sleep schedule back under control cuz even before all this happened I’d been staying up til 3 and sleeping til noon and I feel like no matter what I do I can’t stop. XD I really want to find some sort of routine again and be productive since I decided to do Camp Nano, but honestly in the middle of everyone complaining about having to work from home I’m over here thinking…I have technically already been living like this for 3 1/2 years already and I still don’t know how to have an at-home work structure either so…that’s probably not that encouraging. XD

But anyway, in terms of quarantine to do lists I’ve seen going around:

• I want to cook and bake more again! I kind of have already, but I haven’t actually tried a new recipe from my Pinterest board for a while so maybe I should.
• Go on a lot of walks. Which we have started to but the weather doesn’t always cooperate and since we have a lot of snow still and it’s going to get really slushy soon it’s hard to keep it up. I’m so jealous of all of you who actually have nice summer weather already! Be thankful! Normally this wouldn’t bother me cuz as an Alaskan I know March is not spring here but with everything going on I would kill (figuratively of course) see some green right about now. D: Hopefully just a couple more weeks.
• Read a lot. Which this month I did, but I know with writing I won’t be able to focus much on it.
• Just do all the projects I want to do. But probably won’t. Cuz if we’re being honest that’s how it’s gonna go. XD

TBR:

I ordered Before She Ignites for my book club but I have no idea when I’ll be able to get it, I started Stranded already and yes, good idea, I’m definitely in the mood for a contemporary mystery right now. 😀 Though it’s kinda reminding me that no cruise ships are actually going to come up here this year probably…which is weird…and kinda sad. And I NEED to finish the Dorothy Must Die series! It’s gonna happen!

I also want to at least start this one; another sequel it’s taken me forever to get through, and I got the audiobook for Ship Beyond Time so I definitely need to get to that this month!

And I’m probably going to listen to the audiobook for King’s Cage along with reading my copy, and I might get to Starfish if I’m in the mood for it, IDK.

So yeah I think 7 books (plus finishing Frostblood) is probably ambitious, but I want to at least definitely start The End of Oz and Power Play, and I definitely need to finish Ship Beyond Time, Before She Ignites, and Frostblood sometime this month. 😀

I’m skipping posting next week to work on catching up on my Camp Nano goal, but don’t worry, I have posts planned for the rest of the month after that! I hope you all are taking care of yourselves and that you are finding ways to stay positive and creative! ❤

All credit goes to the authors of the images.

What Do You Think?:

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Featured Image:

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Book Covers:

https://www.goodreads.com

March Accomplishments:

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April Goals:

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Bujo Ideas:

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Gif:

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