Jan 12, 2018

Kicking off the New Year with a New Hobby!

by BurtonReview on Friday, January 12, 2018

Happy 2018 to all! Do you do resolutions? Have goals for 2018? Reading goals? Life goals?

You know what they say about the best laid plans...
2017 was a whirlwind for me. 2018 I hope I can relax a little and enjoy life. So far, not exactly what is happening but I am trying. My word of the year is JOY.

I am thankful to have discovered a new way to connect with my faith within the last few weeks and I am looking forward to exploring my creative unabilities in 2018. Here's a look at some of my work with Bible Journaling recently:

This one is my favorite

The monogram is copied from a gift I received for Christmas

and this one is my second favorite

I expect (hope) to get better as I acquire more tools and of course, time. Time is needed to read books and I did not have much of that in 2017 with the selling of a house (which was/still is a heartbreak for me) and moving to a brand new house. No more pond pictures or pretty trees from me, sadness.

So with all that drama, I only read 13 books in 2017 but here's the summary from Goodreads. Thank God for Goodreads because I would have forgotten half of what I read already.

I did complete an entire trilogy by Petra Durst-Benning and I also read a Pulitzer Prize winner, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr towards the beginning of the year which really was a great start to my year! But then I said "honey, I love you, and I know you want to move. So let's get the process started." Someday he will appreciate my sacrifice.

I enjoyed some new authors with what I call 'comfort reads' which are fun, easy to get into type of a story for me when everything else is falling apart around me. Suspense/mystery/thriller Gone Girl style with authors like Paula Hawkins, Ruth Ware and JP Delaney. And of course I got caught up on my favorite male author Billy Coffey (There Will Be Stars was a 5 star read of 2017 along with All The Light We Cannot See). He is one that I actually pre-order his books regardless of cost.
And I managed to finish a book I had to put down a year or more before by female favorite author Elizabeth Chadwick.

What I found is that I struggle immensely with actual physical books. eBooks are a much better fit for my routine these days. With Amazon Prime I get a free book a month, plus with Kindle unlimited I can download any of the eBooks in that unlimited status. And of course if my library has anything available I can borrrow eBooks from them as well but they have a 2 week loan period and I can't hang with that timeframe. A huge change from five years ago, right?!

After I am done with my current read (book two of the All Souls Trilogy) I am reading A Wrinkle in Time as the January selection for a local book club that I am a co-host of. Why why why why

Other than all that -- kids are well, I have a sophomore and a fifth grader now, and Sweetie is still the light of my life :)