Reading Goals | Books I Own

I have a habit of reading books I don't own. Anyone else? What I mean is the majority of books I read are borrowed from the library or from friends. Except I keep accumulating books on my shelves and not reading them. Instead, I check out other books from the library and read those instead. Last year, I really wanted to read more of my own books and I did a lot better with that goal than ever before. I also cut down a lot on my book purchases. This year though, I really want to focus on reading almost exclusively from my shelves. The few exceptions I have are very specific books that are chosen to read with my IRL book club and another extension of my online book club.

I have a ton of unread books on my shelves still, even though at the end of 2020 I purged my shelves and got rid of about 100+ books. I gave some away, sold some, donated some. Now I am left with two large bookshelves of books instead of four. I used to have six but when we moved into our current apartment, I really had to narrow down my books. For the last two years though, I have realized my reading changes have changed drastically, so it was easy for me to cut down so many books because I knew I really had no interest in reading them ever or again. Instead, my collection is now books I have read and loved or books I am very interested in reading soon. 

It's been nice to make my bookshelves something more exclusive to my likings. I used to have hundreds of books that were popular, but not necessarily ones I loved or was as interested to read. I plan to minimize them even more in the coming year, as I read only books I own and decide whether I want to keep them or not. 

xoxo

January 2021 TBR

I haven’t done a TBR in a few months but I wanted to share some of books I want to get done this month. Most of these are BOTM books because I’m doing a BOTM readathon in my book club. I’m also doing an audiobook readathon so I’m going to be listening to several of these. The only one that I don’t have showing on here is American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, which is another book club read that I plan to listen to. As for Harry Potter, I got a new beautiful edition and I want to make some time to reread it. What are you planning to read this month? 

Happy New Year | 2021 Goals

I always make a short list of goals I want to accomplish in the new year, and while most of them are realistic, I tend to fall short on them. This year, I want to continue my good habits and break away from bad habits so that’s what my resolutions are.

Bookish 

• Continue to read books I own: I own a lot of unread books and I recently started actually reading most of my unread books. It’s been nice because I can get rid of books I no longer love or will reread, and also find new ones that are on my shelves and don’t need to purchase for my collection.
• Continue to purge books: later in 2020, I began to purge my shelves of books that no longer interest me or that I’d been holding on to, even though I don’t plan to reread them. It’s been really nice to make more room on my shelves and in my home, and I want to be able to continue this trend until I have only a favorites collection in my home.
• Blog regularly: this year I was able to get back into blogging more consistently because of quarantine. I think I can continue this by not pressuring myself to post on a schedule, etc. Instead, I’ve gotten more into the habit of posting whenever I want and it’s been nice.
• Read 75 books: I used to make it my goal to read 100 and in the back of my mind I would still like to achieve that, but a more realistic goal is 75 books so I’ll aim for that first. 

Lifestyle

• Maintain or lose weight: during quarantine, I gained some weight, and while I’m not completely unhappy with how I look I am getting married in November so it would be nice to get rid of some fat.
• Continue to go to the gym: we’ve gotten back into going to the gym every weekend and it’s been good going back, but about two weeks ago, I injured myself and had a hard time doing any exercise. I want to slowly get back into the groove of things.
• Hike more regularly: I love hiking and being outdoors. While the gyms were closed, we were finding isolated hikes to go on, but then went back to just going to the gym instead. I want to combine both of these so that we do both regularly.
• Continue minimal lifestyle: we’re in the process of becoming minimalists but we haven’t just thrown everything out the door. Instead, we’re slowly transitioning into the lifestyle and I want to continue this transition in the New Year. It’s difficult to just get rid of a ton of things, but we’ve done really well so far. 
• Limit spending: I love shopping but I really need to budget myself this year because we have a few expenses coming with the wedding.
• Take care of my mental health: I became anxious and depressed during quarantine. Sometimes I’ll have panic attacks and keep myself awake at night. It’s been difficult but I’ve been finding small ways to help ease my mind and I want to continue to do these things in order to feel more at peace with my mind. 

That’s it! It seems like a lot but this are things I already do for the most part, and just want to actively continue to do.