2014 Reading Challenges

As some of you have probably noticed, I'm not really great at follow thru. Oh I make progress but I like too much variety to stick to a solid plan. That means I don't really make annual goals, I just work week to week at what I would like to accomplish. Heck, sometimes, it's just day to day...

The one area that I do set a goal is with my reading. I know, go figure   =^..^=

I regularly track my books on Shelfari and my general goal is just to read more books than last year. I accomplished that goal again this year; finishing 74 books compared to 71 last year.

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I have previously done what I now call an alphabet soup challenge where I had to read titles that started with A thru Z. I have also seen that challenge using author names starting with A to Z. I was hoping to find another challenge for 2014 and after some searching yesterday, came up with 2 challenges. One of them is going to take quite a while but should be lots of fun.

Challenge #1 is the Color Coded Challenge from My Readers Block. Basically, over the next year I'll have to read 9 books that have colors in the titles. Please check the link for specifics but basically one book will have to have blue (or some shade of blue) in the title. The others are red, yellow, green, brown, black, white, any other color, and a word that implies color. There is a linky party to sign up for the challenge so I encourage you to join up.

I am renaming challenge #2 to the Calendar Challenge since I just found it and it actually started last April. It was originally called Monthly Mix-up Mania and it's also from My Readers Block. This is a doozy of a challenge lasting 2 years but the goal is to read 74 (!!) books that begin with the letters that spell out the months of the year. You know - books that start with J-A-N-U-A-R-Y, etc. I suppose I could back track thru the books that I have read in the last year but I want to start with a clean slate. Be sure to check the link for specifics. I might tweak some of the rules since I already changed the name, haven't made up my mind yet.

To keep track of my challenges this year I'll be creating a tab at the top of my blog later this week. (Yikes, another goal)

Would anyone be interested in joining me in either of these challenges or any other reading challenge? I could host another monthly linky party where everyone could check in on their challenge or even just the last (quilting?) book you read?!

Have an awesome New Year and I'll see all y'all again next year!

Design Wall Monday - 12/30/13

What you can't see is the Christmas cookies, choco and Pepsi keeping me going :)

After spending nearly 20 hours of my "free time" working on Town Taxes over the last 4 days, I finally got some me time yesterday afternoon to work on Celtic Solstice:

Yipper, I'm still behind and I don't care cuz I'm having fun sewing...

And Midgie was having fun photo bombing ^..^

Feline Friday - 12/27/13

Was Santy Paws good to you?

Grandmomma sent treats - some of them are even catnip flavored!

Grandpoppa made a bench to put in front of the window without blocking the heat vent. Now Momma can have her dining room chair back. Don't know why that's so exciting - she eats at the coffee table in front of the boobtube.

I like the bench but someone else likes it more. Momma even put a little quilt over him last night. Silly Momma.

Poor Zorro - Santy Paws didn't bring him the one thing on his list but I guess we girls can share some of our treats...

See all y'all felines next year!!!!