#Discussion: 2017 Roundup + 2018 Blogging and Reading Goals

Hello lovelies! Wow that year flew by! I have been so busy this year that it feels as though I blinked and 2017 was done. I wasn't able to get as much blogging and reading done as I would have liked, but I did complete my Master of Arts degree, so safe to say I accomplished big things. This post is going to round out what I did in 2017 in my life, reading, and blogging, while updating you on the very few goals I have for 2018. Thank you guys so much for staying with me on this journey and here's hoping good things continue to come your way!

2017 Roundup

Total Books Read: 82
Average Rating: 3.3*
Top 5 Reads:

The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed // My Review!
The Martian by Andy Weir // My Review!
The X-Files: Agent of Chaos by Kami Garcia // My Review!
The Hush by Skye Melki-Wegner // My Review will be posted in the new year!
Furyborn by Claire Legrand // My Review will be posted in the new year!

Life Updates

I completed my Master of Arts degree at the University of Windsor! I wrote my thesis on Website Accessibility and will be updating my website as much as possible to be compliant. I moved from my one apartment in Windsor to another apartment in Windsor because I got a full-time job. I interned and they decided they liked me so much that they asked me to stay on and work for them. So I am planning on staying in Windsor for the next 5 or so years if possible.

I travelled to both Vancouver, BC and Prague, Czech Republic (although I only wrote about my Prague trip [Prague Trip Part 1 and Prague Trip Part 2]). Both of these experiences were shaping and enlightening and I loved every second of them.

2018 Blogging Goals

I feel like I really like the ball drop on my blog this year because I was so busy. I wasn't able to keep up with the demands of both school and blogging because I had committed myself to too much in both and school was more important. This year, however, because I am back to just working, I will be able to commit more time to blogging. I have a lot of ideas, but I want to start small, get into a routine, and then go from there. So what is changing and what is staying the same?

Stacking the Shelves/Monthly Roundup

Every month I will be posting a blog post that is a combination StS post and monthly roundup. I wanted to do this weekly, but I know that I will not have enough time to do it weekly and think it would be better to do it on a month-to-month basis to begin and go from there.

Instagram

I will be participating in Instagram challenges every month because I want to be more diligent about sharing photos of books with you guys. However, I am going to commit to showcasing my eReader or tablet when I can rather than JUST physical books. It is important to show that you don't need hardcovers or fancy props to showcase books.

DiversityBear

I am a rep for DiversityBear, a diverse book box curated out of the Netherlands! I am getting the boxes for January, February, and March to review for you guys plus I will have a discount code as well! Marjo has put a lot of work into the box so I can't wait to share it with you guys.

Reviews

I have two goals that can fall under the heading "Reviews":

I'm going to spend an hour every week cross-posting reviews to Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, and Chapters. I will update the times on Twitter so that you can join me in this! My goal is to have all my past and current reviews up on the retailers by the end of the year!
I'm going to cross-post reviews to Goodreads as well and hopefully have all the ones that say "Review to come!" with an actual review.

Updating My Blog

As I said above, I did my MA thesis on website accessibility, so my goal is to update old posts (and create new templates) that are more accessible for people with disabilities, especially those using screenreaders. I also know a lot of my old reviews don't follow the same format as what I use now or are missing graphics or links, so I want to update them to match.

2018 Reading Goals

I am aiming for 104 this year (which was my original goal last year). Basically 2018 is going to be me "cleaning up" everything I didn't do in 2017. Which is why I'm hosting a reading challenge for 2018 called "#2017Throwback" which you can check out!

ARCs: I am so behind on ARCs that I am actually embarrassed to tell you that I have some from November 2016 that I haven't gotten to yet. My goal is to clear off my ARC shelves and request minimally if at all. [Note: I didn't do this. I have 2018 ARCs already. I am a terrible person]
DiverseReads: YIKES I did so poorly on this. I had such good intentions of reading and participating in expanding my reads to diverse authors and stories (I wanted to do a 2 for 1 ratio). However, I did pre-order and purchase a lot of diverse reads in 2017 so I will read them all this year!
Queer52: Another YIKES. I read only like one or two of the books that I had planned to, but no worries. I have a list to work through and a library card so everything will work out perfectly for me this year.
#ASeriesAMonth2018: Hosted by Dani Reviews Things, the challenge is to read one series every month during 2018.

I also plan on purchasing one new release a month so I will be keeping semi-current with the book world. I don't want to be as ahead as I was in 2015/2016 because I felt like I didn't know what was out at the time, but I definitely don't want to be as behind as I was in 2017.