What I’ve Been Up To

It’s been a good month since i physically sat down and started to write a blog post. My time has been completely taken up, and i’ve taken (what i think was) a well needed break from blogging for a couple of weeks. Let’s have a bit of a catch up!

I’ve now been back in work for two months, which is terrifying and i’m enjoying it a lot. I love my job, and can’t imagine doing anything else at the moment, so having a daily focus with exciting things happening feels great. That means, i’ve had less time for reading and blogging type activies.

My reading has definitely taken a back seat and slowed down a little in the last month or so. I have tried my best to keep up with reading, and i’ve had a lot of want to read. There have been so many books i’ve wanted to read through quickly and loads of things i’m interested in at the moment, i’ve just lacked the time to read. I feel like my concentration has also slipped slightly with reading, which is frustrating. My brain feels too preoccupied with other things!

That being said, i’ve also missed the feeling of YALC. The end of July always brings YALC for me, so with that not happening this year (for obvious reasons) it’s been a little gutting. It’s usually the spur i need to keep blogging and reading in the second half of the year. It creates content for us, memories and all the other fun things involved. It’s an understatement to say i’m sad about not having a bookish weekend with my friends. But i can say my suitcase can live another year after being piled with 50 books over a few days.

I think that being said, with the amount of drama happening in the bookish community recently, and the general nastiness that has been floating around, i’m pretty pleased it’s been a little quieter on my end. It’s been nice to not be involved in any of the problems, or arguments, and i can’t imagine YALC would have been a load of fun with that tension around. It’s made me feel quite uncomfortable using social media at times, and the whole community hasn’t been a great place to be. I’ve been keeping myself to myself and getting on with important things like buying bookmarks.

In a more fun and less important update, i bought my first proper Kindle! I’ve been on a book buying ban for nearly two months now. Which let’s face it, is a huge achievement for me. I’ve not purchased a physical book in that amount of time, however, i found a loophole and bought myself a Kindle. I’ve wanted an eReader for a while now, and finally picked one up in order to keep up with new releases without adding any more books to my shelves. I’m yet to use it properly, but i’m very excited to start reading!

I’ve also found a huge joy in book swapping in the last few months. I usually book swap with friends, it’s not unusual, but i’ve been book swapping for different genres that are usually out of my comfort zone. That change of writing style is keeping me interested i think and really stretching my reading. I’m enjoying exploring different genres at the moment.

The last thing i’ve really been enjoying is using our Instagram. You may have noticed, unintentionally, Twitter became my thing and Instagram became Sophie’s thing. I’ve been trying to use our Instagram more to feel more involved in the community over there and i’ve really enjoyed posting and responding to comments. If you don’t follow us yet, our user is @TLCCBlog

That’s all i have to update you on, i want to get back in to blogging a little bit more, but who knows when i’ll have the time to post again. I hope you’re all reading a lot and having a lot of fun doing it.