It’s the end of the year and a chance to look back on 2021 and what has happened, and what could happen in the next year, 2022.  I don’t really want to think about what’s been happening in the wider world as I don’t want to focus on the negative things that make us unhappy.  There’s obviously something big still happening (healthwise) in the world and these days I’m personally far less worried about the health side as I am about the dark ways governments are trying to control our world…but anyway, enough about those matters, I don’t like to think of them, so I’m going to do a quick recap of the last twelve months and see where I am going both blog-wise and personally in the year.

Reading

Goodreads goal

I’ve managed to achieve my Goodreads goal of reading 70 books this year and far surpassed it which I’m pleased about.  I only just managed this goal though as I’ve ignored Goodreads for most of the year and only started to rush copy all of my reviews there in the last few days! Last year I wanted to achieve reading 105 boks but I didn’t quite manage it and it made me a little depressed to see my goal not fulfilled, but this year I was cautious and set a lower goal, so I knew I could achieve it and have far surpassed any previous year’s reading by managing 116 books in total!  Okay, of course some of those books are picture books, but I have also read a lot of BIG books this year, and am really focused on reading even more in 2022! 🙂

You can see my Goodreads Year in Books by clicking here but there seems to be a problem with the system as to me it shows a book called KID as being the longest I’ve read at 624 pages, but I know that A Clockwork River has far more pages at 726 and is the longest book I’ve read this year, so I’m very confused as to why it’s showing that.🤔

The tbr pile

I’ve not managed to keep up with the tbr list/pile of books that I have promised to review in 2021 for publishers.  As most of you know I had personal circumstances which really slowed down my reading this year and it put me very behind for a long time.  In reality I still have quite a few books which I’m still behind in reviewing but I am determined to get them reviewed this year and hopefully as early as possible.  I’ve purposfully made sure to not take on a lot of new blog tours or books this year so that I can get these older books reviewed, because honestly, the idea that I haven’t done them yet really plays on my conscience!

I don’t want to say exactly how many books are on my tbr pile (it’s a lot!😬🙈).  In total out of all the books I want to read there’s probably a thousand or more, lol!  But the ACTUAL tbr list for publishers books I’ve promised to review has still got quite a few titles.  The good thing though is that I’ve got myself into a good groove and am enjoying reading so I’ll hopefully get a lot of these books read and reviewed early. 🙂

Personal

Family

As I’ve mentioned many times on this blog my grandma passing away early on in the year really set me back a long time in being able to function PROPERLY.  I didn’t think her death would have such an impact on my life as I didn’t always see her as she lived in Poland most of the time, but it really did and I just couldn’t do things properly for a long time and I just felt like I was in a bit of a ‘meh’ place. 😞  I just couldn’t motivate myself to read more or really get into doing more either.  Things have improved for me in the last half of the year though, although another family member who was diagnosed as terminally ill has also now gone into a care home which has upset a lot of us including the person who went into the home.  Nobody wants to send a family member into a care home but it’s been especially hard as this is the same year as my grandma passed away, and I just don’t think any of us are really ready to hear any more bad news.

Health

My health has been all over the place for the last two years.  I felt like I was deteriorating rather than improving.  I’ve been such a fit and healthy individual for years, that it was hard for me to cope when my health really took a down turn at the end of 2019.  I won’t go into much detail but I was suffereing ever worsening fatigue, and chronic pain.  It became so bad I couldn’t sometimes walk properly, with stiff and painful joints and muscles.  And then I pulled a muscle in my thigh or something worse and really struggled to even walk up or down the stairs!  I was in agony and it was scary how badly I’d deteriorated.  I never wanted to really explain on the blog just how bad it got as I felt so embarrased with how I felt like such an invalid.😢

Well fast forward to today and I don’t know exactly how it happened, but I feel like I’m back to where I was over two years ago.  My chronic pain and stiffness is all gone. 😮  I started forcing myself to do a few basic exercises that really pushed (but didn’t damage) my body.  I had a moment when my leg muscle got damaged and I couldn’t walk for a couple of days and I think I kind of screamed at the ceiling after having a good cry (maybe I was screaming at the universe or God or something) that I wasn’t going to live like an invalid for the rest of my life, and then I got determined to fix myself because apparently the doctors weren’t going to help me.  😦  So I rested my leg until it felt a little better and then slowly started by training my thigh muscles.  I started balancing on my side which I hadn’t done as it was painful and found that I could do it without actually damaging muyself (though I had been scared to before).  I also found myself starting to laugh more at things.  It’s like a commbination of determination, exercising and much more laughter in my life led to me somehow magically healing from all that chronic pain I’d suffered since 2019!

I really am not sure how it happened but today I found myself jumping and running around (just because) and I am still in shock and aw at how good my body feels, just like it did 2 years ago! 😀   Actually I had been suffereing bone/rib pain on and off since late 2017 so this really is an amazing miracle that it’s all gone! Okay, it doesn’t happen to everyone and this may sound like such weird set of circumstances, but I find it so strange that today I have no pain in my muscles or bones.  I’m still fatigued on some days (that’s not gone away yet 😒), but I’m coping so much better that I used to and I feel like a miracle has happened in time for my November Birthday/Christmas (who knows…maybe it did!). 😃

Blogging

Schedule

I managed to put out a blog post for every day in December which I think means I managed to do Blogmas?  If any of you know what Blogmas is could you let me know if that’s the requirements as I don’t know much about it other than posting as often as possible.  Anyway, I’m quite proud of the fact I manged to do that, although I will be reducing the posting schedule back to 5 days a week from now on.  I had a lot of backlog of things to post before Christmas, but now I want to pace myself and not stress about potentially runnning out of blog posts, so I’ll be posting every day from Monday to Friday, only posting on Saturdays and Sundays if it’s a special occassion.

What I’ll be posting on these days will still be a mystery though.  I don’t really plan too much ahead and just post whatever I’ve felt like doing such as book reviews, tags poetry, etc.  As for Mondays and Wednesdays, I still want those two days to be for non-book review posts though this does depend on whether I have anything non-book review to post!😅

Poetry and articles

I haven’t posted many poems or articles/discussion posts recently and I want to change that.  The main reason for that is that I just haven’t had the time.  I said I’m still fatigued and this results in me sometimes falling asleep in the middle of the day instead of writing something (what’s wrong with me, lol! 😅). Anyway I have some ideas that I’ve already written down and I’m planning to put out more of these posts in the coming year.  I also want to get back into poetry writing as I just haven’t felt that creative lately, but I have been doing more drawing and colouring which is good.  I might share some of those creations in future soon too. 🙂

Outstanding posts

I still have quite a few blog posts that I’ve promised to put out which I’m also behind in, like a bogger award post and several book tags I’ve wanted to do.  I’ve also got some author interviews I’ve been behind in getting questions to (I hope they’ll still want to be interviewed!😳) I’m basically behind in lots of things but determined to get back into a groove and be more organised.

Final Words

So this next year is one I hope to achieve a lot in.  I’ll be setting a Goodreads goal when I think about what I want to achieve and as always I will be trying to imporve on things I’ve done this year.  I’m really determined to get ahead in reading and can’t wait to see what I can achieve now that my health has gone through a massive improvement.  I hope you’ll still want to follow this blog, keep in touch and read what I post.  I appreciate ever single comment, like and follow.  Just knowing that somebody’s read something really helps boost my mood and makes me feel like what I’m doing is worht it.  I appreciate it so much, thank you. ❤

Here’s hoping 2022 will be a better and more magical year for all of us!  Happy new year everyone! 🙂 ❤ 🥳 🥂

Are you looking forward to the new year?  What things are you proud of achieving this year?  Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂

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