Goals. Hoarding. Books. Fonts

Goals.

They're good to have, right? Whether they are personal or professional, goals are wonderful and as Ernest Hemingway said it's the journey that matters. Goals may not be hit in its entirety but the journey of working toward them is what's most important. I have been working towards a few goals and I am trying to hold myself accountable. I have achieved some success this past weekend in regards to my hoarding problem (LOL), books and fonts.

Hoarding.

I jokingly refer to myself as a hoarder. One of the perks of blogging is all the free stuff companies send you. When I first began blogging, I began reviewing books. I have always had a large number of books in my book shelves and that will never change but when I first began reviewing and publishers and authors began reaching out to me to review, I couldn't say no. I found myself accepting books I really wasn't interested in. I became overwhelmed and had boxes upon boxes of books that I didn't know what to do with. I learned to stop saying yes to everything that came in my email. The anxiety of trying to meet all the expectations has gone away. I don't accept many things to review and have slowed down considerably in the last few years. This past weekend, I filled SEVEN boxes with books to donate to a women's shelter. That felt good. Now... it doesn't look like I made a dent but progress is progress, right? I hope to be able to move next spring and I really, really, really never want to move an endless supply of books ever again. Ha ha.

Don't worry. I have other areas in the hoarding category to work on. Groceries (you should SEE how many cans of tomatoes I have and I have no clue WHY! Ha. Sale maybe? Hahaha) is one. That should be next week's post. Haha.

Books.

Speaking of books... haha. I am working towards a reading goal. I don't have a firm number of books per month set but I am thinking six is a good, solid number. I am starting it late this month so I will start keeping track in August. I also want to link up with Sheila at BookJourney's Monday link up every Monday. I did get 1.25 books read this week! Whoo hoo! Haha. I loved the Sookie Stackhouse books (aka True Blood, Southern Vampire Mysteries) and although I stopped reading at book 9, I loved Sookie and loved Charlaine Harris' writing style. I kind of forgot she has written other series and picked up (haha! After posting about my downsizing! Sigh... I will get under control some day) the first three books in the Lily Bard series, first three of the Harper Connelly series and the first three of Aurora Teegarden series. (P.S. Did I tell you I have an OCD thing with things being in numbers that are divisible by three? Yeah. I know. It's weird. It's a legitimate OCD issue I have. Don't get me started on my keyboard issues... haha).

I read the first Lily Bard book - Shakespeare's Landlord.

I found Lily to be an odd duck and pretty much rude BUT I get why she is that way and wanting to not become too attached to the town due to her past. It's a short read but I really liked it. I started the next book- Shakespeare's Champion last night and am about 1/4 of the way into it.

So far, I am enjoying it. There's a bit of story missing but I am sure she will tell the backstory to an event in a few more chapters. Apparently, there was an issue at a burger place with Lily that has turned people off from her and there's a bit more that must have happened between Claude and Lily that seems to have been glossed over. Maybe I missed it? Not sure. Again, I really love Charlaine's writing voice and am excited to see what more she has to say in this very small series (only five books to date and each book is pretty short). Most of Harris' books have a paranormal element but not Lily Bard! It's just a cozy mystery.

Fonts.

Fonts? Huh. Well. I have been pinning cute fonts for a long time on Pinterest. My goal was to finally start downloading the pinned fonts and start using them. Example? The image at the top of this post was created with some cute ones I found. I am definitely no graphic designer (obviously) but I want to work on a bit more designing and aesthetically appealing images for my blog. It's really easy to download and use fonts. I downloaded maybe 50 fo the fonts I've pinned with many more left to go!

Here's my pinboard for fonts in case you are interested in downloading some

Follow Jaime Huff's board Fonts on Pinterest.

I plan to redo all my pin boards at some point and making a cute cover image for each board with all the thousands of fonts I plan to download. Haha.

Be forewarned- I am going to go crazy with my amateur designing... see below.