Happy New Year! #personal announcement and bookish resolutions

 

Happy 2019 everyone.. my best wishes to you all!

I can’t believe another year has flown by! It’s been a year of ups and downs, for me as a blogger and on a personal level. I have to admit the personal part really affected the blogging part too sometimes.

If I look back I have to admit it was actually quite a stressful year for me. The source of most of it is the fact that *official announcement following now* I have bought my own crib this year and I’m moving house (or appartement really) in 2020! I know it’s still a long time but I’ve been sitting on this news for 6 months already and I thought it’d be nice to finally share.

It might sound silly but I really pushed my limits this year. I had to make a life-changing decision (oh horror) and I’m really not good at making decisions, I had to meet strangers at banks for a loan, negotiate, have grown-up talk… it was all way out of my very introvert comfort zone (I need a printed route when I go somewhere new and have to virtually go over it at least 5 times beforehand, just to let you know I’m not as easy as other people with the unknown) and I had a serious dip in July that even made me go to the doctor for something to control these overwhelming feelings. I also felt very lonely. They only gave me stupid homeopathic pills that didn’t do anything though but I pulled through regardless and I did it, the deed is signed and I have a loan I’m already paying back.

Stage 2 is still to come in 2020  – the moving part – which won’t be easy either and I don’t look forward to the practical side or the emotional side of it all but there’s no way back now (you can’t imagine how many times I have wished for it though).

I will have lived ‘here’ for almost 20 years by then (11 years with my boyfriend/husband and the rest on my own) so saying goodbye pains me already but the owner is selling the building (with 2 apartments) which means I have had visitors coming over the floor almost every week for over 5 months and yes the wait to hear someone wants to buy (please not yet) is also very stressful. I don’t want to be kicked out yet and even if they let me stay at first I don’t know if I can stay on for years so I don’t want to wait. My grandmother also sold her house last year, lives with my parents now and gifted me a certain amount of money and thirdly it’s just better for me to live in a city, especially when I’m getting older, because I don’t have a car (or license) and everything seems so far away and it makes life just more difficult. It’s a way of taking care of myself really. Sometimes your head tells you what you have to do even if your heart isn’t completely in it.

But there you go, I made a decision for the best, not feeling very happy atm but I hope that will come when I’m settled. It’s all still a long way to go but here you can see where I’ll be (on the fourth floor so not really):

It should become this:

It’s going to be as big as I live now (which isn’t so big at all, only 70m²) and I’m already worried how to fit all my books in ;-). I’ll make it work though, don’t worry about that.

So for 2019 I’m going to try and be happy and I’m also going to try and have more positive thoughts.

As for the blog:

1. I plan to take it easy this year about posting. In the past I was very strict and posted like clockwork on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday. It needed to be this way, nice and clean and I wanted to meet everyone’s expectations but ever since I broke the rhythm I’m strangely okay with it. Nobody’s forgetting about me if I skip one of these days and ok my OCD side isn’t too happy how my blogging bar looks but I can live with it, I can :-).

2. I hope to read more of my own books this year. Wait didn’t I already say this last year? Well I did read some but maybe not as much as I planned.

I’m setting my Goodreads challenge this year on the same number as last year and the year before because I’m fairly sure I can reach my goal. In 2018 I read 69 books and my challenge was set at 60. In 2017 I read 65 and in 2015 I also read 69 books.

3. I haven’t read a series last year because it’s so hard to keep up but I really want to try to read at least one this year. I have several in mind: I want to read Carol Wyer’s series of Natalie Ward, I want to read Angela Marson’s series, I still haven’t read all the books by Robert Bryndza, I haven’t started Helen Fields’ books yet although I have an ecopy of book 1..

On a final note, I only want to thank YOU for being here for me last year, for commenting and reading. I have had almost 30.000 total views (and 14.500 visitors) last year which is so amazing! It has warmed my heart, it has helped me with my confidence, it has done more for me than you know. I hope to see you again and again this year and I wish you all the best!

So there you have it, my resolutions for this year. What about yours?