new year | Lenn of Spades ♠

Happy New Year, everyone!

I had been meaning to bring this blog back to life, but decided to just wait for the new year to do so and now that we’re already a few days into 2025, I’m back and will be sharing my reading goals for this year.

Despite my inactivity here, I read quite a lot in 2024 with 157 books in total and it was my best reading year yet. And though I still intend to read plenty of books in 2025, I also plan on getting back into fantasy and catch up on my backlist or fantasy TBR so I’m already anticipating a slight decrease in the number of books by the end of this year because it takes quite some time for me to finish high fantasy books and series! I did set my Goodreads and Fable reading goal to 80 books compared to last year’s 70 though, so that’s still a lot, but I’m positive and that I can complete that by the end of the year.

Some of my reading goals for 2025 are:

Read more Japanese literature
Read more literary fiction
Read more local (Filipiniana) books
Put a dent on my fantasy TBR
Catch up with my comics/manga TBR
Finish reading the Farseer trilogy
Finish reading the Trials of Apollo series
Finish reading the Chestnut Springs series
Be smarter when it comes to buying books:
- Only buy books from a series I already have/currently reading
- Only buy book 1 of a new series once I’ve finished reading a series
- For standalone books, I can buy some that I strongly feel like I will enjoy (e.g., books from a favorite author), otherwise, just read them via kindle
- Don’t give in too much on sales

*I still won’t post monthly hopefuls or TBRs though because as a mood reader, I really suck at following them. Haha

Again, happy new year, everyone!

I’ve said it a million times this year, you all said it, too — 2020 was not our year. There were so many challenges: The Taal volcano eruption, COVID-19, typhoons, etc. We’ve been through so much this year. It wasn’t easy, heck, it’s the hardest year for all of us. Personally, the pandemic took a toll on my mental health and it has been a struggle for me to wake up every morning and find the courage to go on and face a new day. It felt like I don’t have any goals, the days were repetitive and I feel like I’m living in a loop. It’s suffocating because I don’t get to go out because of the virus — honestly, the whole year just sucked.

But, hey, we survived, didn’t we? That counts for something. Wait, scratch that — it’s the most important thing we did in 2020, we survived and continued to push forward despite everything. With that, I hope that the coming year will be better for all of us and may the whole world be COVID-free in 2021.

Despite the year being more stressful than the previous years, I would still like to allot some time listing the things that helped me stay sane:

Because of the pandemic, we are all advised to stay at home and follow quarantine measures so as not to catch the virus which gave me more time for reading. That being said, I was able to read 42 books (as of writing) this year which is equivalent to 13,468 pages!
I was also able to take care of my skin more. Since I don’t go out a lot anymore, my skin is not exposed to invisible dirt, smoke, and other stuff that may cause breakouts. So my skin is more softer!
I learned how to cook a little and prepare my own meals! I learned how to make lasagna, flying saucer (which bread stuffed with lots of cheese), homemade pizza, and my own guacamole recipe!
I was able to save more money since I didn’t get to spend it on lunch outs and impulse-buys. I did buy a lot of books, yes, but I learned how to manage my money.
I read outside of my comfort zone; I started to love mystery/thrillers!
I got a work promotion!

It’s not a lot and everything I’ve listed are probably just little things but they are important to me and they’re the ones the helped keep my head above water.

Happy New Year, everyone! Let’s all hope for the best. ❤