For a bit of self-care, I decided to go out for brunch & then check out this little bookstore, Birdie Books. Unfortunately, I forgot what happens to my stomach when I've been stressed. Brunch was a little too rich, though 100% delicious, & I was about halfway through this very cute & eclectic bookstore when I had to quickly pay for my books (including the tagged book) & leave 🤢 Maybe I'll go back next weekend.

I could not be more thrilled to read this month's #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin books! I'll likely start listening to the audiobook of The Woman Who Died A Lot while I'm packing today😁

Here is my #BookSpin list for August. It's almost entirely ebooks and audiobooks since I'll be moving in September and will have the majority of my books packed up before the end of August. The two physical books on the list (1 and 6) are small mass market paperbacks, so I don't mind not packing them if their numbers are picked.

Both my #BookSpin & #DoubleSpin books are ebooks, which is a great thing as I'm in the process of packing up all my books. My Boyfriend of nearly 12 years and I have decided to split up. It's heartbreaking, but we are still friends, and this is an amicable decision. I'm converting my office into my bedroom, which isn't big enough for a bed and all of my bookshelves, unfortunately, but it's only temporary. In less than a year, I'll be moving out.

Here's my #BookSpin list for July. It's mostly books that I want to read for my #SciFiSummer reading challenge.

I'm posting a bit late, but these are my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin books for June. I'm suddenly not looking forward to reading them, though my Book Spin has been on my shelves for over a decade now. They both look depressing, but I'm hoping they'll surprise me.

I'm about to try Lydia Sherrer's new tea, Fae Fox Tea, inspired by the character Yuki in the LLHP series. It smells amazing! The back of the package says it's a blend of chamomile, rooibos, peppermint, and vanilla ❤️ That sounds like the perfect early evening tea for sipping while curled up with a good book.

The boyfriend & I went to Pop Cats convention today & I got to meet Lydia Sherrer! I bought the tagged book & a bag of her new tea & I also got a pic with her! Later the boyfriend said he was on a mission from our cats & would meet back with me in 15 minutes. He went back & got me LLHP: Odyssey! ❤️ Both are signed😁 On top of that, it was the first time in a week that I wasn't in pain! I'm glad I decided to go in spite of the pain I've been in.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ This was my #DoubleSpin for May, and it reminded me a lot of Monty Python. I think it was good enough for me to read the second book in the “Land of Dis“ series, Distopia at some point, but I'm not rushing to start it right away. For once, I'm remember to also tag #2025OffMyShelf!

It turns out my spine is even worse off than I thought (I have severe stenosis in my neck that has caused spinal cord compression), and I'm feeling depressed and defeated, so I'm keeping June's #BookSpin list to mostly shorter, easy reads, with the exception of a couple that I've been really wanting to get to sooner rather than later.

After a trip to urgent care this morning because of severe shoulder pain that turned into bad news (Degenerative Disc Disease in my cervical spine), I'm at home resting and ready to #JumpStartSummer. Reading and tea fixes everything, right?! I'll be reading the tagged book, The Dead Zone for #LosersClub, and Disenchanted for #BookSpin. I might even get to a couple of other books I checked out from the library since I won't be doing much else.

This was my #BookSpin for this month, and I enjoyed going down memory lane about one of my all-time favorite shows. There were a couple of essays I really didn't like and a couple I loved, but overall it's a Pick. I'm considering rewatching the series for at least the 5th time, I might get back into the Rory Gilmore reading challenge, and I'm definitely going to recreate my Gilmore Girls mixtape!

I'm excited for both my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin books for May!

My #DoubleSpin for April. I'm so glad I finally reread it! I've read Anne of Green Gables more times than I can count, but I've only read the rest of the series a couple of times many, many years ago. While this one will never be my favorite, I still love it. One day, I hope to own hardcover editions of the whole series, but this particular paperback edition is how I read them when I was a kid. The smell of the pages brought back so many memories!

Here's my #BookSpin list for May!

I started my #BookSpin last night during #Readathon, but went to bed & didn't finish it until earlier today. This is a hopeful story for libraries, librarians, & the people who love them, even though it's Fantasy. It's a hopeful story for the fight against evil & those trying to destroy people's ability to freely access information. “Knowledge is a light!“ The Director was made scarier by current events, but this book is a reminder to be brave!

I went to Grammercy Books and found the tagged book for #IndependentBookstoreDay. Now I'm back home to continue the #Readathon!

Having brunch at a Ukrainian bakery with my #readathon buddy before we get down to reading. I finally lost enough weight to wear my book leggings again! I was listening to the tagged book on my drive over.

I'm starting Dewey's 24-Hour #Readathon about 20 minutes late, but I had to make tea!

As I'm moving more into #SlowLiving and trying to disconnect from the fast-everything, stress-inducing, chaotic consumerism of modern life, I'm glad I checked this book out from the library. I've already set myself up for a screen-free Saturday every week, starting with next Saturday. I'm doing mine a little differently, though, since I still want to write blog posts on the weekend. I'll start in the early morning and go until Sunday morning.

I recently learned about Lillördag, “Little Saturday“, a Nordic tradition of doing things you normally only do on the weekends about halfway through the week so you have something to look forward to and break up the daily routine a bit. I'm starting a puzzle while listening to the tagged audiobook. I also got take out, which I rarely do, even on the weekends. So far I'm very much enjoying the relaxation after a chaotic day at work.

Today I was betrayed by someone who I thought was my friend and it could end up affecting my job. I'm more hurt than anything else so I figured escaping into this Cozy Fantasy with my Book Goblin mug full of tea might be the best way to shake it off and move on.

I'm very much looking forward to both my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin for April! 😁

I've had a StoryGraph account for years, but back when I initially signed up, I didn't feel that it was as good as Goodreads, and stopped using it. Now, as I am trying to move away from Amazon (after learning how much the company takes from book sales), I've decided to try out StoryGraph again.

You can find me there @ FortifiedByBooks with the pic of 5 year old me sticking her tongue out at the camera. I'll follow back as soon as I get settled.

Here's my #BookSpin list for April! There's a lot of cozy feel-good books this time.

This was my #BookSpin for March. It was good, but I felt like a lot of the points the author's were trying to make didn't go deep enough. This whole book could have been a YouTube video. There were some funny bits of trivia, though. #2025OffMyShelf

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟This was my #DoubleSpin for March, and it's one of the best books I've read this year! I love the Discworld series, and Rincewind is one of my favorite characters. #OokBOokClub #2025OffMyShelf

“It means that if we want silence, we must actively seek it out, for instance by taking vacations without cell phones...“
After getting a bunch of non-urgent work-related texts, I found out how to temporarily block specific phone numbers while still getting texts & calls from people I actually want to talk to while I'm on vacation. I even set it up to auto activate on the weekends! Just because I have a phone, doesn't mean I'm accessible 24/7!

This week-long vacation is all about slowing down, resting, and being gentle with myself. What better way to do that then by reading this book and hanging out with my fur babies, Dresden and Raith.

Vacation mode activated.

My #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin look like the perfect books for me to read this month.

With the exception of a couple of reading challenge books, I filled my #BookSpin list for March with as much coziness as I could while still trying to get to books that have been on my TBR for years.

My #DoubleSpin for February was nice to read, but there were no mindset-shifting insights like I heard so many other readers have had. I did notice that there is another book with the same title but by Margaret Smith, and even the covers look similar so I wonder if I read the wrong book and everyone in the Minimalism community was raving about the other one? At least it's #OffMyShelf.

Poetry just isn't my thing. I absolutely love The Bell Jar, but I would need to take a class to understand her poems, and even then, I think I would struggle. I'm glad that I finally read this short book, even though it took #BookSpin to get me to pick it up. At least now it's #OffMyShelf

I've been having a lot of bad days lately and today was no exception. In the past, I would console myself with a trip to the bookstore where I would spend way too much money. Since I'm doing #ShelfLove this year and have an extremely limited budget, I decided to go to the library instead and check out more books than I can get through in 2 weeks (I also have 2 other books checked out already). It was just as comforting, but 100% free.

Here are my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin books for February, and boy are they a morbid combination! February has been historically a not good month for me, so that's fitting.

My #BookSpin list for February is full of books from my TBR, with the exception of Night Shift by Stephen King, which is the #LosersClub book of the month. I will be getting it from the library since I don't already own it. All of the other books will qualify for my #ShelfLove reading challenge and many of them will qualify for the #2025OffMyShelf prompts as well. I picked mostly shorter books since February is usually not a good month for me.

My #DoubleSpin for January was magical and weird and so different from just about anything else I've read in the Fantasy genre that I'm not sure how to rate it. I didn't LOVE love it, but I did find many of the sentences and individual words were soothing somehow. I don't know how else to describe it so I'm giving it a “Pick.“ #2025OffMyShelf

This was my #BookSpin for January, and overall, it's a solid Pick. Though it's the last book in the Raven Cycle series, it's only a short story and is told from Opal's perspective. You would definitely need to have read the other books in the series to understand what is going on and why. Though I haven't read Call Down the Hawk yet, I imagine that this is a nice bridge between the 2 series. #ShelfLove #2025OffMyShelf

I'm joining @wanderinglynn's #2025OffMyShelf reading challenge to make my own #ShelfLove challenge a little more exciting! I'll be adding books that fit these prompts to my #BookSpin lists as well.

My #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin for January! I'm looking forward to both of them😁

Here is my #BookSpin list for January! 2024 was my first year doing this challenge, and it helped me get through/rid of quite a few books. I have high hopes that 2025 will be just as successful!

I never thought I would enjoy a James Patterson book, and I never expected to see him as the author of a warm, family-friendly Christmas story. This was definitely a great #BlindDatewithaBook. I read this for #CozyChristmas and #YuletideSpirit.

I'm joining #ReadOuttheOld as I finish up the #CozyChristmas readathon today! I've got a Christmas book to finish, both my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin books to read, and a couple of library books I want to get to before New Year's Day.

At the airport waiting to fly home and I've been alternating between the tagged book and the audiobook of Dickens's A Christmas Carol. #CozyChristmas

Since I have the whole week off from work, I'll have plenty of time to read! So why not sign up for a holiday readathon?! #CozyChristmas

I'm really excited for my December #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin! 😁

My #bookhaul from the First Light bookstore in Austin, TX.

I'm posting my December #BookSpin list early since I'm going to be too busy during the week and next weekend to post.

My #DoubleSpin for this month was a quick read that spoke to my Hobbit self. Someday, I want to live somewhere surrounded by trees, even if that means I have to plant them myself.