Increasing Your Reading in 2020

Are you hoping to read more in 2020? Philip and I made the goal to read more often for 2018, and since then have been increasing slowly each year (or rather quickly in my case last year). I love it when others are reading, and love to talk about books, so I thought I'd share some of the tips that have helped me increase my reading count so exponentially this year. 

Goodreads

I use the Goodreads app (as well as a spreadsheet) to track my reading, and you can find my profile in the link on the right. It's a social media app for readers, allowing you to add books to your TBR (to-be-read) pile digitally, and mark the books you've read, providing a rating should you choose. It's fun to be able to see what friends are reading, and allows you to see at a glance all of the titles you've read. Habit tracking is a motivator for me, so tracking my reading helps me to feel excited about getting closer to my goals. 

Libby

The Libby app can be used for taking out ebooks and audio books from the library on your phone or tablet. In Summer of 2019 I discovered audio books and have finally hit my stride as far as picking books and knowing what I like in an audio book. As long as you have a library card, this is a free option and I have really enjoyed reading this way! As I mentioned in my last post, I found celebrity memoirs or other books that were read by voices I knew as a great gateway into audio. A lot of people find non-fiction easier than fiction on audio, which was my experience as well, although I have been finding some great fiction options lately as well. Check my last post for some great audio book recommendations, or send me a DM on instagram for more recommendations!

Book-ish Podcasts

One way to stay motivated to keep reading is by often hearing about new and exciting titles, and listening to people talk about a love of reading. I have two favourites:

What Should I Read Next with Anne Bogel Anne hears from listeners 2 books they love, and 1 book they don't, and proceeds to give them 3 recommendations for what they should read next. It's relaxing to listen to, and I have never been steered wrong. If you aren't into podcasts, her instagram would also provide lots of great inspiration to get you to the library.

From the Front Porch This podcast comes out of a bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. It's a dream for a local bookstore, and my reading tastes are very similar to the bookstore owner, Annie (apparently you need to be named Anne/Ann/Annie to be into books - thankfully my middle name is Ann). They're changing their format in the new year, so the podcast might change a little bit, but I have complete confidence.

Creating Time for Reading

Don't think you have time to read? A couple of ideas to carve out the time:

Pair reading with something else in your weekly routine. Our starting move in 2018 was to pair reading with babysitting our nephews once a week. Each Wednesday when we went over, as soon as the boys went to bed we both took out our books. It was a quiet activity which was great for sleepy kids, and it automatically gave us an hour or two of reading. Once you get into a book for an hour, you're more likely to be interested in the story and eager to pick it up for a few minutes before bed each night or in any other free time you might have. 

Set a timer. Laura Tremaine, a podcaster I follow, suggests setting a timer for reading. If you're just getting started, set a timer for 20 minutes and dedicate yourself to reading. If you set a 20 min timer each day you'll be getting through books in no time!

Read as a reward. Sometimes if I'm doing a task I really don't enjoy, or trying to psych myself up for such a task, I'll give myself a reading reward. If I shovel the walk, I'll come in and read a chapter afterward. 

Read as a break from another time suck. On a relaxing day if you're watching some TV, before allowing Netflix to play the next episode automatically, read a chapter between episodes. It's time you would have spent on a TV binge anyway, and helps incorporate your new habit into the time. 

We're 2 weeks into January, have you done any reading? I'd love to hear about it! I am ahead of my goal for January reading, so February might include some longer doorstop titles while I have the wind at my back. One of my favourite January reads so far was Atomic Habits by James Clear. If you're still determining any 2020 goals you might have, that book is an amazing resource! 

Resolution Progress

This poll wasn't well publicized as I've been running out of steam on poll ideas! However, we'll still use this opportunity to share how well we're doing on our resolutions (or not so well). 

Philip:

1. Get two rejection notices.

This deals with my desire to move my dreams of being a writer forward. While I didn't send anything off to a publisher, I did keep working hard on two fronts: directing our church's Valentine's Dinner Theatre that I wrote, and outlining the plot of the books I want to write. (Yes, books. I never like to make it easy on myself.)

2. Watch this year's Best Picture nominees before next year's ceremony.

Let's have a look at the scorecard:
Amour: No.
Argo: Not yet.
Beasts of the Southern Wild: Nuh-uh.
Django Unchained: More like Django Unwatched at this point.
Les Misérables: Cass saw it without me.
Life of Pi: Want to read the book first.
Lincoln: Not yet.
Silver Linings Playbook: No.
Zero Dark Thirty: Not this one either.
What's Your Number: Oh heck yeah!
Wait, that last one wasn't nominated? And it was released a couple years ago? And wasn't even close to getting nominated? Darn.
That said, I did watch Winter's Bone. And like I told Cass, the folks adapting Mockingjay for the screen better try to find something great in that mediocre source material or else perhaps the greatest actress in a long time will be wasted on that movei. (Cass: When editing it I could have changed this to *movie* but I chose to stick with the way more cool movei "mov-eye" is how I pronounce it.)

3. Get everything upstairs that's not related to the kitchen done.

The bathroom has remained stalled for these last couple weeks, but that's going to change this weekend (I hope). We've put in an order for some bathtub hardware and are intending to do some final demolition and reinsulation/vapour barrier work this weekend.

4. Rediscover my At-Work Mojo

A bit boring to talk about, but my energy and motivation levels have grown significantly. I'm responsible for a lot of the content marketing and social media for our company, and on both counts we've been making headway. And just recently I wrote some well-received ad copy for an interesting new campaign we'll be running this year.

5. Run a marathon.

On Saturday, I was outside shovelling snow for two hours. Twice last week I caught an earlier bus home that drops me off at a stop further afield, so I got a pair of brisk 15-minute walks in both of those days. And that catches you up on my exercise for the last week. Not exactly carving a chiseled six-pack, but I haven't lost hope yet.

Cassondra:

1. God Related: Do a great job with Sunday School & Care Group, start a new daily devotional and get back to daily Bible reading.

The first two are a bit hard to measure, but we have started a great devotion book I'd recommend! It's the Experiencing God daily devotional, I believe we got it from our church at our bridal shower. I like it because it's very practical, it's a very small page to read which is nice before bed and actually gives us more time to discuss what we read instead of one of us slowly dozing off as we read it, very easy to relate to and read. 

2. Philip Related: 2 dates a month.

We mostly failed at this this month, as far as intentional dates (although we're hoping to have one Wednesday - we'll see). However, I'd say that we did have lots of good quality time and were close as a couple this month which was a great thing to see. Definitely recognizing lately how important it is to put time and effort into being a better spouse and having a strong and healthy marriage. 

3. Health Related: Get outside and exercise more.

This month I helped Philip shovel way more often than normal, so definitely got outside - but not every day. The exercising is going to come too, I did a couple of times this month even with our fish bowl window, and our blinds are coming in a couple of weeks which will mean no more excuses!

4. Blog Related: Write more posts ahead of time, learn Photoshop, line up some house tours and guest posts.

I did pretty good at this this month! I planned all the posts out at the beginning of the month, and it only started to fall apart a few posts ago. This post was written yesterday, and at the same time I wrote some posts for the end of the week and next week so that's not too shabby! Also the series for next month should help with this because it will give me a month to get ahead on writing house update posts. 

5. House Related: Get the main floor to a place we're content with.

We're still working away on our bathroom and extra bedroom this month, so we're getting there! Also the February organizing series will help to get my butt in gear with getting settled into some of the already occupied rooms.

6. Finance Related: Enter receipts regularly.

I did pretty good on this too! I have a few receipts from this weekend I haven't gotten to yet, but I did catch up on receipts and entered them pretty regularly this month. On our way to being even more in control of our finances!

This made me laugh out loud,
even though it might offend some I thought it was worth sharing.

How are you doing on your resolutions? Should we share more monthly updates on these? Also, not sure how we'll do on sharing our quarterly t0-do list at the end of February because of the series I've mentioned...might have to postpone that until the end of March - but don't worry, we'll still be working away at that list! Also make sure to enter this week's poll as we think ahead to Valentine's day!

2013 Resolutions: Philip

Cass asked me to share my New Year's Resolutions with you. Last year, I stuck with my unpublished goals through until May. This year, I hope publishing them puts me over the top.

Now, everyone has goals about diet and exercise, relationships, and even faith spirituality. And those are good, so briefly: I want to exercise every day, max out at one sweet a week, keep a bimonthly date night with my wife, and get back in the habit of having daily time with my Bible (or YouVersion app, as the case may be). But those resolutions are boring to read; you've seen them a million times. What I want to do is focus on the New Year's Resolutions that are a little less common. Like...

1. Get two rejection notices.

Some of you may know that I'm a bit of a writer, with dreams of being an author/screenwriter/playwright (really, whatever storytelling medium will have me, poetry slams included). But so far I haven't gone and sent anything off. Why? Maybe I'm too nervous. Maybe I just don't know where to start. But this year I intend to start changing that. And aiming for two rejection notices is a bit of a hedge; as long as I send stuff a couple of works off to a publisher, I either make some strides forward in my writing career or I achieve my resolution!

2. Watch this year's Best Picture nominees before next year's ceremony.

That gives me a year to watch 9 movies? I can do that. Part of striving to be a great artist is understanding what makes art great. Being truthful and discovering your voice are great, but if you don't have a good understanding how to deliver, you're back to square one.

As an aside, maybe I'm just starting to hit the target demographic, but this year's batch seems pretty strong. ZeroDark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook, Lincoln, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Argo; these are all movies I wanted to see as they've come out. I've missed them all so far, but there's no reason for that to continue.

Cass: I'm going to pretend I don't know Philip only wants to see this for Jennifer Lawrence. 

3. Get everything upstairs that's not related to the kitchen done.

Okay, so our bathroom reno has started to drag on longer than a Fiona Apple album title (h/t Hollywood Prospectus podcast). But we will get it done! And we will get the spare bedroom done! And the living room-ish! (It butts up against the kitchen, and our plans for it can only be fully realized when we can scratch together the coin to actually finish the kitchen.)

Having a beautiful living space is a top priority. Can't wait to share it with you as we make that happen.

4. Rediscover my At-Work Mojo

Last year I was kicking butt at the beginning of the year. But then some plans changed due to my company's integration with some of our sister companies. And then we lost one of the employees in our department and a lot of his work landed on my desk. And somewhere in that maelstrom, the je-ne-sais-quoi that had me at the top of my game at the beginning of the year faded.

It's time to refocus on what makes me great and what holds me back, so I can release my inner Kraken.

5. Run a marathon.

Ha. Haha. Hahahahahaha. I'm totally kidding. While I have the utmost respect for those who can, the reasons I don't want to run a marathon are legion (although if you quizzed me right now, the fact that many marathoners lose control of their, ummm, plumbing during the race would be reasons #1 through 18 on my list). But being able to jog 5K without dying would be nice. Maybe I'll work toward that.

So those are my resolutions. I hope to be back on the Friday Phil horse soon; as Cass mentioned, I'm directing a play that I adapted (writing pretty much all of it last week), but who knows, you may have me back sooner than later. (That is, if the blog will have me back!) This week, tell us what you're looking forward to most in 2013. 

January Motivation

With 2013 in full swing, and my resolutions staying pretty strong so far, I thought I'd share a few of the January home decor/organizing/cleaning resolutions that I've seen on the interweb that you might be interested in participating in. Philip will be back for his regular Friday post at some point in the future, he's just really busy writing for the church's drama these days so we're giving him a little break. Plus he'll be sharing his resolutions on Tuesday so that's something to look forward to.

1. Apartment Therapy: The January Cure

Apartment Therapy has provided a calendar for January with tasks to do each day that are related to reinvesting in your home (buying flowers and hanging artwork), purging (using an outbox to help collect things throughout the month that you're ready to part with), and cleaning in general (this past weekend they tried to force me to mop and vacuum my floors - but I didn't have a mop handle after painting my ceiling and breaking two of them - so I fooled them!).  I've tried to follow along with it, although a few of the things weren't as applicable to me or I wasn't interested in doing them, so I've sort of tailored it to fit my own lifestyle/needs. For example, instead of buying flowers this past weekend since I didn't want to spend the money, and I am a plant killer, I rearranged my mantle post-Christmas with beautiful  new things that I was gifted and that make me happy. 

2. iHeart Organizing: Home Office Challenge

Jen at iHeart Organizing is planning a monthly challenge throughout 2013, each month focusing on a different area of the home. January is the Home Office, and it's a great place to start especially as tax time approaches and we want to get our paperwork in order. We finished renovating our office, but now there is stuff everywhere. Hopefully this challenge can motivate me to organize all our paperwork this month. I started the other day with a warranties/instructions binder to house all of the paperwork that comes with the furniture/electronics/appliances that we're buying for this new house. Once it's done I'll be sure to share it! 

3. Real Simple: Organizing Challenge

This challenge is a lot more open to your own ideas, basically you just send in a photo on instagram of the space you organized. This month is the kitchen, and they give a few suggestions as to what you can organize. Not sure if I'll participate in this one (maybe!), but I am a bit of a Real Simple fan and a subscriber, so I thought I'd share it. 

4. Home Storage Solutions 101: 52 Weeks to an Organized Home

I did subscribe to this one, but am unfamiliar with the site. We'll see how it goes, but I can always use weekly motivational reminders of projects I should be doing around my house. Especially as a new homeowner, I can let things slide just from even not knowing how often something should be done. The first week was making goals (did that), and the second week involves some kitchen cleaning that I will try and do tomorrow! 

Is anyone else participating in some internet challenges to help them stay motivated? Any interest in us running something like this? I'm considering a series in March or April on Spring Cleaning/Purging - I'm not a cleaner, but I am an organizer/purger so hopefully that could help me to get better at cleaning, and maybe I can motivate some other people to do something I'm passionate about - which is get rid of all the extra stuff in your house that someone else could make better use of. Let me know what you think of that in the comments, or even send me an email at cassondra.wiebe@gmail.com with ideas for the blog. 

What the New Year has in Store

As you might have learned by now...I'm a big list person. I like to make resolutions, although I'd consider them more of goals (Philip says that's the same as a resolution), maybe they're more "yearly tasks/accomplishments".

One note made on the poll last week by Christine Steendam was that a lot of people don't make resolutions. While true, something to know is that you're 10 times more likely to make a change in your life if you make a 2013 goal. According to Real Simple anyway. They also recommend making your goals public, so while we share a couple of ours on this blog, feel free to add yours in the comments. We're back to polling through our site, the Facebook poll was not as well liked (didn't realize that it would show who voted for what - making it a little more public). We'll extend the same poll question this week so more of you can have a chance to answer. I'll share my resolutions for the big 2013, while Philip shares his next Tuesday.

I typically make a list of resolutions, addressing different areas of my life, and then in order to make them more achievable I break them down by quarter/month/week...that kind of thing. This year I kept it simple and I made a one page list of resolutions (color coded), followed by a break down of a couple things I can do in January to work towards accomplishing each of the goals for the year. We'll see how January goes, and then I'll work on a February list. In the interest of keeping things a bit briefer than Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, I'll share just one goal in each area of my life that I highlighted (this kind of back-fired...it got long, but hopefully sharing most of my goals keeps me accountable this year!)

The categories that I divided my resolutions into were: God Related, Philip Related, Health Related, Blog Related, House Related, and Finance Related. 

God Related: In addition to getting back on the Scripture-reading routine that we started out strong on when we first got married and have slowly fallen off of after moving, I really want to make sure to go above and beyond in the areas in which I volunteer at our church. That means doing a great job with my 4-year old Sunday School class, as well as in leading our care group.
In January, that means grabbing a devotion book that I can read each day - we were doing a chronological Bible reading plan and we were probably almost done but it became a little bit of a chore and so I wouldn't mind mixing it up for a little bit with something else. Any recommendations? 

Philip Related: Hopefully our new Date Jar will help with the resolution to have at least two intentional date nights a month. With a home renovation and a lot of other commitments, these can easily slide. 
In January I'll have to make sure we get those two dates in (I've already marked days I think will work on our calendar). 

*Swoon*

Health Related: One thing I've noticed since I quit my job back in March, and especially since Winter has come around, is that it's really easy to go a day or two without getting any sunlight. It makes me really tired and so one of my goals is to get outside for a bit each day. It's definitely a goal that haunts me as I look out my window at all the snow and neighbors in their winter jackets. Philip will like it though because it might mean coming home to an already shoveled walk, or more snow women to keep Concetta company (somehow she's still going strong). 

Our snow woman is still hanging out in our yard after over a month.

Blog Related: I am full of dreams for this blog, so hopefully 2013 will be an exciting year in this department. One thing I want to get better at is writing posts ahead so I'm not scrambling at the last minute, and so there is more time for editing and making posts as great as they can be (so bad at this one - but maybe I'm getting there - it's Friday and this post is for next Tuesday!). I also want to improve in things like Photoshop to make my posts better, and hopefully line up some special blogging series, posts about some other homes that inspire us, and maybe even some guest posts. If you have any ideas on how we can improve this blog, or would like to contribute in some way, contact us! Our information is on the About Us page and we'd love to hear from you!

House Related: You've already seen our ambitious To-Do list, and know some of our house goals for this year. The main thing that they all add up to is having a main floor that we're happy with and feel settled in. We know we likely won't get to the kitchen and living room for a year or two, so for now we want to finish the back part of the house (bedrooms and bathroom), and organize the living room and kitchen to be places that we feel content with for now. 

Finance Related: Philip shared our budgeting tool a little while back, but the one thing it requires to work is us entering receipts and expenses regularly so it's actually up to date. I'm almost caught up on the pile of receipts we'd let slide, and then I want to keep it up every day and review it together once a month so we know where our money is going and can save up for more renovation projects! 

That's it for me this year! If I can accomplish the above, I think I've had a pretty successful year. Is anyone else this crazy about their lists? Have you ever fully completed a resolution?