Books Read in 2016

You guys...

I almost didn't share the books I read in 2016. I'm embarrassed. I only read 13 books in 2016, and 31% of them were those fluffy romance novels you buy at the grocery store. The kind of books that you would never review and probably not recommend either. Fun for you, but they are what they are- brain candy. The literary equivalent of a pint of ice cream. It goes down smooth and easy with no thought whatsoever. Ironically, I also read 31% of the years books in the last 2 weeks of the year, while I was on my Oregon vacation. It was a tough year. Dealing with my back injury for the entire year took its toll. Along with the injury, I also fought depression for most of the year. And when I'm depressed, my concentration is affected. My attention span is nil. It makes it tough and sometimes impossible to read. That being said, I did read some wonderful books that I'd definitely recommend. I hope next years list is more prolific but 2016 was what it was. In 2016, I read-

Books I Read in 2015

Time to start wrapping up 2015!

I'm looking back at the list of books I read in 2015, and it's so weird, but I feel like I just read these all yesterday. It's hard to believe that some of these I read more than 365 days ago. It was a good year for reading, if a light year. I usually aim to read 2 books a month, but I only made it to 19 this year. Mainly because I stopped reading after I read "What Alice Forgot" in October, and started writing. So I'm not beating myself up. I probably would have read 4 more books in November and December. And writing is whole other type of self-education that I'm learning to enjoy. Here's how the year of 2015 went in reading-

November In A Nutshell: 2015

November is nearly gone. Unbelievable. This year has flown by. I'm sitting here in a bit of shock that the hubby and I are going to be putting away all my fall decor to make room for our Christmas stuff today. I feel like it was just yesterday that we were putting up last year's tree. I guess time flies when you're having fun, huh? 

The other night I found myself reading my old blog posts. Like, really, really old blog posts. Besides feeling a little sheepish at the quality of what I used to post, I found a blog theme that was left along the wayside at some point. And that theme was the end-of-month wrap-up. I found, for my memory purposes, that those monthly wrap-up's were some of my favorite posts to read. The hubby told me those were some of his favorites too. So, I think it's time to reinstate that tradition. Here's what the hubby and I got into this month:

Oh! And that top photo I took when the hubby and I took the nephews and niece to Buffalo Wild Wings on Black Friday. We had a grand time. The boys' expressions are priceless, aren't they? Haha.

Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts with Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze

Last week I confessed that I'd had a doughnut pan for over 6 months that I hadn't tested out yet. There must be something about putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) that made me want to change that. And since everyone, their mother, their mother's mother, and their 2nd-cousin-twice-removed is posting pumpkin recipes, I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring.

With homemade doughnuts! 

Books I Read in 2014

Happy New Year!

Well, it's 2015. Time to put 2014 in the rear view. One of my goals for 2014 was to read more. I didn't set a goal of a certain amount of books to read, mainly because I wasn't reading much in 2013 and anything would be an improvement. I thought I would simply see how I could do.