2010 In Review

2010 is nearly over and can I just say that I’m really looking forward to 2011?!! It was kind of a crazy and rough year for me and I even had to take a break from blogging toward the end of this year. I decided that despite my challenges, life must go on and I miss my blogging friends too much to just give up blogging altogether.

I had hoped to do much better with reading in 2010 than I actually ended up doing. I managed to read or partially read 53 books (not all of which I reviewed and listed—some of them were smutty free books from Amazon that to be honest, weren’t worth reviewing. Yes, I’m admitting it. I read a few smutty romance novels to try to expand my horizons). My spreadsheet total says I read 21,000+ pages and averaged 465 pages per book I read. I am not sure that count is completely accurate because some of the books I haven’t finished yet.

What I learned about myself
I did learn that overdoing challenges really bogged me down in 2010. I didn’t enjoy reading as much because I felt obligated to hold to the challenges I had joined. So, toward the end of the year I gave up and just read what I felt like reading. It worked much better for me and I felt much more satisfied.

I did REALLY enjoy doing read-a-longs though. I finally trudged through Middlemarch with Lydia from The Literary Lollipop and Ellie, a friend from Shelfari. It made the experience enjoyable and we are all reading The Count of Monte Cristo together right now and through the first part of 2011. Instead of joining tons of challenges, I am going to concentrate more on joining read-a-longs from now on because I feel like I get more out of them.

I will however be doing two challenges in 2011:

Rikki from The Bookkeeper’s Steampunk Challenge
I have already started this one and plan to read a total of five books for the challenge.


Zee from Reading in the North’s Nordic Challenge
I am planning on reading at least one book from each Nordic country in this challenge. I have already chosen a book for Sweden called The Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerlöf. I still have to choose books for Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland. I can’t wait to start this one because I have a love affair with Scandinavia (and now Iceland too after reading The Tricking of Freya).

So I guess to make it official, I am going to make every effort to start blogging again. I miss all of my blogging friends too much to stay away. You guys have all been so supportive of me through my blogging break. I especially want to thank Amy from Amy Reads, Rachel from And the Plot Thickens, Rikki from The Bookkeeper, and Sarah from Bookworm Blues for being my sounding boards. All my blogging friends are great, but these ladies have really listened to me through some chats and are probably sick and tired of me moaning and groaning about life! I love all of my blogging friends though. You are all very special to me! Thank you all for being there in my time of need.

I am not sure that I’ll be posting three or more times a week, but my goal is to post one to two times a week and get my rear in gear for 2011. I am going to read where my heart takes me this year and not limit myself in any way other than these two challenges. I also may host a read-a-long of The Three Musketeers later this year when things settle down in life.

• What are your plans for 2011?
• Are you going to challenge yourself in any way this upcoming year, reading or otherwise?
• What things will you change in your blog and/or reading habits from 2010 for the upcoming year?

Have a Happy New Year everyone!

Hope it’s a joyful year for all of us!

Blogging Break

After long and hard thought, I have decided to take a blogging break. With the holidays coming up and some personal issues I am having, I need to make this decision for myself. It's been a hard decision to make, but one I need to make. I hope to come back soon and return to blogging, but at this time, I can't give a definite time frame.

I will still read and post reviews for the books I've received for review, and I will still continue doing the Book Read 'Round the World Event so all those participating have nothing to worry about. I will still post your guest posts on my blog and the McKlinky will stay up for you to post links to your reviews of the books. I will also post a McKlinky for the Great Grocery Bag Exchange event as well.

I hope everyone has a really Happy Holidays and I'll still occasionally run around on Twitter so I don't lose touch with all of you. Thank you all for following my blog and being such good friends. I promise I'll be back and posting new reviews soon!

Bloggiesta Wrap-Up Post: Crossing the Finish Line

It's the last day of Bloggiesta. I'm a little torn--I've loved every moment of this weekend. I've met so many new bloggers through Twitter and have even got help from Vanessa at Book Soul Mates in making my first form for my Book Read 'Round the World Event. I don't think I've ever spent such an extended period of time on my blog (other than when I first set it up) so I feel like I've really accomplished quite a bit this weekend.

The only things I had left on my To Do List I accomplished today. The only two items left were:

• Write a few backup posts
• Continue brainstorming on a series post that isn't meme related

In regards to my backup posts, I feel like I sort of failed. I didn't write very many (only two which I actually plan on publishing this week), but I have thought a lot about other topics that I can write additional posts about and use for the future. Let's just hope I keep on task and follow through on it!

If you are interested in seeing my other accomplishments, please go to my previous posts about the Bloggiesta event:

• It's Time for the Semi-Annual Bloggiesta!
• Bloggiesta Update #1 - My Goals for Bloggiesta
• Bloggiesta Update #2 - Crossing off the List Pt.1
• Bloggiesta Update #3 - Crossing off the List Pt. 3
• "Could Not Detect a Feed for This URL?!!" - That's Right, I Finally Figured Out How to Fix It!
• Event! Book Read 'Round the World

There was one thing that was an EPIC FAIL for me -- keeping track of my time. I have no idea how many hours I spent on the event. It was a lot! I spent most of the weekend working on things. Most of them won't be readily noticeable either. I also still have a mental To Do List that I would like to continue working on before the next Bloggiesta because I am SO doing this again!

Thanks goes out to Natasha at Maw Books Blog for hosting Bloggiesta and all the other mini-challenge hosts for all their work to make Bloggiesta a success! It was a great event and made me feel really excited about blogging!

I can't leave off without any mood music, so here it is...a couple of songs for you to enjoy the end of Bloggiesta. The first is Los Lobos' version of La Bamba, the second is Los Lonely Boys' song Heaven, and the third is the best version of Volver, Volver I could find on YouTube (Los Lobos does an awesome one, but there were no good videos on YouTube). Enjoy!

Mood Music

Bloggiesta Update #3 - Crossing off the List Pt. 2

It's Day 2 of Bloggiesta and wow....did I take a lot of time on some things today. I actually didn't expect to spend so much time on my business card task, but I found a website called Zazzle that has fantastic business cards and bookmarks that you can customize for a fairly decent price. I spent many hours just working on my design which left less time in the day for things I should be doing--namely, writing backup posts. Oh well, it was fun to play graphic artist for the day and let my OCD get the best of me.



Here are the things I accomplished:

• I created a button for Shelfari that links to my Shelfari page (it's on the right hand sidebar near my Twitter button)
• I came up with an event primarily for bloggers outside the U.S. that will be a globetrotting book event (it will start in the U.S. though). Look for a post this upcoming week about it if you are a blogger from a country outside the U.S.
• I designed both a business card and a bookmark. Thanks to my fellow blogger/Twitter friends for looking at my bookmark, and a special thank you to Judith at Leeswammes' Blog for looking over my business card.
• I wrote a blog post ("Could Not Detect a Feed for This URL?!!"--That's Right, I Finally Figured Out How to Fix It!)about the RSS Autodisovery Fix for broken RSS Feeds. Thank you to Pete Freitag whose post helped me fix my RSS Feed that had been broken since February 2010.
• I wrote part one of a two part post about my trip to Fredericksburg, TX in April for Hugh Ambrose's signing of his book, The Pacific. I will post it in the morning!
• I entered my first mini-challenge: Bloggiesta Day Two --The Surprise Mini Challenge (I've decided that free-spirited people have more fun so I took a silly picture).
• Got both a gravicon and a favicon
• Found a guest blogger--Judith, from Leeswammes' Blog--to do a guest post on my blog. If you would like to do a guest post, just leave a comment and let me know! I'm pretty open about topics!

Still on my To Do List:

• Write a few backup posts
• Continue brainstorming on a series post that is not meme related

Mood Music

For your daily listening pleasure, I've chosen "Hey Baby Que Paso" by the Texas Tornados. Oh man....this brings back memories. My brother's band used to sing this all the time when I was growing up! Love it! Also, check out Suey's Bloggiesta Updates on her blog, It's All About Books...and life's other adventures too! She features a Nelly Furtado/Josh Groban song and an Enrique Iglesias song. I've listened to both MULTIPLE times on her blog!

"Could Not Detect a Feed for This URL?!!" -- That's Right, I Finally Figured Out How to Fix It!

Back in February I wrote a post about my blog roll problems in a post titled, "Blog Roll Problems Anyone?" because I received a few messages saying people weren't able to add me to their Blog Roll because they got this error message:

"Could not detect a feed for this URL. Blog posts and update time will not be shown. Add URL anyway?"

I had found a quick fix that involved giving people my actual Feed URL instead of just my Blog URL. If you are wondering what the difference is between a Feed URL and just a regular website or blog URL, here it is:

• Feed URL - http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
• Website/Blog URL - http://blogname.blogspot.com

This has been a known issue for Blogger for months and it doesn't appear that they've fixed it. I think the problem may come from using templates that are not from the Blogger website. My template comes from BloggerThemes.net. 

If you are having this problem, FEAR NOT! Through the wonders of Google, I found a website that actually fixes the problem permanently without having to tell people what your Feed URL. You just need to add this line of code into the HTML of your blog template:

<link href='http://littlebookish.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default' rel='alternate' title='RSS Feed for A Little Bookish' type='application/rss+xml'/>

• The above link tag should be added right before the </head> of your HTML
•  Change the "title" and "href" to fit your blog
• If you use Atom, change the "type" to application/atom+xml
• If you have multiple feeds, you can add multiple link tags

**Please note that I took this directly from Pete Freitag's website. I give his post full credit for helping me fix my problem and really appreciate his post! Please visit his website if you have any further questions (of course, I would be happy to try to help if you have having the same issue I did.

Bloggiesta Update #2 - Crossing off the List Pt. 1

It's only Day 1 of Bloggiesta, and I have most definitely have NOT been participating in siesta. I've accomplished quite a lot today partially because I am woefully behind on reading a few books and need to get back to it (if you are curious, I am reading Middlemarch by George Eliot in an informal read-a-long at Literary Lollipop, and I'm also trying to finish up The Pacific by Hugh Ambrose--non-fiction always takes me longer to read).



Here are the things I've accomplished:

• Thought about the goals for my blog and have made a short-term and long-term list of goals. I have to admit that I am not super driven to chase down 1,000 followers, but my general goal would be to get people regularly reading and commenting on my blog (and not just memes--I like it when people read my reviews...hehe). 
• I have added RSS subscription and e-mail subscription to my blog on the right hand side of my sidebar at the top as well as changed my Twitter icon to something a little bigger and hopefully more noticeable.
• Added Google Analytics to my blog
• I organized my bookshelf and can now find all the books I haven't actually read yet (It's a lot! Does anyone else have this problem?)
• I have asked someone to do a guest post on my blog and hopefully I'll hear back from her soon.
• I have come up with an idea for an International Book Blogger event that I am going to organize. If you are interested, please comment here and I will add you to my list. 
• I only need two more followers to do my first giveaway (it will be books off my shelf and will be open to anyone in the world).
• I have found a few new book bloggers to follow (especially because I'm looking for bloggers outside the U.S. for the event). If you have a Twitter account, let me know. Recently, I've been finding it is much easier to read people's reviews if they post links on Twitter (and I like to comment on reviews!)

Still on my To Do List:

• Need to write a few backup posts for lazy days. I've come up with a few ideas, but if you have suggestions, please leave a comment!
• I still need to come up with a post that I can do on a regular basis...not a meme, but something that has the same theme from week to week.
• Write the post about fixing my feed URL problem. Apparently other people using Blogger have encountered this problem and I can now tell the world how to fix it (thanks to someone else who posted it first of course)!
• Look into doing business cards. I am not sure I will get this done this weekend, but I would like to consider doing it.
• Look into doing a gravatar and a favicon

Mood Music

...AND, I can't leave out something for your listening pleasure! Here's a song I grew up hearing my family sing at just about every family party I went to:

Bloggiesta Update #1 - My Goals for Bloggiesta!

UPDATE #1

It's the first day of Bloggiesta, so I decided to write a post about what I plan to do for the weekend:

• Write a few backup posts that are book related, but not actual reviews. If anyone has any ideas, I'm open to suggestions for topics.
• Come up with a series post that I can do regularly between book reviews
• Find someone to do a guest blog post. If you are interested, please let me know!
• I would like to think about doing an International Blogger Event of some kind to promote community with book bloggers all over the world--possibly a read-a-long or a Sisterhood of the Traveling Book kind of thing (you send a book and local treat to the next person on the list)
• Come up with a "business" plan with some short-term and long-term goals for my blog
• Make some business cards
• Get 50 followers so that I can do my first giveaway.
• Write a post about the solution to my Feed URL not being detected so that other bloggers that have the same problem will know how to fix it!
• Consider dropping a challenge or two that I've signed up for so that I feel more free to read whatever books I feel like reading. 
• Consider getting a gravatar
• Network with a few bloggers that I haven't previously found through the Bloggiesta event
• Organize my bookshelf so that I know exactly what books I have that still need to be read.

What are your goals for Bloggiesta? Please leave a comment with your blog URL so that I can come check on your goals and progress! Good luck!

Some Mood Music for You!

Rodrigo y Gabriela - Tamacun (from their self-titled album, Rodrigo y Gabriela)

It's Time for the Semi-Annual Bloggiesta!

¡Bienvenidos! ¡Ya es hora de celebrar Bloggiesta!* This time around, Bloggiesta is scheduled between June 11-13. It's a time to evaluate your blog and think about what is working, what's not, and where you want your blog to go!

What is Bloggiesta?
According to Maw Books Blog, Bloggiesta is, "...a blogging marathon. An opportunity to cross those nagging items off your to-do list and improve your blog while in the good company of other awesome bloggers doing the same thing. Break out the nachos, enchiladas, drinks, mariachi music and whack a pinata or two!"


What to do During Bloggiesta

• Write reviews
• Write backup posts for a rainy day
• Write that great post idea from three months back
• Work on series posts
• Write guest posts
• Put out invitations for guest posts
• Conduct and edit author interviews
• Create template posts for your future reads (i.e., title, images, linking, tags, etc.) so you can open up, write the review and post it without being bogged down with technicalities.
• Clean up your tags, archives, books reviewed list, etc.
• Create a text file (or Google doc) of cheat sheets (html codes, post url's, etc.)
• Improve your blog template, clean up sidebars, add a favicon, install those plug-ins you've been meaning to.
• Add or edit your About Me page, review policy, disclosure policy, privacy policy, create landing pages (for example--an About Me page for Twitter readers page) or any other pages you might have
• Any bloggy type housekeeping that you've been neglecting
• Clean up and update your challenge lists. Link up your posts with hosts.
• Make sure all of your social network profiles are up to date. Brand yourself through those profiles with color schemes, images, etc.
• Go get a gravatar
• Visit the Blogging Tips Group on the Book Blogs Ning Network and find ways to improve your blog.
• Work on any specialized projects you may have going.
• Clean out and organize your feed reader and blog subscriptions
• Create an elevator pitch.
• Make business cards
• Find a blogging buddy
• The sky's the limit!

How to sign up:

• Go to Maw Books Blog and read her Bloggiesta post
• If you decide to join, clink on the Mister Linky she has posted on her page
• Be sure to check out the mini-challenges she has posted as well. They include some great tips and discussions on book blogging.
• She says there will be prizes if you're one of those people that needs extra incentive!

To get you all in the mood to fiesta for Bloggiesta, here is one of my favorite Spanish language songs:

Gloria Estefan - Mi Tierra


*Thanks to my friend James for giving me a little Spanish opening. He is headed to Monterrey, Mexico next month for work and has been working hard to become fluent in Spanish!

Blog Award! Happy 101

A few weeks ago, Whitney from She's Too Fond of Books awarded me the Happy 101 Blog Award. I really like this award because it lets everyone who is awarded share 10 things that make them happy. What a nice idea!

Here are 10 things that make me happy:

1. Route 44 Sonic Unsweetened Ice Tea with extra ice (LOVE Sonic Ice)
2. Curling up with a good book that sucks me into a different world
3. Snuggling with my dogs Turbo and Max (and walking them too!)
4. Laughing about ridiculous things
5. Reading new messages posted on my favorite Shelfari groups (Anne McCaffrey and All Her Worlds and Fantasy/Science Fiction Book of the Month)
6. Tabi socks
7. Listening to music
8. Reading other people's blogs
9. Watching a good movie/TV show (currently obsessed with The Pacific, Castle, and Firefly)
10. Traveling to other countries

I also get to pass this award onto a few blogs! These are blogs I read fairly consistently and really enjoy.

1. Kristi at Kristi Mingo's Thoughts
2. Trish at 100 Mile Fitness Challenge (for the months of January - March 2010)
3. Carin at Caroline Bookbinder
4. Lori at Escape Between the Pages
5. Orchid at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia

I love reading all these blogs on a regular basis! Thanks again to Whitney at She's Too Fond of Books (whose blog I also enjoy reading regularly)!

Blog Roll Problems Anyone?

Other Carin from Caroline Bookbinder let me know this morning that when she added me to her Blog Roll widget, this error message came up:

Could not detect a feed for this URL. Blog posts and update time will not be shown. Add URL anyway?

Us bloggers just simply cannot have that! I spent about an hour trying to look up a fix for it, and this is what I found:

• It seems to be a problem with the RSS or Atom feed
• There are a few quick fixes, but not the one I wanted because people can't simply add my blog to their blog roll and see any new posts I might have done. The same goes if this happens on someone's blog that I follow and the error message occurs on their blog.

HERE ARE TWO QUICK FIXES:

1. When you enter the URL into your Blog Roll widget, use this format (remember to change the "blogname" to the blog you are trying to follow): http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
2. Go to Google Reader and click on "Add Subscription" at the top left hand corner of the page. Then add the URL of the blog you want to follow. When you go back to your Blog Roll widget editing feature, you will be able to click on the "Add to List" button and "Import Subscriptions from Google Reader" will show up. If you click that button, the blog you entered should show up and you can enter it that way. For a nifty link for you visual learners, here's a blog that has directions with pictures: http://d2zack.blogspot.com/2010/01/problem-couldnt-detect-feed-when-adding.html

I was able to fix the problem using the first way, but not the second. I thought I'd post the second because it did work for the person whose link I posted above. If I figure out a better way, I'll be sure to post it on my blog. I hope that is helpful to those of you experiencing the problem. I have to admit that I love these little troubleshooting researches that I have to do, but I am a little frustrated that the problem doesn't appear to be fixable in the way that I want! hehe!


**UPDATE**
I found a post on the Known Issues area of Blogger and this is apparently a known issue and they are working on it. If you are having site feed areas, go to Known Issues and report your problem. 

My First Blog Award

Oh boy....I am SO late in posting this! Kat from Kat's Books blog gave me a blog award a few weeks ago  (January 15 to be exact) and in my laziness, I am just writing about it today. It's not that I didn't appreciate it because I do. I thought it was so nice of her to mention by blog! Honestly, I have trouble accepting praise for some reason and it contributed to my sloth about posting the award.

Here are the rules for the Our Lovely Blog Award:

Accept the award, and post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his/her blog link. Pass the award to 5 other blogs that you've newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know that they have been chosen for this award.

I am passing the award on to these 5 blogs:

• Ready When You Are, C.B.  - I am really enjoying his Read the Book, See the Movie Challenge, and he always has thoughtful reviews on interesting books.
• Misfit Salon - I love the thoughtful posts on this blog. They are always thought provoking.
• Exploring Worlds - Cam runs the Anne McCaffrey and All Her Worlds group on Shelfari and I love reading her insights on fantasy novels.
• Caroline Bookbinder - I initially took a look at Carin's blog because she is the only person I have EVER seen with the same spelling of name as I have! Not only does she have the same name as I do, but she runs a great book blog with really interesting blog entries. 
• Post Grad Haircut - I just discovered this blog this evening when Samantha visited and left a comment on my blog. I went and had a look at her blog which is devoted to different art forms and her small business, SamMade. I also took a look at her business website, and I have to say that I love her bags! They are super cute!

...And last, but certainly not least, I want to give a BIG THANK YOU to Kat at Kat's Books! Please go and check out her blog. I also follow her blog which I read regularly. She always reviews interesting books that I usually end up putting on my TBR list. 

New Poll Posted

70% of the people (seven of you--hehe) answered that you preferred Fiction over Non-Fiction so I decided to post a new poll to break that down into genres. I won't leave the poll up as long this time so be sure to vote!

If you answer "Other," please post a comment here telling me what your favorite genre is! Please also post any books you recommend and ways I can improve my blog!

*Update*
It looks like some of you are choosing "Other" for your favorite genre of fiction. Be sure to post a comment and tell me what is your favorite genre of fiction!

Adventures in Blogging

Last night I got the bright idea to try to update the look of my blog and get a template that was not designed by Blogger. Even they admit it, their "classic" looks are pretty boring. I thought that adding a nice little Christmas theme to my blog would spice it up a bit. The only spice I got for the last 24 hours was the stress it caused!

If you have looked at the blog before, I had some gadgets on the side that are now missing. Yup, those accidentally got deleted! After I finally got my blog set up again and typed in all the books I've read and rated this year (in a post rather than in the sidebar), someone from Shelfari generously told me that my comments weren't working (thank you Passionforthepage). my husband and I spent a few hours trying to figure out how to fix it. Not only did the comments not work on the new template, when I reverted to the old template that Blogger designed the comments still didn't work! He eventually found a site with some HTML code that I was able to insert and *poof*, it magically works now!

So, please enjoy my Christmas theme and make sure you visit Passionforthepage's blog at http://passionforthepage.blogspot.com/. I really appreciated her input and absolutely LOVE her book blog! It's the most original I've seen!