I usually have these community posts as part of my monthly wrap-ups but those posts of mine are already long enough so I thought I’d try making a separate post for these! I’ll do a trial run for a couple of months before deciding whether I’ll keep up with it or just merge it back with the monthly posts, even if it will make them longer. Here’s what I read and loved in the community this January. I’m sure I still missed a lot but I’d love to know what some of your favourite posts were this month too or feel free to share your own favourite posts in the comments if you want!
Just like it does every year, January feels like it lasts a lifetime but not nearly long enough. I can’t believe we’re already bidding the first month of a new year adieu but here we are, rolling into February! January was a pretty low-key month with work picking up speed very slowly and my social life being non-existent, as per usual, lol.
On a more personal front, I did take a big step this month to finally go to the doctor. Due to past medical trauma, I’ve put off seeing a doctor or doing anything that involves taking care of my health for years. I’m not proud of it, especially considering how much I advocate for others to take care of themselves, but a couple of weeks ago, I scrounged up my courage and finally went. That appointment led to me getting a minor day procedure done this past Tuesday, and I came out of the operating theatre floating on a cloud of anaesthesia but already feeling better for the step that I took. I’m spending the rest of this week half-resting, half WFH and just focusing on recovering before going in to find out more about the results next week.
Well, I don’t know about you but to me, January simultaneously felt like it would never end and like it passed way too quickly for my liking. This was the month I started my “new” job, returned to work 4 of 5 days in the office, and felt a ridiculous level of stress and pressure that I haven’t felt in quite some time. It has been both good and bad and although it’s gotten slightly better and I’m slowly finding my feet, it’s been a lot to adjust to!
With my first chunky new paycheck I decided to indulge in new tech and invested in my first ever tablet—the 5th Gen iPad Air and of course, I got it in the colour purple! 💜 I think 2023 is fast becoming the year I take my favourite colour and make it into my whole aesthetic and I’m not mad about it at all.
Well, now that the first month of 2022 is over, I wonder just how quickly the rest of the year will pass by? If it’s anything like 2021, it’ll be a blink! 😂 This was a pretty quiet month on the life front.
I very quickly got a consultancy gig from Jan-May. It’s twice a week and not a lot but at least I have a little something!
We had one major trip this month and that was coming back to Jakarta from Bali. I love our Bali house (I miss our pool!) but ah, it feels so good to be back with my fur babies and my books! 😍
I’m still obsessed with T.Swift and if I continue to obsessively listen to her music throughout the year, I’m pretty sure she’ll take top spot on my Spotify wrap up (again).
Please someone tell me how the first month of this new year has already come to an end. How did that happen so quickly?
2021 kicked off pretty quietly (on this side of the world) although globally, it seemed that chaos still reigned in many places causing tensions to remain high and people to feel pretty low, not to mention the pandemic. I took a one-week holiday at the start of the month to “decompress” between work contracts, although not much of that happened before it was time to start work again but this time on a part-time contract! I have to admit that since I started working three days a week, my days have begun to blur into one giant blob of working, reading, blogging and not much else. 😂
Half the time I feel like I don’t even know what day it is anymore and that definitely didn’t help by the brain fog that came creeping in around mid-month. Although I still struggle with my mental health and this month got a bit rough towards the end, the three day work week has really helped to keep extra pressure at bay and that’s exactly why I agreed to it in the first place!
In bookish mail news, I was surprised to actually receive the Cemetery Boys pre-order goodies from Aiden Thomas (even if it’s quite late)! I never usually receive these goodies and I blame that entirely on the mail system in my country so colour me very shook when I saw the beautiful character cards (and sign plate) arrive the other week. My photos don’t do the cards justice but trust, they’re gorgeous and I love to see them! 😍 If I’m not mistaken, the art is by: @mmarsloud.
January ended up being a pretty great reading month thanks to having more time in general. I ended up reading 22 books (that I’m counting with three books that I read and won’t be counting towards my GR goal). This month was unsurprisingly heavy on fantasy and romance with a sprinkle of middle-grade and literary fiction. A couple books took me a few steps out of my comfort zone but I ended up really loving them and they were strong contenders for favourites this month! The majority of the books I read were also by new-to-me-authors with some potential favourite new ones on the list!
I’m still a bit behind on my reviews and part of me just wants to start writing mini-reviews for all of them but is that a cop out? 😂 I loved most of my reads this month but I also had quite a few ratings below three-stars and I don’t tend to give those out a lot, so that was pretty surprising! With only one five-star read this month Ever After Always was the winning favourite and I’ve linked my review below if you want to check it out. 😊
dinipandareads 