Bloggiesta!

At the last minute, it’s turned out that I have a couple days I can give to this year’s Bloggiesta!

Bloggiesta is hosted at Suey’s blog It’s All About Books and Danielle’s blog There’s a Book. I found out about this year’s event from reading Chachic’s Book Nook.

It turned out nice. I do have the full weekend off. On Monday this week, I learned that my son had been accepted to Boston University. So I asked for next Monday and Tuesday off to do a crazy quick road trip up to Boston. Then he got the acceptance notice with a financial aid offer — and a list of tuition prices. He also got accepted to William & Mary. It was easy to notice that Boston University with financial aid would cost the same as William & Mary without financial aid. So I’m no longer interested in trying to get him more interested in Boston. He seems happy to think of going to William & Mary, so I’m happy too!

But — I did ask for those two days off. And when I realize that my son will be at home those two days (and the rest of the week at his Dad’s), it seems like a good idea to still take them off. Then I discovered that Bloggiesta is this weekend! So what that means… I can spend all day Saturday and most of Sunday doing Bloggiesta, and put off my weekend chores and errands for Monday and Tuesday. Sounds like a lovely way to put fun ahead of work!

Bloggiesta, for those who haven’t seen it before, is all about dedicating a weekend to work on your blog and add some new features and learn about blogging and network. Here are the things I’d like to do. (Note: My to-do lists are ALWAYS much longer than I can really do, but that makes me happy, so just ignore it!)

1. *** Catch up on writing reviews!!!

Note, today I read Chachic’s post about remembering that blogging is fun. Like her, I realized that any pressure I put on myself is coming from me, not from anybody else. When I started writing reviews, I worked half-time. Now I work full-time. But I began by reviewing everything I read, and I find myself wanting to keep that up. Sondy, I’m telling myself, that is unrealistic. So what if I make my goal to write reviews of the books piled up that I most enjoyed — and turn the rest back into the library! *gasp* I will see if I have the strength of will to do this at the end of this weekend. I actually have 23 books piled up here next to the computer that I have read but haven’t reviewed. That’s not counting picture books (some of which are longer nonfiction picture books). So I will try to alternate between longer books and picture books and see how many I can get reviewed — *and turn in the rest*!!! (I’m not at all sure I’ll really do this is why I’m giving it so much emphasis. If I start with the ones I enjoyed most, I can’t really go wrong, can I?)

2. Update the wordpress version of my blogs.
This one’s just a detail — usually. Sometimes it hits a bump and takes a long time. So I’ve been putting it off.

3. Attend a Twitter party! I just caught the end of the first #bloggiesta Twitter party. I will try to attend the one tomorrow from 4 to 6.

4. Post one post on each of my blogs each day, and one review.

I have four blogs, for different things. https://sonderbooks.com/blog/ is my main blog, and all the reviews are permanently posted on my website, sonderbooks.com The catch with having an html website and a blog is that it takes longer to update both and set up the links. This is why I’ve begun writing the reviews ahead, and then posting them later. My Sonderquotes blog is just to post good quotations from books I’m reading. My Sonderblessings blog is a personal blog to remind me to be thankful for all the good things in my life. I just count my blessings. And finally, my Sonderjourneys blog is supposed to be a link about places I’ve been and what’s going on in my life. But I stopped in the middle of my last vacation and last posted at Christmas, so I do need to give it some updates.

5. Do the commenting mini-challenge! That’s hosted by Book Journey. I’ll have to do some work to find 20 blogs to comment on. Definitely fun work!

6. Look over plug-ins for my blogs. That’s hosted at Jenni Elyse’s blog.

7. Add some more social media icons. That mini-challenge is posted at Adventures of 2.0.

8. Look at my subscription page and see if I can switch it to e-mail subscription. I’ve been meaning to do this since KidLitCon last September.

9. Finally, if I get the chance, look at the mini-challenge at Janicu’s Book Blog to link my blog to my neglected-no-longer(?) GoodReads account.

Whew! Did I mention that I know this list isn’t actually doable in only two days? And the big priority is to cut down on my to-be-reviewed stacks. So I will try to spend time writing reviews before I do any of the challenges.

But it does sound like a lot more fun than cleaning my house!

Revised to add: I found one more cool mini-challenge:
10. Stats Challenge at There’s a Book

Write on!

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