Book Blogger Love-A-Thon: Challenge #3

What? It’s the last Challenge already? AWW I could have done that a while longer.

So in this Challenge we have to talk about our Book Blogging experience so far. So this is my Story (This sounds like the introduction to some kind of reality-tv show).

Starting my own blog was actually a new Years Resolution. Who would have thought that I would stick to it, at least not me! I have tried some stuff like this before but never sticked to it. So when I set up my wordpress blog I really wanted to make it this time. This was already at New Year 2009/10 so pretty long ago. Back then this wasn’t a Book Blog.

When I started, I wasn’t really sure about the direction I wanted to go. First I planned to do a blog about Fashion and Geekness. It then became more of a personal blog where I challenged myself or talked about my everyday life. After some time I found the Bookblogger Community and really liked it a lot so last year at New Year (do you have some kind of déjà vu? I do!) I decided to change the Blog to a Book Blog.

I then participated in the Bloggiesta, it’s an event mainly for Book Bloggers but also for others. It was a whole weekend filled with mini-challenges and stuff to improve your Blog. During this weekend I made the switch to the blog how it is today (more or less). But shortly after that… I kind of stopped doing Posts on my blog. I don’t really know why tho. I have a feeling that I might have put myself under too much pressure. I thought of “having to do” stuff constantly and my perfectionism got in the way. I didn’t abandon my blog totally tho because at least I was constantly updating my Reading Challenges and my List of Books I read.

So in December 2011 finally I decided to give it another go. But this time I decided to start slow. I decided to start just with one IMM post every sunday and if this became a habit I would try to add something else to it. So far it works out pretty well, I did not miss one week so far. One reason, that this time it seems to work out better is, that this time I somehow managed to get people to read my blog. Not a lot yet but slow and steady. Also I got introduced to NetGalley this time of the year which gave me a huge boost too. Also connecting through Goodreads did that, which I think I joined a little earlier already but slowly start to get into too.

What is still my biggest obstical is writing Reviews. If you look at my Blog closely you will see that I wrote only about 3 reviews or so. That’s not a lot. I have no idea why I am having such a hard time on doing them. Maybe the perfectionism again. But I promised myself to do it slow this time so I will see. Also I personally don’t like to read Reviews the most. I more like stuff like In my Mailbox or something like that. Another thing I have no idea where this comes from.

Lately I also started doing Videos on youtube because I wanted to try it and because I love watching them myself (not my own, the ones of others ). I am just having a hard time with my Laptop at the moment, it keeps overheating. But I really want to go on with this as this is fun and there are so many Booktubers I adore!

So yes, that’s my story how I got into Bookblogging. I didn’t think this would become such a long wall of text. Thank you for reading that far.

Sending Love-A-thon Love to all of you!

The Bloggiesta – Finish Line

It’s late and I am tired and there are only a few official hours left anyway so I end it here now. I had a blast during this whole Bloggiesta experience and will definitely try to do it the next time again.

8 Things why it was the best idea ever to sign up for the Bloggiesta (random order):

1. I found so many cool new Book Blogs.
2. I got the most hits on my Blog since the Blog exists.
3. The Blog looks way better now and a lot more personal even tho it is still not perfect.
4. I found motivation to restart the Blog after a few months of neglecting.
5. For the first time I felt connected to the world through my Blog (the world = other people than my friends)
6. I didn’t feel alone while sitting in front of my Laptop.
7. I learned so many new things.
8. I got so many new ideas and inspirations for my Blog.

Mini-Challenges I completed:

1. “10 Things Bloggers shouldn’t do” by Hannah at WordLily (@Wordlily)
2. “Google Forms” by Jen from Devourer of Books (@DevourerofBooks)
3. “back up your blog” by Jackie from Farm Lane Books (@farmlanebooks)
4. “setting goals” by Amy from My Friend Amy (@myfriendamy)
5. “Buttons and Banners” by Callista at SMS Book Reviews (@callista83)
6. “Email best practices and solutions” – Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’? (@trishheylady)
7. “Mr. Linky” by Jennifer at Teach Mentor Texts (@mentortexts)

My Blog got:

• A new Name
• A new Header-Image
• New Reading Challenges
• Cleaned up
• One more Sidebar
• Rearranged menues
• Hits!

Total time spent: about 23 hours.

Additionally:

• finished reading Die Bücherdiebin (The Book Thief) by Markus
• Got followers on Twitter
• Follow a few more people on Twitter
• Expanded my List of Book Blogs I will follow

So all in all I think this was a really interesting experience and a fun weekend! Can’t wait for the next Bloggiesta. I miss you guys already!

The next attempt of planning

So, two days ago I made a mistake. I felt like I gained weight and I stepped on the scale – and I was right! Argh! So immediately after I got over the first shock I started with a sports active workout.

Before that, I already decided to change a little in my life because when my summer holidays started, I first was totally stressed out. I wanted to be done with my costumes for the first two conventions on time (I’m planning on writing something about them in a later post). After that I felt a big relief and did hardly anything except sitting in front of the pc and sleeping really long. But now im already nearly a month into the holidays and I finally decided that it’s time to change it and to give the days a bit more  meaning again. So I started a new attempt of planning my life.

It worked out pretty fine already in my holidays in february so I thought I give it another try. First I made a plan to structure my day and then I made a plan for my nutrition as I realised, that I either ate out (what is unhealty and expensive) or ate nearly the same every day.  Also there was the scale-problem I talked about above. Ok, it’s not that I gained a ton or so, but I don’t feel good with it. And no, I’m not in danger for an eating disorder or something like that.

So the last two days I lived my life after my plans and so far it works out pretty well. I’m not going 100% strictly after the plans (that wouldn’t be possible anyway) but all in all with little adjustments on the way it works.

One good thing about the plan is, that I can see in the evening what I accomplished during the day.  That motivates me and makes me feel proud. And I get more of the stuff that interests me and I want to do in one day (and I have LOADS of interests). Because of the plan my room looks cleaner, I ate healthy, I learned a little bit more Java, I started thinking about an idea for a Fanart, searched for a job and started a new music related project. The project consists of 2 guitar-learning-books I got from the library yesterday and a guitar I borrowed from my flatmate. I also practiced already twice. It’s exciting, I just hope that my fingers will soon build some horny skin because at the moment it hurts a little. But I guess thats the price you have to pay if you want to learn the guitar. I’m curious how long I will stick to it.

I am thinking about if I should pack this in a new Challenge or if I should look how it goes first… I will see. I first let it sit for a bit – oh, that rhymes and what rhymes is good! (That’s an insider for all german speaking people – you know who said that?)

I will not bother you with further details of my plans except you want to know anything more. In that case just ask me in the comments below!

picture by orangeacid

Challenge 2.0, Day 16 – The Peter Pan Syndrom

Day 16 of Challenge 2.0. I did again no Sports Active. I tried all day to motivate myself to do some work for my presentation tomorrow and managed to do it half an hour ago. At least I realised that my part of the presentation is interesting. I have to compare the movie The Lost Boys (a vampire movie of 1987) with Peter Pan and the God Pan. Interestingly there are surprisingly many of connections between these. I wouldn’t have thought that beforehand. Hopefully I can talk long enough about all that tomorrow and in a way that all the people outside my head understand it too.

During research for that I also found the Peter Pan Syndrom. It is for men who don’t want to grow up. It seems that this is actual an illness. I think at least one of my ex’s is a possible candidate for this one.

Today morning I had my english class again. Again with a presentation but this one was much better than the one last week. Also the woman from last weeks presentation wasn’t around at all and it suddenly was much more quiet during class. That was nice.

In the evening I was supposed to have another class but the teacher was stuck in London caused by the volcano ash cloud so there was no class today. More time for me to work on my presentation….NOT.

I better go to bed now and sleep a night over my presentation and polish it tomorrow morning. See you at Day 17 (hopefully).

Picture by tipoyock

Challenge 2.0, Day 15 – The Lazy Sunday

Day 15 of Challenge 2.0 was pretty uneventfull (again, I guess that is because my life is pretty uneventfull). I went to bed really late and slept long and had a headache most of the day (no, it wasn’t because of the pub visit yesterday) so I wasn’t very motivated to do a lot.

What I did was watching the movie Julie & Julia. It was nice and it was fun to see parallels between the movie and my life. Ok, they were very small, but it was still funny. The Movie was about a woman named Julie that had the idea to start a blog and write about cooking all recipies within one year of a cook book she has from Julia Child.

At the same time you see the story of Julia Child back when she was working on the cook book. Both stories are true stories. Julie made a book out of her blog and this was the basis for the movie. I guess I need an idea like that if I want to achieve that too .

Also I watched Episode 5 of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution today. He is making progress towards his goal, it’s good to see that. If you want to sign his petition you can find a link on my blog here on the right.

Other than that I stayed up too long again so I better stop writing now. If you want to, you can post a comment about what you want to read in this blog, what you like and what you don’t like. It would help me, improve my blog.

I hope to see you here again on Day 16.

Picture by Robert Couse-Baker

Challenge 2.0, Day 11 – The Last Time at the Studio

Day 11 of Challenge 2.0 today. Today didn’t happen a lot. I worked at the studio for the last time. So if anybody of you planned to visit me there – it’s too late now. The next few days we are packing our stuff and bring it back home.

Man, my room will look like it was hit by a hurricane when I have all my stuff back in. But also I am looking forward to it. I will have my sewing machine back home and all my fabrics and other stuff, so if I feel creative I can start sewing right away. No matter what day or time it is and without being watched by someone or having to freeze or starve. This will be great. Also I will finally be able to finish my cosplay costumes. I could have done in the studio too but, somehow, I didn’t feel like it there. I need some peace to do that I guess.

My poor mate is sitting in her room for the last few days and sewing all day as she is doing a fashion show on saturday with a few other labels and working her …uhm…. she is working a lot! So if you want to see what she did, come to the fashion show on Saturday, April 17th  at the Mon Ami (Theobaldg. 9, 1060 Wien).

Other than that I watched another episode of the biggest loser earlier. It wasn’t very spectacular this time but in a strange way it still motivates to do more sport. The weather outside is still cold and ugly, hopefully it will get better soon and then I might try to go for a run alone for the first time. I’m still a bit scared but I really want to try.

Oh I just remembered something else I did while I was at the studio. Today I didn’t bring my laptop as I used to do but a book, I want and need to read and managed to read about 180 pages of it. That’s a nice progress. It seems that I finally get my reading challenges going.

That’s it for today. See you at Day 12.

Picture by Mikael Miettinen

Challenge 2.0, Day 9 – The Writers Block

Day 9 of Challenge 2.0 today and I pretty much wasted it . I should have done a homework I was looking forward to do but when I sat down my head was suddenly empty. Nothing was there, no Idea popped into my head. It is due tomorrow, so I try it again tomorrow morning. Maybe my head works it out during the night. That happened a few times already. Once I was thinking about a problem at my programming homework all afternoon and couldn’t find the solution and when I was falling asleep in my bed at night, I suddenly saw the answer in front of me. I hope for that too today. I guess I just block myself because I put myself under too much pressure. I just don’t know how to release the pressure when the due date is knocking at the door.

Other than that I went to a class early in the morning where I lost some of my worries about the presentation I soon have to do in english (I hate presentations in general, doin it – for the first time – in english doesn’t make it better). That was because we heard the first presentation today and even if I try I will not be able to be worse than this woman.

Yes, I know, that sounds mean, but it really is the truth. She had such a bad pronunciation that you hardly could understand anything. Also she had a few funny mistakes in it. Yes, I’m aware of the fact, that everyone can make mistakes, especially when he or she is nervous. I’m sure I will talk a lot of nonsense when it is my turn. But she said stuff like “in the best fall” (she meant “in the best case” but used the german word “Fall”) and, when she couldn’t remember the word “counting” (or never knew, I don’t know) she said the german word “zählen” but not just the german word she said “zähling”, as if it would make the word english just when she adds the “-ing”. Yes, nevermind, I better stop now. I was just wondering.

Something very clever I did myself today happened in the evening. It’s a bit embarrassing. In the evening I normally have class. Today I didn’t really want to go out as it was raining and really cold but then motivated myself to go there, just to remember right before I was in front of the classroom door that the teacher mentioned something about that there is no class today. So I went there completely for nothing. That made me really happy (/sarcasm off).

The only little good thing I can remember about today is, that I, while I was on my way to the not-happening-class and back, read some pages of one of the books I have to read for Uni (and for my reading challenges). It was the book The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde.

I didn’t do any sport today as it was Sports Active Breakday and, as I already said, ugly weather. Tho I thought about doing some but I wanted to finish (start?) the homework (in what I didn’t succeed, as seen above). But I’ll do my belly exercises later right before going to bed. I found out that it’s nice to do them right before going to sleep as this reduces the time it takes me to warm myself up enough to be able to sleep (I have unfortunately this women-and-cold-feet-in-bed-problem).

Ok, enough ranting for today. See you at Day 10.

Picture by Brenda Annerl

Challenge 2.0, Day 5 – The Second Run

Day 5 of Challenge 2.0 was exhausting but not as much as I thought it would be and I’m very proud of myself. In the afternoon I met with a really good friend of mine for some jogging in a park near my home. It was so much fun. We did some gossiping and had a lot of fun and ran 3,10 km without even really noticing. We were really surprised in the end how quickly we did it and how far we went. We already were proud of ourselves that we went at all beforehand, so this was making it even better.

When I was back home I went even further and did today’s Sports Active Workout and my belly exercises. And I can still move. I might not be able to tomorrow anymore, but so far I’m fine. Just my knees hurt a bit, but not as bad as they did when I was running last week. Me and my friend plan to run at least once a week now to be fit for the Women’s run. I wanted to do a picture of evidence but then forgot about it. Especially because the park we were running at was sooo pretty with all the flowers and cherry trees and stuff. But now it’s too late, next time.

Before I started writing this post I watched one more movie of my oscar winning movies list. First I thought, that I go through the list from bottom to top but then I arrived at The Departed and I THINK I saw it already but not sure if I saw everything so I didn’t check it off the list but I also didn’t want to watch it today. So I watched the next one on the list – Crash. If it weren’t on the list I think I wouldn’t have watched it, because it seemed to me like one of these movies I’m normally bored of. But I’m glad I “had to” watch it because I was nice. It had a lot of twists and turns and surprises and was really entertaining. I definitely recommend this movie to watch. Also there were a lot of good actors in it too like Sandra Bullock, Brandon Frasier and Ryan Phillipe (is it unprofessional when I say that he is cute? ).

Todays summary:

1. Drink 1.5 Liters of Water: done (even more than 2 Liters)
2. Do Sports Active: done
3. Do belly exercises: done
4. Running once a week: done
5. Oscar winning movies list: cross off Crash

So, that’s all for today (was a lot anyway). See you tomorrow with Day 6.

Picture by lumiere

Challenge 2.0, Day 4 – The White Jacket

Day 4 of Challenge 2.0 already. Time flies by when you have to do a lot and today I did a lot. In the morning a friend of mine came to visit. He needed help for his cosplay costume. So we first went to a shop that sells art supplies to buy a few things he needed to finish the costume. Then we had lunch at an italian restaurant that is one of my favourites. Everything is sooo delicious there. (For everyone in my area: Vapiano is highly recommended!)

After that we went back home, I had a short geek-break aka I played a short round of CS with some friends and then we packed all the stuff we needed and headed to the studio. First because I had to work there today and second because we had space and a sewing machine and stuff to work on the costume what was a white suit jacket (as seen in the work in progress picture). We didn’t finish it and finished a lot less than we hoped but at least the most difficult parts are done now, hopefully my friend will succeed in doing the rest. He has busy days ahead of him as the convention where he want’s to wear it is this weekend already!

In the evening I went home and read a few other blogs of people doing Life Lists and found some interesting stuff and motivation. Also I remembered some more items for my own Life List so I updated it a bit today. After that I was hungry but it also was late already so I was looking for something to eat but didn’t really want to cook anymore. I was tempted to just eat some cookies (as I am allowed again) but then decided for a soup with pasta and vegetables. I’m proud that I took the better option even tho the cookies would have been the faster and easier one.

As I mentioned yesterday, it is a Sports Active Breakday today so I didn’t do any but I’ll do my belly exercises right after I finished this post. At the moment I have 3 active things (actually 4 but one is the result of one of the others) on my Life List . They were for today:

1. Drink 1.5 Liters of Water: done
2. Do belly exercises: right after this post
3. Blogpost: obviously done

That means, my day is completed and I can head to bed now (a little too late again *sigh*). See you at Day 5.

Challenge 2.0, Day 3 – The Movie Day

Day 3 of the Challenge started early, as a friend said he would come and visit me but then couldn’t come. Wasn’t a big problem, this way I finally managed it, to get up earlier again. I screwed my sleeping schedule the last few days anyway and was already annoyed of myself about it.

So I had time to complete a job today and besides I “worked” on one of the things on my Life List. I watched 3 of the movies that won the Oscar for best picture (that’s no. 23. atm, you can find the list of the movies here). First I watched The Hurt Locker, that was ok for a war movie (I’m normally not really into such movies). Then I watched Slumdog millionaire. I wanted to watch that movie for a while now and wasn’t disappointed about it at all after I’ve seen it. It was nice to watch. The third one I watched, was No country for old men. This one was ok, but no movie I would watch more often. So 3 movies crossed of my list, woho.

A few days ago I spoke to a friend of mine about the running stuff and she was excited and wanted to join me at running. So, today in the evening, she called me, and asked when we go. We planned it for thursday as I am busy with the friend tomorrow and with working in the studio (the second to last time btw, if you are interested to visit me there). So I’m excited about running with my sweety on thursday (and going shopping and going out in addition).

After the call I did todays Sports Active Workout and additional belly exercises even tho there was one belly exercise already included in the workout but I wanted to do more. (Maybe one reason for that was, that a friend of mine told me today, that I am not going to make it through 30 days of doing it every day ).

So, tomorrow is Sports Active Breakday what is good, because I will be busy all day anyway. Check back for tomorrows update!

Picture by philandthehounds