Tag: disability

Reading Journal | New Year, New Journal

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hello!

Ah, the new year! I’m still surprised we’re a part of a new year. Am I the only one who feels like this?

I am excited to talk about my 2026 Reading Journal and share everything I’ve been doing so far! By the time you’re reading this, I would hope to have gotten my stuff done for the second quarter, but for now, this post will be my process over the overall theme and then the spreads I’ve made for the first half of the year.

I try to change my theme every year and for 2026, and I decided to pick a similar aesthetic to last year, as I’ve chosen the five women’s stories featured in the Ladies of Devon series. I read Kasey Stockton’s books last spring and immediately fell in love with them. So, my idea for 2026 is to dedicate each of the four quarters to the main four girls, Giulia, Mabel, Amelia and Hattie. However, the series itself has five books, and Mabel’s little sister we get to know in the second book, Pippa, will be included in my second quarter plans.

In November, I started to create a sort of vision board of sorts of the things I wanted to bring out in my journal for each woman/couple’s stories.

Giulia has a fascination with these lemon tarts she has at tea and I’ve definitely let that steer me into using lemons everywhere in my journal. However, the cover of the books is full of a dark green and I really loved that and knew that I could definitely work with that as a main color, and I realized I had two color combination that matched each story fairly early on while reading the books. I didn’t know what I was going to do with that information at first, but once as the year drew to a close, I ultimately decided to use all of the things I’d gathered from the books, my Pinterest board, etc. and use it for my reading journals.

As far as set up goes, I’ve kind of kept everything the same as I’ve done in last year’s spreads. I find nothing wrong with a couple of them, and I like to keep them going, adjusting them here and there but for the most part everything is the same.

The Troubled Opening

I have decided to do two A5 lined journals by Papergate on Amazon. They’re cheap and the paper is thick enough that none of my marker’s bleed through the pages. I still wish they sold their sticker labels you always get as a secret gift in the back pocket because they’ve become my monthly stats boxes. Even if you purchase their travel or pocket journals, they also have the boxes in a smaller size and unfortunately, I didn’t know they were smaller until I was busy creating my Stats pages… that was a bit of bummer on my part, but I’ll learn to live with it.

The first thing I did when it arrived was of course clear out the back pocket space but fix the first two pages. If you’re part of the journaling community, you know the annoying two pages at the start that are awkward and will not stay open, so I went at that section quickly and it almost discouraged me as the pages did NOT want to work with me nor did they like the tape I used so I had to rip them out and start over.

In my way of recreating my opening page, I used my new stickers that are these little washi pictures of random things and picked four that represented the characters and put them at the spine as I had damaged it in my haste, but I also added a border to each one with their colors; afterwards I stamped the first page with my name and the year. I also thought it needed a little bit of Pippa, so I added some bubbles and sea creatures here and there.

Floating Shelves and The Box Garden

When I moved onto the next layout, I had even more trouble getting my first row of floating shelves and then glued those pages together and I decided to do something completely different. Instead of putting the shelves together, I thought it would be cool to separate them, so I have my first three shelves that hold 35 empty spaces on the left side, I did one part of my Reading Tracker or as I’m calling it this year, “The Box Garden” on the next page. As you turn the page, the process is repeated again. The next part of The Box Garden and three more shelves rounding out the 66 books of the year. As I learned last year, I will be happy to get through as many books as I can in the next nine months.

For someone who doesn’t enjoy the color pink nor the whole minimalist trend either, these are probably my favorite pages. I think it showcases the girly and old-timey vibes of the Regency era.

Stats Page & Alphabet Challenge

Next up is my statistics section. This is my first spread dedicated to Giulia and Nick’s story with the amount of green and lemons. I wasn’t successful at finding any lemon tart stickers or paper, but I was able to an easy sticker book full of citrus fruit, but mainly lemons. There are a few odd things associated with the summertime included, but it’s been a great addition to my growing collection.

This layout is made for the first half of the year. Since I have the second notebook, I will do it over to highlight either Amelia or Hattie. This is where those little label boxes that is included with your purchased notebooks, comes in handy, but as I was writing everything on them, I realized I kept “Bingo” on the lower right corner. What I forgot were my reading challenges. I’m doing two this year, for now. You already know about the 26 in 2026 challenge. It’s been a fun way to get through multiple books at a time, especially when it comes to 13 series. By the time this post comes out, I will (hopefully) be done with three separate book series: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare and The Folk in the Air by Holly Black.

The other is my Alphabet Challenge. I knew this would be a HUGE undertaking, but I feel ready to attempt this. My only irritation is that I wish I hadn’t used up six pages. I tried to make enough room for each letter, but also the book covers I plan on sticking on at the end of the year. At the moment, the letters I’ve used have their titles, so I don’t forget–depending on how many letters I take out in a month, I’m trying to include the letters on the labels. This spread is dedicated to Mabel and Pippa, as it’s purple and blue. I even used a Dutch door design and added some of my three-inch washi tape images as decoration, which you’ll understand more in the next quarter.

Once I was finished with everything, I took photos back in late December. I didn’t have any letter stickers in my collection before, and then I found a nice booklet of letters that matched the colors of both quarters, and I was able to finally give these spaces a nice flair; not that the boats and ocean photos were boring.

Here’s the interesting part though, I didn’t have enough room for “Y” or “Z” and I panicked as I glued the final Dutch door flap, so I went looking on Instagram and YouTube, and found something called a “tip in” and I really love how educational JashhiCorin’s channel is for any journal person (what do we call ourselves?) and attempted it.

Do you remember when I talked about the smaller label boxes in the beginning? Well, before I bought my notebooks I thought I found a great deal on a three-notebook deal on Amazon, only to find out that they are travel sized. It wasn’t a bad thing though, as I am using the smaller box labels located in the back pocket of each notebook. I gave the yellow and pink to Nolan and Kimber. Unfortunately, Nolan lost his and Kimber is obsessed with her little pink book. She even steals my pink pen and has some of my pink flower stickers on the outside. Anyways, after realizing my overall mistake, I thought about the little notebook and tested it out if I could add the final letters with a single sheet. I used my knife to cut it out and took my skinnier double-sided tape to make my little tip in flap.

The Dutch Door Calendars Are Back!

It might seem like a hard thing to do, but I recommend everyone doing at least one Dutch door design in their journals. I find them to be helpful, especially for things such as calendars. I use it in my journals since last summer, I think. It’s definitely a spread I need an extra set of hands–so I borrow my mom and she does the cutting process at the end.

Since I use an A5 Lined journal, I am able to give you some measurements, but to be honest I don’t really measure anything out. I’m not great at getting things straight anyways, so I just wing it and go about my day.

However, with this I count out four lines from both the top and bottom parts of each page, as the spaces between them will be where you place your calendars. I use construction paper in mine, and this is actually the part I hate the most because it doesn’t matter how many times I check ahead, I will still mess up the dates and so I end up having to do it over again; like with this photo. I didn’t realize my mistake until I was done that I had switched up the dates. I had to write out the correct days of the week next to the number and oddly enough that made everything better!

First Quarter Beginnings

As far as the monthly pages, I’ve mostly stuck with my regular system. I’ll change up whether I want to use marker or an extra piece of colored paper on the left page that’ll hold my library cards and calendar keys for each month. It is easier to do the markers though as I’ve said before, I rarely get things straight, so I find myself going the other direction the most.

I’ve purchased quite a few sticker books in the past few months and one that has been very beneficial are my letter sticker sheets. I also have my new favorite tool, tweezers. My mom likes to joke that I look like a surgeon doing sutures… I like it as it means I don’t risk stabbing myself with my crafting knife! Although, I will say I have gotten better about that! Anyways, I use my tweezers to pull off the stickers and arrange them across the layout. I’ve lost a few letters since I started but as I continue on this journey, I should become a bit of a pro with them. I don’t know why I continue to put “words” as I don’t collect any words in my books; it’s one thing I lost when I switched to listening audiobooks.

This year, I wanted to do more book reviews in this journal. I allowed myself to do mini reviews last year, but I wasn’t able to really enjoy creating a full spread and I have all of these stickers that won’t fit with the overall theme, so I have some photos to show you what I’ve been reading like all The Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins. I’m not just writing about the books listed in my “26 in 2026” challenge, but for this post these pages have become favorites to look at the most.

I got a gift card for Christmas and found only one mini printer that allowed colored pictures in my price range and It’s a HPRT Mini Photo Printer. At the time I wasn’t able to connect it to my phone, but we put it on my mom’s, it wasn’t ideal at first as I thought if I had it, I wouldn’t have to worry about needing her phone for my journal. but we are so fascinated with it. Back in January, I had to get a new phone and one the first things I did with it was hook it up to the printer and it works like a charm, and I can do it all with my feet! After it prints out, I use my cutter board thingy and trim the little white lip at the end and place my double-sided tape to place it in the top left corner of the spread.

All right, well that is it for this post. I hope you have enjoyed reading about all of my mistakes and success in creating my 2026 Reading Journal. I really hope the second quarter post isn’t too long nor takes me an extra month to get out to you either.

Are you keeping a Reading Journal this year? If you are, what is your theme? How are you doing with it so far?

snowflake

26 for 2026! | Part 2

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Well, here we are for round two!

As we move onto the standalones, you will see a wider variety of genres represented below. Historical fiction is at the heart of it obviously, but I have included disability and thriller novels, along with three nonfictions. Technically, there is two, but I’m keeping it back for my holiday TBR for this year.

If you have yet to check out Part One, click here to open that post on another tab after finishing this or maybe keep it for later on.

In 2025, I was successful in a way of my classics. Exploring the classics is better than being forced into it at school, and you can even find the audiobook on YouTube. Anyways, I’m starting off with an important book. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I keep up with PBS’s “Masterpiece” news and from the moment they released the behind-the-scenes photos for the TV adaptation, I have put it on my to-do list. I have tried to read it but I think the sheer size of it has made me feel discouraged lately, kind of like Les Misérables by Victor Hugo did for me last year.

Keeping with the film adaptation theme, I’ve added both The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood and Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. I’m in line waiting for the audiobook on the LibbyApp, so I’m hoping for an opportunity sometime later this year. Despite seeing her everywhere, I’ve never read an Ali Hazelwood before, I would like to read Hamnet more than TLH, but whatever happens I’m cool with it. I think I just put TLH because I didn’t want to be left out of the loop again when the trailers come out. Wonder when that’s going to be?

I recently found The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers while strolling through Hoopla one night. I’m the type of person who judges a book by its cover and something about this cover made me think this could be an interesting read. So, I saved it and went back to find other little gems. Mathilda by Mary Shelley was one of those gems, I’ve only read a little bit of the blurb and it’s strange, but I don’t think it would be a Mary Shelley story if it wasn’t. This is my only novella in this post.

These next two books are probably my second and third oldest on my actual TBR.

Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters by Diane Jacobs. is first and this is a biography focusing on First Lady Abigail Adams and her sisters Mary and Elizabeth. I have become somewhat curious of the lives of our First Ladies, thanks to “Hamilton” for making that even possible. I think this would be an interesting adventure for me.

Let’s go with Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen first. I’ll be honest, I have always thought this was about Edgar Allan Poe’s mother. I literally just found out I was wrong and it’s a historical fiction about Poe and a woman named Frances Sargent Osgood. I’m still keeping it on my list as I am curious to see a different side of Poe, and I want to know more about this mystery woman too.

For these books, I’ve started on them but have yet to actually finish. These were the ones that were screaming at me in the last couple of months. I am so curious to see how the main character(s) do at the end of their stories.

We have a cute contemporary, disability fiction book. The Chemistry Test by Georgina Frankie. It was offered on Kindle Unlimited as an audiobook and that was interesting as I was using my tablet at the time. I don’t use my tablet for my audiobooks, just laptop and TV. If you have Hoopla and a Roku TV, you can sync the app to the TV and trust me, this is the smartest things in my arsenal. and I love that KU is bringing the option to go audio with certain novels. I was very interested in it back in early November, but I was still into my horror books, so I had to stop. I hope to pick this up again in the springtime.

The second was a hopeful two years ago, The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera. This is my only middle-grade book on my lists too. I actually love the story, and I think about it all the time as it has everything I enjoy. Petra is a smart young girl; I love her spirit and can’t wait to see how everything turns out for her because when I stopped reading, things were hitting the fan like crazy.

Next up, is a translated version of Valley of Terror by Haohui Zhou. I would like to get it done in between Chinese New Year. I feel it’s only fitting as that’s where the story takes place. It also reminds of a movie called “The Forest” with Natalie Dormer. I’ve never been able to watch it as I’ve been told by my dad that it’s odd, but from what I’ve seen about it. It’s a bit creepy. I think it’s funny that I only chose one horror book. I think I’ll be kicking myself later on.

Ever since I started on Philippa Gregory’s series “The Cousin’s Wars” I have always been curious about Margaret of Anjou; she does appear in the first four books, but she doesn’t have her own point of view story, and when I saw this on KU I really jumped on this as I thought this would be my chance to really see the devotement of this bold and powerful woman. Marguerite: Hell Hath, No Fury! The Story of Marguerite of Anjou by Judith Arnopp. It isn’t written for any York or Lancaster’s view of the world at that time; it is hers alone. I never made it to the middle of the book, as Judith made it fairly large for readers, but I hope one day I can go back into it and gain a better look into the woman she was.

The First Witch of Boston by was another Kindle Unlimited audiobook I found in my deep horror spell. This is right up my ally as its mostly historical fiction mixed up with some thriller elements. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get too far into the story in order to finish it, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it. And finally, this book is my only biographical nonfiction on my list. This is one of two Ancient Egyptian books I’ve always wanted to read, and oddly enough they were written by the same author: Kara Cooney, this one is called, The Woman Who Would Be King and the other is When Women Ruled the World. I truly love my nonfiction so maybe I’ll bring it back around November as it’s known to be “Nonfiction November” by some readers.

I hope everyone has enjoyed these posts as much as I have, and maybe I’ve inspired you to pick your 26 books for the year too. If not this year, you could think use this format to decide your books for 2027. What would you put on your list? If you have any similar reads I should look into for the next year, please send them to me. If you’re currently doing it, how are you doing so far? What is on your list as well?

snowflake

January Reads

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hello!

PSA: If I finish another book after Saturday, the last day of January, I will try to add a mini review and photo to the collage sometime next week.

For the past year or so, I’ve been updating my monthly reads on social media. At first, it was purely for friends and family on my Facebook, I was only giving out my number stats, with a banner of the book covers in case anyone wanted to search for them. I am asked what I’m currently reading on there and sometimes even on Instagram, so I started publishing my own wrap ups on there for a bigger audience of other readers. I follow Ashley on BubblyBooknerdReads and every time I felt down about my posts, especially the banners, I always saw her stuff and have been inspired to improve on everything.

I’m not sure how I’m going to continue on social media now that I’ve decided to do my posts on here, but we’ll see whether or not I continue to do these posts too.

❄️The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
❄️ Super Fun Facts: Fascinating Facts About History, Holidays, Science, Traveling and More by David W. Leon
❄️ Interesting Facts for Smart Kids with Curious Minds by David W. Leon
❄️ Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
❄️ The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Before we start, I wanted to say, I’ve decided to do a reading challenge this year, and it’s called 26 for 2026, and it consists of 26 books into two categories in various genres. I put my own spin with it, and I have made two lists, one is dedicated to the book series and novels. The first post went up on Wednesday, so if you haven’t read it yet, you can click here and it’ll open another tab so you can finish this one and go for that afterwards.

I don’t want to go too into TBOSAS, but I thought it was pretty good, I was worried I would be a bit bias as Snow is considered the villain in the original trilogy, but I was very curious about his origin story. By the way, I’ve never read the other books either, just watch the films years ago. I think I will hold off on watching the adaption of this book until I am finished with all five books.

These next two books are similar in nature and written by the same person. Super Fun Facts and Interesting Facts by David W. Leon. Despite my age, I enjoy these books a lot. It’s a duo of my favorite things, genuine curiosity and trivia.

I find these books so unique because I have yet to find a book, especially a kindle book, that allows you to play along. When you first open it up, it has five sample questions, and your job is to click on the answer you think is correct. However, if you’re wrong, it’ll jump to a page in the back and will give the option to return to the question or you can continue on your way through the book. I give myself three tries before I stop and see the next question. I have left many score sheets in my notebooks in the past while taking the tests. They range from common knowledge to history to food; it’s made for kids young as eight years and what they would know already. I would like to quiz my nephew as he’s pretty smart for his age.

Afterwards, I moved onto “Sunrise on the Reaping” and boy, did I underestimate the emotional roller-coaster that turned out to be! I vaguely remember Haymitch in the films, but I do know he was a sad character, and I was curious to know more about him, and what lead him to become this person. I cried more in the last four chapters than I have in any book in a long time. It broke me. Everything those films project of an older Haymitch Abernathy makes 100% sense now. I knew it was going to be bad but not like that.

Once I was done, I got started on the start of the whole franchise, and I definitely have some issues with The Hunger Games, mainly the fact the other “tributes” were not written–I enjoy learning character’s names, so that was a bit of a letdown, that was fixed in the newer books. I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy hearing Katniss’s point-of-view after two males, but I really love the girl on the audiobook, she brings out a sort of energy, emotions of the character. She even reminded me of Jennifer Lawrence, and I thought was a great fit!

I am really curious about doing these posts. I think it would be a way to create mini reviews of interesting books that I know I will not include in my reading journal, but I also want to include everything that could inspire you to read the book–especially if I truly loved it to pieces!

What have you been reading lately? Tell me your favorite(s) of January 2026!

snowflake

26 for 2026 | Part 1

Published on by gotmeghan2 Comments

Well, hello everyone!

Around Christmastime, I created a “holiday TBR” and it was a simple list of eight books and I really enjoyed it. I wasn’t necessarily thrilled with fixing it twice, but I managed to read five of them and this solidified my reasoning behind creating this list. I thought if I can do six out of eight, I could up the game a little bit.

I’ve seen people call it a “priority” list, but I’m calling it my 26 books for 2026. This isn’t something I’m keeping track in my reading journal this year. I’m doing the dreaded Alphabet challenge instead. We’ll see how that goes as the year continues.

For the last three years, I’ve seen a lot of people create this in their journals. I have had to change it up three times figuring out how many classics I wanted to add and how many ways I can separate them without getting so confused–unfortunately, I have had a headache ever since I started working on it! But I’m a stubborn woman and rarely quit anything without giving myself a few tries, so, I’m here to talk about the books I’d like to get to in 2026.

I’ve separated them into two sections. My “series” and “standalones” and then I’ve included a third subgroup called “in the middle of…” as I have a lot of books I’ve started in the last few years and never finished but I mainly wanted to use the books I genuinely enjoyed the most and knew I wouldn’t regret my decision, although that could happen once I finished them.

I’ve started off the year with on a high note, as I’ve begun my journeys on The Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins. I’ve never read them before, but I have watched the films when they first came out, and since the previous released new books about the origin stories about President Snow and Haymitch Abernathy, I wanted to check what all the fuss was about. I’ve finished The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. and literally in the middle of Sunrise on the Reaping. I hope to do a proper review of them in my journal at the end of January.

The other series I’m working on is Philippa Gregory’s “Plantagenet and Tudor” books. I started on her first book, The Lady of the Rivers in 2024. It took me a long time to get through the next three books of the series as I loved watching the show “The White Queen” and knew I would have a bias opinion about the characters and events mentioned in them, but I surprised myself by reading them last year. Now, I’m on “The White Princess” and I’m glad to be seeing the changing worlds of Elizabeth of York’s point-of-view in a different light. I have a feeling once I begin the fifth book, The Constant Princess I will hopefully just slide right through them. Keep your toes crossed for me!

Now, I’ll list the other books I’ve started in the past. The oldest book in the list, is Wicked Beat by Olivia Cunning, and it’s roughly 11 years old. Back in the day, I thought her “Sinners on Tour” would be my first ever completed series, so, it’s been a long time coming for me. And then, The Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare is my youngest as I started on it in late November. The other books on this list are The Poppy War by R. F. Kaung, Still Me by Jojo Moyes, The Elite by Kiera Cass, and Flameborne: Chosen by Aimee Lynn.

For this group, we’re starting with a reread. This series was my second all-time favorite. This book had me hooked from the very beginning, and it truly saved me in a way. Highland Raven by Melanie Karsak was my saving grace in 2021. I was really struggling with my identity, emotionally and mentally, and this gave me a piece of myself back.

Late 2020, we got my dad an AncestryDNA test because he’s been really interested in genealogy. I’ve always been into genealogy; I love exploring royal branches and reading stories of people in various eras and places. He’s never had a definitive answer on where his line originates. He knew about the Irish and Scottish sides, but there was a story that we were half Native American. I ate this tidbit up as a child. I was very proud of my mystical heritage. So, when he sent his DNA we thought we were going to get some answers. We did, but not in the way we expected.

Unfortunately, there was no Native American blood in us.

This news really threw me. I was shocked. I felt like I didn’t know who I was, as I’ve always been so proud of being a little Native American. I always enjoyed hearing stories and watch documentaries about their history, mythology etc. While the world was dealing with COVID, I was going through my own personal hell.

And then March came around, we signed up for Kindle Unlimited and the first book that popped up was this. I wanted to see what the Scottish side of me was about, as they have their own mythology and mystical history, and I was head over heels (or wheels in my case!) in love with this series, which is called “Celtic Blood”. I liked the fact that Melanie Karsak was inspired by two very different tales, you have William Shakespeare’s famous play, “Macbeth” and the actual historical side of Lady Macbeth, also known as Lady Grouch of Scotland, which in the books is nicknamed Corbie.

So, now that you know the backstory of that, and the fact that it has been five years since then, I will be venturing back into that lovely world and seeing if I notice anything that I might’ve missed during the first time and maybe share some thoughts about it on here. And I have added three new series I’d like to dive into sometime this year. and they are Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, Jade City by Fonda Lee and The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. I’ve had my eyes on these books for years and the fact that I haven’t started on them drives me crazy!

I’ve decided to stop here for now. Once I got started on everything, I realized I had too much. At least you’ll have something to look forward in February. The next part will be about my standalones, and don’t worry, it’s even longer than this post.

What are you reading in 2026?

snowflake

Reading Journal | A Final Quarter

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hello!

We’re at the final quarter. The last three months of 2025, isn’t that wild? Of course, it’s the end of November, so we have the only one month left. Again, it just feels really odd to me. The reason why I say this, is because I felt 2025 was one of the slowest years in a while. I think despite the fact that I didn’t blog very much, I was able to live each day and see how much time I enjoy and waste. What do you think? Has 2025 felt slow or quick to you?

This quarter was dedicated to the final March sister: Amy. The colors were changed to orange and red, and everything works great with the changing season, but I feel like I’m not really into it as I had in the previous quarters. My brain is currently focused on what I want to do in 2026. Yes, I am doing another year of book journaling and will hopefully discuss more about that soon.

If you’d like to check out my other posts, click on Meg, Jo and/or Beth to be transferred to begin reading.

When I was thinking about Amy March, I saw a number of things. She reminded me of my own sister with her adventurous and stubborn nature. Her children have each of these qualities and we’re still figuring out whether they are good for them… Anyways, I saw her as a freckled face and redheaded little girl throughout the book, so it wasn’t suspiring to me to choose red and orange as her color scheme.

Round Two for the Dutch Door Calendars

I switch back and forth between the colors throughout the quarter for my calendars and one thing I obviously didn’t think far ahead was making sure the red paper was light enough to work with colored pens. I use my pens in a rainbow theme to track all of my books throughout the month. I knew red wasn’t going to work, but neither did my yellow or orange. When I made my trackers in green, blue and purple, I quickly realized my mistake, as they could show up, but not as vibrant as I had hoped. It’s a lesson learned.

I kept the Dutch door calendars for this quarter as well.

I was tempted to return to my original setup, but I really loved having to get everything done in one time. And more importantly, my mom has become a bit of a pro with cutting away the excess paper for me. I want a better solution to the Dutch door concept though, so, if anyone has any advice for me, please let me know because I’m open to everything.

Monthly Wrap Ups & Bingo Card

I try to make my own banners in a font that is fun and I was very proud of it. This was a section that I went crazy on with the various stickers that I thought represent Amy very well, like maps, paint with brushes and a big hat.

Once a new quarter begins, I create the stats/wrap up. page. I am a lover of Papergate journals. I’ve used them since 2021 with my first reading journal. It lasted three years, but I was pretty lax on what I wanted to do in the beginning. The brand is on Amazon, for a reasonable price, depending on the type and size, I’ve never spent over $15 US dollars. They are durable and I’ve never had anything bleed through the pages… until recently.

My favorite feature are the label stickers you receive with each notebook you purchase. You can’t order them by themselves (at least I’ve never found them!) but they are a nice addition to my routine. They are located in the back, and you get three label box stickers, and I add the months and whatever I want to keep track on them.

I also made a new Bingo card that has experienced some changes since the day I took these photos.

I changed three topics as I didn’t feel like I could do them in such a small window. I will be starting on my holiday books this week so I wanted to do other things that would coincide with the topics easily. For example, I haven’t read anything Charles Dickens this year, but I added him and Daphne du Maurier onto the card and managed to cross out Dickens earlier this month in a very odd way.

First thing, look through the topics in the photo above. Have you found my mistake yet? Well, I took out the boxes for Ada Lovelace, Polio and the second “England”. How in the world did I not see it beforehand? I exchanged them with mystery, fall, and Onyx Storm. There’s a good chance I’ll probably not use the first two, but i have hope of the final as they put the full audiobook on Hoopla. As of November 18th, I did in face cross the book off of my card!

Monthly Openers

Even though I didn’t divert back to my other way to do my calendars, I decided to use markers to color each “opener” pages with their respected colors. This is an easier option than having to measure out the size of scrape of paper. I’m not very good with my placements so using my acrylic markers was a smarter move. Once I covered majority of the page, I take out my library card holders and try to estimate the middle of the surface and hope nothing buckles.

Each envelope has a library card inside with a calendar key. This is to make sure every book I read throughout the month is processed correctly on the calendar. I make a small box of colors and write out the titles and go from there. As I said in the beginning, I try to use each color in a rainbow effect and I’m thankful I came up with this idea after completing first quarter’s mess.

The next page is dedicated to my “Lovely Words & Names” section. I create the banner using my little Times Roman letter stamps (and yes, I can grip them with my toes!) and ever since the end of second quarter, I’ve been trying to add some fun stickers here and there. so, it doesn’t look so plain. I also place a small sticker on the outside of the envelopes – not pictured is the second butterfly.

This year has been a little odd for me, but I will say I loved created these posts for not only you, but myself too. I’ve really enjoyed this year’s overall theme. I learned a lot about what I can do and the fact I’ve laughed through the many, many mistakes I’ve made, and I know I will make a lot more as I start on my next journal.

Well, that is it for this quarter update. I hope you have enjoyed this post. After reading and maybe my other setups, have I inspired you to consider making a reading journal in 2026? Let me know in the comments.

snowflake