Hey guess what? I moved!

I knew my time in Kentucky was temporary and it was only a matter of time before I moved, well that happened last weekend.  I am now in Washington State, the southeastern part (the Tri-cities to be exact).  I've only been here a few days but already miss Lexington a bit.  That could be because I miss my friends, RoB, and Angel.  RoB and Angel will be joining me out here in May (it will be our 3rd road trip across the country), but until then I'm on my own.

I try to find thins to keep me busy anytime I move somewhere new.  I like to try an find some sports teams to play with, a community band or orchestra, good places to take my dog, and more recently a good gym.  I've also tried to start finding good restaurants and wineries to check out.  For those of you that move a lot, what re the first things you look for when you move somewhere new? What makes you feel settled in in a new city?

I really just like to try and get a good feel for an area, and I don't want to miss out on anything!

Review of 2012 reading (finally!)

I finally am getting around to taking a look at my previous year in reading.  I started to make more of a commitment to reading and reviewing books on my blog at the beginning of 2012 so let's see how I did!

I wanted to read 50 books over the course of the year, well that didn't happen.  I read 38, which isn't too bad!  I also used my blog a lot more for reviews and other things relating to reading.  Most of my posts had to do with reading, which I'm excited about.  I also got involved with the blog Jagged Edge to help review books there.  And even more exciting I started getting contacted by authors directly and have been reviewing books that way as well.

My favorite book I read last year was probably The Night Circus, followed by State of Wonder. My least favorite had to have been 50 Shades of Gray (which I haven't reviewed, not sure if its worth it) probably followed by Playing with Matches.

New for this year, I finally got into the ebook fun with the gift of a kindle from RoB!  I love love LOVE it.  I will still read, buy, collect, give away real books but some of the conveniences of the kindle are great.  He got me the paperwhite so I could read at night without the light on (which always bothered him since he wanted to go to sleep before me).

I don't have any specific number goals for this next year, but I do need to be better about getting my reviews up.  So my new goal is to get reviews up within a week of finishing a book, and not skipping ahead to a book I want review, but really taking the time to review each and everyone.  I'm also considering changing my review style.  I'd love some suggestions on what y'all like in a book review and what you don't.  Do you like it broken up into different sections? Do you want a long summary? How can I make them more interesting?

the.book.chat link-up, short stroies

The link-up this week for the.book.chat is about short stories.  I don't read many short stories (although I would like to write one!), but when I do read them I enjoy them.  And I recently read a phenomenal one called The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu.  I heard about it from the Books on the Nightstand podcast (if you listen to podcasts, check this one out!). This story is available for free online through Suvudu, from when it appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine.  Even if you don't like Fantasy/SciFi, you should read this short story, it's only about 12 pages long but it is very touching and you might want to keep some tissues nearby!  I'm always amazed at how much an author can get through in such a short story, and this one has it all.  In keeping the theme with short stories, I'll keep this post short!

Head over to this link-up and join in!