June Recap // Failing At Goals, But More Reading, New Music, & A Survey For You!

Another month of 2020 is over.

I feel like this is cause for celebration. We’ve made it to the seventh month of this horrible year, and that has to count for something, right? If there’s anything that this year has taught me, it’s that each day is a gift and I need to recognize how lucky I am to have every day that I do, so with that mindset, July is definitely a celebration.

In honor of the new month, I’m going to recap everything that went on this past month! June was a strange haze of watching the news, scrolling mindlessly through social media, reading library books, and spending most of my time either at home or driving around aimlessly listening to music just to get out of the house.

It was one of those months that at the end I’m torn between wondering where it went and being glad that it finally ended- and I don’t have much more to say without mentioning everything I’m about to recap (I’m great at intros), so without further ado, let’s get into the actual post!

Even though I didn’t read as many books as I originally wanted to during June, I ended up reading 11 books. This is more than I’ve been normally reading, due to the combination of summer vacation and social distancing- so I’m happy with that, at least.

I was able to go to my library in person this month, which was so exciting! I wore a mask and there was barely anyone there- I think I’m going to go again soon because I’m almost done with the books I checked out and soon I’ll need new ones to read in July. Library curbside pick-up and that one trip inside fueled most of the books I read this month- everything I read was new to me (which is kind of rare for me).

My favorites of the month were definitely Lucky Caller, House of Salt and Sorrows, and The Unlikelies. I will for sure be including them in the next few installments of my mini reviews because I’m very eager to explain why I loved them so much!

I wasn’t exactly disappointed by anything I read in June, but I did feel like near the end of the month a lot of the books I read were lagging and I fell into multiple small slumps where I would do anything possible to avoid reading just because I didn’t feel like reading a certain book…but I pushed through and now I’m reading a book I’m interested in!

As for any other reading news, near the end of June I uncovered a lot of giftcards that I had forgotten about, and one day when I was having a bad day I ordered a ton of books online, so now I have something to look forward to. I was telling my best friend about it and her text made me laugh~

If that isn’t the story of my life.

How I Did on June’s Reading Goals✨

• Read 15 books ❌
• Read 2 classics ❌ouch
• Start a reread of Harry Potter ❌
• Post on bookstagram 5 times & be active there ❌✅I didn’t post much but I was active!

July’s Reading Goals✨

• Read 15 books
• Read (/finish) 3-4 classics
• Reread Harry Potter
• Post on bookstagram 10 times and stay active
• Participate in a readathon for the first time

So, I didn’t realize how horrible I had done on my June goals until I just now looked back at them, but I definitely have much higher hopes for July! I’ve already started the month off on a good foot by posting on my instagram and starting a new book, so hopefully that translates to having a good reading month overall.

Similar to with reading, blogging didn’t go as well as I wanted it to, but it was still an improvement to past months! I got back in the rhythm of commenting on other posts, staying caught up on my Reader, and drafting posts, and that makes me really happy.

• The Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus Book Tag // combining my fangirling over Percy Jackson with books I love
• My Summer 2020 Bucket List // this is essentially a list of all the movies I want to watch over the summer, because productivity
• Mini Reviews From Quarantine // I finally start to review all the books I’ve been reading the past few months and never talk about
• The Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag // me properly freaking out about what I’ve read and what I need to read in 2020

I’m also happy because I kept track of a lot of the posts that I enjoyed (though definitely I read so many more that I loved), so here are just a few posts from June that I think are worth a read~

• Marie shares places in France to write about that aren’t Paris and even though I’m not writing right now, I couldn’t have loved reading this post more
• Ash compiled a great list of books to read by Black authors, including fiction and nonfiction works
• Kay wrote a really thought invoking and eloquent post about reclaiming Harry Potter from JKR (and on her thoughts about separating art from the artist as a whole)
• May shared a huge comprehensive list of 50+ books by QPOC about QPOC and I added so many books to my TBR after reading it
• Nish and Ngoc put together a post with a ton of resources and educational material on Black Lives Matter and white privilege
• Caitlin wrote a post all about blog hopping, her process, and why she does it and I loved reading this so much
• Xandra continued her series on things no one told her about the book community and I wholeheartedly enjoyed every second of reading it
• Grace started a project called Radiate Literary that creates a space for student writers to share their work and connect with other writers, so if you’re interested in finding a writing community, you should definitely check it out

On a different blogging note, if you haven’t heard yet, May and Marie are hosting this year’s Annual Book Blogging Awards!!

I’m at Ross-doing-his-weird-leap levels of excitement for this! The book blogger awards are not only an amazing way to boost bloggers and spread appreciation, but I’m looking forward to discovering new bloggers through reading other’s posts and watching the love be spread. 🤍 I can’t wait to participate, and I hope you are too!

To continue on with the thought of celebrating bloggers, recently Annie and I were having a conversation about how long we’ve been reading each other’s blogs, bloggers we first followed, and the like. This got me very curious about the origins of my fellow bloggers- how did people find out about blogging, book blogging, or become a part of the community?

I’m very interested in hearing the stories of other bloggers, and I’m hoping compile a post chronicling the origin stories of different bloggers, both in an attempt to share those stories and to share appreciation for bloggers as a whole! I originally was going to email bloggers about this, but I didn’t want to make any feel pressured to participate or close it off to only bloggers I already know, so instead, if you’re interested in this, I would love if you would fill out the very brief survey below! This is not saying you have to commit to participating, but just a way for me to know if I should send you more information.

How I Did on June’s Blogging Goals✨

• Post at least six times ❌
• Establish summer blogging schedule ✅I mean, I did this in my head
• 2 tags ✅
• Actually do those mini reviews ✅
• Revamp my friends page ❌
• Interact consistently ✅it always could have been better, but it was an improvement!

July’s Blogging Goals:

• Post at least eight times
• Interact consistently & keep track of posts I read
• Mini reviews (part 2)
• Participate in Book Blogger Awards
• Comment back more
• Fix my Friends page
• Work on potential redesign

Since July is the only full month I have left before things with school are starting again, I want to use this time to work a lot on my blog and put out the best quality content I can while I can. I’m actually so excited for what this month holds blogging-wise!

Life has been incredibly crazy this month. COVID-19 is still affecting everyone, protests erupted all over the world (BLM resources here), human rights have somehow become a political opinion- however much I want 2020 to be over, I hope and pray that true change can be made and that there is justice.

Somehow this month has both dragged on and flown by, with not too much notable things happening in my personal life, but a few things are~

• I went back to dance for a month and we recorded our recital. I got to go back in the studio for the month of June and take classes again! We had distancing measures in place. At the end of the month, we recorded our spring concert we never got to do, and I was so grateful to both close the chapter of those dances and to see my friends again and to dance full out (my turns suffered though)!!
• Reopening of everything, but kind of not. Things really started opening up where I am, which was exciting at first, but quickly made things really horrible with COVID-19, so that’s not good, especially with school coming up. After I finished my dance recording, I’ve been staying home as much as possible since things are taking a turn for the worse here.
• The amount of snowcones I have consumed this month is bad. But when drive through snowcone places exist and it’s summer…
• I started watching Gossip Girl! I love a good drama filled TV show, and that’s exactly what Gossip Girl is. I’m watching it with one of my friends (Netflix partywhile zooming is the perfect way to watch with people from home) and I love it so much. I aspire to be Blair (though I’m like the exact opposite of her).
• I started bullet journaling again! After kind of abandoning my journal since I got it at the beginning of the calendar year, I started consistently using it to write down my goals, keep track of my mood, and write down my to-do lists for each day. As you can kind of hopefully see in the pictures, June’s theme was rainbow! (So far July’s theme is space.)
• Music has been saving me. I’m so, so glad that Spotify exists and I can find new artists. My best friend and I made a playlist that we both add songs to that we think the other would like and listening to it keeps me sane. The songs I’ve been most obsessed with during June are: Maniac (Conan Gray), New Light (John Mayer), Sports Car (Valley), Someone You Loved (Lewis Capaldi), and I Don’t Wanna Love You Anymore (LANY). If anyone has recommendations of songs or artists to listen to, I will gladly take any because I love discovering new music!

Honestly, I have no idea what July is going to hold as far as regular life goes. I have zero commitments- my only loose plans are to read, blog, work on college applications, hopefully start another work-out program, and read my Bible. It’s both scary and somewhat freeing to have absolutely no plans!

June was such a strange and semi-productive month? I’m glad that it’s over and that we’re now moving into the next and hopefully better month of 2020. I hope you’re all doing well, staying safe, and I’m thinking of you all! Wishing you the best July possible. xx

How was your July? What are you reading? How have you been passing the time? I’d love to talk with you in the comments.