[Official Blurb] The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share News. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog. This is your news post, so personalize it! Include as much as you want or as little. Be creative, it can be a vlog or just a showcase of your goodies. Link up once a week or once a month, you decide. Book haul can include library books, yard sale finds, arcs and bought books..share them!
Enter your link on the post-
Sundays beginning at 12:01 am (CST) (link will be open all week)
A note about the format I am using to journal #TheSundayPost:
I am finding I like being able to give my readers who cannot visit my blog each time a new post, review or guest feature goes live a digest journal of what is happening on #JLASblog each week! If you are familiar with the style in which I journal my readerly adventures via #WWWednesdays (see also Archive) you’ll know why I like this journalled style for #TheSundayPost!
It’s a way of talking about what is bookishly on my mind whilst sharing where my travels in Fiction & Non-Fiction took me through the last seven days! Quite stellar – so very thankful I was encouraged to participate as I love being able to think about which stories settled into my heart and which of the stories I am most eager to see arrive by postal mail and/or via audiobook! It’s a bit of a lovely way to journal your bookish life and have a weekly reminder of the experiences of you’ve gathered and love to remember!
From the misery of a cold to a revival of random bookish joy,…
IF I had to speculate how my February would have concluded on a sour note of a severely intensive Winter cold which not only rendered me undone by a severely crippingly migraine (as it was unfortunately attached to said cold) but also incredibly *sore!* ears (wherein it affected ALL attempts at listening ot audiobooks previously highlighted via my last Sunday Post!), a throat which felt like strep and at the very end of it all – I nearly lost my voice just like Mum! She had it for just under a week and a half – whilst I’ve barely squeaked out of it under a fortnight but as its still ‘with me’ that’s not exactly conclusive yet!
I found myself getting down quite a bit about it – normally I can ride out a cold with reading but this one was unrelenting with side issues and a heap of unwelcomed fatigue; so in essence, unless it was a streaming television series (here’s looking @ Star Trek: Enterprise & Zoey’s Playlist!) odds are in great favour I passed the hours of the final weeks of February without many stories in my hands or arriving inside my headphones. The one audiobook I attempted to read didn’t work out very well and I regret I had to postpone listening to it. I’ve already requeued it to be heard this March.
Meanwhile, I also learnt a harder truth about expectations and failed inspirations in regards to Star Trek: Picard (see also my last #BookishNotBookish – updated that section!) and on a happier note, we had a ‘second chance’ Wintry weather spurt which left me wickedly happy despite how real the struggle was to embrace brisk winds (with sore ears, throat and a migraine!) and colder than ice temperatures – a part of me was trying to remember why I love grey skies, cold Wintry days and how good it felt to have a vacation from the Sun! Colds like this one muddle your senses and your ability to enjoy everything you normally *love!* – but despite that, there was one day where Mum took me out for cinnamon bagels and hot tea which reminded me to anchour into small joys and random serendipity rather than feeling curtailed by a situation I had zero control.
In the midst of feeling quite unwell, I did have a turning bit of tide in regards to how I recaptured some bookish JOY this week! I had to stack all my #bookpost into different piles – flat parcels together, bundled boxes together and it became a bit of a tricky situation as I wasn’t sure if any of the short piles would fall! lol I definitely have drawn a bit of curiosity from postal workers lately and I can’t wait to reveal a few thoughts of joy to the one who enquired about a few recent arrivals. She’s one of the few who enjoy chatting to me and hearing snippets of my life as a book blogger – which makes getting #bookmail ever more exciting when you can talk about it with others.
There was a keenly hidden SURPRISE though this week as I entered a bookaway whilst I was taken ill and to be quite honest, had FORGOTTEN all about it! I was visiting with a bookish friend of mine whose also an author of the stories I enjoy reading in her Speculative worlds of interest: Jennifer Silverwood (via her blog) when I noticed a curious review about a Middle Grade Fantasy novel called: Finding Esme! Wait til you discover the happiness this #bookmail brought into my life! I mean, talk about a total 360 experience from feeling taken under by the cold and being lifted in pure joy by what the author sent me!! I can’t remember getting quite a bookaway like this before except for one which I won from Jane Porter prior to being a book blogger.
Whilst I have some bookish updates regarding being an influencer and book ambassador with the Once Upon A Book Club subscription box service! Further updates are arriving this Tuesday and next Tuesday respectivefully! I also might have another bit of news to share next Sunday in regards to a new opportunity which came into my life this weekend – however, mum’s the word as I am still finalising the details.
*UPcoming!* blog & Twitter milestones:
(celebrating my 7th Year as a book blogger and joyful tweeter : dates to remember!)
I created my blog on the 31st of March, 2013 – my blogoversary!
I launched it LIVE to the world on 6th August, 2013 – my blog’s birthday!
I waited til the 13th of November, 2013 to join Twitter – my #twitterversary!
To help celebrate my #blogoversary @ the end of the month – I’ll be tweaking, blogging and finishing my edits for my *End of the Year Survey, 2019* – thereby allowing me to dig into the past years which were unable to be featured previously and will be time capsules of the recent past about the stories and authors I loved discovering, reading and spending time with as a reader! Due to stay tuned for this special post arriving on 31.March!
Some updates about where my bookish adventures took me this final week of February and what I am planning to do my first week of March as a bit of a renewal of resuming where I left off with the stories and books themselves. I feel like I lost so many *hours!* and yet, despite that well of inactivity I had quite a busy week overall! Even though technically speaking you’ll find that my #bookpost stacked up a bit to where I had the joy of revealling a heap of loveliness all at once!
Callisto Publishing Club : what Jorie requested in February
Will be reading this coming week:
The Story of Frida Kahlo: A Biography Book for New Readers by Susan B Katz
The Easy 5 Ingredient Vegan Cookbook: 100 Healthy Plant Based Recipes by Nancy Montuori
Super Green Smoothies: Veggie-Based Recipes to Boost Your Health and Well-Being by Danielle Omar
→ [arriving this week] Essential Vegetable Fermentation: 70 Inventive Recipes to Make Your Own Pickles, Kraut, Kimchi, and More by Kelly McVicker
Sort of goes without too much saying that when your under the weather as severely as I was (and of which the main details are not shared!) reading or viewing food isn’t exactly going to be your top priority! I could barely eat most days be as it were! However, within the last day or so I’ve started to go through my #bookpost and I’ve had the joy of rediscovering these Callisto books which arrived! I am overjoyed truly because the cookbooks are beyond budget friendly and the biography is awe-inspiring on so many levels – plus I love the graphic design and bright colours they used to illuminate Frida’s life as a young girl.
The one which is still enroute is the Veg Fermentation – I have my eye on the kimchi section as I’ve heard such good things about that over the years. Plus, if I can finally slay the mystery of fermenting my own foods I’m one step closer to my self-sufficiency goals as I eventually want to harvest my own garden of fruit, veg, herb and cut flowers whilst canning for Winter, etc. I have appreciated the concept of eating macrobiotically since my early twenties and fermented foods are a part of that lifestyle. I’m definitely leant more towards a macro-vegetarian vegan and GF lifestyle any other way of eating as those are the foods which I have found help my health and wellness the most. Thereby you’ll be seeing me requeue my #TheBookishFoodie sections on Jorie Loves A Story as we move into Spring and I can start reviewing cookbooks again!Read More
[Official Blurb] The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share News. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog. This is your news post, so personalize it! Include as much as you want or as little. Be creative, it can be a vlog or just a showcase of your goodies. Link up once a week or once a month, you decide. Book haul can include library books, yard sale finds, arcs and bought books..share them!
Enter your link on the post-
Sundays beginning at 12:01 am (CST) (link will be open all week)
A note about the format I am using to journal #TheSundayPost:
I am finding I like being able to give my readers who cannot visit my blog each time a new post, review or guest feature goes live a digest journal of what is happening on #JLASblog each week! If you are familiar with the style in which I journal my readerly adventures via #WWWednesdays (see also Archive) you’ll know why I like this journalled style for #TheSundayPost!
It’s a way of talking about what is bookishly on my mind whilst sharing where my travels in Fiction & Non-Fiction took me through the last seven days! Quite stellar – so very thankful I was encouraged to participate as I love being able to think about which stories settled into my heart and which of the stories I am most eager to see arrive by postal mail and/or via audiobook! It’s a bit of a lovely way to journal your bookish life and have a weekly reminder of the experiences of you’ve gathered and love to remember! In regards to getting back into the groove with #WWWeds – I’m either going to make the meme bi-monthly or monthly which I’ll decide within the next fortnight.
And, then,…
Jorie finally returns to journalling her weekly bookish adventures,…
Finding the motivation to write #TheSundayPost has been a bit tricky the past few years, which is why you’ve noticed a staunch reduction in posts alighting in my feeds! I had a lot of good intentions to resume this lovely meme I was enjoying participating in but structuring it the way I wanted to have my weekly journalled notes to appear on my blog was part of the issue and the other half of it really is that I have a lot to shuffle behind-the-blog so to speak (we all do,..) to where I was thankful I had the hours I needed to maintain Jorie Loves A Story but when it came to writing up supplemental posts and keeping in step with the memes I love to blog about – long ago, I realised something had to ‘give’ and these were the posts I had to put on hiatus.
Some months I thought I might be able to return to them sooner, so there are a few notes here or there saying “#TheSundayPost” is returning this week or that week, but no, they haven’t returnt until now! I have a lot of news I never had the chance to share from past reading challenges or past milestones of the blog – I might tuck those into some retrospective posts as the months move forward. For now, I simply wanted to try to recapture a bit of what has been going on since January and then, I’ll tackle what I want to share from [2019-back].
*UPcoming!* blog & Twitter milestones:
(celebrating my 7th Year as a book blogger and joyful tweeter : dates to remember!)
I created my blog on the 31st of March, 2013 – my blogoversary!
I launched it LIVE to the world on 6th August, 2013 – my blog’s birthday!
I waited til the 13th of November, 2013 to join Twitter – my #twitterversary!
I almost cannot believe *seven years!* have elapsed since I first created this idea I had for a book blog and undertook the journey of what has emerged through seeking out the bookish and readerly adventures I’ve curated ever since I first started to blog my bookish and geeky life wayy back in [2013] !! I hadn’t known then how my life would be tenfold #blessed by the authors, their stories and the bookish culture I would endeavour to become a part of until I was into my first few years as a book blogger. There was no guide and blueprint towards sorting out this book blogosphere world nor the twitterverse where I undertook getting socially chatty on a platform I never expected I’d take like a duck to water to explore, engage and carve out my own joyfully tweeting presence seven years in the making!
I’ve worked with publishers in the United States, Canada, the UK and aboard whilst I have had the chance to get to host blog tours with genre focused blog touring companies inasmuch as innovative and insightful touring companies who either focus on select works of Fiction, Non-Fiction and Poetry. Each step of the way, I was not just hosting blog tours or seeking stories for review consideration but I was endeavouring with each opportunity which crossed my path to read deeper and to seek out the stories which :pushed: me into new horizons of literary exploration. For me, that was always the key goal: to find the stories being writ by the authors who are giving me a wicked good read!
I never knew if I could balance my online readerly life the same way I balance my IRL readerly life – but I have found being a hybrid reader has had its best benefits because I can move between mainstream and INSPY offerings by publishers, publicists, authors, agents and touring companies quite easily. Each year, I have decided to seek out new adventures and to re-shift what I wanted to focus on – I started to reduce how many blog tours I would host each month back in [2016] something I happily maintained until this February [2020] where I slide back into a bit of a chaotic blog schedule! (laughs)
Through the years, I’ve disclosed snippets of my walk in faith, my struggles of being a migraineur (someone who has chronic migraines) and have found that I love hosting guest features where I get to interview different guests – authors, editors, narrators (of audiobooks), actors (for Indie Film projects) and other creatives who have crossed my path. I still love blogging the heart out of the stories I am reading – not just to examine the story as a discerning reader myself but to truly give a strong impression about what I found inside the story in order to help someone else choose whether or not the story I’ve read and blogged about is a good ‘fit’ for their own readerly curiosities. As we all gravitate towards different stories at different times – we all dance through genres and literary styles – a book which appeals to us today might not resonate with us when we go to read it, etc. I find I love visiting with the book bloggers who give me something to ‘chew on’ as I’m reading their blogs – from their reviews, to their guest features to their discussion posts. I want to know more than the surface layer of their reactions to stories and that is what I try to bring to my own readers here on Jorie Loves A Story. (and yes, the “a” is purposefully shown in caps!)Read More
My participation in this meme was directly inspired by my new bookish friends: Avalinah + Savanah via this post!
[Official Blurb] The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share News. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog. This is your news post, so personalize it! Include as much as you want or as little. Be creative, it can be a vlog or just a showcase of your goodies. Link up once a week or once a month, you decide. Book haul can include library books, yard sale finds, arcs and bought books..share them!
Enter your link on the post- Sundays beginning at 12:01 am (CST) (link will be open all week)
Link back to this post or this blog
Visit others who have linked up
A note about the format I am using to journal #TheSundayPost: I am finding I like being able to give my readers who cannot visit my blog each time a new post, review or guest feature goes live a digest journal of what is happening on #JLASblog each week! If you are familiar with the style in which I journal my readerly adventures via #WWWednesdays (see also Archive) you’ll know why I like this journalled style for #TheSundayPost!
It’s a way of talking about what is bookishly on my mind whilst sharing where my travels in Fiction & Non-Fiction took me through the last seven days! Quite stellar – so very thankful I was encouraged to participate as I love being able to think about which stories settled into my heart and which of the stories I am most eager to see arrive by postal mail and/or via audiobook! It’s a bit of a lovely way to journal your bookish life and have a weekly reminder of the experiences of you’ve gathered and love to remember! In regards to getting back into the groove with #WWWeds – I’m either going to make the meme bi-monthly or monthly which I’ll decide within the next fortnight.
Hallo, dear hearts, welcome to an INSPY filled July,..
Finding my new pace & rhythm with my reading life has been the most difficult part of my Summer, as I had planned to *devour!* loads of #FantasyReads in May – heaps of #AudioReads in June – whilst July was meant to be stuffed to the gills with #INSPY stories spilt between Fiction & Non-Fiction! I was also planning to release reviews for the colouring books which I’ve happily enjoyed creating art inside whilst I’ve listened to audiobooks! Thankfully, as there is still a bit of time left to the month, I can run a series of reviews befitting my original goals for July (including those colouring books!).
The main reason I was thrown off-kilter this year was due to the health reasons I previously disclosed after #WyrdAndWonder, yet what I hadn’t realised then, as I do know is how many after effects I truly had to trudge through in order to resume where I left off reading! This July, when I stumbled across the Christian & Clean Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Singing Librarian Books – I had no idea how this would deeply impact my life! I blog about my passionate appreciation for INSPY Lit quite often even though it is not always as regularly as I would prefer – I’ve been striving for a better balance of stories being read/heard between both mainstream and INSPY markets – a goal I’ve had tucked onto the backburner for the 5 years I’ve been blogging on Jorie Loves A Story!
July was giving me this opportunity to find a renewal of purpose to focus on #INSPYreads as due to how the challenge was self-directed and self-motivating towards your own personal goals – this is what I did to get into the mindset of approaching it:
→ I developed a book list I wanted to use as a primer and guide towards what I could read
→ I kept very loose goals per day and week – meaning, if I was finding myself tucking into a story where I could only read a few chapters at a time, I considered this a ‘win!’
→ The beauty of the challenge was not needing to ‘blog’ per se to participate – this opened the door for me to head into the twitterverse to micro-blog my updates, interact with the authors I was reading and give myself a much needed hiatus from weekly blogging! (it also helped I was under-booked!)
→ A bit of a competition between your Mum goes a long way towards reclaiming your reading life as well! I have made it quite well know I’ve been following in Mum’s footsteps towards reading the Love INSPIRED Suspense series – as she has beloved favourites: Elizabeth Goddard, Laura Scott, Lenora Worth, etc of whom she’d like me to read and become introduced to in order to start having fireside chats about the characters, the plots and the wicked intensity of ‘feeling on edge’ throughout the course of the novels! (we’ve started in on that goal, too!)
→ Call me crazy but I used the widget for the bookaways as a personal ‘self-check’ towards staying on my goals, keeping the ‘pleasure’ in my reading hours without the added worry of (should I blog, shouldn’t I blog) chatter whilst finding with each new day I was ‘recording’ my progresses – either by audiobooks listened to (as of now, I heard two) or books read (as of now, three) and a sampling of what I was microblogging on Twitter – you could say it proved fruitful for a girl whose angst was not just limited to her personal health but as a step towards reconciling how to be a ‘reader’ when she didn’t feel like being a ‘book blogger’. This is something I haven’t resolved in five years – as I was a reader before I was a blogger but I was also a reader in a semi-permanent reader’s rut at the same time – part of the reason I was having guilt over ‘not blogging’ is I didn’t want to backslide into a period of time where I was ‘not reading’ and thereby, erasing the process of the past five years where I have re-established myself into the genres I love and finding my own rhythm for how I read/blog/tweet my reading life!
Another aspect of what was aiding my recovery post-migraines this July is the fact the Love Inspired novels were either Large Print, Larger Print or in the case of one of the Ms Worth novels “True Large Print” which for me felt GIGANTIC! lol I had started to notice this was something which was helpful to me as I was reading Harlequin Roms for some of the Prism Book Tours I was hosting throughout the past eight or so months? Those stories were generally in Large print themselves and being I had so many migraines to overcome, I noticed the font size being enlarged was a lovely step ‘back’ towards reading regular print!
Curious about which INSPY stories
caught my heart & left me musefully happy afterwards!?
Shielding His Christmas Witness | thrifted
The Only Witness | ILL’d (inter-library loan)
*bookmark, FREE at my local library – I am in FULL agreement of the sentiment!
For Laura Scott, you might want to check-out my micro-blog about reading her #CallahanConfidential first as I was on the VERY edge of my cosy comfort chair awaiting the ‘final’ chapter to see what would become of Kari & Marc! You forsake SLEEP reading these Love Inspired Suspense novels!! At least, I find you do! I couldn’t dare think I’d have to take a wink & a nod away from the action! You barely get to catch your breath whilst your reading the story-line as so much is happening ALL at once! Plus, I like how the heroes of the stories are charmingly honest, realistically relatable and have their own fair share of faults to round off the joy of reading their adventures! Seriously though – if you want a slightly lighter side to your Suspense Reads but with the full-octane of traditional Suspense, you ought to give Laura Scott a chance at charming your bookish heart!
Whilst Ms. Spektor passed through my state touring with Keane, I had the unexpected joy of seeing her perform LIVE and I must confess, it was a smashingly brilliant concert!! I wasn’t sure what to expect, but her vocals and her raw energy to perform is what has staid with me, and in two years, that makes a full 10 years since I saw her last! Her command of the stage, the diverse vocality of her range, and the experience she gives to her audience is unlike any performer I have seen prior and after this particular performance of hers! I cannot recollect which albums I brought home with me, but I have at least the first two of hers which were produced and released! I like to seek out musicians, songwriters, and artists who walk a creatively unique path in the world of sound and music, imparting a special insight into the human spirit and the joy of living our adventures!
Equally, I like to duck into the typosphere every blue moon, seeing what is new, and to keep tabs on the typewriters that are being retrofitted and restored, as its my secret dream to own a power-horse of the 1930s or 1940s (as incredibly incredible as that sounds!) to simply cart off my words and purge-pin them to paper, imparting my fictional words and my thoughts in equal blissitude! Whilst on such a sojourn tonight, I stumbled across this video that spoke to me, as much as it visually lifted my spirits due to the creative imaginative imagery that befits the song, by which Ms. Spektor gave to the world to listen with a pensive ear! This isn’t the first video out of the typosphere I’ve wanted to share with you, dear hearts, but its the first of which has made it to my blog! Laughs. Consider this a spontaneously musing post about the particulars of the unexpected hours and the joys that alight in our lives at such randomly chosen moments of discovery!
What did this evoke out of you after you listened to the words and soaked in the video!?
IF you want to follow alongside me as I make other random discoveries that are visually expressive in the format of film, please take a gander at my Bookish Films!
{SOURCE: The music video by Regina Spektor had either URL share links or coding which made it possible to embed this media portal to this post, and I thank them for the opportunity to share more about this song and the artist who gave it a voice.
I must admit, that I have started to see the “Bloggers Commenting Back” bubble popping up on the bookish blogs that I am visiting lately, but I haven’t had the pleasure of sorting out the source of the originating blog nor the full meaning behind it! Turns out, this a pledge to not only acknowledge those who comment on YOUR BLOG but to visit the COMMENTER’s BLOG in return! I have already implemented this pledge on my own merit in regards to making sure that not too much time goes by before I reply to a comment on my blog! Sometimes it draws out to a lengthy conversation (which I love!) and sometimes its just a ‘quick note’ back to let the person who dropped by know that I appreciated their stopping on my blog!
I am a blogger who encourages comments to populate her blog, as much as I am a blog reader who loves to leave comments for other bloggers! This is something that I have always done, but I must confess, I am not sure if I have always done the other ‘half’ of this pledge, which is why I will make an effort to remember to do this! There are times where a blogger visiting my blog came over from a conversation that started on ‘their blog’ originally, and then we’re hopping to each others’ whilst continuing the conversation! Laughs. I always smile rather happily when that happens! I think this is a lovely bookish (blog) community event where all bloggers who hope to find conversative people to alight on their posts will now have a clever way of seeing which blog & blogger is happily taking part in this even! I put the badge in my sidebar underneath “Stay Connected” because the merit of this pledge fits that perfectly!
I, Jorie, of Jorie Loves A Story, personally pledge to continue to be excited and enthused to reply to each and every comment that comes to rest on JLAS!
I will always attempt to leave a direct reply within hours of its posting, barring any life event that might take me away from doing so! IF I am delayed in replying straight-away, a reply will surely come, so please have patience in me! I will remember to visit the blogs of those who leave me a comment as a way to show gratitude and thankfulness that they dropped by! In the event a blog has a comment section that I cannot leave a comment on, I have already implemented writing that blogger via PM!
Remember, if you want to take the pledge yourself, please visit the Pledge Sign-Up Page, as this is hosted directly by Readers Wonderland! In the interim,
I look forward to your next comment!
{SOURCES: Badges provided by Readers Wonderland for bloggers to show support and credit to the blog, as well as promote the pledge!}
