Tag: Jorie Loves A Story

#TheSundayPost XVII | Jorie’s favourite time of year has arrived whilst #SpooktasticReads is underway!

Posted Sunday, 22 October, 2023 by jorielov , , , 2 Comments

#TheSundayPost banner created by Jorie in Canva.

[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)
  • Link back to this post or this blog
  • Visit others who have linked up
  • Read this week’s #TheSundayPost!

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Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

Isn’t it grand? Autumn has FINALLY arrived!

I had an inkling of hope Autumn was arriving when I caught a whisper of cooler winds and crisper weather was starting to become the new normal! It is such a blessing from the harsher wrath of Summer and for me, truly, when the Autumnal tides start to turn into my hours – I find myself blessedly happier for a season that invigorates my soul! It is such a calmer time of year.

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In regards to my life behind the blog:

I remember being at work one morning and wondering if the weather was ever going to turn as we have such long and expansive Summers here, it can become a bit overwhelming having to deal with them all the time. You tend to feel as if volcanic heat and muggy humidity is the ONLY season you’re going to experience the whole year through and that is part of the reason why I have a deep aversion to the Sun. It could take a full sabbatical from my life and it would be too soon to return. I crave overcast skies, Wintry temperatures and the crisp feel to the air as you breathe rather than the alternative which everyone else seems to crave themselves. And, yet, one day at work – there was a whisper of change moving through the trees and the winds – and blessedly, that is what started to make the difference I am loving right now!

It isn’t full-on Autumn nor anything akin to Winter but I’ll take it! Even a smidge of a change is a positive step forward in my book! Laughs. Ergo, I’ve been concentrating on work the last while and not finding a lot of free time outside it save from visiting with my Dad. He has his good days and his indifferent days and anyone who has a loved one who has a form of dementia of any variety (as there are so many kinds nowadays) knows the uphill climb it sometimes feels like to have a conversation. There are other days where I feel we’re connecting (Mum and I to him) and there are days where it feels as if he doesn’t even notice we’re there which is all too common with people who have his same affliction. The mind isn’t kind when it loses its connections and its understanding of what is going on around the person.

Not too much to report on that front – I haven’t even sorted out which knitting project to pick up again nor have I done much on my off hours than catch up on some must needed rest! It hits me every so often where I get a lot of fatigue or outright exhaustion, and I just crash. I’ve slept through 13 hours recently due to how much the week can catch up to me in regards to how much output of energy it takes to maintain my work hours. Not that I mind – I enjoy my work environment and my co-workers company – but any job done well takes energy and spirit and sometimes I just need to let myself recharge. Which of course doesn’t also lend well to trying to read or blog! Laughs.

I have been a bit indulgent in drinking Autumnal lattes of late. I admit, there is something about the flavour profile of Autumn which warms my heart and spirit. I’m picky the most when it comes to Pumpkin Spice but I have a new affection for different spins and combinations of flavour when it comes to Caramel which didn’t use to be the case! I drink more decafe lattes than anything else but every odd moon I’ll have a real latte as they say!

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Posted Sunday, 22 October, 2023 by jorielov in Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blogosphere Events & Happenings, Bookish Memes, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story, Reading Challenges, Stories of Jorie, The Sunday Post

#TheSundayPost XVI | Sometimes you have to look long and hard for the silver lining

Posted Sunday, 8 October, 2023 by jorielov , , 5 Comments

#TheSundayPost banner created by Jorie in Canva.

[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)
  • Link back to this post or this blog
  • Visit others who have linked up
  • Read this week’s #TheSundayPost!

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

and bless you if you’ve held out a candle of hope I’d return!

This blog post germinated originally in March,

however, I had several MAJOR life changes between April & June;

specifically: an unplanned relocation and a new job which included 5x weeks
of training with a serious commute attached to it before I started to work locally.

AND, then, I thought I could finish and tweak this during August.

Best laid plans, as it took until the END of SEPTEMBER / EARLY OCTOBER
to post by the 8th of October! Though, *cough* that did involve a nearly dead computer!

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In regards to my life behind the blog:

As you might recall, I was attempting to journal my life earlier in the Spring of 2023 – wherein, I was enjoying the rhythm of writing #TheSundayPost as it was acting as a cathertic release for me. However, during the search for a new flat to rent I lost track of the hours – it came down to the very wire, too. We nearly didn’t find a flat in time and we were just blessed it all worked out in the end. It was one of those long weekends (of a move) where you were quite literally up for 24 hours straight relocating and settling into a new flat whilst maintaining your night job the ENTIRE week leading up to the ‘move day’. And, then, on the day of the move itself and the next day thereafter, you didn’t skip a shift and still somehow balanced all the chaotic balls as they threw themselves at you all at once.

Mum and I were so exhausted, we didn’t unpack a single box for two months, save our clothes and linens. We also ate out considerably, as to be frank, that relocation took the wind out of our sails. The main blessing though – as living in a neighbourhood for eight years, you get into a comfortable place with your neighbours, even if they sometimes would come and go with the tides. Relocating meant we’d be in a different neighbourhood and a different part of the city. So, all in all – that was a bit stressing, too. Until we met our new neighbours – mind you, only the ones closest to us – the rest of them seem to keep pretty much to themselves. On both sides, they look after us and we look after them, whilst being neighbourly and kind as well. It was a good fit on that side of it and we were thankful as it made the transition a bit easier on us.

Somewhere between May and June, I sorted out there was a new job opportunity which might be good for me to chase after and in a lot of respects, I am glad I took that leap of faith. I was hired at the end of May, but it wasn’t official until the first week of June. Training occupied the next 5x weeks of a gruelling commute whilst managing to arrive on time at my night job all the same! Some days, between the stress of the on-the-job training out of towne and the traffic on the commute, I am not sure how I kept my sanity. It was beyond hard but I muddled through and even found some joy along the way. I also started to gain confidence in what I was being trained to do and realised that if I could I’d like to give back eventually and help train others*. (*this will be discussed lateron in this post)

The hours and months morphed into each other as well. At one point, I was working 3x jobs round the clock so to speak and I still am in a way, as some of my hours were cut recently. I’m hoping they might bounce back into my schedule but for now, I’ve taken the high road. I’m trying not to stress out about how what I hoped the new job would provide isn’t quite what I hoped and looking at it as a positive experience despite the hurdles its giving me with a reduced work schedule. Aside from that angle of it – we’ve also lost a lot of the new employees who trained either alongside me or at different locations. I am not entirely sure why they’ve left, as they had different reasons but considering we’ve all been a team for a scant few momths now, it seems hard to believe there have been so many changes at my work place already. More of my co-workers are contemplating exiting in the next few weeks as well. I know its due to the cut in hours as this isn’t the best time for anyone to have reduced schedules and inconsistancies in their work lives. I can’t blame them at all and some of them, as I’ve gotten to know quite well in recent months and of whom will be missed.

I did decide to take a step in advancement – a small one, where I could give back a bit of the joy I had in being trained. I’m now a trainer myself and I have already taken on the challenges of training new staff. I enjoy being able to pass forward the knowledge that I have about the job but also, help others through the anxieties of what the job entails, as well, as it is long hours and sometimes very physically demanding work. I’ve trained just under 10x co-workers now and it makes my heart happy knowing that I’m helping them settle into the work with the knowledge I was given myself.

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Whilst all that was going on:

If I thought losing the ability to celebrate my 10th Blogoversary was going to be taxing,

I wasn’t quite prepared to be so physically exhausted to even acknowledge my 10th Blog’s Birthday!

This year, by far, has been an especially trying year all round.

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I realise my 10th Twitterversary is coming up in November, but to be fair, that one seems like one I’ll bypass or turn into a memo about losing what I loved about tweeting and am grateful for the memories I had. I wasn’t able to log onto my blog or my Twitter feeds this Summer with any kind of regularity – hence the strong reduction in posts and the clear absence of my voice online in any capacity. I’ve decided the fact I made it to my 10th Year is worth celebrating, which is why on my new profile on BlueSky (yes, I’m on there!) (look for @joriestory) I’ve mentioned just that – I am celebrating jorielovesastory.com!

I, knew, too — more changes were in the air for me as a socially bookish girl. Which meant endeaviouring to tackle new socially bookish frontiers and joining a few social communities that I might have hestitated to engage with previously. More disclosures coming in this post!

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Posted Sunday, 8 October, 2023 by jorielov in Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blogosphere Events & Happenings, Bookish Memes, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story, Stories of Jorie, The Sunday Post

#BestBooksOf2020 Retrospective | The 2020 End of the Year Reading Survey : The stories behind #JLASblog’s 7th Year!

Posted Monday, 4 January, 2021 by jorielov , 7 Comments

End of the Year [2020] badge created by Jorie in Canva. Jorie Loves A Story badge created by Ravven and used with permission.

The Questions for the 2020 End of the Year Survey are posted by Jaime @ the Perpetual Page Turner, who created this survey as a personal reflection of her year of bookish wanderings and readings, and never thought it would turn into a book blogosphere yearly event! I am thankful she encourages us all to participate even though over the past five years I haven’t had the best track record of joining in on the community in which she’s curated to share a summation of our readerly lives.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

*Please be Advised:*

This *End of the Year Survey* first landed on Jorie Loves A Story in [2016] whilst celebrating the previous year of [2015] and I made a determined effort to bring it back in [2017] except those plans are still in my Drafts folder for #JLASblog! Smiles. I have decided to create #timecapsule posts this Happy New Year 2021 to re-explore what my top favourites were as a book blogger for the *missing years!* of the Survey itself! Stay tuned for some bookish revelations,… whilst I have decided this year to bring back the Survey in its rightful place of cheerfully championing a signal of #booklove as one year exchanges itself for a new one – rather than withhold my responses til my next blogoversary as I had done in year’s past on the 31st of March.

As you already realise if you’re a ready reader + follower of Jorie Loves A Story – these posts become EPIC and MASSIVELY descriptive as I reveal my final thoughts, ruminations and musings about the STORIES which truly left the impressions this survey attempts to reveal about our past twelvemonths as a reader and inquistive book blogger.

This being said – this post is a full balance OF all the stories I’ve read and discovered giving a fuller scope of how I ended my 2020 as a reader who happily is blogging her life as a book blogger. As well bringing myself back to centre with my ruminations – allowing me the chance to re-think about the stories I’ve read and to put to rest the final thoughts I’ve had on behalf of the stories themselves.

Be sure to brew yourself a cuppa joy as you sit, read and ponder which of my #BestOf2020Reads need to seriously become added to your own #TBR!

If you’ve filled something out like this survey (OR this actual one!) – be sure to share your link to your post(s) in the *threads below this post so I can take a gander at which stories | authors | series | genres joyfully intrigued you throughout 2020! As I would like expand my own TBR with the stories you’ve read yourself which could be a wicked good fit for me.

REMEMBER: if a story wasn’t my cuppa it could be one better suited for you and vice versa if you had a story which you felt fell short of your own expectations and might resontate with me better. Reading is subjective to our individual experiences within the stories themselves and all our reactions are valid and important as they are markers of our readerly lives.

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Let’s break this down a bit, shall we?

You can use this as a ‘preview guide’ of how to use my Story Vault. <— fully updated!

Note fo gratitude card for followers of Jorie Loves A Story created by Jorie in Canva.Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com Read More

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Posted Monday, 4 January, 2021 by jorielov in Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blogosphere Events & Happenings, End of the Year Survey, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story

A #Blogmas Retrospective | On all the lovely #ChristmasRomances I’ve showcased this December!

Posted Wednesday, 23 December, 2020 by jorielov 3 Comments

#blogmas badge created by Jorie in Canva.

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

You might be dearly curious about my #blogmas rollout this year – as I admit, I originally had ideas of a more *predictaable hour* of revelation for these lovelies! My blog apparently has had a more unique approach to how these spotlighted posts with featured extracts arrived into my blog’s archive and for that, I hope you’ve at least enjoyed them once they blinked onto your feeds via email and/or WP Reader!

→ And, for those of you who are hitting the like button to alert me of your presence on my blog – bless you!! I cherish those clicks as I do not always receive notes under my posts. It is lovely to see a wink and a nod from my regular readers,.. likewise I hope to be doing more of that kind of activity myself in the New Year.

I presume most of you are enjoying my posts by those sources as much as being routed here on Jorie Loves A Story courtesy of my updates in the twitterverse! As this is what I’ve been surmising throughout December as I watch which way my blog posts are being clicked upon out in the wider scheme of the net. I find those stats a bit interesting to gain a small insight into how people find my blog – especially during my Decembers wherein I turn a bit more showcasey in what I present rather than full-on reviews filtering through the month.

Though to be frank, my reviews have been a bit delayed this year from alighting as I’ve had readerly fatigue for most of 2020 and almost complete readerly burnt out for the rest of it. It wasn’t even any one specific moment though I know it began in the hours waning out of 2019 & into 2020 – as the close of the former year into the new one last New Year’s week was a muddling nightmare for world events (ie. wildfires, wildlife loss, earthquakes and other disasters and all of *that!* predated the pandemic,..) which was soul wrecking in of its own right. Ergo, my yearly reads were built on a shaky start to 2020.

As the months stacked onto each other, I found myself withdrawing from reading – from my backlogue of reviews and from the blog tour reads I desired to be focusing on most. Not to mention how clogged I am in non-completed reads for @SatBookChat featured guests! :O It is quite shocking and I have had to deal with that guilt as well though part of me gives me credit for hosting the chats & organising the discussions for those authors without cancelling the chats themselves. Save one or two due to health and/or a no show for an author whom I still hope to reschedule in Winter 2021.

With all of *that!* weighing on a girl’s mind, I happily dove into an abridged schedule for the #FantasyForChristmas blog tour whilst trying to keep on schedule for the showcases I wanted to feature for the secondary blog tour this December which is the Sweet Romance for Christmas. During which I concluded my abridged foray into #SciFiMonth is going to remain shelved and blogged right where it was the first week of December. Again, readerly fatigue is real. I’ll update about those final reads for #SciFiMonth in a forthcoming yearly recap post lateron this December right before 2021 winks into starsight.

These final showcases for Prism Book Tours tucking me into featuring lovely #newtomeauthors alongside newly discovered authors has been a delight of joy as it gave me a further chance to blog some Christmassy themed journalling – you’ll have to backtrack through the Fantasy & Romance blog tours to see everything in all its glory this year – as each post was left with a different mind map of thoughts which spilt into the top anchour of those featured posts in both events! Some were more Christmas minded than others, some were happily referencing IRL binge watches of tv series or Christmas films and others, were notes from yours truly about the story, the author or what I hoped to reveal in connection to the featured book of the hour. In essence, I tried to remain mindful of the spirit of #blogmas whilst hosting both tours back to back on Jorie Loves A Story.

For those of you who were (or still are) in final preps for Christmas and Christmas weekend – this recapturing of the posts themselves will give you a keen overview of the stories I most desire to read throughout 2021 as much as a snapshot of why these stories caught my readerly eye this #blogmas 2020! You can easily click-over to my posts and/or you can happily search for these authors and their stories on your ownsome if one (or more hopefully!) winks its nod of curiosity into your own readerly heart.

And, without further adieu, let’s see which stories on this lovely romantic tour gave me a boost of bookish joy to host during the Sweet Romance for Christmas blog tour of 2020:

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Posted Wednesday, 23 December, 2020 by jorielov in #blogmas, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story, Prism Book Tours

#SciFiMonth | Jorie’s Abridged @SciFiMonth 2020 : how I held onto this event the first week of December!

Posted Monday, 30 November, 2020 by jorielov 0 Comments

#SciFiMonth 2020 banner created by Jorie in Canva.

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

I never thought I’d be back-blogging my #SciFiMonth reviews & posts this first week of December but sometimes when life throws me lemons, I refuse to admit I can’t make lemonade! I had a larger stack of stories (both Fiction & Non-Fiction) I wanted to read this year but I shortened the list to 5x reviews and 2x posts (Intro/Wrap-Up) which could become an ‘abridged’ adventure this year for my favourite Autumn book blogosphere event I generally affectionately call “Sci Fi November”.

As you will soon see I had a rather interesting book list this year and as you read through my #SciFiMonth Launch Post, you’ll find a wicked lovely book tag full of Space Science & Spacer prompts with a keenly clever BOOK SPINE POEM* celebrating Sci Fi Month through selections off my Science Fiction TBR! I also took time to answer and respond to the “Get to Know the SF Reader” tag Imyril had shared on her own blog this year as well. I love tags but it is so rare my idea and response for them actually get onto Jorie Loves A Story!

(*) This is the second year I’ve created ‘book spine poetry’ (see also Post)

Rather than feel like I experienced an #epicfail this year – I am going to celebrate what I’ve accomplished and look forward to Spring’s @SciFiMonth mini-event called: All Systems Read (see announcement!) I’m shifting the books I have leftover into that readathon event and will consider myself #blessed. I didn’t give up and I didn’t throw in the towel – I fought through a 48 hour flu (and a relapse of it), loads of life as it evolves moments of insanity and the quirky chaotic ways in which being a caregiver can try your patience but at the end of the day you’re just thankful you keep trying to do everything you can for the person who needs your support. Whilst at the same time I had a fortnight of seriously horrid tech issues and wonkified connectivity to where I nearly considered myself cursed to be a participant this year all the way round! And, to think – it wasn’t my *migraines!* which derailed me this year! Oyy.

I might have had less hours to read and blog and tweet this year
but let’s celebrate what I did accomplish and let the rest of it ‘go’.

Rainbow Digital Clip Art Washi Tape made by The Paper Pegasus. Purchased on Etsy by Jorie and used with permission.

Jorie’s Abridged #SciFiMonth Reads:

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Posted Monday, 30 November, 2020 by jorielov in JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story, Sci-Fi November, Science Fiction