Reading with teafortiffany

Hello friends!!!

Welcome to my post for this week. This was not the post I had intended to make, but I’m honestly a bit low on ambition and motivation for this week. Originally, the plan for today was to write up a review of The Housemaid, but I want to make sure that when I bring you reviews, I’m not doing it half-assed. So here we are with a different topic for this weekend instead!

This won’t be a very long post. I was just thinking about what has happened so far throughout this year and what I would like to happen in the future. My goals as a reader have changed, and I am approaching them very differently in 2026 than I was in 2025. I also decided to call it “Reading Hopes” instead of goals. My reasoning for that is that “goals” almost feel like a requirement. If I don’t hit that requirement, that goal, it tends to leave a negative connotation, and I am less likely to feel positive about what I have accomplished because I will focus on what I have not.

2025 Reflection

If we look at this year, it’s the first year where I have seriously tried to get back into reading and really make it my main hobby. I created this blog in an attempt to share what I feel online about what I am reading, and just have a place to be myself. I also created a bookstagram account where I have been enjoying spending time interacting with others and growing a community that I enjoy. This was also the first year that I created my own book journal and really funneled a lot of my desire to be creative into a single entity. I have that habit of constantly picking up hobbies only to drop them within a few months, so I’m quite proud that I have maintained the journal and even committed to making a new one for this year! I have 11 subscribers to this blog ,and I am incredibly thankful to each and every one of you. I hope to continue to bring more of you in as time goes on.

2026 Hopes

For next year, I have a few things that I hope to accomplish. I want to continue to expand this space and improve my blog. I hope that eventually, I can garner more interactions between myself and those who subscribe. I also hope to find more people to subscribe to as well! I feel I have not been doing my part to support the blog community, and that is something that I want to work on.

I want to continue to expand my space on bookstagram as well. I enjoy posting little blurbs that relate to the longer blog posts I do here. It’s a way to get creative and reach others who maybe are not into reading blogs.

The most tangible hope I have is to try and read 45 books. My goal for this year was 30, which I will not be reaching, but I made it into the 20s and read roughly two books each month. I’m quite happy with that, and it seems a bit silly to increase that number when I couldn’t hit the 30-goal, but I’m doing it. You can’t stop me. *insert evil laugh here* Ahem, anyways. 45 for next year! I got this!

Finally, I hope to be more mindful when purchasing and collecting books to read. I have quite a large TBR considering how many books I am currently reading and while I love supporting an author, I am not doing myself any favors by keeping a book on my shelf that is going to collect dust. There are some books that I have had through 2 or 3 moves from apartment to apartment to finally the house my partner and I purchased this year. This is a space I intend to be in for years to come and I should treat it as such. Along with this, I want to try to read more of what I already own. I created a second journal just for my TBR, and each time I read a book I get to put a star rating in there and a picture of the cover. It’s satisfying to look at and also helps encourage me to read more of these books.

And that’s it really. It’s nothing super crazy, really. I know myself well enough to believe that these are truly hopes that could become reality. I genuinely have loved bringing reading back to the forefront of my life, and sharing it with others has been nothing short of amazing. I hope you all stick around through next year, and maybe a few more friends will join us.

Until next week!

Bye friends!!!