Challenge Completed

And with that it's time to put my challenge to bed. Here's how today went:

Jackaby - 1 hour 22 minutes

The Mummy Case - 1 hour 58 minutes

That puts my reading at 3 hour 20 minutes for today. Also, I finished Jackaby, which was one of my goals for this challenge. Considering the unplanned circumstances that arose this weekend, I'm calling this a successful challenge. It's been super fun and I hope to participate again next January.

Total Reading Time for the challenge: 5 hours, 13 minutes. 

Not bad considering I didn't think this summer's challenge would happen for me. Thanks to the gang at 24 in 48 for all your hard work in hosting this event. You guys rock!

Here are my reading time proofs for today.

Time Tally So Far

As I suspected, not much reading got done today. Some of it was due to my choices of browsing Twitter and playing Candy Crush. Some of it was due to fun family outings that truly blessed our houseguest. It was a great day overall, even if too much time in the sun tired me out.

Oh, before I forget, I settled on an audiobook for this weekend's challenge. The "winner" was The Mummy Case by Elizabeth Peters.

Now...the tally. Here's how things are shaping up so far.

Friday July 20th
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King - 30 minutes

Saturday July 21st
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King - 11 minutes
Jackaby - 22 minutes
The Mummy Case - 50 minutes

Total time so far: 1 hour 53 minutes.

Here are my proof of time screen shots

         
  

Off to try and squeeze in a bit more reading before heading off to bed. It's been a great, but tiring day.

Happy Reading my friends!

24 in 48 Challenge #2

It's time for the second 24 in 48 book challenge of 2019. Well, almost. Still another 29 minutes until start time. Would you believe I'm still working out my strategy? Some of my reading plans got changed at the last minute, for good reasons, though. I think the strategy for this go 'round is "family first and go with the flow."

I'll be blogging here as time permits. Books will include Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, The Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Jackaby by William Ritter, and a yet to be determined audio book. I plan to count my time using both the Bookly app and the Beanstack Tracker app and will post screenshots through the weekend to confirm my times.

To all who are participating, happy reading!

And That's a Wrap

Alas, the January 24 in 48 challenge has come to an end. It was a great and much-needed weekend of reading. Here are the final tallies (assuming my math is correct).

Murder at Honeychurch Hall - 1 hour 28 minutes (finished)

Curse of the Pharaohs - 1 hour 51 minutes (finished)
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald the Original Screenplay - 2 hours 43 minutes (finished)
Murder Simply Stitched 2 hour 52 minutes (in progress)
At Home in Mitford - 5 hours 12 minutes

Extracurriculars (Blogging, catching up with #24in48 on Twitter, Challenges on the website) 2 hours 34 minutes

Total reading time - 14 hours, 6 minutes
Total "extracurricular" time so far - 2 hours, 44 minutes
Total time spent on challenge so far - 16 hours 46 minutes

Here are the Bookly screenshots as proof of time.

I'm sad the weekend has come to an end. Thanks to the  24 in 48 coordinators for a great weekend. Looking forward to participating again when the next one comes around.

Audio Book Day

Sundays are the day I typically do tasks that will get our household ready for the week. So, that made it a perfect day for an audiobook. I made a great deal of headway on At Home in Mitford, adding 3 hours and 15 minutes to my total.

This brings me up to 14 hours, 31 minutes spent on the challenge.

With just about 3 hours to go in the challenge, I'll be switching between print and audio while waiting for dinner to cook and then doing the dinner clean-up. Oh yeah, and some more catching up with fellow participants online. Looking forward to enjoying these last few hours of this book-filled weekend.

Calling it a Night

No matter how hard I try, my eyelids keep closing. I want to get a good night's sleep so I'm alert for church tomorrow, so am calling it a night. Here's how my challenge is shaping up so far

January 25th

Murder at Honeychurch Hall - 1 hour 28 minutes (finished)

January 26th
Curse of the Pharaohs - 1 hour 51 minutes (finished)
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald the Original Screenplay - 2 hours 43 minutes (finished)
Murder Simply Stitched 1 hour 36 minutes (in progress)
At Home in Mitford - 1 hour 4 minutes

Extracurriculars (Blogging, catching up with #24in48 on Twitter, Challenges on the website) 2 hours 34 minutes

Total reading time so far - 8 hours, 42 minutes
Total "extracurricular" time so far - 2 hours, 34 minutes
Total time spent on challenge so far - 11 hours 16 minutes

Here are my reading time proofs for yesterday and today:

   


 

   

      

And now it's time to officially be done for today. Until tomorrow, happy reading all.

One Fantastic Book and One Book Without a Single Death

Since I finished both my print book and my audiobook, it was time to start a new one of each format. Also, I decided it was time to change things up a bit since my reading's been in a bit of a rut lately.

For that change of pace I went with Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald the Original Screenplay as the next print book. It's in a screenplay format, so is an easy read. What I also liked about this one is that the stage direction helped clarify some things from the movie for me. Like with the movie I came away feeling shocked by one of the character's decisions, hopeful for the future of two of the characters, and curious all over again to see how the last scene of the book/movie will be explained in future films.

Earlier this month a close relative passed away. At that time I was in the middle of a murder mystery. The next book on my TBR pile was also a murder mystery, so I've had quite a bit of death to start off my year. For my next audio book I decided to go with something light and chose At Home in Mitford, by Jan Karon the first in the Mitford series with Father Tim as the main character. It's got humor, quirky characters, and a gentle tone which is just what I need to balance out my TBR pile. I'm about 53 minutes in so far. Since my laundry's done and my eyes need a break before starting the next print book, I'm going to post this update and give this one a listen. 

Happy reading to all my 24 in 48 friends!

Total Reading time so far: 6 hours 2 minutes

Total "extracurricular time so far: 2hrs. 20 minutes

Total time spent on challenge so far 8 hours, 22 minutes.

Another book finished.

Since I'll likely be curled up on the couch all day, I wanted to make sure and get some exercise in early in the day. So, a long walk it was. After that I grabbed second breakfast at Starbucks and headed back home. During that time I finished off the audio book I was listening to, Curse of the Pharaohs by Elizabeth Peters. This added another 1 hour, 51 minutes to my reading time.

I've also spent 1 hour, 10 minutes in "extracurriculars" (logging my books, reading the 24 in 48 site, and catching up with the challenge on Twitter).

Time to assess my stack and jump into the next book. 

Total reading time so far: 3 hours, 19 minutes

Total "extracurricular" time, 1 hour 10 minutes

Book Complted

The first book I dove into for the 24 in 48 was Murder at Honeychurch Hall by Hannah Dennison. I was nearly done with it, so used the first few hours of the challenge to finish it off. It was a well-written mystery with lots of attention to detail. Even better, I didn't guess the culprit ahead of time. I highly recommend this to fans of Downton Abbey and also fans of mysteries set on English country estates.

After finishing the book it was time for some shut-eye so I could get a fresh start today. 

Total reading time so far: 1 hour, 28 minutes.

Now to get started on today's book logging and reading. Have a great day, everyone.

24 in 48 Readathon January 2019

It's time for the first 24 in 48 Readathon for 2019! My year has gotten off to a hard and topsey-turvey start, so I very much need this weekend of reading to rest and regroup from all that's happened. I've got my stack of books, a cozy blanket, and my family is all tucked into bed. 

Looking forward to the challenges over at the 24 in 48 website as well as peeking in on other participants social media to see how things are going for them. This is going to be a great weekend. 

Time to kick off this weekend and get a couple hours in before my eyelids won't stay open any longer. Happy Reading to my fellow participants.