Living a Joyful Life

  What We're Eating This Week... Monday: Chicken & cheese quesadilla Tuesday: Ham steak, sweet potato, veggies I'm not sure about the rest of the week. What I'm Reminiscing About... My two trips to the Caribbean. What I'm Loving... Watching football, planning/filming for my Youtube channel. What I've Been Up To... Watching football/tv/movies, filming/planning, spending time with my mom. What I'm Dreading... Nothing at the moment. What I'm Working On... Planning out content for my YT channel for February & March. What I'm Excited... I had a best friend date with my bestie and her daughter. We hit up all of our usual stores and Starbucks and we went out for lunch. What I'm Watching/Reading... Watching: Christmas movies that I didn't see in December, football, TV shows Reading: I'm currently reading Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid What I'm Listening To... Mostly country music, pop, and 90's music. What I'm Wearing...

                                                                   The Christmas Wish -Lindsey Kelk (My Rating: 4 stars) I really enjoyed this story. Lindsey Kelk is a great author and I was so excited when I found out that she was coming out with a Christmas book. It was super cute and festive and I loved it. Talk Santa To Me -Linda Urban (My Rating: 3 stars) I though this was a super cute YA festive read. I enjoyed the main characters as well as the supporting characters and thought it was a fun read. Also, how cute is the cover? Christmas novels always have the cutest covers. ' Tis the Season for Revenge -Morgan Elizabeth (My Rating: 2 stars) I have a-lot of mixed feelings on this book. I thought there were a-lot of over the top sex scenes (I don't mind sex scenes in the novels I read b...

  Top 10 Favorite Books of the Year:   1.  Every Summer After –Carley Fortune   2.   The Summer of Broken Rules –K.L. Walther 3.  Blame It On The Mistletoe –Beth Garrod 4.  The Love Hypothesis –Ali Hazelwood 5.  The Stand-In –Lily Chu 6.  The Hidden One –Linda Castillo 7.  Book Lovers –Emily Henry 8.  After I Do –Taylor Jenkins Reid 9.  Meant To Be –Emily Giffin 10.  Postcards from Summer –Cynthia Platt   End of Year Book Survey:   Currently reading?  I haven't started my first book of 2023 yet. Your book goal of 2022? 60 books   How many books read in 2022? 63   Fiction/Non-fiction ratio? 62/1   Male/Female authors? 1/62   Favorite book(s) read? Every Summer After –Carley Fortune   Least favorite(s)? Flying Solo –Linda Holmes   Longest title? Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between –Jennifer E. ...

  What We're Eating This Week... Monday: Hibachi with my sister & her family (this place has the best fried rice I've ever had in my life and I wish I had this exact restaurant where I live) Tuesday: Late lunch (Caesar salad & garlic knots) Wednesday: Pizza Thursday: Dinner out with my dad (Caesar salad) Friday: Dinner out with my family during my visit (Skirt steak, mashed potatoes, green beans) Saturday: Dinner out for my birthday (Calamari and chicken parm. with pasta) Sunday: Ravioli & meatballs What I'm Reminiscing About... Past Christmases visiting my family and Christmases from my childhood. What I'm Loving... Quality family time, Youtube & IG Vlogmas, Christmas movies/music/books. What I've Been Up To... I participated in IG Vlogmas, visited my family, celebrated Christmas and my birthday. What I'm Dreading... The post-Christmas blues I always get in January. What I'm Working On... My content schedule for Youtube for January and Febru...

  You're A Mean One, Matthew Prince -Timothy Janovsky (My Rating: 3 stars) I enjoyed this book and liked the storyline. It isn't a book I'll read over and over like other holiday/seasonal novels but it was cute. I didn't realize this is part of a series so I added book 1 to my TBR and added book 3 as well which comes out next year. Season of Love -Helena Greer (My Rating: 3 stars) I enjoyed this novel. I found it be a tad repetitive at parts which is one of the reasons I rated it 3 stars instead of 4. I thought it was cute but it's not one I would read over and over each Christmas/holiday season.

  What We're Eating This Week... Monday: Mom's homemade turkey soup Tuesday: Chicken with rice & veggies I'm not sure about the rest of the week. What I'm Reminiscing About... All of the times I shared with my sweet Pumpkin girl. Sadly, in October, we had to put Pumpkin to sleep as she had aggressive cancer all over her body. It will be 2 months tomorrow that we had to say goodbye and my heart is so broken. I miss her and her cuddles so much. What I'm Loving... Watching all of the Christmas movies. What I've Been Up To... Watching Christmas movies, reading Christmas books, making planner/sticker purchases during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. What I'm Dreading... The pain and numbness in my hands that I've been dealing with due to my RA. What I'm Working On... Filming and planning out my content for January & February for my Youtube channel. What I'm Excited About... I won a cool giveaway through the Erin Condren affiliate progr...

  A Very Merry Meet Cute -Julie Murphy & Sierra Simone (3 stars) I thought this novel was such a fun concept but I did find the novel to be a little lacking. I can't quite put my finger on it but I found it to be very slow at some parts. I did still enjoy it but it's not a novel I'll want to re-read every year at Christmas. I loved that the main character was a plus size woman, that was very refreshing to see.Warning: it was a very steamy novel so if you're not into that kind of novel, I'd skip this one. All I Want For Christmas -Maggie Knox (4 stars) First off, how cute is that cover? I really enjoyed this novel and would love to see a sequel (although most Christmas novels I read and I've read a ton of them don't seem to have sequels). I enjoyed the relationship between the main characters and the story line a-lot. Meet Me Under The Mistletoe -Jenny Bayliss (3 stars) I enjoyed this book a lot although there were some parts I didn't enjoy which i...