Sunday Post – 18 November 2018 @kimbacaffeinate @readingreality @Tynga #HoHoHoRAT

Posted November 18, 2018 by Anne - Books of My Heart in Sunday Post / 38 Comments

 

 

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly  @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received.

 

Stacking The Shelves is also a weekly meme hosted by  Tynga’s Reviews and Marlene from Reading Reality.  It’s all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

 

Don’t forget to look at my giveaways on the right sidebar.  Just today left for Series on Saturday, and the Holiday Audiobook tour with 8 audiobooks.  Those are US only but there’s a US & Canada for a print copy of Lipstick Voodoo by Kristi Charish.

I am so excited – I finally read my oldest eARC. The review posts this afternoon!

I have expected a lot of myself when I have time to do things now. Mostly, I have been reading and relaxing. And also planning. I am working hard to get a routine for us which works.  To do it well, I’ve been busy collecting information.   I also tend to do a bunch of small things to get them off my list rather than the highest priority items sometimes.  There is value in a shorter list sometimes.

So far I have figured out:  Wednesday is menu planning day since the specials come out that day, Thursday is grocery shopping, Friday night will be pizza and game night,  Saturday is the day I sleep in and it’s soup night,  Sunday is get up and launder the bedsheets. I want it to be new recipe night but that needs to be on s shopping day since it might have new ingredients.  I have other menu night themes: Pasta, Grill, etc.  I’m moving them around a bit though based on what we have in the fridge and freezer or the weather.  Last Saturday I made Clam Chowder, tonight was Chili, and next week is Turkey Wild Rice soup.  We eat leftovers for lunches.

I am making slow progress in setting up things for my daughter (and me). Wow everything seems to require 3-5 pages of paperwork for signup.  Some things are being held up until fixed time things – her class next semester – get scheduled.  She takes a placement test at school tomorrow to try to get out of some prerequisites. She has a dentist appt Wed to get a tooth filled.  Otherwise, next week will be low-key.  I’m happy to just be home this year, cook some good food, relax and of course, read.

My HoHoHoRAT reads:
  1. Dear Santa by Nancy Naigle
  2. Christmas in Tahoe by Elisabeth Barrett
  3. The Christmas Scorpion by Lee Child
  4. Rocky Mountain Christmas Cowboy by Katie Ruggle
  5. Christmas with the Sheriff by Victoria James
  6. Secret Santa Baby by Robin Covington
  7. Merry Christmas Baby by Katie Reus
  8. Mistletoe Magic by Melissa McClone
  9. Christmas with a Soldier by Makenna Jameison
  10. Oklahoma Christmas Blues by Maggie Shayne
  11. Mutts and Mistletoe by Natalie Cox
  12. Love Under the Mistletoe by Krista Lakes
  13. Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell
  14. The Mystery of Ruby’s Sugar by Rose Donovan

You can check them out on my Goodreads shelf, reviews are over the next  week.  The HoHoHoRAT Twitter Party is this afternoon at 3:30 EST.

I’ve barely started my Read A Series in a Month challenge with being focused on Holiday reads this week, but I did start the audio series after listening to my one Christmas audio.  It will help balance because most of the holiday reads are romances.  Unfortunately, I have 3 audios to listen to for review the week of the 25th and no ebooks. How did that happen?

I’m trying something new to develop a habit of being able to get around to more Sunday posts. I read 8-10 a day which seems to make it easier than doing 70 in one sitting. Obviously.  It takes practice to ingrain a habit so I’m working on it. I try to get around to my subscriptions daily but that doesn’t always happen either.

This week is the one year anniversary of when I started double posting my stuff here and on The Book Nympho.  Tuesday is the date of the initial post. I’ll have a Blogaversary post next Sunday.

 

How do I fix it?

I have so many questions to fix up things on the blog. Many are graphics oriented since I am graphics challenged. So I will ask a questions here each week and see if you have any suggestions to help me. Also if you have any questions, ask in the comments and I will try to answer or ask your questions.

I use the Ultimate Book Blogger on WordPress. I have looked at various options in the system but I can’t figure out how to fix comments. My impression is it is supposed to be setup to have approval twice and then not need approval. But some people still have to be approved after even 50 approvals, like my good friend, Carole. There isn’t even a message saying comment moderation is happening.

Update:  So this week I did some research. I know I am using WordPress comments. I watched what happened when I commented on all the Sunday posts. The only WordPress one I found which had a comment about waiting moderating was Jo’s Book Blog- Read What Makes You Happy!   The other ones either didn’t require moderation or do what mine does which is just not post the comment and not say anything.

Another issue with comments is I seem to be commenting with multiple signatures.  Some use my WordPress Anne Books of My Heart, or my Northwoman one,  some use Google or Discus, or something else.  I need to figure out how I want to consistently handle it, but for now it’s a mess.

There are also numerous ways I get or don’t get replies to comments I make.  I’d like to get email replies but not an email for every other comment posted, just replies to my comment. Some blogs do this, some I don’t get anything, so I have to go back to check.

I went in and looked at every setting I could find and am no clearer on how I would manage an awaiting moderation message or for people to get email replies if they want them. Do I need WordPress for dummies to actually learn how to code this, if I am using WordPress comments or is there some plugin for it?

So I know my blog doesn’t give an awaiting moderation comment, even though I want that. Also, do you get emailed when I reply?

 

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews and Reading Reality.  These are the exciting ARCs I received this week:

The Shadows We Hide    by Allen Eskens

I am beyond thrilled to get The Shadows We Hide.  I didn’t get it on Netgalley but Hachette Audio came through!!!

 

 

Seasons of Sorcery

 

 

Now the really scary one. This is all the Kindle and Audible freebies I grabbed this past week. You can see why I need to do Thrifty Thursday to be sure I read a few at least one each month.

          

 

          

 

          

I read this one already and it was interesting to see their favorites as compared to out favorites.  Some of the winners were not the ones Nicole Hunn likes best in her product reviews either.   For example, we like Trader Joe’s bread (she doesn’t). We prefer the green wrapper one (whole grain), the winner in this book was the blue wrapper (white).  We have tried lots of pancake mixes but none of the winners.  The winner for bagels was Canyon Bakehouse everything bagels.  We just tried the white ones and seriously, they are like cardboard. I can barely eat them with peanut butter or cream cheese. We are fond of several of the Pamela’s products, particularly her pizza crust, which didn’t make the winners here.  They give a 1,2,3  and some honorable mentions. I’ll be looking at some of these in areas we haven’t picked any products.

 

Apparently 53 Christmas theme books to choose from isn’t enough so I have gotten more this past week. But you know,  this way I’ll have some for next year!

I really meant to cut back on freebies BUT  they are free so I guess that won’t be happening.

 

I’m not including things like reviews posted or upcoming as they are always in the right sidebar. And, my challenge status is also there.

If you like this and want to see me do the Sunday post, as often as I can manage, leave me a comment and let me know.

Anne

 

 

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Posted November 18, 2018 by Anne - Books of My Heart in Sunday Post / 38 Comments


38 responses to “Sunday Post – 18 November 2018

  1. Looks like your planning ideas are good ones. I do my menu planning once I see the sales papers, too.

    Wow, well done on HoHoHoRAT. You’re going to do great on the series one, too, since there is plenty of time. I hit my goal for HoHoHoRAT and hope to get one more in by the deadline. I need one more for the Series in a Month. I need about 9000 more words for NaNoWriMo. It will be close. LOL Way to go on getting your oldest ARC finished up.

    Nice stack of new books. I want to get that fantasy anthology, too.

    When I comment here, my comment shows up. When I get a reply, there is an email notification.

    Have a great week, Anne.

    • Thanks. I think I can finish one more for HoHoHoRAT also, as I am 70% into it. I am excited about the anthology.
      I’m not so sure I’m going to make the audio series, but I might make the reading now since the end of the month is all audio. It’s the opposite of what I expected.

      THANK you for the info. So I think I used to have to approve you but now I don’t and at least it does email you when I reply. Good to know. Now I just need to figure out the moderation message thing.

  2. Glad you’re setting up a routine. Pizza night sounds great. As for me, Wednesday is early childhood night, Thursday is work an 18 hour shift night and Friday and pretty much every weekend lately, have been fighting-vertigo nights. #sundaypost

    • Yes, setting up a routine requires thought, trial and error, and flexibility for odd schedule changes. It looks like my daughter will have a group therapy Mondays 4:30-6, starting soon which means when we get home at 6:30ish I have to have things figured out for a quick meal or we need to eat leftovers or sandwiches or something fast. I want to eat at 7 most nights. Of course, that won’t work if we start having evening things which start around then. So it’s a process of adjustments to life. I make the pizza from scratch so it takes about 2.5-3 hours with making the yeast dough and letting it raise. So that has to be a day where we have some time. But while it raises or bakes, we can do games.

      Thank goodness I’m not doing the 18 hour work days I did in my 20-30s. I hope you have some time to relax this week. Happy Thanksgiving!

    • Yes that is how mine works also. Either I get an email about moderating, which I try to do quickly (but sometimes I am asleep or at medical appts or driving?) so I wish I could have it do a message. Sigh.

      Have a great week! Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you get some great food – I’ll be enjoying that next week in all the Sunday posts.

  3. Oh I like Pamela’s gluten free products. Her pancake mix is great. I haven’t really found a gluten free bread that is anything like actual bread. But, Mission Gluten Free tortillas are exactly like I remember normal tortillas being. They are soft and everything.
    Good luck with your schedule. I love a routine!
    Weren’t there so many good book freebies this week?!?

    Samantha recently posted: #SundayPost: Its Almost Thanksgiving!
    • The bread isn’t too much like regular bread, it’s usually so much smaller. The Scharr multigrain is the closest we’ve found, I like that and the Trader Joe’s green wrapper. Hmm we have some of those Mission GF tortillas and they are but they are small I think. I don’t remember finding the big ones, which is probably better since the stuffing is less likely to fall out. I find the hardest thing is flour. Some of it is too grainy for soup or baking. I use cornstarch for soup thickening. Some baking I have to use only certain brands or it is too grainy. We like the corn pasta better than rice overall. We find the rice ones sort of mushy or something? We like the Barilla pasta, easily available and not too expensive.

      I also love a routine. It requires a bit of trial and error and continual adjustments for improvement.

      Yes there are always so many freebies to try. I’ve read 3 of those I got already so I’m doing slightly better. lol

      Anne recently posted: Author Guest Post: Kristi Charish
  4. I organized my ARCs and funny thing, I plan to start with the oldest one. LOL It’s been 3 years that the book has sat on my Kindle! It will be a big focus for the new year for me. Knock those off the to do list.
    Sounds like you’ve made some good solid plans now and getting to it.
    I sometimes comment on a post and it doesn’t show up. I’ve went back later and it was there. Most of the blogs I comment on regularly and I don’t run into the issue of which way it logs in or goes to moderation. Mine only moderates a comment when it’s someone new commenting and then not all the time.

    • Yes I’m organizing for December now. There aren’t as many new release / blog tour things I’m doing.

      Yes, sometimes it doesn’t make someone moderate and then others like Carole, it wants me to moderate every time after she has left something like 70 comments! I don’t mind for me; I just don’t understand it. At all. More research for me.

      I did get after the old stuff this year, but it’s hard since I also do the New Release Challenge so I want to read all the new stuff too. Good luck with your reading, enjoy!

  5. You did great for the Hohoho! I totally failed mine. I just didn’t have enough time to read the Series, TBR Book and the Hohoho books. I am still super behind. I am hoping to work on a better schedule with reading next year. Plus try to organize the Series Challenge to Months that don’t have a lot going on.

    i Hope you have a great week, Anne! Going to check out the Fantasy Anthology! That looks awesome! Happy Reading!

    Michelle @Because Reading recently posted: I am seriously, exhausted! ~ WIR & SP
    • Thanks Michelle! I’m on to my Read a Series in a month books after today. I’m already listening to the audio.

      Many of my HoHoHoRAT books were 150 pages or less, a few were less than 100 pages, but I like how it cleaned up a bunch of freebies. I should be able to just finish one more today which is 370 pages but I’m 70% into it. It’s a New Release too!

      I am trying to figure out which New Release books, particularly freebies I can read yet next month before they are not new release.

      I have a relaxing week ahead and hopefully will get to some sewing or knitting finally. Anne – Books of My Heart

      Anne recently posted: Lipstick Voodoo by Kristi Charish
  6. Goodness you are organised with your reading. I’m glad you are intending to relax and best of luck with your daughter’s trip to the dentist. And yes… your comments always pop up on my emails, notifying me if that’s any help – the rest of it, I’m sorry – I tend to be a bit hopeless with the techie side of things. Have a great week, Anne:)

    • Thanks that does help. All the information is needed for analysis. So I just have to figure out how to get a moderation message setup. I don’t understand WordPress really I just use various plugins. I did learn some cool things today which I will share in next week’s Sunday post. It’s the least I can do.

      Yes organizing is half the fun for me. I like all the planning. It doesn’t mean I follow the plan but I know about all the options / consequences so I can make last minute changes with aplomb. It also makes it easier to get what I want because I know what I want. It’s bad when I don’t have enough info or don’t know what I want.

  7. Visiting 70 blogs is a lot! Hope you get your comment problem sorted. I’m so bad with anything other than the basic blogger stuff. I need to figure out how to request audio books for review, because I love them! it’s what keeps me sane with my work commute. I don’t even know where to look.

    Soup night sounds fantastic! I’m craving some good soup right now. Have a great rest of the weekend, Anne! 🙂

    • It’s a process to become an audiobook reviewer. I was lucky because The Book Nympho was huge with audio book reviews and Jennifer just started forwarding publisher emails to me. Some didn’t send to me even though I asked.

      I’ll give you a couple hints. First if there is an audio you want and you know the publisher, try to find a contact form on their website and ask. I got one audio I wanted very much that way and am now on their emailing list. The other thing I did if I knew the contact but they didn’t put me on the emailing list even after I requested and reviewed some from Jennifer’s email. Well I got some of their titles from the library or purchased them and just started sending them my reviews, then they put me on their email list.

      Yes 70 is a lot. I think eventually I will only be able to get around to the complete Sunday post list once a month and the other weeks I’ll have to just comment on the ones I am subscribed. I’m behind on the subscribed ones because I did all the Sunday posts last week.

      Oh the chili batch was so, SO good. I had it again tonight. Yummy. I have enough great soup recipes so we wouldn’t have to have the same in a couple months but of course, we will have our favorites more often.

      Anne recently posted: Author Guest Post: Kristi Charish
  8. I love making soups on the weekend and then eating the leftovers throughout the week when I don’t feel like cooking. I’ve never tackled a clam chowder, but I do love it. Hope you have a great week. Happy reading!

    • I have a great clam chowder recipe which I think was originally from an issue of Bon Appetit. (I have every issue from 1983 – 2010) Yes I like cooking! I modified it tho since my daughter has periods where she won’t eat red meat and it uses 2 pieces of bacon as a base. Of course, now I use cornstarch instead of flour for the thickening also. It only uses a tablespoon or two. I’v done the make dinner at night and eat leftovers for lunch routine for years. It just didn’t work as well when I was at work at odd hours all the time.

      I intend to have a great week cooking and reading.

  9. Wow, you did great during the read a thon! I see a couple of titles I am interested in reading. Have a great week.

    • I did. It helped that I planned and I knocked off all the novellas. Also all the 2018 releases since they count for another challenge. The new ARCs were Mutts & Mistletoe, Rocky Mountain Christmas Cowboy and Dear Santa. All the rest were freebies or library books. Thursday will be all the freebie reviews for Thrifty Thursday. I finished one more this afternoon so a total of 15. I didn’t really have a goal just to read whichever ones looked good, other than the ARCs. Rocky Mountain Christmas Cowboy was definitely my favorite! Happy reading! I hope you are able to read the ones you might like.

    • I haven’t tried that; it might be something to try. I know originally I used the UBB comments and I switched to WordPress to get more of what I wanted. Thanks for the suggestions.

      I wouldn’t say I am having trouble exactly just that I want to change things somewhat. I would like to understand everything better. The comment stuff is only the beginning. I haven’t even broached the horrors of my graphics ineptitude.

      Have a great holiday and I hope you fit in some fun reading!

  10. Wow, you kicked butt at the readathon. Good luck with planning. Sorry about the comment problems. I’m on Blogger, and comments always seem to be broken. I don’t have enough control over my own site to fix it. I just have to complain to Google and hope they do something. Have a good week!

    • It was a good week for reading. I get all those Freebies and this was an opportunity to read them!

      Well, I am in the mode to learn things so hopefully I will progress. I’ve already learned some things which I will share next week. Have a great week and thanks for visiting!

  11. Love this post and seeing all you progress with your holiday reads and also your new books. I have seen blogs using WordPress comments where I have to type in all my info each time, like on yours, but my comment will still show up immediate, so I’m thinking there might be a way to fix it.

    • Thanks for the info. So you are saying every time you comment here you have to fill in the whole form? I know I have to do that on several blogs. Some of them it seems to be stored so I don’t have to do it after the first time, but it brings up the form, but it is filled in. Some wordpress blogs, it seems to default to my wordpress login without any choices.

      Thank you for visiting. Have a happy holiday with enjoyable reads this week!

  12. Routines are nice. I like planning everything (except blog posts apparently LOL).

    Okay for your comments issues: 1. Did you check your settings? Go to your dashboard and go to settings: discussion. There is a checkbox you can check if you want all of the comments moderated. “Before a comment appears” section.

    2. Jetpack settings. In the same area look for: “Jetpack Subscriptions Settings.” It will have the option for having a setting for following comments.

    3. “But some people still have to be approved after even 50 approvals, like my good friend, Carole. ” — Are those comments going to spam? I had that problem as well and found out (with the help of Kimba over at Caffeinated) that it was a plugin. In fact, I don’t use any setting, plugin or otherwise that has you “click here” to include links to posts. Comment Luv was the main issue for me, but I also disabled Ultimate Book Blogger comment plugin as well. My problem went away.

    Hope this helps!

    • Thanks so much for the thoughtful response. Yes it does help. I’m going to recap this in my next Sunday post but the first thing you mentioned about Discussion settings may be a factor. I googled for a bunch of info yesterday and did some tinkering. I haven’t looked at Jetpack or Commentluv. Perhaps there is something there. I know I have WordPress comments not UBB comments.

      Routines help when you are too tired to figure out a plan for the day.

      Anne recently posted: Mortal Word by Genevieve Cogman
  13. I wish I could follow a plan as you have in place. I have tried but I just don’t seem to ever be able to stick with it. I am sorry that you are still having issues with comments. It is frustrating when you can’t figure something out like that. I didn’t get emails for any comments on my blog for months and it was difficult trying to keep up with everything. Enjoy your new books!

    • Well the plan is being developed, not in place. There are always adjustments like somebody’s sick or a one-time event. But I like have the base routine even if we have to deviate.

      Well fortunately I don’t mind tinkering a bit when I have time. I hope to figure some things our. I sent you an email with a couple questions. I seem to get spam which doesn’t show up in moderation. Maybe I will turn off moderation altogether. We will see.

  14. Melanie

    I’m really struggling with commenting period (as you can see). Whether you get a reply email, is based on the settings of the blog you’re commenting on. I like to get the reply email too. I wish we always got an email with the reply. I’ve also found that I get put into spam a lot. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I use two different websites when I comment on blogs?? I have no idea. Happy Thanksgiving.

    Melanie @ Hot Listens & Books of My Heart