What a year! In January, I had a baby. By March, we were all quarantining due to a pandemic. By December, we passed 300K U.S. deaths from the virus, but elected a new President (thank goodness). And through it all I got… zero reading done.

Ok not zero, but really not a lot. Let’s run down my 2019 goals and how I did not achieve them:

1. Read 55 books. This is +10 from what I read in 2019, so pretty ambitious. This year I read 38 because, ya know, life.
2. Set attainable goals for 4 bookathons. Ha this is funny. I completed the OWLs readathon in April, but didn’t nail any others. Unfortunately we didn’t end up doing Booziebookathon.
3. Review 30 books. I actually got semi-close to this one with 24 reviews published this year.
4. Get more active on Twitter (@mindareads). Maybe next year. Maybe.
5. Read a book out loud to baby R at least once per week. Also ha. This little one can’t sit still long enough to be read to! We try though.

And, even though I did not achieve what I set out to do, that’s ok. It’s been a helluva year and priorities change.

That said, I am recommitting to reading and contributing to the Will Read for Booze blog in 2021. This winter may look a bit different than usual, but all the better to keep doing the things I love.

Here are my new and updated goals for 2021:

1. Read 48 books. That’s a good, but still ambitious number, right?
2. Review 30 books (or cocktails). Reach for the stars, I like to say.
3. Participate (like, actually participate) in 3 bookathons. I may have been a wee bit ambitious last year, so let’s just go with a slightly lower number this year. I really do like joining them, predominately because I like planning and the challenges are fun. I’ll leave which ones open ended, but definitely the OWLs (despite J.K. Rowling being The Worst) and Booziebookathon, which leads me to…
4. Make this 2021 best-ever Booziebookathon. I think there’s a lot of potential here and we love doing our two favorite things–reading and drinking!
5. Mix more cocktails. I’m dedicating 2021 the “Year of the Cocktail.” I bought this gorgeous china cabinet that we’re repurposing into a bar/bookshelf and I cannot wait until it arrives. Once a week, I am going to have a dedicated day to testing out a new cocktail recipe and, by year’s end, I hope to be pretty good at this mixology stuff!

Cheers and see you in the new year,

Minda