september rewind \\ burn out central

Posted September 27, 2018 by cottoncandybookwitch in monthly rewind / 0 Comments

As you can guess from the title, I am really happy that September is coming to a close, because it was not the most stellar month. It wasn’t horrible by my usual standards, but it was hard to get through. This is mainly because I felt super burnt out in all the important aspects of my life.

The two biggest areas in which I feel super burnt out are at my library job and with reading, which is basically all I do anyway these days. I think I was burnt out at work because my coworker was out a lot because of various reasons and I had to deal with behavior problems of teens by myself, which stressed me the heck out, plus I had to work two Friday & Saturdays in a row, which only added to my stress. I was really irritable a lot of the time both in and out of work, and just have no tolerance for people being rude to me outside of work anymore because people are rude all the time at the library.

I think I’m also getting to a point where I’m burnt out with my reading. I keep finding myself in reading slumps where I don’t know what to read and/or don’t want to read anything, and I don’t know what to do about it. I think I might take a break from reading for a while, but I don’t know if that will help or just prolong the slump. I need new reading strategies to get myself to read and like things that I’m reading. It didn’t help that I didn’t like most of what I read this month, either, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

Now, onto non-personal things:

What I Read

I ended up reading 6 books this month, and most of them were…not very good. I had 4 predicted 5-star reads that ended up being 3 stars or less, mainly the poetry. RANGOLI is one I was really psyched to read, but none of the poems really stuck with me or made an impact on me personally. I was also very excited to read Cyrus Parker’s poetry book because he’s Amanda Lovelace’s partner, and I love her, but his collection, DROPKICK ROMANCE, was TERRIBLE. I’ve noticed that both of their poetry that is about their relationship is just…really bad. They need to stop writing about each other.

In terms of fiction, my biggest disappointment was TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN. My mom and boyfriend both loved it, but I thought Aza was a really one-dimensional character. I get that her anxiety was consuming her, but people still have personalities and interests even when they have anxiety, and she had neither. The “mystery” was also really dull, and Daisy, her best friend, was super annoying. I also wasn’t as big a fan of JACK OF HEARTS as I thought I would be. I liked the mystery, but in terms of character development, it left a lot to be desired. I felt like all we knew about Jack was that he liked sex. The mystery was somewhat fun, but I just wanted more from it.

Blogging Things

This was a pretty decent blogging month for me. I felt like my views went up slightly, and I hit 200+ followers! It’s a small number but I feel good about it. I also was nominated for two blogging awards, the Liebster Award and the Mystery Blogger Award! I am so honored by and thankful for these nominations; it makes me feel like people are enjoying my blog even if my numbers aren’t as high as I’d wish them to be.

I did get in a bit of a commenting slump this month. Since starting blogging again, I’ve been trying to comment more on other people’s blogs and keep up with my own comments, which is something I never did in the past. I’ve definitely noticed an increase in engagement with my posts since I started doing this, and besides that and more importantly, it’s really nice to interact with other bloggers who I like and admire so much. I never felt like part of the community when I blogged before, and now I feel like I even have blogging friends who I talk to frequently via comments. Which is why I feel bad that I haven’t been commenting on other people’s blogs as much lately. Hopefully I’ll feel more motivated to do so this month.

I also started a booklr because I’ve gotten really into Tumblr again lately. I find the witch community on Tumblr super fascinating and cool, and have been studying it a lot over the past couple of months. I decided to start a booklr/witchblr side blog where I talk about witchcraft in relation to books at cottoncandybookwitch, and it’s been fun so far even though it doesn’t have nearly as many followers as my main blog. I’ve been debating making the booklr/witchblr my main so I can talk about books more, but I also like having an online space that isn’t only about books. I really like the Tumblr style of posting as well; I feel like I can have more of a variety of post types and lengths, plus reblogging is fun.

 

Favorites

I’m thinking about getting rid of this section because I haven’t had much to post in it in a while, but we’ll see. I guess I don’t have to stick to a certain number for this list, because it’s my blog and I can do what I want!

  1. Washi tape. I bullet journal, and lots of bullet journalers LOVE washi tape. I’ve decided to try experimenting more with my journal, and I bought some different colors and patterns of washi tape last month that I really like. It makes journaling different than what I usually do and it looks super cute!
  2. My jade roller. Jade and rose quartz rollers seem to be the new “thing” in beauty, and as a beauty/makeup/skincare lover, I had to try one. I’m not entirely certain what the point or actual benefits are, but let me tell you, it is so relaxing to run the roller over my face. It’s basically massaging your whole face, which I guess is beneficial in itself.
  3. Birthday gift cards. This is just a general one, but I got a bunch of $125 gift cards for my birthday last month (I turned 25 so my parents decided to get punny), and I’ve been really enjoying having money for fun things. It’s always nice to have things you want and be able to get them without having to worry about actually paying.

 

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0 responses to “september rewind \\ burn out central

  1. I‘m sorry to hear that you were feeling very burnt out this month 🙁 I hope you feel better soon & read a lot of books that you end up liking! 🙂 It’s always frustrating when a predicted 5 Star book disappoints 😮

  2. I’m so sorry to hear you’ve been feeling in a bit of a slump and burnt out this month, I hope that October will be better <3 when it comes to reading, I know that personally, stopping to read altogether even just for a couple of days, really helps.
    I'm happy to hear you're having fun interacting with the community, it is the best, isn't it <3

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