Weekly Wrap-up for July 3, 2011: Summer Reading Redux.

Hey guys!

I finally feel like it is summer! I am back full time at the park, I am out in the sun, and I have days off every week! Its AMAZING! :) I feel like a much happier, whole person when I have time to do things that I love. And working outside and soaking up the sunshine and park atmosphere has really helped me feel like myself the last week.

I am still working on getting back into the groove of blogging. There has been so much lapse between some of the titles I have read and the posts that I am beginning to feel incredibly disconnected from the books, and I think my posts come off that way as well. To catch up, and feel more like I am putting real meaning into my posts, I am probably going to reduce some of my posts-basically there will only be one for each title. I think this might get me back on track and feeling a little more positive about writing posts.

Because let's be honest, sometimes we all read a ton and don't write reviews, right? But no matter how much I would love to skip a book and review, I have promised myself to write about everything, and I am going to keep doing that.

The other factor leading me to only writing one post per book is that I am reading some short, quick reads. Since I'm not pausing to reflect in the middle, it makes sense to only write once (beyond my "Book Stats" posts). So, just wanted to give you all a head's up.

This week has been super productive. Late Wednesday night (2:30 in the am on Thursday actually), I wrote about coming up with a list of books for some summer reading. Basically, I want to read 25 books between now and August 31-to get to number 120 on my list complete. You all gave me some great suggestions, and I have already started to attack that list, as well as some of my other goals.

On Thursday, I did some massive cleaning and reorganizing of my office space and our bookshelves. I can now sit at my desk and work (before my laptop was on our coffee table and my desk was overrun with papers, books, etc. I literally couldn't see the top of my desk OR my chair). I also reorganized the three bookshelves we currently have. I ended up boxing up FOUR boxes with books that were double stacked, piled up, or in random places around the apartment. The shelves look great and my classics are now taking over space on the second big bookshelf (the other big shelf is full of just books from my list and other classics). I feel so accomplished.

I've also been reading up a STORM since then. I finished Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett on Thursday night, started Daisy Miller by Henry James on Thursday and finished it Friday, and read all of The Color Purple by Alice Walker on Friday and Saturday. Look who has their reading mojo back! This girl!

I'm also reading To Kill a Mockingbird and finishing Vanity Fair, as well as getting through some more of Genesis for my Bible Reading Project. I got some great ideas from all of you who commented with some wonderful things to read in the next two months and I am super excited to dive into all the things you mentioned! THANK YOU!!

But here is another toughy....I am coming up on book 100 and I feel like I should celebrate it somehow with a significant title. I was talking with Iris about it on Twitter yesterday and she suggested reading something I think I'll enjoy....but I don't know what. So, if you had to pick the one title that you would be MOST excited to read off my list, what would it be?

And for those of you who read this entire thing....you rock. :D Have an AWESOME WEEK!